"Of Yetis and Visitations"

I'm trying to sound out opinions on something--I'm thinking of getting the necessary supplies to create Cross-Eyed Yeti albums. We're talking CD labels, jewel cases, case inserts, the whole shebang. If there's enough interest in it (i.e., enough people are willing to pay me $5 to listen to me "sing" and to Clyde play the guitar), I'll do it, and probably sell them at WA Press next week and then to anyone who wants one.

Which reminds me--it appears I'm going to be able to make a trip to Ozarks next weekend. This is very good news indeed--I haven't gotten to see them in a few months, and I don't get to make nearly as many visits there as I'd like. As it stands, several of my friends from there are graduated now, and the number of people I can visit dwindles with each passing semester. Soon, there will be only one or two people there worth visiting. As it stands, I probably won't be able to visit much after this semester, since God only knows where I'll be (for my education and future's sake, hopefully not Oklahoma).

It just keeps reminding me how fast time has gone by, I guess. This time last year, I was still making monthly trips to Ozarks. Chris and JP and James were still there. Heather was still there. The majority of the people I cared about most in the world were contained in a single Arkansan town, and I could visit them all with ease. Now, of course, Chris and JP are in Seattle, James is in Fayetteville, Heather's in El Dorado, and I can't visit everyone at once.

I know I seem to harp on this subject a lot, but my life's in something of a transition right now. I don't feel like I've been in Norman long enough for it to be "home," though I noticed I've started referring to the apartment as that. Ozarks can't really be home anymore, nor can my parents' place. I really don't have anyplace to think of as where I belong. I've tried to belong here in Norman, and sometimes I feel I do. When I'm hanging out with Jess and Dom, or Beth, or Ev, it feels comfortable, as though that's where I'm supposed to be. But then any other time of the day, or the week or month or whatever...Norman just feels like a place where I'm letting the engine idle, a limbo where I don't really belong. I guess it's because a part of me is always thinking, "I'm not here for much longer, so there's no reason to get attached to the place."

Also, it seems like no place can ever feel as home-like as Ozarks did. I know it has less to do with Clarksville or even the school (though I always liked the school...I know several other alumni and alumnae and even current students don't think too highly of the place, but I think I got a very high-quality education there, and feel that I was treated pretty fairly for the most part and that I was only screwed around by the administration a reasonably few number of times). The reason it felt like home was the people. And it's not that I don't care for my friends here--on the contrary, I care for them very deeply. I feel that I can talk to Ev about anything, and that I always have a place to go with Jess and Dom, and that Beth is always ready and willing to just hang out and be one of the most fun people I've been around in a long time. Those four people mean very much to me, and I wouldn't trade them for the world. But let's face it--I had more time to get closer to the Ozarks crew, and was in a different situation there. I lived in close proximity with them. Here, everyone is so spread out and running around keeping up with their hectic lives. It's become that way with the Ozarks crew, too, but I still had a good two or three or even four years of living amongst a group of people that I came to think of as my brothers and my sisters, and I miss them very much.

I've often said that family are people you sorta have to love. You're basically obligated. You don't get to choose them; you're stuck with the folks fate picked for you from before you were born. But friends...friends are those you love because you want to, because you chose them. So in a way, the bond you form with your friends is much stronger than the bond you'll form with your family. That's why I hate letting go of any friend. That's why being so far from so many of them is difficult for me. And not just the Ozarks crew--I miss them, to be sure, but I miss Wendy, I miss a couple of others from high school, I miss people I knew years ago whom I haven't seen since I was in short pants, as the cliche goes.

I don't know why some nights seem to be harder to bear than others, they just are. I don't know what triggers these bouts of nostalgia and longing, they just sorta...happen sometimes. I don't think it's because I'm a manic-depressive or anything like that. I just feel...wistful tonight.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: Coldplay, "Clocks"