Happy Halloween!

Pictures from Homecoming added to Flickr.

More thoughts soon. Sleep first, tonight.

10/27/05
Airtran Flight 51, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport to Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport:

The last time I saw this city from the air was from a bobbling helicopter, and then it was normal. Lit. Populated. This time it was littered with blue roofs looking like perfectly square, perfectly blue pools. Strewn with pockets of light. Pockets of civilization. The normally glowing skyline of downtown was dim, and in tonight's falling dusk it appeared as though the buildings of the CBD were stretching their hardest to uproot their structures and leave the scarred, pockmarked city.

Further east, the worst hit neighborhoods were just dark. No street lights and no cars to pierce this desolate darkness with their beams of light. Hope ran away hand in hand with the light from his poor, poor city that so quickly got under my skin.

I get wrapped up in the day-to-day and forget about the people just on the other side of the canal that is my next-door neighbor. When my morning drive takes me across a 20 mile, perfectly straight causeway I'm treated to a perfect sunrise that begs ignorance to the problems I drive further away from with each intensification of the orange glow. The sun fingers its purples and oranges up across the lake, such that the lake falls right off the edge of the earth Then, when I turn west towards Robert on I-12 a brilliantly golden orb is funneled behind me by the channel of foilage that frames the highway. So with this perfectly normal daily ritual that obfuscates the outside world, how can I help but to think about nature's profound beauty and the trite healing power of time? How can I help but to feel childishly optimistic, to feel every morning my faith in New Orlean's successful return rise with the creeping sun? How can I help but to forget about the stark difference in my morning's routine from the reality existing 10 feet across a deviant flow of water from my front door?

But from the air and its new perspective on the mangled mass splayed at my doorstep, I'm reminded of how blessed I am. More importantly, this picture has served as the necessary impetus for the situation to hit home, and for me to realize that the best way for me to help since I've got no dry walling or home rebuilding experience (and no secret contractor friends) is to do the cheesy thing of listening, smiling, and offering commraderie. Conversations with absolutely random people on the plane and with coworkers in the past week indicate that all most people want right now (again, other than a visit from their insurance adjustor or a contractor) is someone to tell their story to, to commiserate with. And I can do that.

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Dear Perfect Man,

I've been thinking about you for a little while now, but had kind of forgotten about you in the past 2 months because, well, you know how life gets in the way of relationships like these. But this weekend was a Married-Engaged Persons reunion, too, apparently, and not just GT's Homecoming. How do so many people find the person they want to spend the rest of their lives with in the first 20 years of life? If the divorce rate is 50%, then by gosh some of these people must be horribly wrong! Anyway, all this togetherness talk got me thinking about you again, and as always, refining who you are. So let me lay some things out for you, P.M..

First, you have to know something about me. They might be minor, I agree, but I think it says alot about me if you overanalyze it enough (and I know you will, P.M., because that's part of your requirements):

I keep a notepad and pen nearby whenever I read. Even fiction. Even for pleasure.

I keep a list of words I don't know and then look them up at www.m-w.com.

I lack certain perseverance and follow through, and so sometimes I give up on looking up all the words on my list. Then I feel guilty and blame myself for everything else I've done poorly in the past four years.

I really like the autofill-in feature of Mozilla, especially on M-W when it reminds me of words I looked up recently and refreshes my vocab. Who needs flashcards when you've got autofill-in?

I'm very materialistic about some things. Like pens. I'm willing to spend $10 for a good rubber-gripped ball point. I'm sorry.

I get stressed out if I don't write things down when they come to mind. Which is why I always try to carry post-it notes or notepads with me, but also why, for lack of better implements, I jot notes down on (unused, thank you) tissues and 1-inch tears of scrap paper. Which is why I've also accidentally honked at people many times because I try to use my steering wheel as a firm writing surface while driving.

Sometimes I go to sleep with dirty dishes in the sink and the counter not cleaned off.

Sometimes I'd rather not talk about it. And sometimes I'd like you to ask just to ask (so I know you care and really are Perfect) and then accept unequivocally my "I don't want to talk about it." Sometimes I like thinking better than talking. Lots of times I like being alone, or with other people, more than being with you.

I have a very hard time imagining ever giving part of my life to someone else for an indefinite period of "forever." Yet, I long to pour my love and excitement and sweet ideas into you, P.M., and stop constantly day dreaming sappy melodramatic scenarious in my head when I should be thinking about separation processes. Even with my pessimism for the reality of "love" (eh, been there, done that) and its suckiness, I still want you to say "I love you" to, and you to hug with all my soul.

I want to be nervous and get butterflies when I think about seeing you.

I want you to challenge me - mentally, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. I want you to make me question what I believe and why I believe it and force me to have to explain myself so it's obvious when I'm bullshitting to be difficult and annoying to you. I want you to call me out. But I also want to be able to affect what you think. I want both of us to be better people because of being with the other person.

I want you to think I'm smart. And I want to think you're smart. I want us to talk about nerdy, stupid things during romantic, candle-lit dinners. I want you to make fun of me for always wanting to eat dessert.

Perfect Man, this isn't too much to ask for, right? And I should keep looking for you, right? Because I deserve you. Right?

Love,
Jen

one phone call from the list: check

Thanks for a refreshingly normal conversation, IA. I'm always surprised how nice it is to hear your voice :)

Four more phone calls to go before tomorrow's end.

Are you going to be A-town anytime between tomorrow night and Sunday? 'Cause Shawty's going to where the playa's play and the dirty bird kicks the three, and you know she wants to hit it up July '05 style. Many, many pitchers of margaritas at Willy's, flasking it to the game Saturday, maybe a little Moondog's action for old time's sake, Flying Biscuit, Jake's, not being able to remember anything that actually happened the whole weekend...except seeing all your smiling faces, of course!

hehe I'm also hoping to find time to go to Lenox (MARTA's smarta!) because I have a ton of discounts and free things from my birthday to use before they expire Monday.

As excited as I am to return to my first home away from home and see some of my best friends, I'm also a smidge nervous about how it will feel to go back and be surrounded by nothing but the physical reminders of the memories of the last four years of my life. I'm already picturing what my mind's going to cycle through when I walk down that pathway next to the IC as you walk towards SAC (that one AMAZING sunset I saw through the leafless trees while overwhelmed by how much work the Focus section still needed that night), down Skiles (the sailboat that's always there the first week of the semester; forcing fliers into people's hands), on east campus (evading parking tickets; playing football in the freshman quad with KAB, Lindsey, Corey, and Ansley just so we could get muddy), the Technique office (talk about a love-hate relationship), the MRDC (fun times with T-lo and Sneds; sneaking Biffy into the ME computer lab), ULC 207 (207 Love!!) ....*tear*

We won't even go into the potential disasters that could happen. *I will not think about that. I will not think about that. I will not think about that.*

Homecoming, here I come.

...........................................................................

My reminiscing inspired me to look back at old pictures, so in honor of homecoming and some special people who I won't get to see, here are some of my favorites:

DX Semiformal 2004 - 1/2 of 207
d(Biff+Jen)/dx=0
(hahah Biff, please tell me you remember the solution to that)


Halloween freshman year Corey and I dressed up as our friends, a real set of twins on the GT cheerleading team. I <3 shirts with iron-on patches


Just go out with us to the Compound, Smelly, or we'll carry you!


Who would have though Atlanta would freeze?



Jonny!! Willy's, no, ATLANTA's not going to be the same without you.

and...

Happy Halloween 2K5!

I'm failing miserably at accomplishing my goal to call at least one person on my list of people to call an evening. :(

Is it my fault that MTV reality shows are mind numbingly addictive? Since they come on an hour earlier here, I can fill up on smut and still be in bed by 10:30! (Is anyone else tired of Lacy and her whining? Or the constant rollercoaster that is Danny and Mel's "relationship"?)

Since Tommers and I are calorie counting (seriously, we carry notepads to every meal), I have to get my body-rotting disaccharides from somewhere.

I'd also like to add that my family's thirty-year-old mango tree that stood faithfully in our backyard fell over today in Hurricane Wilma's winds. Mango tree is now drooping over the sea wall into the canal, never again to bear sweet, sweet fruit for my mom to make into ice cream or bread. My mom almost cried on the phone today when she called to tell me our house is ok minus the tree and our screened-in-porch. It's funny how a tree can become such a tangible symbol of abstract family memories.

One more thing that deserves note - and I'm probably going to regret writing this later and delete it,

*********original post deleted due to the internet's lack of obscurity**********

why don't you learn that getting drunk isn't an excuse for being honest or for being an asshole? You still have to be responsible for what you say and do even if you're getting alcohol poisoning in the process.

have i mentioned how much i love my sofa and TV?

With a lack of a better way to start this post (know when your mind gets cluttered with too many things and you just don't know where to start?), I'm going to do this thing that I was "tagged" to do by Baucs; this marks my first ever filled out survey internet thing. Momentous.

10 Years Ago: This puts me at twenty-one days past twelve, back when "teenager" still seemed so far away and 16 was an eternity that would never come. I was in 7th grade at the home of the eagles, McNicol Middle School; what jumps to mind instantly is that Mrs. Voss was my science teacher, I chased Hanson around the cafeteria patio area (and him with that bowl hair cut - whatwasithinking), and my science fair project (which won 3rd place at the State Science Fair in Engineering, woot woot) examined the effect of material and surface roughness on the growth of marine fouling organisms (like barnacles and algae). If the last sentence didn't already give away my secret, I was a glasses-wearing Dork with no fashion sense (though some would argue that that hasn't really changed), no chest, and toted a lunch box with me to school (that the mean kids would occassionally hang from the top of the -- what's that game with the ball hanging on a string from a pole, 2 people hit it back and forth until it's wound around the pole?? -- pole and laugh at me for being undeveloped. I loved middle school.) Enough of those memories...

5 Years Ago: Ahh, five years ago was a much better time. I was in the 3rd month of my senior year in high school, I had a car with a parking spot on campus, I was surrounded by amazing friends (word to your mothers, H & D), and I was part of the sci & eng magnet program's golden children (oh, and I had filled out by now). I was riding high and feeling good about my college applications (how grounding it was to go to Tech and meet lots of other people who vastly outmatched me at everything - academics, effort, modesty, you name it); even if things didn't always make sense at home, at least I was distracted by 10 million other things in my life. Though I figure this is the way it is for mostly everyone, my senior year marked a definitive end to a significant portion of my life as I knew it up to then. I could feel how differently life was about to go, but I tried to stay focused on what had become my personal mantra for surviving: stay in the present, do everything with no regrets, and don't dwell on the past unless you're actively learning from it.

Granted, university changes things for everyone; my experience allowed me to learn why I had to crumble the stones I had built up around my heart in order to ever know what it feels like to have a friend truely care, or what it's like to hurt so much you want to die, or what it's like to have unbounding joy that you're afraid of because you don't want to know what it's going to feel like when the joy ends. I know, I'm drifting into 4 years ago, 3 years ago, but I've been so wholey shaped as a person by key events that I could count on my hands that have all happened in the past four years - I was always an inquisitive girl and a passionate (and overdramatic) writer (and probably still have a flair for the dramatic here), but I didn't know what it was like to let yourself down -- and only yourself -- to feel like you had lost who you were, to know what disappointment was until the first two years of college. And I'm so grateful for those days-worth of tears because now I understand the importance of not burying things, of letting my friends care about me, and of investing in someone else even if it's going to kill you inside at some point. But I digress...

One Year Ago: The beginning of my senior year at GT, my confusing and complicated and amazing and wonderful senior year. I was completely ready to graduate and move on with my life. I had learned all that I thought I needed to, I had grown as a person as much as I thought I could from one environment, and I needed new challenges. I finally felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, that I had earned my own respect and was finally seeing through fruition the goals I had set for myself for the past fifteen years. I had the most amazing birthday ever (thanks to my friends - I love you guys! :)) and right around now, one year ago, I was interviewing for jobs, taking the GRE, and deciding which of the many open paths I wanted to venture down. It's funny that no specific events jump to mind (except my birthday party - keg stands wha what?!), just a general sense of my emotions and mental state. I guess I have always been a little obsessed with "thinking and feeling" crap and not so much the activities that make me think and feel.

Yesterday: I reflected on how happy I am with my current situation (in the grand scheme of things, neglecting the fact that New Orleans is a huge toxic stew and I'm far away from new friends) while talking to one of my absolute favorite people (I <3 KAB! :)) on the phone. I spent the weekend in Baton Rouge -- Saturday night LSU game, all-you-can eat brunch at a sports bar while watching FOUR HOURS of Sunday football, some tennis and laying out in the sun, more football watching, grilling out, and driving back to New Orleans to sleep.

Five Snacks I Enjoy:
chocolate, grapes, chocolate, pretzel and cheddar goldfish, chocolate pudding, and chewy fudge ice cream with marshmellow goop topping from Jaxson's

Five Songs I Know All the Words To:
Our Lady Peace, "Clumsy"
Maroon 5, "Sunday Morning" (if you didn't know, that's the song Mr. Bloggy's title comes from; the subtitle thingy -- thisisthestory blah blah -- if from a Nine Days song from back in the day)
John Mayer, "Your Body is a Wonderland" and "My Stupid Mouth"
Counting Crows, "Anna Begins" (really, most of the songs on August & Everything After, give or take a few a articles here and there)
"You're a Grand Ol' Flag" ha - it's true
I also really like to screech Dashboard Confessional at the top of my lungs in my car, by myself or with H & D, but I kind of make up the words sometimes because even if I knew the words, I wouldn't be able to make them sound like the words you hear

Five Things I'd Do With a million dollars:
I hate this one. I don't want a million dollars, or the social responsibility that comes with it, because one measly million dollars won't even make a dent in alleviating world hunger or violence or rape or prejudice or cures for AIDS or cancer, so what do you do with it? How could I ever pick which cause most deserved some small token of support, when I don't feel like the money would make any difference in the long run. Ugh, this question makes me really frustrated because with my defeatist attitude, why should anyone ever do anything to try to make things better for someone else or for the environment if it won't ever change things on a broader scale? But I still think it's worthwhile to try, I guess. Right? I guess you have to try to have hope - or do you have to have hope to try?

Ok, I know what I'd do with the million - I'd find the most compassionate, burdened person in the world and give THEM the money, trusting that they'd do a better job of doleing it out than I could.

5 things I'd never wear:
1. a popped collar. do you really think protecting your neck from a strong draft looks good? do you? because really, it looks like you're trying to go for a mysterious, bad-boy look but falling short and just end up looking like a lopsided, dopey, unfinished goof who follows five minute fashion trends in the hopes that your outside appearance will speak louder (and more effectively) for your personality (or who you purport to be) than your conversational abilities and actual self will. rant!
2. elastic-band jeans. eeewww.
3. two pairs of squishy-down socks at the same time, layered, each one a seperate revolting shade of neon. (I repent for my past sins...I was six and you know you did it, too!)
4. my hair poofed up in the front like a duck's bill (you know, like fake bangs pulled back in a pin and then teased to make a hemisphere of bad stringy hair over the center of your forehead, like that girl on this season of the Real World)
5. huge furry, tassled boots from the Netherlands with little fur-ball things hanging down the sides in magenta

5 bad habits:
overthinking every. stupid. thing.
cutting people off when they're talking.
not paying attention when people are talking, and being lost in my own mental fantasy land instead.
being late. just enough for it to be annoying to other people, but not enough for me to ever get myself in trouble for it.
not calling my friends enough. (or calling them back in a timely fashion)

5 favorite toys:
my power tools set (that's right I installed all the hardware in my bathroom and hung all my pictures on the wall) If I had my own cad/cam mill and lathe, they'd be my favorites too. I'm excited by torque. (pause) hahahahahaha
the internet. does that count?
board games with friends
digital cameras - especially my video of Biffsters and I doing our special dance in the hallway of the apartment last year after Mock Rock. hahaha, or the pictures Emily's took of us all looking oh so *special* *sigh* for a moment of bittersweet memories :)

That was fun. Now I'm going to pass responsibility of filling this out to Jen Lee, Jonathan, and Emily (who never ever ever posts ever. boo.)

Tonight Tommers came over for dinner (I made this awesome turkey bacon-wrapped chicken stuffed with spinach, garlic, and pepperjack cheese, with some sauteed garlic-olive oil broccoli and wheat spiral noodles) to celebrate the arrival of my new sofa. I put a picture of her on Flickr. *sighs of joy*

Through the evening's conversation I realized that I now have three items of clothing that I will probably never wear again because they've been challenged beyond their elastic limits (so, uh, we're talking about the plastic deformation region if you were to plot stress vs strain of the fabric? uh ah what's going on - I totally just dorked out, and yes, I have a fully functioning "delete" button but I'm choosing to let you all laugh at me instead like I just did for thinking that). Those items include two red dresses that Andy borrowed for the Red Dress Hash 2 weeks before Katrina (sponsored by some running club, men and women get up in red dresses and race through the French quarter, stopping to get the beer that is handed out along the way instead of water) and my Old Navy pink flowered tie-back low-cut cotton shirt that Chris swapped me for exactly a week ago. And by "swapped" I do mean that I was then wearing his black and some other colors stripped button down. Sexy.

I took the day off work to get the sofa, and while waiting for it to arrive around 2pm, I WASHED MY ENTIRE FRIDGE. AND FREEZER. Have you ever washed an entire appliance before? Have you?

It didn't so much smell as the entire floor of the fridge was COVERED WITH SMALL BLACK BUGS. Gnats/flies/ebola carriers, whatever you want to call them, they decided to move into my house, live it up on my rotting cream cheese, have nasty gnat sex on every shelf of my fridge -- I'll give it to 'em for doing it on all the vertical AND horizontal surfaces -- and then all DIE. I was hoping that once I had taken the FOUR HOURS to clean out the mass grave that was my food preservation unit, there would be peace in my world. The bugs would stay outside and I would stay inside. We'd respect each other's space. By God, these 4 walls are all I've got -- you bugs have limitless boundaries on places to pester other people!

But no. No, no, no. All that wild bug fornication was clearly fruitful because post-cleanup I am once again the owner of a very cold cemetary that also happens to be a conveniently cold storage box. And I'm boycotting cleaning it again because I know those bugs probably did it like unprotected monkeys before dying a very cold, but sexually satisfied, death. So there. Tommers says that so long as I stop leaving plates of raw, spongiform-infected beef around I should be ok. Damn.

Luckily my resident mold friends were much more cooperative in their eviction today. I mixed my first ever bucket of bleach and water to disinfect the few spots around the house that were growing a thin layer of fuzzy, greenish-black mold. It was really satisfying to wipe that sponge over a particularly hairy spot and see it dissolve in seconds. I felt hardcore, too, with my yellow PPE kitchen gloves on. HSE, wha what?! (hehe that's Health Safety and Environment for my non-work friends out there, and PPE is Personal Protective Equipment. I think.)

In driving around today, the mounds of trash started to blend into the fabric of the landscape, and I didn't feel as depressed by how somber everything looked. Maybe it's because I had just fought my own battle against death (those gnat hussies!) and done a little of my own destroying (take that mold, mildew, and soap scum!); at the same time, though, I don't want to lose my sensitivity to the uniqueness of what's going on. It's becoming precariously normal. I filed for my homestead exemption today. And drilled some exploratory wells in my wall where the paint has bubbled up. Normal.

I'd also like to mention that I've had NPR on since I got home at 4:30 today, which means that for the past 2 hours Tom and I, and then just me, listened to classical music. In my grown up house. aaaaa!! Have I mentioned how much I love having a couch? To lounge on while stealing my neighbor's unsecured wireless internet access (I probably shouldn't write that here, huh?) and listening to *ahhhh* classical music. I have arrived.... :)

Do you ever feel that your life is just a fulfillment of someone else's perceptions?

I don't know whether it was seeing the siding torn off the Comfort Inn I stayed at in June when I visited New Orleans to look for condos, or if it was the sheer overwhelming emotion of the entire strange situation, but with every mile that brought me closer to home I was brought closer to tears. This all actually happened.

It seems as though everyone is faking normalcy and I just want to scream from my car window, "WHAT'S GOING ON HERE? WHY ARE YOU BUYING CANDY AT THE CVS WHEN THERE ARE TEN REFRIGERATORS ON THE CORNER AND NATIONAL GAURDSMEN WITH RIFLES AND HEAPS OF ROTTEN LUMBER AND BLUE TARPS EVERYWHERE?"

The past 6 weeks have been a redundant lesson in how life won't wait for me to be ready for it. First, my mom had surgery to make sure she didn't have cancer. Next, Hurricane Katrina destroyed any sort of feeling of "home" I had so desperately tried to create. Then Jody told me he wanted to put me in the back of a metaphorical filing cabinet, easily accessible when needed for a sweet memory, before telling me a week later that he has a new girlfriend. I was angry at myself for being upset, because I broke up with him. I should be ambivalent. I should be happy, or at least happy tinged with bittersweet-ness, that he is feeling better. But I should not have felt as utterly lost and hopeless and racked with sobs in the Learning Center bathroom because he decided to officially move on from the only thing I've ever known. I know I've tried to build a new reality in the past 4 months, one that is independent and free and unemotional, but it still hurts in that really, really deep part of your heart -- the part that you know there's nothing you can ever do to change. It hurts in that kind of way that makes you curl your fists and want to scream. It hurts in that kind of way that you feel like your heart is literally digging its way out of your chest with a dull soup spoon.

So I just pushed it away, the confusion and tears over lost love, lost city, and lost time, until it's easier. But it's not easier yet and everyday when I leave work I wish I had something to go home to -- some cheer other than the still-life flowers I bought Sunday with the hopes that their life would remind me that I'm still apart of the living when surrounded by the stench of the stagnant sorrow of a broken city. I can only drown in mindless MTV for so long.

It's hard to have hope when you can see, not 100 yards away, the wide hole that caused the massive flooding that ruined the city; it's hard to have hope when you feel like you won't ever be in love with your soul mate again; it's hard to have hope when you feel yourself treading water in a pool with no edges and no stairs. It's hard to have hope when geography keeps you from hopeful things like friends and

At work I can only think of 2 things when I'm not distracted by flowmeters, MOCs, and SAP, and one of them is how to escape the fog of depression that hangs over everything south of the Lake for a little while -- but I haven't worked here long enough to try to request an assignment internationally, and as much as the area sucks right now, I don't want to feel like I'm somehow quiting or escaping. I know that I'll get used to being in this different, more subdued New Orleans, eventually.

In the meantime, I've got a trip to Atlanta in a week and 2 days -- oh the awkwardness, I can't wait -- and my first Thanksgiving to learn to cook a turkey for, and a certain Intellectual Advisor to call back :)

Oh, and the rest of my European Adventure was everything I could have hoped for (or everything Danny and Hanson hoped for, anyway). I had a great time, and since my last posting visited Berlin and Gronengin. Maybe more on that later; it's hard to think that I was there less than a week ago. How does this dismal "rebuilding" area suck you in so much?

I listened to Michael Buble driving around Metairie to get my mail for the first time and see what everything looked like, and this particular part of a song struck a chord:

"And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
But this was not your dream
But you always believed in me"

...addition 15 minutes later....

Listen to this if you didn't hear it on Monday's All Things Considered: a great commentary on poverty and a similar sentiment to my lamentations about ... post-Katrina aid donations.

So I also just realized that my 22nd birthday came and went without any great, stereotypical Jen over-analysis. Sitting in the Grand Winston Canteen the week before my birthday, I tried to enumerate the great milestones of the last year of my life, and all I could think of to jot down was a list of places I'd been. How can a year of my life be characterized most aptly with a mere list of geographical locations? I want to immediately spring to mind the mental trips I've taken, the geography of my moral, ethical, and emotional map that I've plotted in the past year. I finally got brave enough to admit I could go to the CC and challenged my confidence. What good books have I read in the past year, aside from The Bomb in My Garden, about Iraq's nuclear weapons program (that stopped, according the the book anyway, a long long time before Bush's invasion)?

I'm too tired now to think. Goodnight world. And friends, I promise I'll be a real person again soon and call.

The dread I feel at this instant for leaving Rijswijk and EP00 and this university-holiday-escapee setting is at least moderately tempered by the fact that for the first time, "returning home" doesn't mean parent-filled Florida. It means the calm and relaxing caverns of my own home. My own home in a state in which I have 1 girl friend and enough guy friends to require both hands to count. I won't be immediately bombarded with the returning-home standard inquisition: how was it? tell me all the details in a brief overview all at once. I know you're leaving out juicy details, young lady. Not wanting to talk about the five weeks that just passed because I want time to process them myself first, to distill my own confusions and contemplations and analyses into a comprehendable, compact review for others. I want to relish in the small, nonsense things that made the trip for me, to wallow in the small funnies that aren't worth telling other people who weren't there before losing them and their freshness and the emotional reaction they spark. I want to be selfish with my memories, to make them concrete, before I share.