You think of a wonderful thought

Hi. Have you missed me? I bet you have. You've all been sitting around saying, "Ho hum...I wish our dear Dormouse would update us on her adventures." Well, I haven't really been having any. I've started back at work and it's the same as it always is. I've just put together a very large LEGO set that looks like the Hogwarts Express. Good job me. I realize I'm quite boring while I'm home.
The other day my favorite hipster and I came up with a plan to start a band called Some Band You've Probably Never Heard Of. Sounds like an awesome plan. I should be 100% indie 100% of the time. I mean, we'll never really do it but if we did it might be amazing. I need something to do with my life besides all that scary applying to grad school stuff. At least my writing sample is coming along. Hopefully it will be something beautiful by the time I need to send it in. We'll see.
There's gay marriage in New York now. Maybe I should move back and marry my best lady friend? Or any lady friend. Might be fun.

-The Dormouse

But he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be forever barred...

Bob Dylan Wise and Love Quote Images, Graphics & Pictures - Facebook   (clipped to Polyvore.com)

So, I just found this quote and I love it. And the thing is, I think I agree. Lately I've been thinking a lot about love at first sight. It's confession time: I'm falling really hard for a guy. But Dormouse, didn't you relatively recently get out of a 3 1/2 year relationship? Well, yes I did. So what? This guy is great. He's smart and cute and funny and he makes me feel so relaxed when I'm around him. It's an impossible situation but there it is. Maybe I'll figure this all out soon. I'll let you know if I do.

-The Dormouse

Off to Neverland!

So, Dormouse, what's new in your life? Aside from the whole depressing your dad died and you're moving back home to a place and a life that you hate thing. 

That's probably what you guys have all been wondering right? Well, even if it wasn't that's what you're about to find out. I graduated from college a few days ago. Put on the cap, the gown, my honors cords and study abroad sash, and a brand new pair of high heels and marched out onto the quad of my school and graduated. It feels weird. So weird. So incredibly weird. I'm scared and happy and excited and terrified and unsure but ready for whatever the next step is.
I also turned 22 that same day. Isn't it funny how life's little coincidences work? I don't really feel older but I guess I am. Life moves on even when all you want is for it to stop! I'm getting back into Doctor Who, I'm e-mailing my boss about work, I'm making plans for when I get home. Crazy, eh? I'm just living and every day it feels a little less like my world is crumbling around me. I cry less. Is it okay to cry less? To hurt less? To learn to live with this and accept it? I don't think I'll ever get over it but maybe I can learn to accept it. Here's hoping.

-The Dormouse

They unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time

Lately it feels like all I do is make mixes. I have sad mixes, happy mixes, 90s mixes, pretty much a mix for anything you could think of. Today I made one I'm fairly proud of. So I'm obviously going to shamelessly plug it via my blog.

It's worth a listen. It has some pretty amazing covers on it. Some you've probably never even heard of before.

As for the portion of my life that isn't making mixes...things are as they tend to be. It was my father's birthday yesterday. I got drunk and made bad decisions. In case anyone was wondering how I'm dealing with my grief the answer is, as always, not well. But I'm trying to keep the pieces together. I graduate on Sunday. I'm terrified.

-The Dormouse

Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting...

Deep breath and then let's just be out with this eh? My dad died on Monday. There, I've said. I've said it for about the ten thousandth time. And really, it's helping. So much. Oh yeah, I feel super helped by saying that. Oh no wait. No, I don't. I keep saying and it keeps not feeling real. What the fuck. Let me say that one again...WHAT THE FUCK?! This is me, falling apart in real time. Hope you enjoy the show...

-The Dormouse

Fly! Of course!

So, right now I'm in this place where I can either fix things that have been broken or shrug my shoulders and move on with my life. I've shed a lot of unnecessary people this semester and it's been really good for me. I feel just the tiniest bit lighter. It feels strange to be letting people go so late in the game but that's what's going on here and it also feels really good, somehow liberating. I suddenly feel like I just don't have to take your shit anymore, any of your shit. So maybe I have been growing up? I don't know. All I know is that sometimes old friends just don't make the cut anymore and when that happens you have to let them go. Does this make me a horrible person? Should I be constantly attempting to please everyone around me at the expense of my own sanity? Is that how to get along in society? Because if it  is stop the world please, I want to get off.

-The Dormouse

That was the story, and they were as pleased with it as the fair narrator herself.

There is a stack of books up against my desk drawers that is quickly reaching knee level. On my dresser next to my bed there are three stacks of books that reach almost to the height of my bed. Aside from these there are books on my bed, books on my desk, books in my backpack, books in the little shelving unit in the corner of the room, books in my closet, books in my pink steamer trunk, books under my bed, and books that belong to me circulating around the rooms of the boys who live upstairs. I guess what I'm trying to say is I love books. I love everything about them. I love opening them up, I love the feel of the paper under my fingers. I love the way books smell and the anticipation that lies between each turning page. I want to get lost between the covers of each and every book I own.

I wonder sometimes what I'd do if I didn't have books to hide away in. If I had to be present every moment of every day of my life instead of burying myself under piles and piles of research and poetry and novels and short stories. I don't think I could handle it. I don't know that I could really allow myself to exist fully in the world outside of my paperbacks and hardcovers. I've come to depend on the written word to teach me how to live my life, how to speak and how to behave out there in that scary social public place we call the world. Perhaps this seems a bit sad but really it's not. It's beautiful to live in these pages, to have that safe place to go when nothing else is going right.

Lately I've been terrified that e-books are taking over the world. Everyone tells me the paper book won't ever become obsolete but really when was the last time you used a CD player? Or bought a CD? Or got something in the mail that wasn't a DVD from Netflix or a coupon? Technology eats up these clunky, in-elegant forms. We have iPods and e-mail and now we have e-readers and soon I'm afraid we won't have books. But then what will I do? How will I cope when I can't feel the pages under my fingers and I can't bring the paper up to my face and inhale the musty old scent of a well loved book? I can barely read things on a computer screen, it hurts my eyes and gives me headaches. How will I read when all of my words are on those electronic screens? Will the cold and unfeeling plastic and metal comfort me the way the soft, warm paper does? Will it soak up my tears and survive my anger when it will be launched against the wall? While I understand that technology is always moving forward and has no time for the pleas of one woman I don't think I'm ready to hand over my paper for a screen, my pulp for a rechargeable battery. I think I'm beginning to understand those old men who hoard their vinyl records, it's not about the music so much as it is about the medium. But somehow the medium makes the music better.

-The Dormouse