Butterflies.

My heart feels uneasy. I have these butterflies in my tummy that feel like nerves, but they keep trying to flutter to my heart. I am trying to block them the best I can but it's becoming increasingly difficult.

Okay, I need to be honest with myself and watch these words solidify on the screen. I'm scared. Not just a little frightened, I'm fucking terrified. I don't want to meet new people... at least the stubborn, nervous girl that I am doesn't want to. I don't want my friend to meet new people, at least, that same part of me doesn't. What if they forget about me? What if I forget about them? I don't like either of those options.

I've already decided my next tattoo, next piercing, and next hair change for while I'm at school. What if I lose myself? What if I go to college and end up not doing anything I have planned? What if I never finish another story again? What if I decided.. hey.. I should be a.. gym teacher. Or a nutritionist. Or a principal. Or an actress. Or an underwater basket weaver. I don't know if I'm prepared to face the fact that... my future is completely undecided. I'm not prepared because this is when I'm supposed to begin taking the steps to decide it. That's a lot of pressure.

I hope all my friends have a great new adventure at the schools they are going to. I hope we all remember each other. I hope we all still have love for each other, and a place for at least what we did have, if not what we still have, in our hearts.

The Wonderful World of Walt Disney pt. 2

really, really big rice crispies of the mouse couple's heads. in retrospect, it seems kind of odd.

disney lollipops, of course. found in the sticky grasp of every child between the ages of three and nine.

dinosaur chicken nuggets at the t-rex restaurant!

curiously thin fries at the animal kingdom.

the perfect cure to an unbearably, swelteringly hot day at the animal kingdom-- pineapple popsicle :D

The Wonderful World of Walt Disney pt. 1

I took a quick jaunt down to Orlando with my family to celebrate my brother's fourteenth birthday. My mom booked several savory dinners at various restaurants at the Walt Disneyworld and I saved (photographic) samples of several dishes to share :D

three layers of fluffy but thin crêpe dividing a sweet house-made whipped cream, caramelized bananas and caramel pudding, garnished with a dark hazlenut chocolate accent.

haha barely edible but definitely food-related. mickey mouse popcorn hat, complete with scratch-n-sniff.

BUTTERBEER!

PUMPKIN JUICE!

honeyduke's sugarquills!

Lollapalooozahhh

Hole-eey-sheet.

Lollapalooza provided me with perhaps the best three consecutive days of my life.

(Love Like A Sunset Pt. I engulfing you while you stand, mesmerized, swallowed by the Chicago skyline/Red beams of light cloud your vision and white lines flicker off the set/Your heart is pounding in your chest/You feel like you're in love, but you're not worried about it going sour...)

I searched desperately for a photo, a video, anything that could translate that feeling to something understandable to another human being not present. This is what I found- ecstacy in Electric Feel.

In my mind, Lollapalooza is currently a jumble of words that hold no meaning to anyone other

than myself and two people I've practically known since birth- womping, New Zealand Cape flag men, speedo men, USA speedo men, baby gaga, tits on the megatron, "FUCK GRIZZLY BEAR!", "Do you guys know about sunscreen?", viking penguin, 6-ft. bong, unknown fireworks, hula hoops, boots and cats, "what's your sign?", ridiculously long makeouts, free swag tents, "DAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!", crab walks, scooby doo, horsehead, two mosh pits at once, start wearing purple, Oleeee Ole Ole Oleee...

So now I just need to try and make sense of it all. But how do you make sense of something so intangible, something pushed together by unknown forces of the universe? How do you make sense of THIS-

driving into Chicago, how about I text Mark?, Mark who I haven't talked to in a year- "when will you be in Virginia so we can hannggg?" "I get back august 9" "...are you going to Lollapalooza?..." waiting, waiting, waiting, waitingg, GOD WHEN WILL HE TEXT BACK- (holy shit, what if we freaking met up with MARK at Lollapalooza? Mark that we've known since third grade, Mark who lives in Virginia...this is fucking insane!) then finally: "yes. wanna meet up?"

what are the chances? and, most importantly- WHY?

then- Glorious, jumbled whirlwind. Seas of people. One thousand degrees, you emerge soaked to the bone with the sweat of others you've never met before in your life. Your makeup is smeared, face red, white t-shirt permanently stained yellow. You look like a deranged hipster. But you feel new, like anything is possible, like the summer will last forever and this moment will never end. A couple of minutes ago you could hardly breathe, were pushing people off the back of your neck like your life depended on it. A couple of minutes ago you were asking a stranger if they were okay, having been dropped on their head/pushed to the ground. A couple of minutes ago you were singing like it would be your last breath. A couple of minutes ago you thought that if this wasn't heaven, fuck it.

"HEY STUART! GUESS WHO I'M WITH RIGHT NOW? TAYLOR AND CATIE!"

or this- lying on the grass. Blue, blue sky. A woman on a blanket next to you thanks you for sitting down in the walkway so people would stop stepping on her shit. A couple of rasta-esque doods next to her smoking a joint. Yeasayer plays in the background. When Ambling Alp comes on you jump up and skip through clumps of concert-goers, dancing to your hearts content.

and this- sunsoaked, exhausted, and convinced you will feel this thirsty forever, you sit down on the grass. You've been alternately texting mark and your mother for the past twenty minutes about your exact location in relation to two light towers and are about ready to give up- SERIOUSLY, how many different ways can you be in between the ONLY TWO light towers- when you spot mark. Ole! Slightly more spirited, the three of you are off to find your mother. You begin the process of weaving through the crowd- Taylor in front, you in middle, Mark behind- alternately looking for the woman with the yellow backpack your mother claims to be behind and at your phone. You finally land ten feet to the right of the smaller camera on the right side when you can't push any farther. After a complicated game of "raise your water bottle so I can find you" your mother joins you, and now all that's left is to wait. To your right a woman is sitting on a blanket, futilely trying to fan a sleeping three-year-old girl with her shirt. What the f- "Excuse me?" A man to your left beckons to you. "Can you pass this fan to the mom down there?" "Sure!" You smile and pass the fan to the grateful mother. A couple of minutes later she's up, babygirl on her shoulders, explaining to you (and Mark, and Taylor, and your mother) that it's not actually her daughter, that the real mother is shipping off to Iraq in a couple of days and all her little girl wanted was to see Gaga with her mommy before she went bye-bye, and the mother left to use the bathroom forty-five minutes ago so now she's stuck with the girl. Whew. "We should get the girl to Gaga! If you get her onstage I'm positive you could find the mother." "That's what we're thinking!" The woman smiles at you. "GAGA TRAAAINNN!" Taylor puts her hands on your back as you stumble forward. "Err-" "Yeah, you're not going anywhere." The man who passed the fan to you smiles. He's wearing a cowboy hat. Gay? "But we'd totally help you if you'd like" says his female companion. You notice her bracelet says FREE BITCH- yep, a totally gaga fan. You eagerly show her yours- International Church of GaGa. "So I was thinking...fling this onstage for Gaga?" She wants your bracelet. Regret- Why didn't you bring a box of these and sell them? Cashh to da maxxxx. Whatever.

Boredom starts creeping in when you remember the box of face paint wedging a bulky mark into your thigh. As enticingly as you can, you pull the box out and play guinea pig as Taylor sets to work. Soon you have a crowd, twenty-somethings eagerly cheering you on, laughing and covering their eyes- OH GOD, what has she done to my face?- you hear the word "Starchild" and feel comforted, ideas of a female Ziggy Stardust floating through your mind. Next it's Mark, he puts up a fake fight while Taylor and yourself attack him with blue paint. Now the crowd wants you to write "Lady Gaga" on their faces? Their knuckles? Fine by me. You laugh and laugh and perch a fake hair-bow atop your head. Your face is green and pink and yellow and

innumerable other colors, Mark's is blue and he has a pink mustache, Taylor's is green when you notice another twenty-something carrying two cups of beer is trying to get on the shoulders of a new friend next to you. You take the beers, Mark eyeing them, you know exactly what he's thinking- "I would run with those if I were you"- but he's helping her onto the guy's shoulders. Her story comes to light; she was supposed to meet up with some friends but can't find them ANYWHERE, she's been calling them but they won't pick up the phone. You help as best as you can by- what else- holding the beers.

And so starts the show.

But- God- what else? I know I'm missing something. There has to be SOMETHING else that can help put Lollapalooza into words. Our decision to fuck Grizzly Bear?

We're crab walking, crouching down and making our hands into pinchers, weaving in between people in the old familiar way- Taylor in front, myself in the middle, Mark in back, because it WORKS. We're on our way to Grizzly Bear, because we've heard they put on a great live show, even though I personally think their music is akin to bullshit. Weave, weave, weave, we make our way to the front of the stage, right side, where some fans have camped out, sitting down. Goddd that burger looks good. It was ten dollars? But it's delicious. Is that a PRETZEL bun? Right on. Hmm. Pull out schedule... who else is playing now? Gogol Bordello. Didn't Taylor say

they were awesome? "I kinda wanna see Gogol Bordello." "Me too." "Yeah..." And we're off to the other side of Grant Park, disrupting every single person we pissed off on our way up to the front, holding hands in a line, first grade all over again. Gogol Bordello is already playing when we get there, but I know we've made the right decision. Halfway through the mass of people stretching out over half of the field we find a square of kids skanking on the grass, raging to the music. We make our way farther forward, using other people's motives as our leverage; when a group of people snake their way through the crowd, we follow. Our final destination is a happy-drunk slightly smooshed area of shirtless, sweaty dudes. The one next to me rams into me a couple of times before apologizing, then- taking my hand, "what's your naamee?" before continuing to sexydance to whomever is closest. He and his tribe of shirtless friends know every word to Bordello's songs and emit a vibe that says it's okay to rage out. We jump up and down, we fist pump, we push forward, we get shoved back. The lead singer, a charming handlebar mustache-touting unidentifiable ethnic origin of a man struts around the stage like Angus Young, playing his acoustic like he really wants to break it, yelling weird shit with a thick accent in between songs. They play like they're bringing back punk but they're not really trying to, there's a lot of shouting and rousing choruses and red pants and face paint? and a huge, imposing black banner with a slogan in Spanish. This is definitely the band I heard in Ragstock. What are the chances? All too soon, it's over. We emerge victorious, high, shouting "FUCCCCKK GRIZZLY BEAR!" over and over again, it could get obnoxious but it doesn't.

(The middle of a busy intersection buzzes with lights and swarms of people high off of the evening's performances/You hear screaming in the distance, like Lady Gaga made a guest appearance and your heart swells with the idea/Then you're running along with a thousand other people through the streets of Chicago while even more people come to meet you from the opposite direction/THE RUSH/A crossword puzzle book falls from a window overhead and Taylor catches it.)

lastly- before I bore you to death- Slightly Stoopid and the tale of how I became entangled in not one, but two mosh pits at the same time. Stoners stoners everywhere and who came up with the fabulous idea to crowd surf with a bunch of stoners? It's completely relentless and I feel lucky to have Mark behind me, watching out for us. One guy, a total champ, passes overhead thrice, falling in the same spot every time. Dude, you gotta give it a break. This girl behind me is fucking insane, totally smashed or something, she tells me she's got my back, she complains about all the people crowd surfing, alrightalrightalright. Now focus your attention on the stage. They're going to play a Nirvana song. Breed. Cool, a song I know. All too quickly a mosh pit erupts a few feet in front of us and we instinctively move backwards, away from the crazy people punching each other. A second later and there's another mosh pit on our other side/don't look now but YOU, yes YOU are part of the singular row of people dividing the two mosh pits. Taylor and I look at each other, the exact same mixture of fear and excitement coursing through our veins. How the fuck are we going to get out of this without being pushed in or punched in the face? I don't know where to look, there's chaos all around me, oh fuckfuckFUCK! Mark's behind us, a little more safely out of the way. He looks slightly afraid but he's reaching for me and I'm reaching for Taylor. He swiftly pulls us out of harms way and the two pits collapse in on themselves.

last day, 9 PM. Arcade Fire. Gaahhd you've wanted to see them so badly for so long, but reality creeps in. You can't stay for the entire set. You've got to leave in fifteen minutes. Mark's texting his girlfriend. He has a girlfriend. He wanted to see Soundgarden, but instead he's sitting here with Taylor and yourself on the grass. You're pulling out clumps of grass with your hands. It's wet. In your heart, you know this moment will live on forever, but right now you feel like you're suffocating. The idea of reality- of wake up, of get dressed in something other than a bandeau top and short-shorts, of do productive things- makes you feel sick. You want to cry. You want to die, because you want this moment to last forever. You know you're being ridiculously immature but you can't help it.

You hug goodbye and in the car ride home, pretend crossword puzzle books are falling from the sky.

And so ended the three most glorious days of my life.

Spring Forward, Fall Back

Spring is the time for new growth and flowers and dew and all of that fun stuff we didn't see during winter. Personally, growth doesn't interest me. Not really. I'm impatient. I don't like to see the maturing, the turmoil leading to character built. I like to see how things end because it often reveals more than when those very things begin. I want the full story, not the blank slate, not the rough draft. I much prefer vibrant, intriguing, loud red to an innocent, modest, common light green. Autumn is the season that captivates me each time. Every aspect of life gets progressively colder until it dies or hibernates. I like to see that. I like to see the limit. How cold before the migratory birds take their leave? How much snow before the badger is on lock-down? How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? Essentially, how much is too much? I like to think that the most revealing stage in the life of anything is right before death. It is truly the most eye-opening, awe-inspiring thing to witness. Of the few things I believe with conviction, this must be the most prominent. What happens at rock bottom, what happens when the levy breaks, that's when there are no more secrets. That's when you finally can begin to understand.

Leaves become most beautiful when they're about to die--Regina Spektor