It's been 1 week--er, 2 weeks since you looked at me...

List format because classes start tomorrow and I'm watching True Blood.

• Saturday job working at Creative Dancwear.  Wonderful co-workers, wonderful customers, sweet discount.
• Job on campus working as an office assistant on the Law Review.  Great people so far.  I start tomorrow.
• AH-MAZ-ING adoptive family.  Just finished doing laundry at their house.  (By the by, their washer and dryer?  SPACE-AGEY AWESOME.  They don't beep when they're done, they play a little melody.  Thanks, LG!)
• Dance leveling was... humiliating, but it's a necessary evil.  No dance classes this semester like I was hoping, but hopefully in the spring!
• Passed all my entrance exams except one, but I'll get another chance to take it in January.
• Auditions tomorrow.  Fingers crossed I get something. ANYTHING.
• Met up with some of the other grad students Wednesday night, and then met the rest of my class (voice majors, anyway) on Friday.  There are 5 of us, all girls, and I'm the only MT kid.  The other 4 are opera performance.  All of the grads I've met have been fantastic.
• I can't think of what else to say just yet other than I'm sorry I've been remiss in keeping in touch with everyone.  I don't have internet at my apartment (other than on the space phone), but I'll probably be spending more time at school and thus online.  

With that, I'll finish the True Blood, then go home and pick out mah clothes for back to school!

(i carry it in my heart)

This feels so much like "not enough..."



i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                  i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

e.e. cummings

❧

[Most profound thanks]

Hillcrest High School.
The Bama Theater.
Big Sandy Baptist Church.
CHOM.
The Church at Tuscaloosa.
Gilgal Baptist Church.
The University of Alabama
Frank M. Moody Music Building.
Shelton State Community College.
The Bean-Brown Theater.
First United Methodist Church.

These places served as the settings for so many wonderful memories (the good, the bad, and the ugly--each deserves a sense of wonder all its own).  And those are just the tip of the iceberg. 

HHS Choral Dept.  Show Choir. Musical Theatre.
Tuscaloosa Children's Theatre.  Hours upon hours upon hours of rehearsals, Talent Searches, and late night set construction and laughter.
The Storehouse.  My first VBS and M-Fuge.
Junior Docents (Teen Leaders).  Birthday cakes(sssss...), juice boxes, wrapping paper, guests, and sneaking an ice cream.
Praise Team and youth groups who "Finish Empty." Calico Street.
College & Career Sunday School class.  Wednesday night rehearsals and burgundy choir robes.
Football. 
Piano lessons. Opera Theatre.  Practicing.  Loitering.  Friends, teachers, and colleagues. 
Theatre Tuscaloosa.  Sometimes "plus five," usually "minus five."
Music making.  Family.  Teaching.  Fellowship.  Community.

This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.  To make a truly comprehensive list of all the ways Tuscaloosa has served me to be able to make amazing memories, to forge forever friendships, and to help me "grow up" would be... an impossibility.  Tuscaloosa bore the vast majority of my growing pains.  It's probably seen me at my very best and at my very worst.  I can't say the same about it (not having known its entire history), but I've had my fair share of ups and downs regarding how I feel about T-Town—wishing I was somewhere else, but never able to really get away.  Getting away and living for the day I returned.

"My love for you is like this scar.  Ugly and permanent." 

-Grace Adler

It's a game of tug-of-war with you, Tuscaloosa.  God only knows who wins.  Ü 

There is so much unknown out there I am eager to discover, but that in no way negates the fact that there's so much I know here that I will miss and cherish for the rest of my life, wherever life takes me.

Thanks, Tuscaloosa, for being everything I want to keep with me and everything I want to leave behind.  No matter how far away I go, for better or for worse, I'll always have at least a toe in T-Town and won't be able to leave completely.

Most importantly, thanks for being my facebook friend.

❧

To all those in Tuscaloosa who have shaped who I am and who have helped me to get to this point,

thank you.

It doesn't seem possible that it's been 10 years since this chapter of my life began.  I left Grand Rapids and didn't think I'd be able to call Tuscaloosa home, and I have to say that were it not for the people here, I still wouldn't be able to call this city home.  I think we all feel that more acutely since "The Storm."  These buildings and places have no meaning without the people who breathe life into them.

Tuscaloosans—You, beautiful, beautiful people.

To each of you,

No matter where I go, I'll never be gone, and you'll always be with me.

For that, I'm eternally grateful.

(Roll Tide.)

♥

A spider succeeded in seeing my nakey...

...and lived to tell the tale.

(Don't tell Amy.  We had a slumber party last night.  Ya know, one last Thither "Hoorah" before the big move tomorrow—let's not go there today.  Anywho, she's still asleep.  Let her continue thinking my bathroom is a safe place.)

I feel so violated.

Quiet Moments

Sitting in the hotel while Woolfs nap and/or watch Nickelodeon.  It just started raining, so I don't know if we'll be going back to the saltwater pool after all.  I either don't have any thoughts on the upcoming major change in my life, or they're so deeply submerged in my subconscious that I don't know what they are, so I'll share a little bit of the delightfulness of this "last" week so far instead.

"So Long, Farewell" lunches, dinners, drinks, and hugs from 'WOW' moms, HHS Choir friends, and a "Same Person" best friend.

Road trip around southern Mississippi with Woolfs.  I've never been to the MS Gulf Coast.  Granted, it doesn't change my opinion of Mississippi, but there are actually some gems in this oft-neglected state. 

Mary Mahoney's Old French House Restaurant
We had dinner there last night.  Built in 1737, this lovely old house takes you right out of Mississippi and straight into the French Quarter.  The ambiance and surplus of crab on the table are worth the visit.  In the courtyard, there's a 2000 year-old oak tree called "The Patriarch," interesting art- and metalwork, and a fountain.  It was completely magical, most especially for the kids.  We had crab claws for an appetizer (YUM), and then I had the Back Room Crab Cakes, which have made appearances in two John Grisham novels, the menu pointed out.  The kids' menu includes healthy (a.k.a. GINORMOUS) portions of chicken fingers, fresh fish, and, get this, prime rib.  It's Itsy Sister's birthday tomorrow, and she told them, so they brought out a birthday dessert after we stuffed our faces with bread, salad, seafood, etc.
It's pricey, though.  Like, fo' realz.  They let us in with jeans on an' everything, but it's someplace I'd recommend going for lunch (which is still steep as far as lunches go), unless you've got a company card that's footing the bill.




Paul's Pastry Shop
I've known about this place since last August (special thanks to a certain Irish-Cajun clan), and will shout it from the rooftops till I die: IF YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF HEADIN' TOWARD NOLA FROM EAST I-59, YOU ARE MANDATED TO STOP.
EXIT 6.
PICAYUNE, MS.
I'LL STOP YELLING NOW IF YOU PROMISE TO GO.

Good.

I told Mama Woolf about it when she said she had business in Picayune, and she came back to us this afternoon with cakes to continue celebrating Itsy Sister's birthday.  Today's flavor was pink lemonade, and it was perfect.  Whipped icing, lemon curd between layers of pink cake that would've made Daisy Buchanan proud.  Tomorrow's cake? TBA.  It's a surprise.

Must haves when you do go: Cannoli.  King Cake. 

The troops are stirring, so I'll have to continue this after the hotel-room, madcap misadventures cease.