Word. Play. WordPlay.

(Found this lying in my notebook. Wrote it quite awhile ago. Love every word of it.)


Sassy conservationalist nerdy girl writer with secret aspirations of a well-traveled history.

Looking for intertidal protection and creative excellence.

Fervently wishing upon stars and sand dollars for a life full not of love, but of romance.  Ready for loneliness, ready for heartbreak, full of passion and clarity, beauty and transcendence.

Stubborn and unmoving, unwilling to be broken, accepting of cracks and chips.

Constantly found with rings on her fingers and a pencil stuck inside a whispy, messy bun- she traverses these lands with fluidity and grace- a rhythmic sway to her undulating hips.  Toes always naked when playing in the sunshine.  Words tattooed beautifully all over her hands and feet.

In love with the ocean-  moved beyond words by the beating of drums, and the perseverance of the human heart, transfixed by the beauty of all free-thinking men, inspired by the gentle sound of butter sizzling in a pan.

Awestruck at the lifespan of caterpillars-  excited by the profundity of the entire insect world.

Spurred onward by the needs of nations, the scent of hydrangea blossoms and the woven rainbows of color and love in friendship bracelets.

Transformed through divinity, chasing after God like the parched man chases after a raincloud, informed through the medium of authorship, riveted by vintage bicycles and Goodwill coffee mug collections.

Shaped, but not controlled, by the social media generation.  Emotional at the sound of banjos and steel strings. Lifted up by discernment, ripped jeans and Italian espresso.

Avid supporter of:
 Banned books,
 Midnight beach walks
 Romantic poetry
 Naps taken lying in the grass
 Pepperoncinis on her pizza
Bearded dragons as pets
 Flags of other nationalities
Cultural melting pots
Kindness to strangers
Counting the licks to the inside of a Tootsie Pop
Movie nights
Head rubs
"Everything" kisses
Monkey bars
Closing your eyes while swinging
Flirty text messages
Giving your heart away to someone new all the time
Wooden picnic tables
Thankfulness
Feta cheese
Giggle fests
Childlike innocence
Spontaneous fits of shouting
Throwing things when angry
Cobbled streets
A cold, wet beer.

Romanced by Ocean Eyes, homecooked meals and Beatles songs.

Searching for sexy-cute Surfer boy with an affinity for cheesy movies and a thirst for adventure. Also: must love goldfish, long walks, going out to eat, and live music.

Inclined to live by the beach forever, blessed by God, through God, and incandescently happy just to be alive.

Just Call Me The Shrimp Girl

Hi, lovers.

Oy.

It's been a week.

You would not believe the force with which I almost shouted this morning in overwhelming dismay, "It's only WEDNESDAY?!"

Yes, self, it is only Wednesday.

So I'm throwing this dinner party tomorrow night at The Mansion.  (AKA: the place where I live).

It's turning into a weekly thing, where a few girls who live in another house on the other side of town, and myself trade off and on hosting the dinner.  Last week we had it at their house.  This week it's my turn.

Now, I'm not going to go into all the details of how this happened, but somehow this dinner got to be planned on a day which I work.

I meant it for my day off- somehow- I got confused.  Calendars have never been my strong suit.

So tomorrow I'm working from 11-4, and then coming home to cook the dinner for this party of people.  Which, I might add, I don't know the number of.

So all of last night (because I worked yesterday all day) I spent deep cleaning the house.  We're talking dusting window ledges, wiping down cabinets, and toasters, and scrubbing Comet all over the oven and microwave, mopping, etc. To get the house in order for this party.

Sidenote: I probably didn't have to actually do any of this in order to entertain these lovely friends, because, they are all young people and generally young people could care less if your oven is slightly sticky or your toaster is covered in finger prints.  However, these young people were not raised in my house, and I live with a constant hologram-like hallucination of my mother peering over my shoulder whenever I am away from home and in charge of some sort of get-together. Therefore, I cleaned.  Like a madwoman.

I collapsed into bed around 12am, exhausted and full of sore feet after a full day of working, cleaning, shopping (we were in dire need of toilet paper and paper towel) AND making dinner.

This morning, before I work, I've taken it upon myself to get all the final groceries so that I can spend my evening tonight after I work prepping the food so as to ease my transition from work to hostessing tomorrow as smoothly as possible.

This brings us to right now: where I am currently sitting, in the Coach house, furiously typing away on my keyboard, ignoring the groceries sitting on the backseat of my car and thinking about shrimp.

Shrimp.

I've prepared a great menu for tomorrow night: grilled lemon chicken, with a side of garlic bread, salad, and a delicious linguini with shrimp scampi that was going to be the star of the meal.

So after consulting with my boss, who used to be a private, live-in Beverly Hills 90210 chef, (... I know, right???) I decided to visit the local seafood market, because she said it's the best seafood market around and I'd be sure to find what I was looking for there.

So there I was, after checking and re-checking my recipe and having decided to double the size just to be safe, awaiting my opportunity to buy 4, yes, 4 lbs of cocktail shrimp.

I scanned the display case.  My eyes caught the sign of "FRESH SHRIMP. 7.99 per LB."

Okay. I thought. That's a wee bit more than I wanted to spend on four lbs of shrimp, but,  what the heck.  Good food costs good money.  Entertaining should always be an area in which you splurge.  Serve your guests only the best! Yadda yadda yadda.

That was when I realized that the sign was proclaiming bay shrimp for 7 bucks a lb. (Now THAT I wouldn't stand for.)

Bay shrimp. Okay. That's ridiculous.  Where is the normal shrimp?

I took a closer look. "JUMBO PRAWNS 13.99 per LB."

Jumbo prawns are gigantic.  Huge.  Monstrous.  I was fairly certain if I served those on the linguini, somebody would faint for fear of the prawn coming to life and eating them.

Finally it was my turn to be serviced.

I asked the lady for shrimp to be used in a pasta- she asked me if I wanted the bay shrimp meat.

"Er... No... "

"Oh so you want the prawns, then?"

"Well, no, actually, isn't there a size inbetween? You know... scampi sized, cocktail sized, bite sized sauteed shrimp sort of shrimp?"

"Nope.  All we got is the bay shrimp and the jumbo prawns.  The jumbo prawns come in raw or precooked."

"....... Okay. Well, thank you, but that's not what I'm looking for...."

So I left.  Defeated.  Best seafood market around?  Really?

Back to square one.  Now, I live in a very small beachtown, and this was, unfortunately, the only fish market in town. Either I go back to the tiny market where I had purchased my other ingredients, or get back in my car and travel ten miles down the road to Seaside to hunt around some other fish markets.

So I decided I'd try the market again, because I don't have time to go to Seaside and back before work.

In the market, they only had tiger prawns (like jumbo prawns, only slightly smaller, striped and more leggy).

They had frozen pre-cooked shrimp that were the perfect size, quantity, not to mention they were de-veined.

But I, tragically, needed raw shrimp.  Pre-cooked was not going to cut it.

Well, shoot.

Now I don't get off work until between 6:30 and 7.  Which means I have to go home, change my clothes, get back in my car, drive all the way to Seaside, hope that the fish markets aren't closed and try desperately to find some average sized dinner shrimp for hopefully less than 8 bucks per lb, come home, prep the dinner, clean my bathroom and collapse, again, exhausted into my bed before work tomorrow morning.

Luckily, Friday is my day off to recuperate.  In which I plan to do absolutely nothing but laze around like an opalescent nudibranch.  Or, sea slug.

If this shrimp thing doesn't work out- we're having chicken linguini.  Thank God for back-up plans.

Now I have to pull myself away from this comfy couch, change my clothes, and head on into work to tell small children all about intertidal life.

During which, I severely hope I won't get sidetracked by a sand shrimp, and turn my educational spiel into an economical, dinner-shrimp- fueled rant.

With love,

A very frustrated Shrimp Hunter.

Memories

"Winter didn't die, she was murdered and you are the culprit."


"Thirty days alone with the Savior, and an angel, and the devil, rapture and smoke- and I'm careful just not to say that I miss you, 'cause sometimes I guess I still miss myself."

This song, Pretty Girl From Locust, reminds me of the camping trip Beks and I went on last summer.

Something about the tinkering piano notes and the lulting guitar riffs cement the memories I have of those sleepy, early campground mornings.  It captures the quiet nature of the mountains, and glass-top lakes.

The lyrics are just haunting and mournful enough to tinge the memories with a pretty sort of sadness.  Which is what that trip truly meant to us- a pretty sort of sorrow.

So much happened that week-  I think there was a loss of life that greatly impacted us on that trip.

There was a loss of time- and a loss of connection to the outside world- that, when one is so unaccustomed to it, can bring insanity ever that much closer, making you feel even more vulnerable than you already are.

For me, there was a loss of denial about my mom's cancer- those walls I had spent seven years building were vigorously torn down within seven short days and I was left to pick up the ugly pieces and start over.  There was also a loss of distance for me- like the story of the prodigal son, I returned to my roots after a lifetime of being away and I had to face the god-awful person I had become, so far away from the beauty and love of the place that I had grown up in.

I had grown calloused, bitter, resentful and hardened to life at its' basest nature- like cement walls dividing a field, I had become a cold, hard exterior dividing my soul from my memories.

For both of us, I think, there was a loss of delusion, imagination and pretend.  As coping mechanisms for the normal drudgeries and complications of life, Becca and I had come up with this comforting, beautiful, but tragically made-up alternate version of reality.

It was a place we both loved beyond life, but as we braved the wilderness of the mountain, we had to realize it was stunting the growth, progression and natural beauty of our real lives.  That was scary and overwhelmingly hard to process when living in a tent in the middle of a forest hundreds of miles away from home with no, and I mean no connection to the outside world.

There was also a loss, almost, of determination as we realized we were in no way in control of our futures.

I felt like giving up entirely.  I think it's safe to say she did, too.

All of these losses were only solidified when the week was over and on the drive home we witnessed a sad scene- a terrible accident had occured between a motorcyclist and an SUV, and there was the motorcyclist, before any ambulance had arrived to cover him with a blanket and whisk him away, dead on the side of the road.

Neither of us have talked about that since.

It was a cold reminder after an insanely emotional week that life is incredibly short, and you never know when yours will end.

Now that almost a full year has gone by, and the wounds have mostly healed, and the processing has finally started to cease, I can confidently say that all of these little deaths add up to only make life more meaningful.

And even though, in some ways, it was the toughest week of my life, it was also the greatest.  Because of all that we overcame, all the new experiences we had, all of the tragedy that forced us to communicate and bond and rely on each other for survival, we became so much stronger as individuals and as friends, sisters.

Not to mention we did have some crazy good fun on that trip.

I'll never forget the yoga by the lake, the early morning fishing, the endless singing of "Just Around The Riverbend" whenever in the canoe, the splashing fights, the hiking, the endless eating, the day we spent driving all over the surrounding fields and towns and mountains, listening to the Beatles nonstop for six hours, exploring ghost towns and laughing.

The jokes, the notes, the pictures, the campfires, the dreaming.

Secret ceremonies by the lake at midnight- praying and holding hands and giving everything to God, together.

And so you see, now, what I mean by a pretty sort of sorrow.

Sometimes sorrow is God's most potent way of reading into our worlds, crushing everything with His hands, and then sending His Holy Spirit into the rubble to glue everything back together into something more beautiful than you could ever imagine.

And that, my lovers, is the most meaningful part of it all.