To turn from here and go.

It's odd leaving one home to go back to another. How many homes can one person have? It's taxing to weep and bid goodbye to one home, then in a matter of hours greet the other with a grin and feelings of complacency.

My last few days in Missouri sped past like the last few grains of sand in an hourglass. Once I hit Monday and people started really saying goodbye, that was it. I spent Tuesday hugging trees (literally) and staring at the greenery around me like I might never seen a plant again. I spent most of Wednesday cuddling my dog and trying not to cry at the thought of leaving.

It was mostly a quiet car ride to the airport, my mother and I just enjoying each other's company, until we started singing "Seven Bridges Road". It was stuck in my head, and it seemed appropriate. At least, much more appropriate than "Hooked On A Feeling", which was stuck in my head the day before.

Just for the record, I love the Kansas City International Airport. It's so easy to navigate. Other airports just don't make any sense.

Going through security, I somehow managed to avoid going through a body scanner. They pointed me toward the metal detector instead. I would call those three minutes of my life both a win and a narrow squeak. I flew to Phoenix via Minneapolis, so I had one incredibly short flight followed by one incredibly long one, which felt even longer because my mind wouldn't shut up and let me get to sleep. Crimanitley! I need Swedish Fish.

My flight got in close to midnight, so my poor dad only got four hours of sleep before he had to go to work this morning. I've spent the day bingeing on unlimited internet and enjoying the air conditioning and arid climate.

Tomorrow: laundry.

Listening to: "Suerte" by Shakira
Reading: Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Red Rover, Red Rover.

I forgot to mention a few entertaining things about Saturday, like how my brother clothes lined himself playing Red Rover, or how the first person to break through the line in that game was a girl who can't weigh a hundred pounds sopping wet. I may not be brave enough to play Red Rover, but it sure is a riot to watch.

Listening to: Bringing Up Baby
Reading: Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Weird bonding moments.

Whew! It's been a busy few days, which makes my mother's computer getting a virus all that more inconvenient. This post is coming to you from my Droid Eris (whose name is Iris). All hail the mighty smart phone!

The events of my weekend begin on Thursday with me painting my thumbnail clear with silver sparkles. This will become relevant later.

Friday morning, after a slight emotional crisis, I slid into my mom's Durango and headed down the highway for Kansas City. I met my friend Em at Winstead's, that most beloved of restaurants, and we had a pleasant breakfast of double cheeseburgers, onion rings, and chicken fingers. After creeping out two guys while trying to stare down the waitress, we got our check and blew that popsicle stand.

A few minutes later, we met my friend Ash at American Eagle in Zona Rosa. The next few hours were poured into a heroic quest to find a white dress shirt for her boyfriend. He kept rejecting the ones we found because they didn't fit right or they were too transparent. Finally, after Ash spent 15 minute explaining to him that all dress shirts are see-through like that, we emerged triumphant from The Gap.

We girls had a few hours to kill while he went and got a haircut (there was some kind of outrageous wait time), so we ducked into Hot Topic to amuse ourselves. Em bought a Green Lantern shirt and a voodoo doll that somehow resembles both Robin (of Batman fame) and a ninja. Ash got a new stud for her lip piercing.

Since Ash hadn't had anything in her piercing for a month or more, we headed to Barnes & Noble, where we were certain of finding a bathroom in the event of blood. In the bathroom, I watched, fascinated, as Ash tried to force the stud through her lip. Em wandered off to browse the general fiction section, so she missed the truly entertaining part. After 10 futile minutes, Ash turned to me and said, "I'm about to ask you to do something that will take our friendship to a whole new level." The problem was that, while there was still a hole most of the way through her lip from the outside, a layer of skin has grown over the hole on the inside of her mouth. The favor she asked of me was to ignore all pain and blood and push the stud through the hole from the outside until I broke through that layer of skin. It took some determination and a little encouragement with my fingernails, but I managed to work it through. Ash mentally wandered off to a happy place away from the pain, but on the plus side, there was no blood.

After Ash left with her boyfriend to continue her own busy day, Em and I wandered Zona Rosa some more. At one point while we were outside, I excitedly help up my thumbnail and totally confused her. In my giddiness, I forgot that she didn't know I had painted my nail with a clear polish that was supposed to turn red in the sunlight. My sparkley reddish nail meant nothing to her.

We hung out in B&N some more while I charged my phone next to the foreign language section. Em flipped through a Russian primer while I amused myself with Las Crónicas de Narnia. I almost bought it, but I talked myself out of it. I'm immensely proud of the self-control I showed in the face of my book-buying addiction.

After a crab sandwich at a sub shop (I love crab meat!), I followed Em back to her place because I felt more confident finding my way home from there. The roads in Kansas City are seven kinds of screwy, and the roads right around Zona Rosa are even worse.

For dinner I went out for Chinese with my friend Gnome, who amazingly has a one-door Civic. One side of his car was hit by a ladder, and the other side was backed into by a semi. He has to crawl in and out through the passenger door. We had a blast swapping stories and stuffing those crispy noodle chip things into the dredges of his wonton soup.

Saturday afternoon, my brothers and I went to a summer bash that involved Red Rover and sprinklers and water relays and frisbee and watermelon and whipped cream fights and water balloons. It was marvelous!

In the evening, a bunch of people met at someone's house and we watched Tangled. The commentary that occasionally flew around the room was priceless.

Days like these are the gems on the necklace of time.

Listening to: Gidget
Reading: Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Strikes, spells, and timey-wimey stuff.

After weeks of quiet reading, this one almost seems like it got a little out of hand.

Monday, I went to a large unbirthday party and watched my friends and acquaintances destroy a piñata and attack each other with cupcakes, among other things.

By Wednesday I somehow wound up on a group date. Bowling and dating are both rather unusual for me, though not unheard of. I have never bowled so well in my life. I am prodigiously proud of my high score of 58, and if the company could always be so good, I might bowl oftener.

Thursday was, of course, the midnight premiere of Harry Potter. My group consisted of a snitch, Hogwarts, Bellatrix and Narcissa, and three house elves, one of which could also be taken for a cave troll. I went as Dobby's headstone. Morbid, I know, but it was last minute. I worked with what I had. I shan't go into detail about the other people who dressed up or the girl who talked loudly in a British accent while we all waited for the movie to start or the people who asked to take our picture. I shan't even say much about the elegance with which the 3D effects were handled. I shall only say that there was something comforting about everyone in the theater quietly sniffling at the same time.

I was still a little groggy Friday afternoon. I kept weaving into the cart while my brother and I were grocery shopping at Walmart. Eventually, I decided it would probably be best if I just stood still and let him do the shopping.

After a refreshing nap, I had my first true exposure to Doctor Who last night, compliments of my friend SB. I would've preferred starting at the beginning, but I thank her nonetheless. I knew I'd like it, and now I can't wait to go back and see the rest.

Listening to: Holiday Inn
Reading: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

Crackle and bang.

Around 9:30 this evening, with three minutes left to watch in Hitch, it dawned on me that this was Independence Day, my very favorite holiday, and that I had done absolutely nothing to commemorate it. Then a huge aerial exploded in the vicinity my backyard and scared the Cheez-Its out of me.

Praying that the firework stand by the gas station was still open, I gathered up my wallet and my brother and hopped in the Durango.

Hamilton is really not that impressive on the Fourth of July. At least, not compared to the battlefield of Evanston, Wyo., where you have to drive cautiously through the streets at 3 MPH, dodging mortar tubes, firecrackers, and small children. Sure, a family on the next block was set up in the middle of the road, limiting my route options, but most of the streets were clear.

However, although I was under the impression that they were illegal within city limits here, we saw some aerials going off on our drive through town. It thrilled me to see that the stand was both open and putting on a beautiful show of its own.

T and I grabbed the essentials (firecrackers, ground flowers, bottle rockets, and sparklers) and moseyed on home to enjoy our spoils.

I did some obligatory air writing with my sparklers while I made sure that T stayed a sensible distance from both the house and his truck as he played with his explosives. That boy is a veritable font of pyrotechnic ingenuity. It's amazing what he can do with a few empty cream soda bottles and a lighter. For the record, dropping a flower into a bottle is not nearly as exciting as it could be, but it sure is pretty.

Highlight reel:

At one point, T stuck a whole bundle of bottle rockets in a bottle with the paper still binding them together, then lit a sparkler and stuck it in with them. It knocked the bottle over and a bunch of the rockets shot off across the ground.

I feared for our lives when the bundle of firecrackers he threw slid across the hood of the truck, which happened to be where we were keeping the rest of the fireworks. Fortunately, nothing terrible happened.

Our one impulse buy was a little T-Rex. He was magnificent. First, he shot fire from his mouth. Then, three fireworks along his back lit up like spikes. His grand finale was a bunch of sizzling stars shooting out of his feet. I wished we had more. We could have gotten some of those little tanks and reenacted Godzilla.

One of my favorite moments was when Tristan lit a flower out in the road and danced around it, quintessentially himself.

Stars! how I love the way today smells. There are few better smells in the world. I love that sulfuric perfume, the one that leaves a metallic taste on the back of your throat as it passes by. You can't fabricate that. It only comes around once a year, but I would wait for it forever if I had to.

Listening to: the scream of bottle rockets
Reading: Looking for Alaska by John Green