This is how I feel:

"I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?' "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?"

From the Richard Linklater film Waking Life

The Fair

I live in an extremely small town in southern Pennsylvania. I lived here from when I was 10 until I was 16 and then after 5 years of living in the great state of Mississippi, I moved back in May.

Every August they have a fair. It's small, and slightly shady, but every year it was something my friends and I looked forward to.

Tonight my twin sister, Jessie and I went to the fair, I haven't been to this fair since I was about 15. I remember the year before that going with Jessie, Hannah and our close friends Robert, and Daryl and one of their good friends Mel. This is who I spent every single weekend with, It was so much fun. This year Hannah is living in North Carolina with her new husband, Mel is married with two children, Robert just finished 6 years in the Navy and Daryl lives in Africa and I haven't seen him in about 5 years, So this year it was just Jessie and I. Fairs scare me slightly, there seems to be something incredibly uneasy about a ferris wheel that you can fold up and load on a truck, but we rode the rides and ate candy apples and listened to women sing country songs off key. It's the last time we're going to hang out for a while and it was overall a fun time. But it also felt kind of strange.

I leave on Tuesday to go back to Mississippi for my Junior year of college and Jess leaves a week after that to spend the semester in Rome. My brother is coming to college with me, my youngest sister starts her freshman year of high school in a week. (She is slightly a super genius and is skipping the 8th grade entirely) My best friend from the second grade just had a baby girl and the second boy I ever dated is getting married before too long. I have no idea when we all became so old. I am not entirely sure I like it.

At times I very much wish I was still 14 and at the fair.