I believe that this could happen to me, or to anyone. And the same goes for any number of atrocities. You can be vigilant and intelligent and careful, but that only goes so far.
So how do you go on normally, knowing that all of these horrors happen to people just like you, and though you can prevent most of them most of the time, you can't make yourself safe from them? Do you just try not to think about it?
Happening to look up and see Mars one night.
This was my freshman year of college, early in the year, and I hadn't really made any friends yet and was feeling very homesick. I glanced up and saw Mars, looking brighter and redder than I'd ever seen it before. I went into the dorm and noticed a girl I'd seen before, and said, "Hey, want to see something cool?"
And then we spent the rest of the night hanging out and singing the soundtrack to Moulin Rouge. Six years later we're still best friends.
And because she was in chorus, I joined chorus; and because I was in chorus, I went to Iceland, Estonia, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Greece. Joining chorus also meant that I now have close friends in New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Japan.
When I was a kid and my family drove to South Carolina, we'd often stop at a restaurant that was next to a chicken slaughtering plant (or something like that). It is still the worst thing I have ever smelled. Wet, metallic, sour, overpoweringly vile. It swamped the entire restaurant, and I could never eat a bite there; I could barely breathe. Never bothered my parents, though.
Like #19 toxicfur, a soft dusty-rose smell of perfume and cigarettes brings my grandma right back. For a while my mom kept a drawer full of her old clothes, with the scent of her clinging to them. Just perfume won't do it, and just cigarette smoke I dislike, but the blend of the two is powerfully nostalgic.
Smelling chlorine gives me a little involuntary burst of anticipation. It's strongly linked to the sound of echoing voices and splashes from the indoor pool at the community center.
A year already?
Nobody would really notice if we all just showed up back on the island, would they? Twice the students = twice the awesome. Twice the students also = half the pancakes-per-person ratio, but... um... nobody likes pancakes, right? Yuck. Pancakes.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 3 |
| 2008 | 1 |
| 2007 | 1 |
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