Dear Allison Weiss,

You are a wonderful Indie guitarist/singer who I am exceptionally fond of. In fact, I plan on taking one of my very best friends in the known universe to your show in early October.

Anyway, one of your songs is called "Break My Heart", and I am writing this letter to you to reveal to you exactly how far from my truth one of the lyrics is.

The line is thus: "I'm in the passenger seat, of a car that's going nowhere."

The first time I heard the song, I was like, "Oh my god, that just described my life."

Listening to it a few times over though, I realized just how untrue that is.

I definitely feel like I'm going nowhere. I'm sitting in this car, and the steering wheel is freaking locked. I'm not moving, because who moves a car with a locked steering wheel? How the hell could I have any control over where I'm going if I can't steer? Another reason for going nowhere is that I my foot is stomped onto the brake so hard I'm surprised it hasn't burst through the floor of the car. What's really crazy is that I'm standing on the accelerator just as hard. I want to be moving forward just exactly as much as I want to stay where I am. Either way, I can't let my foot off of either pedal because the steering doesn't work so I'd probably just crash anyway.

So...what's wrong with the lyric? Well, Allison, clearly I am not in the passenger seat. I'm clearly in the driver's seat. I am in the DRIVER'S seat of a car that's going nowhere. I have no one to blame for the fact that even if I decide I want to move forward and not stay in the same place forever, I'll end up in a wreck because I have no idea where I'm going or any control over how I get there.

Otherwise, it's a great song. Keep up the good work, and I'll see you at your show!
Hillary

**I realized I hadn't blogged in awhile, but I'm out of entertaining college anecdotes. This is just a peek into my (admittedly rather crazy) mental state. I like metaphors. They're more fun than straight truth.

Maine

I could live in Maine. Just saying.

So, Emily, our friend Jenn, and I took a day trip to Maine yesterday. Ogunquit, specifically. For those of you unfamiliar with Maine geography, Ogunquit is a beautiful little beach town about 90 minutes from Boston. Absolutely amazing.

On a different note, beaches always make me think of my Daddy. As soon as my feet touched the sand (and that was relatively soon after stepping off the pavement, as I kicked my shoes off), I wanted to make a sand castle. That's something he and I would always do. We would create these simple but huge mountains of sand and then decorate them with seaweed and shells and rocks and anything else we could find. It was something we did every time we went to the beach. Just he and I. I guess because Jess was too young to really help. Or maybe it was just because I was Daddy's girl. Another thing we did on the beach was fly kites. Emily h ad never flown one before, and if the beach had been less crowded I probably would have made her go buy a cheap kite so I could teach her. (PS she did end up building a sandcastle with me).

I think the reason beaches still can evoke such strong memories for me is because I don't go to them often enough. I have been to the beach WITH my Dad more times than I have been without him. I'd like to keep it that way. I always want the smell of sand and salt water to make me stop, smile, and remember the Dad who took me on special just Dad-and-Hilly beach dates. My Dad loved the water, and I loved loving it with him. And I miss him every time I am near the ocean. Lots of other times too.

But anyway, I was writing about Maine. Which is lovely. I could really and truly see myself living there. I do realize that it gets freaking cold in the winter, but I think I could handle that. I look good in sweaters :P I think I could rock it. But then again, there also aren't many people in Maine, so it is probably difficult to get a job. But it's close to Canada, so I could smuggle in pharmaceuticals if need be. Kiddinggggg.

Love to all!

Ready, Set, CLASS!!

Mom: So what are you most excited about for this year?
Me:(thinks about it for a second)Classes.

The saddest part is that I was not kidding. Or being sarcastic. I am absolutely in beautiful nerd love with the classes at Brandeis. Yesterday I had French (enchantee!) and Psych (which I dropped. Promptly.). French was basically like a high school language class, and I just really didn't care enough about Psych to put in the level of work they were asking for.

Today I just got out of my new Anthropology course: Landscapes, Places, Meaning, and Memory Across Cultures. The professor won my heart as soon as he walked into the room. I had gotten there early (because I am pathologically punctual) and everyone was just sort of sitting around waiting for class to start. Oh PS, the desks were arranged in a circular formation with a clear head but there were too many desks for the circle so some were scattered around the edges, clearly not places of authority. Everyone arranged themselves around the room according to how close they did or did not want to be seated to the professor (I might have just made a grammatical butchery of that sentence...oh well.), of course leaving the head desk empty in anticipation of his arrival.

When Professor Golden entered the room however, he sat at one of the edge desks without a word. No introduction, no 'time to start class!'. Just entered and sat in a place unusual for the teacher to sit. It put the whole class into semi-spaz mode as everyone had to decide in a split second how to orient themselves to this new positioning of the room. As he watched this, Professor Golden smiled and said, "Now see how nervous I've made you all? That's the effect that space and placement has on our culture."

OMG. He did NOT just underline the ENTIRE PURPOSE of our class.

Except that he did. In an exquisitely simple but poignant manner.

Wow. You go Professor Golden. You go.

Now I'm off to Adapting and Revising: A Collaborative Process for Prose Writers, Playwrights, and Screenwriters. Hopefully to be wowed again.

While You Were Out

Hey everyone!

I'm back!!

That's right kids, I am once again at Brandeis, this time as a SOPHOMORE. Before I dive into this year, I wanted to give you all a bit of a catch-up on what happened during my summer. Oh what a summer it was.

Basically, everything epic that could have happened, DID. Emily (from 'Deis) came to visit, there was tons of stargazing and hanging out with people who are fantastic and mean absolutely everything to me, there was some time spent with a really awesome boy who ended up being...well...just a boy (friends to the end...), and there was this super awesome play that I got to direct. That I wrote. That starred only the most incredible cast EVER. Apparently they liked me too because they gave me roses and a framed picture that they wrote nice things all over :)

So summer was great. Beautiful. Ended too soon, but doesn't it always?

I'll post more about the first few days on campus in a bit. But now I must dash. Lunch date!

Finale

"December 24, 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time,
Can't believe a year went by so fast...
Time to see,
What we have time to see!
Turn the projector on!"

RENT of course. From the finale.

Fitting, because it is the finale of my freshman year of college.

WHERE THE HELL DID IT GO?! Didn't I just get here? Time goes SO fast. Especially because I did a fairly decent job of wishing it all away in the end part of first semester. Never, Ever wish away time. Because no matter how hard you try, you'll never get it back.

Someone told me that years go faster as you get older because each year is a smaller fraction of your life. I don't know if it's that or something else, but I can vouch for the fact that everything is so fleeting.

I'm going to be a sophomore. Wasn't it like a week ago that I was crying every night, freaking out about where I was going, how I was going to be there, what was going to happen next?

I still can't answer any of those questions. But I guess I'm not as worried about it anymore. It's hard to be worried when I just finished finals and I have three clear months ahead of me to just enjoy my friends and my home.

No, this year wasn't at ALL what I expected. But I wouldn't change anything. Even the stuff that sucked will make a good memory someday. And the stuff that was great was really really great.

So long freshman year! Summer, do your worst. I'll be back in Boston in the fall <3

Brendan

I knew a pic had to exist of this. Still thinking of you kiddo.

Are there no Shadows where you are?

Dear Brendan,

I've been thinking about you a lot tonight for some reason. I remember little things like that time you and Sofi stole my shoe and put it on top of a flat that I could possibly reach the top of, and how after Mary Girard won Regionals, you literally jumped off the stage into my arms and for a brief second I held all of your weight.

It's so surreal. I look through old pictures on Facebook and, without warning, there you are. On the edge of some frame, always smiling, always on the edge. You were on the edges of my memories, but you were there. It's even stranger now that you were on the edge. I will start to tell a story now and stop, all of a sudden, because I remember that you were there.

I tell a joke, one of my favorites (Where does the King keep his army? In his sleevey!), and recall as soon as I've done so that it was you who first shared it with me. People around me laugh, because I've made the kind of friends who like corny jokes, and I smile, but feel strange inside.

I miss you. I hadn't seen you in a year, and probably would not have seen you for a long time to come, but I miss you. I think a lot about you, now that you are gone. You are the first person I know who is my own age who died. The first funeral I went to where I cried.

The emotions inside of me when I think of you are so...strange, to use the word yet again. But it applies. I'm sad, but there's more to it. There's the thought that I barely knew you, so why am I so very sad? As I mentioned, you were just a peripheral character. I think that makes it even harder. You were someone I didn't give much of a thought when you were there, so it's now odd that you have become the focus of my thoughts.

I don't know Brendan. But I hope that wherever you are, there are no shadows, and that you see everything as day (those are adapted Anberlin lyrics by the way, "Are there no shadows where you are?/ I can see everything as day"). I truly hope that you have found your peace, and I hope you know that you are so very missed, even by people of whom you might not expect it. You were such an amazing addition to the world and it is such a loss that your sun doesn't shine on us anymore. But the memories will always be there kid. And every time I see you flitting around the edge of some story I tell of wonderful times at home, I will stop, and I will remember what an incredible hugger you were, and how special you could make anyone feel.

I love you Brendan. And I hope you know that.