A Puffy Post

A post by Sara Ball

I have a confession to make. If someone had walked up to me in the beginning of ninth grade and told me that one day Reagan Henke would be my best friend, I would have laughed. She was definitely not the type of person that I thought I would be friends with. Reagan was always free to be herself, not caring what others thought, and I mean, she has an afro and wears overalls. I had never seen anyone wear overalls before. But it is because of Reagan that I am who I am today. Reagan introduced me to theater, first of all, and is the one who really inspired me. She has amazing talent. Reagan Henke will be the next Kristin Chenoweth; funny, gorgeous, successful, and loved by everyone. I have never seen anyone with so much talent. Reagan also taught me to not care what other people think and to just be you. I take that back. She didn’t really “teach” me. I guess it is more that part of her rubbed off on me. I am a better person because of her. I am not saying that Reagan is perfect. Nobody is perfect. And the great thing about Reagan is she knows that, and it makes her even more loveable. She knows her faults, but she also knows her strengths. She is confident, but not selfish. She is a beautiful person, inside and out.

It is hard to imagine my life without Reagan. She is about as good as a friend gets. On one of the hardest nights of my life, she was there for me. It was a night I will never forget, because I had Reagan, and I will be forever grateful for her. When I was in desperate need of a friend, my puff called off her dinner plans, went back home, and took care of me. We ate Chinese food, basked in the glory of Sam Nagle, and managed to keep my mind off of the crisis in my life. I’ll never forget staying up late watching school debate shows and laughing at the stupidity of it all. She is like my other half. We often say that our minds are one, because we think so alike. It actually can be kind of scary…

I wish I could go on and on about all of the memories I have with Reagan. Each one is just filled with laughter. I am looking forward to so many more.

Happy Birthday, Puff. You made it through 16 years of your life, and you turned out just fine. I love you so much.

Venting

My dear friend,
Here's the deal. I'm terrified.
I cancelled my plans to see you. We haven't caught up in forever, and I figured you could help me work through some things that you've got a ton of experience in. That's what friends do, you know?
You cancelled. Without telling me. Which isn't the first time, so it doesn't come as a surprise. You made other plans. It was great of you to invite me along, really, I appreciated it, but when the point was to be able to talk, being with your friends, strangers to me,  in a dark loud movie theater ruins that.
And hey, getting coffee together earlier instead would've been absolutely fantastic. I called you to confirm, half an hour before. But you were busy, and it "wasn't worth it." Don't you see it's worth it to me? Do you see that I'm scared?
I get it. Everyone is pressed for time, everyone is stressed. Yet you find time to bake brownies with my ex-boyfriend over the weekend. That's impressive. Don't you see that it bothers me how close you are to him? Don't you realize he hurt me? But really, I'm glad you're there for him, because that's what friends are for. Right?
Nobody loves change. Nobody loves having new people invading such a big part of their lives. I know.
But don't you see how unwanted I feel? I feel alone. I feel scared. Can't you see I need you?

Debating Religion over Ice Cream

"Do you believe in God?"

The three of us sit, somewhat disheveled, around a small circle table in the middle of the store, our fluorescent oasis from the rainy darkness outside. Mist has formed dewy droplets in our hair from dashing across the road, and a monotonous buzz from the lighting fills the otherwise sleepy space. The passing glow of headlights from the intersection outside the window and an occasional noise from the back room is all that exists to suggest we're not completely alone. Rain dribbles down the glass with gentle spatterings, and we eat our ice cream slowly. The sprinkles on mine are large and pastel, and taste like childhood and nostalgia.

"Of course" and "I guess so" sound back at the same time. There is a pause for ice cream before we continue, a contemplation and savoring of both flavors and ideas.

As for me, I guess I used to, I have a vivid memory of coming home from Sunday School when I was very young, after a lesson on how God is always watching you, and will always be there. I made a pile of pillows in the middle of the floor and buried myself under them all until I was sure I'd disappeared from reality entirely. I remember giggling from my hiding place, knowing that even if nobody else in the whole world knew where I was, God was watching, God was there. I'm not sure when I stopped thinking that.

I'm not sure if that makes me an Atheist. No, I do believe I'm a Christian, though I'm not quite sure of anything, really. I sit in silence, and take another spoonful of ice cream. This time, it tastes like childhood nostalgia and sadness.

Wishing on 11:11

You cannot make just one wish as you glimpse at 11:11 and be done with it, for then conflict arises if you happen to glance back before the next minute. To wish properly, you must wish as long and hard as you can. Stare at the clock, the corner of your screen,  your phone, iPod, wherever you find the time, and wish. Sixty seconds is not a long time. So spend it all as heavily as you can, take the excuse of the numbers to wish, just for sixty seconds. Channel every nagging wish, every longing, everything you want into those sixty seconds. Whisper it out loud, if only just to yourself. Let yourself get crazy near the end, let simple wishes bloom out of proportion. And of course, the 1's look like candles. Blow them out.

Hum.

Hum, he tells us. Close your eyes. And we do, a room full of 230 or so singers, humming with heads down and eyes closed. Hum.
There is a note believed to resonate with the universe. Something about leftover vibrations, or black holes. The universe is supposed to hum, though much lower that we can hear. Its a sound that's supposed to connect us, a harmony that brings together all of life and reality.
A university in California, he says, played this across campus for a week, day and night. They wanted to make a difference, see if it made anyone nicer, reduced crimes, made anything better. The choir keeps humming as he talks. The hum of the universe. Hum.


But crime rates were not lower. People were not nicer. Maybe a sense of unity was the only thing changed. If we could all stop trying to be so different, so contrary and pugnacious, and just connect, maybe just once, in our basic humanity, to realize that we're not so different, maybe then things could change. We are all human. Resonating with the universe.

This time, he says, when you run out of breath, let it go.

Samoas

How to start a blog post? "It was a dark and stormy night..." suggests my partner in crime, author of My Own Kind of Blue. With nowhere to go, and nothing to do, and an insatiable craving for girl scout cookies. So, we attempted. In the end, I deemed it enough of a success to share here with you, though the fact that I share my failures as well is slightly less than promising. We figured it consists of a shortbread cookie, carmel, coconut, and chocolate.

1 cup sugar, 1 cup butter, 2 1/2 cups flour. Simple enough. Cream butter and sugar. Add flour. Oh, do remember that a cup of butter is worth two sticks. That was mistake number one.

Bake for 45 minutes at 275 degrees. Not 375, which was mistake number two. Our first batch burned horribly.

We made the recipe again, which was, evidently, poorly written, because we included an extra half-cup of flour meant for dusting the table. Mistake number three. Cross multiplication came in handy, we adjusted the other amounts, and finally got a decent batch. Roll out the dough, cut into pretty shapes (we used a cookie cutter and a melon baller to get a neat little design). After baking, bump up the oven to 375, and spread shredded coconut on a baking sheet, just until it starts to brown. We managed this on our first try, so it can't be too difficult.

We unwrapped a bagful of carmel and melted them in the microwave. This part we don't have down yet, because it ends up too chewy. Which I guess is mistake four, but we didn't bother to fix it.

I figure it should be tried with heavy cream mixed in, so if anyone finds a way that works, let us know. Cover the cookies with carmel, coat with the coconut, and drizzle with melted chocolate to your liking. They come out halfway decent.

A Rant on Literature

Jodi Picoult is a coward. Jodi Picoult is a shallow, cagey, waffling slave of Hallmark. Jodi Picoult is not daring. Those who've read "My Sister's Keeper" know it to be emotional, heartbreaking, heavy. They also know that the ending comes from a magical land, where everything works out beautifully, and readers can wipe away a satisfied tear. "How tragic," they can cry, "makes you see the perfect beauty of the balance in life."

Jodi Picoult is a terrible author.

Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and the like, is not. His characters are not afraid, nor is he afraid of them. He kills them off. He plays with the idea of family and love, without being bound by rules of fairytale. He lets a tragic hero die, and be found by her retarded half brother, born of incest and sin, and be kissed not by Prince Charming, but a 50 year old hunter who left her for dead.

Life is not perfect. Life is like Gregory Maguire's world. Completely unrealistic.

Unraveling Pearls

There are always words on tongues. I have learned this, that if you keep them there, balancing long enough instead of letting them fall, you can swallow them back down, and let them fall back, deep into your belly, into yourself, where you can keep them, fashioning them like pearls.

Words and thoughts alone are wispy, hard to grasp. If you wait long enough, you can collect enough of these, bundle them up, press them together, and lock them away, hard little pearls gathered in your belly for nobody else to see. I apologize now to my pen pal, to whom uncountable letters have been scribbled, started, again and again, only to be lost. Everything I must say lies solid, and I've no idea how to unravel them.

There is someone who can. She can read in us what we cannot read in ourselves. Somehow, unbelievably, she can find the edge of a circle, and unravel all the knots and tangles until it's words again, and can be understood. She does the same with art and music, as though she can taste colors and touch harmonies, creating patterns never seen.

After school, we stand together outside, waiting to return home. Laughing, I tell her about my acceptance letter, filled with glitter and confetti. She asks if I'm going. Here, I pause, unable to describe all my reservations, the unnerving conformity, and the fear that I'll never fit in. I cannot word these things, so instead I reach up and unlock my chest. Pearls lie inside, fat, warped, and off-white. I pull them out, and hand them to her, before locking the door shut again. In her hands, they melt, and she understands.

"Don't worry," she soothes. "Look around. There's stereotypes and majorities everywhere you look. But for as many cliques there are that act the way they do, there's people like you and me."

Searching for Words to Describe

It was a bunch. no, a stack. no, not quite. I can almost taste the word I want. It needs to sound disheveled, thrown together. Like a smash of paper. But smash isn't an adjective.

Thesaurus. Agglomeration, assemblage, assortment, band, batch, bevy, blob, bouquet, bundle, caboodle... caboodle?

Dictionary. The lot, pack, or crowd. I have no understanding of the whole caboodle.

Dear Anonymous 3

"Even your response to those comments was so full of so self indulging, you didn't even address the comment. You used large words to make someone else seem stupid, and that's simply insulting. Your posts about girls who straighten their hair and wear makeup was just rude, we can be who we REALLY are with and without makeup. You are not this special gift to the world, I have nothing against you. Being young doesn't excuse ignorance. you're a respectable writer, some of your posts are very good. that being said some of them are very wrong. you can have your opinion but its a seriously disturbed one. you actually judge people and who they are by how they appear. if i want to straighten my hair, its because i like the way it looks to ME. i do it FOR MYSELF. not because of insecurity. and saying "no offense" usually means what you're saying is indeed offensive. you're very cocky and self righteous in you're writing and probably in general. i guess youre just very narrow minded and really have no idea how rude an awakening you are going to recieve when you enter the real world. so i seriously wish you a good luck with that. " -Anonymous

First off, I did address your comment. I admitted I'm self centered, and often ignorant. I'm not trying to make anyone else appear stupid, nor am I trying to use big words. I like language, and the flow of it, again, it's a reason for writing. I'm not any gift to the world, a blog is like an open diary, I publish posts I want to share, and people can read them if they feel so inclined.
I disagree about youth not excusing ignorance. You cannot expect someone young to understand how the world works. Knowledge and understanding come with experience. I have not yet experienced the world.
Recognition, was written about a Facebook group, which ended with "you wouldn't recognize us." I only meant it to be applicable to people who weren't recognized, who didn't know who they were. I never claimed that someone couldn't be recognized if they looked alike, because I don't believe that. The only point I meant to make was that you had to know yourself before anyone else recognized you. I never claimed or even meant to imply that hair irons or makeup was bad, only if someone uses it just try try to fit in, as is anything. They were simply examples, and I didn't mean to put much emphasis on them. By straightening your hair because it looks good to YOU, and you do it for YOURSELF, you're not doing it because of insecurity, I agree. I've straightened my hair, it's fun. I didn't judge anybody by how they looked, and I never said that people who straighten their hair conform by any means.
Saying "no offense" doesn't guarantee a statement to be offensive, only controversial, as many things are.
I don't mean to be cocky or self righteous and I don't believe myself to be such in real life, but I guess you'd have to ask someone else to be the judge of that. I try not to be narrow minded, and I don't think I am. Narrow minded would be deleting your comments, and believing myself to be right. I don't think I'm right. I think I'm wrong on a lot of things. But even if my opinion is seriously disturbed, I'm very glad I have one.
I was never under the impression that the real world would play by my rules. I understand, at least, that life doesn't work like that. But I don't think I'm in for a rude awakening. Rude awakenings come to those that are oblivious, and I expect challenge. I'm terrified of life, of people, of human nature, of every adventure life has in store. But in every terror, there's a secret excitement. Aren't you excited? Aren't you scared? It's unpredictable, and that's the fun of it. It's brought you and I into a debate.
I want you to know that I've got nothing against you either, I very much respect you as a debater, you have opinions and manage to back them up. For that, thank you. As always,
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