stacina's Xanga

Take a flying LEAP!

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:16:11 GMT

Happy Leap Day!

And, welcome back to my blog! I'm blogging again--yay! The leap year made me do it.

No seriously.

Leap Day is fantastic--like New Year's Day or that bonus hour you get at 2 a.m. on some Sunday in the fall when Daylight Savings Time ends. . . but on crack. Today doesn't really "count"; it's some strange conglomeration of lots of other days from the past four years, or the next four years, or something very Quantum Leap-ish like that. Plus, if you go to McDonalds before 10:30am today, you can get a free Sausage Burrito (with purchase of a medium or large drink)!!

But seriously . . .

Beyond this atemporal thing (which I totally acknowledge I am a bit of a freak for obsessing over...whatev), Leap Day has me thinking about what my life has been like on previous Leap Days. And it's really remarkable how much things change in four years (and how much things stay the same...oobladi, ooblada, oobla...yaddayaddayadda). Let me review:

February 29, 1984: age 1.5;
I really can't say much about this Leap Day, as my only memory from this age is the time my cousin Chris (also 1.5) bit me because he wanted to play with my baby glowworm.

February 29, 1988: age 5.5;
I was a proud kindergartener, taking cake decorating classes with my mother, plus ballet, tap, and jazz classes. Oh, and I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of my baby brother so that we could be a real family (with a mom, a dad, a brother, and a sister--just like the Barbie Heart family).

February 29, 1992: age 9.5;
I was in Mrs. Jenkins's 4th grade class, sporting serious bangs that are only rivaled by my latest look. Oh, and I was huge into sweater dresses and leggings (but the kind with stirrups) and ballet flats. I was soooooo seriously ahead of my time!

February 29, 1996: age 13.5;
Hello Junior High. Hello boys. Hello cheerleading. Hello ruling the school (after all, I was in 8th grade--I was invincible!). Oh, and hello 2nd place in the regional Power of the Pen contest :)

February 29, 2000: age 17.5;
My senior year at WUHS, and I was sooooo checked out. It probably didn't help that I had a boyfriend who I was toooootally into who was a freshman at OSU. In fact, you can bet that I spent the better part of my Leap Day this year online ~~IMing~~ or emailing or on the phone with Tryg. Unless I was busy kidnapping Mrs. Stewart's kitty-cat clock.

[EDIT: What was I thinking? We didn't have IM; we were totally ICQing!]

February 29, 2004: age 21.5;
This was my first senior year at OSU. Current major: English, with an emphasis in Renaissance studies (though I'd soon be switching that to an emphasis in Education). I was taking Syntax, Sanskrit, Organic Chemistry, and HipHop Dance. And I was gearing up for Spring Break in Panama City Beach, FL, wear I would discover my horrible allergies to pine pollen (though I wouldn't realize it at the time and would heavily overmedicate on Nyquil) as well as my horrible inability to apply sunscreen evenly.

February 29, 2008: age 25.5;
Now here I am, in my third year at Stanford doing a Ph.D. in linguistics. Who'da thunk?

The moral of this story is, four years is HUGE, and each Leap Day represents majorly different life stages. I'm sure that eventually this curve starts to flatten out, and things won't have changed that much from one Leap Day to the next. But I can't really see that happening anytime soon. In fact, it's not clear to me that my next Leap Day (February 29, 2012) will be spent in the same place, with the same people, or even with the same version of mySELF as any of these previous Leap Days, including today. Which means my life is changing, it's going somewhere...and I'm gonna make sure it goes somewhere GOOD.

So, since today is kinda atemporal (at least in my head), I'm gonna try my next four years on for size. I'm going to be me-er today, doing and saying everything that comes to me without holding back. So world, beware. (Blogosphere, too. I'm back!)

"There are places I remember all my life..."

Thu, 03 May 2007 07:12:47 GMT

I can't imagine making my life back there, but I can't imagine making my life without it. Things I miss about Home:

front porches
side porches
back porches
porch swings
that truck cruising town with the dukes of hazzard horn
cruising main street (in wu or hillsboro!)
udf
covered bridges
foot bridges over miniscule creeks
brush creek
beasley fork creek
buzzard's roost
red rock
cloud watching
hot summer rain
nickel cokes from the soda fountain at blake's
strawberry coke
grippo's bbq chips
roastbeef specials (from the 125 grill)
$12 haircuts
dollar general
family dollar
dollar town
dairy bars
demolition derbies
the appo
listening to the police scanner to see if i recognize anyone
the people's defender (for laughs only)
el habanero (mexican food, ac style)
going to walmart when i'm bored and want to run into old friends
bonfires
hay rides
parties in barns (or barn-like tecumseh buildings)
fields of tobacco
hay rolls
amish buggies
giovanni's pizza
frisch's big boy
lunch from the olde wayside inn on sundays (if you get there before all the churches let out)
^scalloped chicken
baked steak from prather's
long walks on walnut street
long walks by the old cemetery
long walks to the fairgrounds
the old playground
the old gym
the fair
elephant ears, funnel cakes, and shaved ice
falling leaves
snow
homegrown tomatoes--red and yellow ones
waving to just about anyone when you meet them on the road
hills of cedars and redbuds
lewis mountain
sassafras tea
woodland wildflowers
churchladies who sing like this:

hunting for arrowheads
hunting for fossils
hunting for mushrooms
hunting for ginger
getting out of school on the first day of deer season (gun season)
biscuits & gravy
grandma's flip coffee
ridges (pumpkin, vaughn's, tater, gift, etc)
the bookmobile

to be continued...

Home (in other people's pics).

"Memories in the photograph / Of the last generation"

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:55:29 GMT

While I was in Ohio, I spent a lot of time with my Nanaw (who celebrated her 73rd birthday while I was there!). She brought out a lockbox full of cool photographs, some of which she had even forgotten about. I scanned as many as I had time to scan, and will scan more the next time I'm in town. Here are a few of my favorites:

L-R: My Great-Aunt Dorothy Mae Mefford, my Great-Grandma Elizabeth Levoni Mefford, and my Grandma Wanda Lee Mefford.

L-R: My Great-Great-Aunt Viola Magnolia Morrison, my Great-Grandpa Carl Thomas Mefford, my Great-Uncle Carl Junior Mefford, and my Grandma Wanda Lee Mefford. My grandma was 18 in this photo.

L-R: My Great-Grandma Elizabeth Levoni Mefford, and my Grandma Wanda Lee Mefford.

L-R: My Grandpa Harry Virgil Dryden with other members of the Honor Guard: Glen, Mac, and Hugh.

My Grandpa Harry Virgil Dryden and Grandma Wanda Lee Dryden. They had been married for seven months, and Grandma was four months along with their first child (my Uncle Wayne). Grandpa was home on leave for a couple of weeks.

I don't really know which of these soldiers is which, except that the soldier on the far right in the back row is my grandpa, Cpl. Harry Virgil Dryden. The other soldiers include: Cpl. Harris, Pfc. Beard, Pfc. Moore, Pfc. Fenell, and Pfc. Groves.

This was probably taken during a field training exercise while he was stationed at Ft. Hood, TX (1954-55?).

L-R: My Uncle Virgil Wayne Dryden, my Aunt Susan Ann Dryden, and my Mom Kathy Lee Dryden. My mom was about 4 years old in this photo.

My Mom, Kathy Lee Dryden. What a cutie in her lil do-rag, huh?

"There's something about Sunday night . . .

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 01:18:18 GMT

. . . that really makes you want to kill yourself . . ."

Okay, maybe not really. But Sunday nights are decidedly less exciting this summer without new episodes of Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy to look forward to. Plus, starting tomorrow I have class on Mondays, and though it's only a three-week course (thus, only three Mondays with classes), it's just not a very summer-like thing to do. Even having a regular 40+ hour/week job in the summer seemed more summer-like than this.

I suppose things could be worse. At least lately my life is feeling less and less like high school. Otherwise, I'd finish the above quote from Angela Chase (Claire Danes) of My So-Called Life:

". . . especially if you've been totally made a fool of
by the only person you'll ever love, and you have a
geometry midterm on Monday--which you still haven't
studied for because you can't, because Brian Krakow
has your textbook and you're too embarrassed to even
deal with it. And your little sister's completely finished
with her homework, which is just, like, so simple and
mindless a child could do it."

How I miss that show! Why did it only stick around for one fabulous season? Why don't they make shows that really speak to teens anymore instead of this bizarre Laguna Beach/Gilmore Girls crap? That's not reality! My So-Called Life was the realist non-reality tv EVER. I mean c'mon, it had a character called Brian Krakow! Don't tell me we all don't know that guy.

Okay, I promised myself that I wouldn't turn blogging into a negative experience by bitching and ranting all the time. I do think that Angela's final note on Sunday nights still applies, however:

"And that creepy 60 Minutes watch sounds like
your whole life ticking away."

Sucks to have a case of "The Mondays" long before Monday actually arrives.