Photographs and Memories
Listening to: "Simple Things", Dirty Vegas

Last night I went through my growing collection of notebook/journals that I kept from late highschool through college, including my water-resistant field notebook from the Malaysia trip. That one was especially trippy--I was on anti-malarials and the little notebook was filled with brief observations that would be fleshed out later in my mandatory to-be-turned-in-for-a-grade journal. Weird drawings that no longer have meaning, two word sentences. . .

There's my first two years at Hiram, which are mainly filled with stressing about schoolwork--and the seed of grad school to come--and lots and lots about Dave. And oh man do I want to shake my head at the things that I'd mention, briefly, bothering me in year one which would never be solvable and would eventually splinter the whole relationship. But the best of it is beautiful and just love.

There are desperate entries from my summer at Ohio State, where I was--for the first time--truly living alone, in a 1-bedroom apartment with no friends and an internship with no prior molecular biology experience.

Then there's year 3, with the stupid Mary Beth-Jason-Dave fiasco that I should have walked out on the moment it came on the scene, and instead stuck around and pined and cried so so much.

From there, as Blogger came on the scene, there are less notebooks, less content except the most desperate and secretive. I just type a hell of alot faster than I can scribble, too.

I keep the notebooks partly because my sense of vanity is undeniable, and in part because it keeps me real. I get to talk to the person I was a year, two years, three years, many more years ago. I get to see the progress of me, and feel like maybe I've learned *something* after all this time. And what's more: I get to remember things I didn't even know I remembered.

The sadder part of today is that my friend's cat died, and it was sudden and unexpected. It's funny how pets creep into your heart when you aren't looking, and then when they are gone, it just hurts in ways you never even thought it would. :(