I've been singing you this song inside a bubble

I've been singing you this song inside a bubble

It's New Years Eve but to be honest that doesn't have a lot of significance for me, because I tend to categorize the past in terms of school years in my head, and I get more nostalgic in June then I ever do on December 31.  I'm spending tonight at home watching movies with my little sister, and the rest of the weekend reading, and that's okay with me, because I don't think how you spend your New Years Eve night dictates how you spend the rest of your year.  I've got a Ke$ha concert, college acceptances, my 18th birthday and graduation, a Taylor Swift concert, and the beginning of college all in store for 2011. 

The storm has broken

The storm has broken

I'm home now.  Isn't it funny how you can be away for so long, so long that your dad eats all the Pop-tarts and kills your mother's plant and nearly loses your dog, but still come home and get in bed and feel like you've never left?  I love that.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from my trip.   We went from Pennsylvania to New York to Connecticut to Massachusetts, with a side trip to Rhode Island.  These are totally out of order, though.  And they don't capture the excessive heat and humidity or the frequent GPS-related frustration or the constant future-triggered self-doubt that was the essence of the ten days. 

Five hundred pictures.  Darn it, why do I take so many?  I ask myself that all the time - why do I have to capture this moment, this sight, this landscape, this right now over all the other right nows?  That sounds like the Four Questions - why is this night different from all other nights?  That question makes more sense to me now than it did when I was eight.  I wish the answers made more sense too.   

Lying in your attic

Lying in your attic

My unconventionally summery playlist:

1. "Madly", Tristan Prettyman
2. "Zorbing", Stornoway
3. "Mr. Therapy Man", Justin Nozuka
4. "The Man Who Can't Be Moved", The Script
5. "Straw Dog", Something Corporate
6. "Love Lost", The Temper Trap
7. "On My Way Back Home", Band of Horses
8. "August", Julia Nunes
9. "Used to Be", Beach House
10. "This Is the New Year", Ian Axel
11. "Demons", Guster
12. "Pocket Change", Josh Domigo
13. "Miss California", Jack's Mannequin
14. "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To", Weezer
15. "Make Me Wanna Die", The Pretty Reckless
16. "Black Tables", Other Lives
17. "The Guy That Says Goodbye to You Is Out of His Mind", Griffin House

I am so, so glad that it's finally summer, even though I spent today watching "The OC" and "Friday Night Lights" and making jewelry and spilling tomato soup on my dog.  I've made plans for Monday to watch the second installment of "The Lord of The Rings" with Alison because it's a requirement for life, or so she seems to be implying, and my sister's leaving Saturday for five days, and then when she gets back she's leaving for another three weeks, so it's going to be me and my mom most of the time, which means lots of shopping trips and driving lessons and such.

When I visited the Louvre, I saw the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and I was completely amazed at how huge it was.  I spent nearly ten minutes just walking around it, looking up at it, imagining the feat that it must have been to have carved it.  That was such an amazing feeling - feeling small and insignificant but still part of this world, part of this world and its people that but their efforts towards things that are so grand and magnificent and everlasting.

I am looking forward to the future.  I'm going to use this summer to move on, to cleanse my life of the parts of it that I don't like.  The past is past, and there's nothing I can do about it right now.  I want to be one of those that leaves something everlasting behind for the world to enjoy - an Athenian, or so they say.