dancing robots

So it's been a few days since the last time this blog has seen some fresh words and music. The week's been pretty slow, and I've been busy working and taking pictures. I took one of my favorite pictures on Saturday, and while it didn't run in the paper, I was happy with the overall experience of attending the Kentucky Refugee Picnic. It's amazing, the stories these people told. Many of the refugees fled from the war in the Congo, while others were from Sierra Leone, Togo, Central Africa Republic and Liberia. As I sat with the reporter, hearing stories about a man being held captive in a hole for a month, or a family's struggle to leave Tanzania, I realized that it's moments like this that emphasize why I'm going into journalism. Or at least, why I'm studying it. Even if I don't become a photojournalist, I know that I want to document. I want to tell stories. I want to change people for the better through pictures, words and film.

That was heavy.

The coffee shop job isn't too bad, but the 7-12am kills me. I'm too tired after I get back to do anything, and I can't see anyone that night because I have to wake up so early. No more complaining though, because it's money and if I need anything right now, it's some green green cash.

Have you ever met a person and you two seemed to fit together perfectly? From the most broad of interests, such a movies, to the most minute details of life, such as a love for Blue Bell Ice Cream or the fascination of movie trailers? Because I've met someone, someone I'm finally excited about seeing, who gives me that feeling of pure joy when I see him or talk to him or just share dessert with him. And I'm so new at this, so naive as to how I go about this awkward dance of invites and chatting and shared smiles and brief, tingling touches. But this is what he reminds me of: the missing piece of the puzzle, the person who understands this passion for film that no one else I know can comprehend. The person who enjoys coming over to help cook and doesn't mind doing the dishes, who takes life as it comes, is motivated, smart and gives me that feeling I haven't felt about someone in a long time.

And what I've come to realize, what my friend pointed out from his experience, is that what's happening seems to be incredibly organic. It didn't start out as a physical attraction, a drunken hook-up or anything that can cause a relationship to be doomed from the beginning. This may not even be a possible relationship, but what I've come to find is that what's happening is completely the way an attraction to someone, the beginning of something should happen.

Slowly, naturally. It went from hardly knowing him to happenstance chats to a full out two hour talk over lunch and discovering how much there was in common. It was in these moments, these hard times I was having with another person, that I saw his smile. And maybe that's what has won me over.

The entire house is rooting for this kid, and secretly deep down I hope that I don't ruin this.

I was going to post music, but I've come to find that I'm more tired than I anticipated. This day has worn me out, and at the end of it, I feel exhausted and confused. I left my roommates at the moment I received a text to hang out. And while in the end, this night it turned out to be decent, I can't help but feel like I caved in.