What a long strange trip it's been

I guess I've been putting off this last post.

There is so much finality in it. There's this pressure to write something profound, to sing a summation of growth and lessons learned...

All I really want to say is that I miss Minnie and I miss Muja and I miss my friends, so often like my family, that still reside on that one-horse rock.

I miss my mornings on the front porch with my journal and my coffee. I miss the way it looks at sunset. I miss the randomness of life there. I miss knowing that I had time before I had to worry about the next step.

But more than anything: I am grateful.

So, so, so, extremely grateful.

And here's the good thing-I carry what I miss, and what I will sure to miss as more distance is placed, with me forever. I know it sounds cliche, as I know it sounds cliche to say 'it sounds cliche', as I know it sounds cliche...okay enough. Truth is: I carry Yap in my heart. Another truth: I don't really care how that sounds.

I carry Yap in my heart.

I have learned that there is beauty in the breakdown (as so eloquently sung by Frou Frou) and that there is always, always, always another adventure waiting. We just have to be willing to take the call.

Should my indefinite future lead me no further than this childhood bedroom of mine, I will remember that the adventure is always there. Even if it becomes reduced to hiding underneath my parents' bed so that I can grab their ankles when they walk by my waiting-to-grasp hands.

And so dear blogette, and the 12 people who are brave enough to declare themselves followers of your nonsense-this is it.

Tenacious here, signing off.

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are only golden because we let them slip by.

Sir James Matthew Barrie

I tried twice to get my teeth cleaned, both to no avail. The first time the a.c. was broken; the second time there was an equipment malfunction.
The sign on the wall read "Please wipe blood off of equipment after use."
Why THAT was not the reason that the appointment was cancelled shows me that maybe I am a bit different than I once was. Ick. Strange.

Well the good news is, apparently I have won the UK national lottery AND someone in Nigeria wants to deposit $250,000 into my personal banking account.
Career be damned, I'm rich bitch.

I wish there was a tab to check for bullshit. You can check your spelling and grammar, you should be able to check if it is actually worth reading. If we could click on a tab and have the bad outlined in another color, we would save so much energy. It would be so much easier on those of us who take to the written word without abandon. Those of us who keep on a stabbin at the print in hopes of one day being able to...well, that's the hard thing. It's that notion of "one day" that keeps us thinking we can keep up the habit without serious detriment to our health. For now we will live in strange locations and write about strange things and tell ourselves that we should enjoy every last minute of it because one day, one day, we will be the responsible adult that we had once envisioned of ourselves. And with the click of a tab we could filter out the thoughts that are worth sharing versus those that should be kept inside our heads, with the rest of the voices.

On an extremely hot Tuesday in January, I write to you with sun-burnt skin and a revelation of thought!
I have found what I am truly good at doing, hooray! Now all I have to do to secure my future is find a career that requires me to read by the pool, do handstands in the pool when the heat has become too powerful, and drink caffeine in copious and various amounts.
One week before moving back to the States and I have found my truest talents. Praise be!
Ah, leaving. That again. It's kind of hard to talk about. Sure the whole "lack of any concrete plans whatsoever" has something do with it but more so-I will miss this island and this time in my life. Kevin Arnold talked about change once. Even he noted that "you fight to hold on, you fight to let go." It is never easy but alas, it is necessary. Change keeps us present.
The other day, while I was bathing in my new work ethic, I spoke to one of the locals about the changes to come. It made me happy and sad (wait-is that nostalgia?) to hear her observations of "Jan's Crew" throughout the years.
"I would sometimes hear screaming. And I would look in the bar and you guys would be really laughing, laughing. And drinking, drinking. And then I'd say 'There's Taylor, breaking it down. Breaking it down'."
She then listed the various establishments that would surely miss our patronage.None of them serve food.
I better get going again on the job-search. I am sure there are still some companies in the States who have not blocked my email account.

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes- let them know

You realize that life goes fast

It's hard to make the good things last

You realize the sun don't go down

It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round.

The Flaming Lips

God has blessed me.

I have a collection of un-published posts from these last few days-correction, two un-published posts-and they will likely not see this screen again.
This is what change looks like. You type a bunch of thoughts as they come at you and then you put them away for another time. We hope that these un-finished sentences, laced with rambling emotions and insights for the sake of insights, will prove to have some sort of profundity in later, calmer years.
But these attempts at capturing the moment and decidedly failing to do so could just as well reveal itself to be the result of something common-like sleep deprivation or a continuous hangover.
But oh, how I have laughed and oh, how I have danced in these final days. I wouldn't change a thing.

He Pointed to a Conch Shell and then to the Lime

And said: This is all I really need to get by.

Dispatch

Truer Words Have Never Been Spoken

I love marketing techniques of foreign countries. I purchased a strawberry milk tea and the slogan read:

The More You Drink-The More Enjoyment You'll Have!

We had the most beautiful, simple Christmas. One of my very favorites. The day was actually breezy and below 90 degrees-the closest to a white Christmas for which we could hope. Did you like how I avoided ending that sentence with a proposition? Tis a habit I am hoping to acquire.

Well I am officially done working at the high school which means I am officially back on the search for a job. It's real now. Things are getting real, padnah.

I'm going to take it as a sign that John Legend's "I can change" feat. Snoop Dogg is the first song that played on my Pandora station.

I can change. I can change. I can change, for you.

Dear Corporate America:
I will play the part if you can pay the rent. Need skiing experience? Why, I'll sign-up...er, I mean, up, I'll sign! I'll tell you that I'd rather prefer to spend my weekends at the office and that I much prefer following orders to staging intellectual coups. I'll sign a paper that pledges myself to represent your company in the best possible light in every activity I do. If you need me to be Republican, a tomboy, a vegan, a circus performer... Look, tell me what it is you need to hear and I will tell you it. Just hire me already.
Signed,
Not afraid to sell-out.

Euphoria is choosing a book from the library with a really ugly cover and then realizing that it might be the best book you have ever read.

A Monster in my Soul

There is a spider who lives in our car. Each night he builds a new web, each morning I take it down. I could learn something from the perseverance of this arachnid.

There is a lizard who lives in our house. Well, thousands of them to be exact. But there is one who is so fat and so long that from the corner of one's eye it looks like a rat. Although this lizarat scares me daily, I do kind of like to think about how long he must have lived in our house. He likely has seen many tenants, scared them just as much, and has seen just as many furniture arrangements. If he could talk I wonder what he would say. Probably something about how if he is subjected to another episode of Reba that he will leave, this time for good.

There is a monster that lives in my brain. It forces me to drink coffee after dark, to chew betel-nut like a local, and to dance to Motown while doing housework. I think I like this monster. It keeps life interesting and is an easy scapegoat. It was not I who drank the club and gins in copious amounts-it was the monster.

It was the monster who thought it would be a good idea to start this blog and the monster who decided to pursue writing. It was also the monster who once thought that ginger could be used as a pizza topping,

And it is the monster who will edit this post, so be kind when judging.

Here's to enigmas, near and far

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.
Maya Angelou

Yes. Maya Angelou said it. I love it.

By means of resolution, I am supposed to be posting daily. But true to my history, I continue to lack that one minuscule, yet crucial, part: Willpower.
I am working on it. Next year I am going to quit smoking (surprise, surprise) and save more money (actually pretty f^#!king ambitious if you ask me, which you didn't, you never do-I just ramble on and on about myself without...ugh, I'm still doing it). I know that it would be great if I finished strong and posted everyday for the rest of the year and I know that it cannot be promised. Tell your tolerance for bullshit I said it's welcome. After three years it seems that summer camp is drawing to an end and I must devote the majority of my efforts towards drinking in all this island has to offer.
With a ging-gong, please.