little baby corner of the internet

Leaving a meeting for the student newspaper tonight I realized how different it feels to be where I am now as compared to where I was last fall, and the spring semester right before that.  It’s so obvious but I surprise myself each time in my ability to change without forcing myself to.  I ran into a friend on the way home who said she was going to study, and I said I was going to go home and read for class but what I really wanted, despite the snow softly falling tumbling around us that had already made the walkways Oregon-trail treacherous, was to go for a long walk.  She said I should, because she liked the weather right now, goddamnit.

I liked it too, and there was something beautiful in being alone in the blankness.  Geneseo isn’t a happening town on Tuesday nights, but the streets seemed especially empty, just my footprints making marks next to the footprints of a few minutes ago, a few hours ago, catprints making little colons in the snow (the punctuation colon, not the digestive system colon) alongside.  Other brilliant parts: Motion City Soundtrack’s “The Future Freaks Me Out,” coming on ipod shuffle, fitting because a) the title is correct and b) it made me somehow realize that I didn’t get everything wrong when I was fifteen, being alive and healthy enough to take a walk and being not scared enough to do it late at night in February, this that and the other thing that I thought up while walking and forgot now.  I examined the snow and tried to think of something poetic to compare to without sounding stupid, but all the sparkly flakes reminded me of were those Styrofoam balls people can buy at Christmastime from Target to decorate your table with so it looks festive, you know?  I couldn’t decide which image was more real.