You may be right, I may be crazy.

Sitting here, listening to the Scattergories buzzer and watching the people I've known for all of three months (or two weeks) bent over these cards, I realized that I'm happy.
I love this place. I love these people. I love the experiences I'm having and the things I'm learning.
I love the half hour walk to the Starbucks and bakery every day after work. I love curling up on the papazan to read. I love getting coerced into going exploring in DC. I love getting randomly invited to go somewhere. I love how beautiful this place is. I love the cider in the glass next to me, making my head a little fuzzy.
I'm so happy here.

...But it might just be a lunatic you're looking for.

You find that she is positively practicing the craft of the wise

I think, on occasion, that I know why I'm constantly so focused on all that is good and shiny in this world. I think I know why all the bad things fall by the way-side of my brain. I think I know why I feel so tired so often. I think I know why I don't let people get too close.
Put gently? Alaska has a high rate of sexual abuse.
I spent four years counciling rape victims. Four years of holding sobbing girls and one winter of stroking a boy's head while he clung to my leg and begged me not to leave him alone. Four years of finding out what it feels like when your heart breaks. On top of coming to terms with thirteen years and three instances of "well, at least I didn't get raped".
I tend to attribute my borderline manic personality to my need to get away from that. Four years of dealing with the after-effects of some of the most deplorable human actions (and one winter spent with the most broken person I've ever known) has left me hopelessly drained, with an appreciation for all the wonderful things life has to offer.
In my more cynical moments, I wonder if it's post traumatic stress disorder that wipes my memory of everything that isn't sunshine and puppies. I have to stop and focus if I want to remember ANY thing that didn't make me smile. My memory starts to get fuzzy after even a few hours. It's like my mind just... deletes things after a while. I hate it until I consider what would happen if my mind didn't.
I'll take sunflowers and rainstorms over freshman year and the apartment ANY day. At least I can say that I've learned from everything.

I don't know. I think of everything as fair game for conversation and I don't keep secrets about my life, but I'm hesitating before hitting "publish post".
I don't trust easily any more and this is a glimpse into my inner workings that I don't afford many people at all. Yet I'm seriously considering placing on the web for anyone to stumble across.
At the same time? I want to record this theory somewhere I can find it again so I can look over it, build on it or tear it down as false.
And I know from past experience that if I just save it to my hard drive the next time I see it I'll call myself a dumbass and delete it.

And I'm an accident waiting to happen

Some times I wonder why I do the things I do, think the way I think. I'm like a small child, perpetually fascinated by the world around her. The sun shining in the morning is a source of endless pleasure for me and a simple breeze can make me smile for hours. I bounce from one thing to another, constantly smiling and always curious.
It can be so frustrating, feeling like I can't focus on anything but the positive. The world isn't all puppies and sunshine. Yet, so often, that's all I can see in my twelve-year-old world.
Then I have days like today, where I buy flowers for a friend and some guy on the street smiles at me and comments "you never buy -me- flowers any more."
"I'm sorry," I replied softly around my smile, "work really picked up and I just didn't have time." He stares in shock at the flower I lay down next to him as I flounce out the door.
Some days... I really like being a little kid. Because little kids can get away with things like that.

My belief in karma is, I think, different from other peoples. I was discussing it with a friend and he said some things that, as per always, got me thinking.
I don't believe in karmatic I-owe-you's. If you wrong someone, you wrong them. There is no "if I fuck them over now but buy them flowers later, it'll cancel out". You can't balance doing that to someone.
It also doesn't work to pull "I'll do all this nice stuff to this person so I can back-stab them later".
To me, karma isn't that specific.
It swings both ways, so to say. Good karma is gained by doing good things*, and results in good things happening to you**. Bad karma is gained by doing bad things ***, and results in bad things happening to you.
It's that simple to me. Karma doesn't care who you're good or bad to or on what scale. If you donate a billion dollar house to an orphanage you're on the same page as if you'd bought flowers for a friend.

*- Good is such a subjective term, no? In this case, "good" means something that makes someone happy.
**- This is more difficult than it sounds for people like me, because I can find the good in everything. Even cutting my hand open. ;)
***- Bad is a subjective term, as well. In this case, it's something that makes someone upset or hurts them.

I think... that I'm very lucky to have the people in my life that I do. I learn something new from each of them regularly, even if it's something as simple as the fact that I can still love people deeply.
Or that there are people out there who love me, too.

Found out the hospital staff were asking after me.
I didn't realize I could leave such an impression while out of my mind on blood loss or while unable to talk. I guess I'm more awesome than I think.
Or something.

Everything's gonna be all right.

Sometimes it hits me that I've only seen these faces for two months. I find it startling, jarring. I have a few moments of feeling outside myself before it settles back down into normalcy.
Maaaaaaybe I don't adjust as smoothly as I'd like to think I do.

There's a djembe sitting next to me. I still can't believe it's here.
I woke up in the morning, walked right past it twice. A half hour into work, I paused and thought 'did I walk past a drum this morning?'. I passed it off as nothing, until I walked back upstairs.
I worry about my skills of observation.

Three showers later and I'm still finding streaks of paint on me.
I hope it comes off my shoes.

Still frustrated, nay outraged, at the implication that I'm too young to be able to take care of myself. The fact I'm living thousands of miles away from any family and am doing it well seems to have escaped certain members of the offices. More than that, implying that the people who do look after me put me in certain danger? I can't begin to articulate my displeasure.
"Fresh off the farm" my ass. Alaska's too cold for farms, I come from a fishing boat.

As the days go by and things progress as they will, I find my mind swirling in uncertainty. People reveal things I'd not expected and others reveal things I had. I find my opinions flowing like waves on a shore.
Out, "he's just another kid who's going to get what he wants from everything and leave".
In, "he gives a shit and he's worth putting in effort".
Out, "they're playing favorites".
In, "we're different, so of course they're going to react differently to us".
I prefer the crashing sound the ocean makes to the crashing sound my insides make.

I am not the girl I was when I came here, even just comparing the voice in this writing to the voice in previous texts tells me that. It's not been long at all, I don't understand how so much can change in so little time.
So much more is going to change, too, and I have to be able to accept that. Even if my self-appointed guardians weren't taking it upon themselves to "better" me.
"You're going to have to learn to speak up for yourself. Now, go to it!"
I think I can live with this.

It's the little words.

"The more you talk, the more I think this innocent thing of yours is just an act."

"Let's see a smile on that pretty face! Ah, that's it! Don't break too many hearts tonight!"

"Y'know, my theatre company does have technical internships open..."

"I know people, I might be able to get some money off your student loans if you want to go back to school..."

"Wow. Nice toenails. They actually go well with your green shoes, in some weird way... And the black..."

"Okay, father-daughter time's over. Go home. I know, I know. 'I'm already home!' Get out of here."

"That top really does look good on you."

And I was your silver lining.

"When she's around, I don't exist."
I'm starting to think that maybe he's right. Maybe I do, unconciously, put myself in situations where I'm going to end up hurt. I run over past relationships and I can really only think of one where someone couldn't look at it and go "this won't end well". They leave, I leave, they're fucking insane, I'm too oblivious to realize what's happening, they're already involved. There's always something, y'know?
But then, why should it matter? Why should I spend any time at all tossing this sort of thing around in my head? It's not like it matters. I'm not in a position to get into a relationship with any one right now, so my "bad habits" are an issue in stasis. And I'm fine on my own, I have good friends and a fulfilling job. I just wish I wasn't sleeping alone every night.
But then, some times that is better than the alternative.

There's two rather fantastic books glaring at me from my shelf because I met a boy who's got the same taste for oddities that I do. If he weren't family, I might be in love.
As it stands, he's deffinitely my favorite right now.

I have this thing where I love everyone, from the girl sleeping in the bed across from mine to the gentleman walking past on the street, until they give me a reason not to love them.
I'm starting to think this may be a lot more trouble than I'd originally assumed.

The responses to my pin up shots have surprised me, if only because I trust the people I sent them to enough to believe their reactions. If they're right, mayhap I should look into comandeering a photographer and some supplies and make a side-career of this.
It's too, too fun.