suitable for guests.

it occurred to me this weekend. it snuck up like a well-trained agent - all cloaked in darkness and hidden away in the smallest space with the smallest peep hole made for people just like that agent.

it occurred to me that i don't live there anymore. my mother said calmly that she needed to buy a rug for my bedroom. my bedroom in saint louis. the one painted the perfect shade of green like late summer grass and perfectly perfect white trim around the windows. the one with my great-grandmother's furniture inside. and i replied, "yes. a rug in that open room would be nice." and then. then. then i said, calmly and without a hitch, "it would make such a nice guest bedroom."

oh dear god. how did i get this old? how did this happen? at what moment did my brain decide that that room was suitable for a guest bedroom? and a guest bedroom that i would sleep in when i go to my parents' house as a guest.

that room, though, is like stepping back into days i have left behind to yellow in their aging. the most recent framed picture was taken my junior year of high school. you can see the look of uncertainty behind all of our smiling faces as we prepared for one last year of high school leading to the rest of lives. leading to the moment when our bedrooms became more suitable for guests.

bruce springsteen and his greatest fan.

i'm going to see springsteen this weekend. the bruce springsteen. the BOSS. my mom is taking me, which is going to great. this woman loved bruce before anyone knew who he was and has followed his career like a disciple.

i keep remembering something one of my high school teachers said to me. i was - for some unknown reason - telling her that my mom had gone to the springsteen concert over the weekend. and she smiled and said, "i went, too. but i fell asleep."

asleep? asleep? ASLEEP?! who falls asleep when they go to see bruce? there are only a handful of times in my life when i have been more offended. (one of which was when someone doubted that lucinda williams is one of the most talented musicians performing today. but i don't want to get into that. bad memories.)



my parents raised my brother and me with the help of bruce springsteen. (and john mellencamp. and eric clapton. and the stones. and the alman brothers [who i though were the almond brothers when i was small]. and tom petty. and crosby, stills, nash, and young.) these musicians are the bedrock of my deep, aching love for music. i knew all the words to "jack and diane" and "born to run" by the time i was five. my brother's favorite song as a toddler was "motherless children" by eric clapton. (which is, i think, pretty funny.) it was a rare occassion that my mother was forced to play wee-sing or other cassettes of children's songs. we were all about the rock n' roll.

we danced in the nude to rod stewart's "motown song" and when that disc was stolen out of my mom's car, the first priority was getting another copy. those are some of my most cherished childhood memories - car rides singing along with bruce, john, rod, and eric. these men made me want to be a musician. i demanded that my mom confirm my ability to sing nearly every day. and as the wonderful woman that she is, she obligingly told me i was a great singer. (needless to say, that pipe dream was set aside when i learned that while i could make singing noises, anything that resembled a key was out of the question.)

listening to that music now transports me back to a time when i lived with a total sense of abandon. when choreographing dances and singing off key at the top of your lungs anyway and everywhere was entirely acceptable. and if it wasn't acceptable, who rightly cares?

so falling alseep on sunday? totally out of the question.

not so bad.

they said, "tell all your friends, your family, your significant other - tell them that you are going into hyper drive for the next six weeks. tell them you won't be able to talk to them as much." i'm certain my eyes became perfect saucers because the leader of the session nodded in my direction. i'm not sure if he was admonishing my disbelief and affirming my fear or attempting to tell me that it would all be okay.

either way, i left my session on taking exams (essay and short answer) wondering how in the world they think i am supposed to get through this mess of exams and cramming and the constant state of imminent tears without them - my friends, family, significant other. i dutifully returned to outlining my contracts class with a newly burning fire fueling my work ethic. please note: the fire has subsided and i am now blogging to avoid my contracts outline.

i'm through the second page our syllabus (which is, by the way 5.5 pages in length) and my outline is about thirty pages. it's taken me probably 24+ hours to get this far. at this rate, i should be finished by mid-january just in time for next round of 1L classes. they teach us that the law is objective, reasonable. it is not subjective. well, objectively speaking, this is a tad unreasonable.

nevertheless, i push on and relish the moments of utter delight when something clicks in my brain and the handful of cases that made no sense come falling right into place. i enjoy the solitude of working spread out in the library, pouring over textbooks way too large and the satisfaction that comes with knowing the answer to a professor's question (even when i don't get called on). for the most part, it's not as bad as they say. but i'll get back to you in a month.

thingsitalkabout.