Family and Reality

College life! It's amazing! I have awesome new friends, hanging out with my movie buddy is a breeze, and I get along great with my roommate. It's one of the best experiences ever, and I'm so grateful that I have gotten this opportunity.

But that doesn't stop the homesickness.

Terminal Realizations

I'm sitting in an almost empty terminal waiting to board a plane alone for the first time in my life. It's nerve-wracking. All I can think is what if I board the wrong plane? What if I get on the wrong shuttle and instead of ending up in Fort Collins, I end up in Boulder? What if I go to this college preview and discover that I hate the college I've been dreaming about since I was a sophomore?

My brain keeps telling my beating heart that there is no way I can board the wrong plane, and with the detailed instructions on how to get to the shuttle I'll be fine. But what about my college? I've been a California girl my entire life, and now I'm suddenly packing up everything I think I can't live without, and shipping off to an entirely new time zone not to mention state. And how on earth am I supposed to afford the out of state tuition, even with the scholarships I've already received?

The only thing I can think of is all the advice I got while filling out college applications. My family, my friends, and even my favorite teacher all told me the same thing: stay in California.

Living for the Details

So I started my first legitimate job this summer. Terrifying with a capital T! Sure I've had the odd babysitting and housecleaning job since I turned twelve, but for the first time ever I found myself answering to a supervisor and being responsible for my own actions. Or almost the first time.

You see, as I was organizing invoice receipts, I realized that this was exactly the kind of work I did for Peer Counseling. Sure, Peer Counseling revolved around counting pencils and organizing index cards rather than alphabetizing fire marshal licenses and organizing invoices. However, there is one common link here; all of these activities are dull, monotonous, and time-consuming.


And I love it.

In A Box in My Bookshelf There Lives A Memory

When removed from its green cover with the fading yellow title sticker, the title is only legible on the binding, except to someone who’s looked at it as often as I have. I can make out two words among the jumble of dwarven runes along the edge: The Hobbit. It’s one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classics, and a personal favorite, but not for the story. It is seventeen years old, and the book handled the most, yet the pages are not weatherworn or bent, its most battered component being a torn paper bookmark on page 104. When I leaf through its stiff, off-white pages, the first words I see are the handwritten ones before the title page: “Michael, Christmas 1993”. I’m well acquainted with the black print on each page, but when I read the words, I hear not the voices of Gandalf or Bilbo but the voice of my dad. Its slightly sticky picture pages have become a storage bin of memories. When removed from its green cover with the fading yellow title sticker, a little piece of my Dad escapes from its home in The Hobbit.

The Tyranny of Self-Loathing

When, in the course of human life, it becomes not only necessary but essential for all of humanity to renounce their ties to negativity and to assume among the powers of the mind that which grants them new confidence and a heightened self-esteem, a simple respect for their mental health demands that they explain the tyranny of mental self-mutilation and the events which impel them to separate from this way of life.

An Unchanging Foundation and the Landscape it Sits On

Twenty-two years ago, in a sophomore English class, two very different people met. One was a fifteen-year-old girl with the largest smile, the loudest laugh, and the most beautiful green eyes. The other was a young athletic boy on the swim team with a quirky grin, an infectious chuckle, and one half-brown, half-blue eye. Twenty-one years ago they shared their first date at a Sadie Hawkins Dance, and, on November 28, 2012, they will have been married twenty years. Katie Hatter and Michael Hatter were, and remain, two people with seemingly little in common. Yet despite their varied quirks, personalities, and pasts, my parents remain the unaltered foundation of a steadfast family.

A Guy's Guide to Surviving PMS

Recently, I found myself in a state of hormonal confusion, sobbing in bed because one of my favorite characters in a television show left (not died, just left) when a thought occurred to me. As a female teenager, I have often felt the intense and annoying symptoms of pre-menstrual syndrome, more commonly known as PMS. I am completely used to the arguments that get blown out of proportion, and the random breakdowns; therefore I know how to survive these same symptoms when the occasion calls for it. But how can a teenage boy, without prior experience to the wrath of PMS, endure his sister’s/girlfriend’s/female friend’s dangerous condition? Well, by following the five simple steps of observing, identifying, approaching, ignoring, and taking appropriate action, any teenage boy will soon excel in the art of surviving PMS.

Free Speech: Death by Denial or Life by Acceptance

“Better a thousand fold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.” (Charles Bradlaugh).

Bradlaugh exemplified the traditional American philosophy of free speech with this quote. Since the Bill of Rights was drafted in 1791, Americans have enjoyed, depended upon, and demanded the rights outlined by the First Amendment, specifically the freedom of speech. Yet, the issue of abuse of freedom of speech has become a heavily debated topic, because of events such as the Westboro church protests at military funerals. The question now becomes: “Should Americans relinquish even a portion of our most cherished rights, in order to halt any amount of abuse of those rights?” The answer is a simple yet resounding “no”.  Denying any form of freedom of speech undermines the legal integrity of the law, sets a dangerous precedent for altering our most cherished ideals, silences the voices of minorities, lays doubt on the moral decency of humanity, and eliminates the simplest and most efficient solution to problematic speech.

What to Look For

How do you know when a relationship has failed?

I am by no means an expert on relationships. I am only in the middle of my first serious relationship, and it hasn't been particularly noteworthy. In fact, for the last few weeks, I have been trying to figure out whether that relationship is even worth holding onto, yet I don't even know what I'm supposed to consider. At least until today. On my way home from the movies with my boyfriend, I realized exactly what it was about our relationship that was causing me to doubt.

Randomosity Poems and Their Covers

 "A Daughter's Pain"

One of my creepier poems. A brutal murder leaves the victim's daughter to pick up the pieces - 20 years later.

http://www.wattpad.com/2027424-randomosity-a-collection-of-random-poems-a
http://figment.com/books/315696-A-Daughter-s-Pain

Individual Stories and their Covers

Flowers for Fighters 

            "This is 'Flowers for Fighters'" she explained. "I make floral paintings for police officers that have been injured while on duty, or killed in action. I send them to the officer while he's recovering, or I sell them and send the money to the family of the officer who has been killed."
            "Then what am I supposed to do?"
            She turned to me, her mouth hanging open in disbelief.
            "You were sent here to make flowers for fighters, right? Well grab one of those canvases and paint some flowers!"
            When she gets in trouble with the law, Lizzy doesn't expect much from her court mandated community service. But when she meets Jenna Hudsy and discovers exactly what her community service entails, she gets a summer experience that she'll never forget.

Special thanks to my sister Emily for the beautiful background for the cover.

http://www.wattpad.com/story/1029417-flowers-for-fighters
http://figment.com/books/248187-Flowers-for-Fighters

Short Shorts and Their Covers

Motherhood

Even goddesses are mothers.

http://www.wattpad.com/4572480-scars-and-other-short-shorts-motherhood
http://figment.com/books/330124-Motherhood

On Birthdays and Dreams

My mother just called to ask what I wanted to do for my birthday.

"It's your 18th birthday; you should care," is what she told me. But here's the thing; I don't care.

Comedic Help Wanted!

Dear Blogger Followers/First Time Readers,

So I'd like to move away from my usual deep, insightful blog posts (seeing as I'm probably the only one who views them as such) and address an issue that has recently been stressing me out. I am not funny.

Those Who Know

My best friend and I recently figured out that we don't know each other. We've been best friends for the last three and a half years, and somehow, through all of that, we simply skipped the getting to know each other part.

We're not totally oblivious to one another. We know the basic habits and personality types that we uphold. We recognize our likes and dislikes, our similarities and differences, our most vital connections and the things that have the ability to push us apart. We can point out each other's favorites and the things we hate. Most important, we recognize that we both put up a facade.

Slowly Crumbling Dreams

It's one thing to listen to people tell you that you're a great writer, but when there's no evidence, how do you believe it?

My mother just spent the better part of a half-hour trying to persuade me to change my college plans from majoring in hospitality management, to majoring in journalism. According to her I can make people feel when I write. She asked me to just think about it. She asked me to just consider rearranging my college plans, and by extension my whole life. She doesn't understand how I can say I don't have confidence in my writing.

Paint Chips

Do people change? It's a question that's plagued me all year long. One of my best friends claims that he's changed in the last two years, and if I wasn't so stubborn in my convictions, I'd be inclined to agree with him.

Only, I don't think people do change. The basic building blocks of someone's personality stay constant, unchanging, unyielding. What changes is not us, but the significance of those basic traits.

Against All Odds

"Hey there! So, I noticed you've been reading my best friend's (foxinsocks) story, and giving her amazing feedback. I just wanted to say thank you because she's been really happy that she's been getting so much good feedback, and I love it when she's happy so thanks! :)"

It was the best message I'd ever received on my Wattpad wall, and it was all because I'd decided to adopt foxinsocks as my own little protegee.

Truthfully, I'm not really qualified to call her that. I'm nobody special. I'm an amateur writer with big dreams and a little bit of vision to keep that passion burning. But, other than an open heart and a little bit of knowledge about the English language, I wasn't someone trusted to give advice. So when I opened foxinsocks' first story, I didn't expect to make a big difference in anyone's life. All I did was give her some writing advice. I did what I wanted someone to do for me. I didn't realize how much that would affect my life, and my confidence.

Love Unknown

Love. It's probably the greatest unsolved mystery of the hopeless romantic's mind.

There are those who claim that love is no mystery. It's something you wait for, and when it appears, it's obvious. They say "You'll know it when you feel it".

They're lying.

Who Am I?

I have a tale to spin, that to some would be confusing, but to me is as natural as breathing. My name is not in fact Lola Hatter; it is my stage name. But that stage name has a back story.

I will not bore you with the tale of how Lola Hatter the Mad Hatter's daughter came to exist in the minds of my theatre company, but I do feel compelled to illuminate who the character is, in her entirety.