"I'll school, you get schooled" or perhaps this adds to my mystery.

There is a feeling I get when I am driving home to my parents. I often wish I were wearing a red dress and that the light from the windows was tanning the tops of my kneecaps. I'd love for my mom to tell me that the tops of my legs were "miscolored" or "reddened" and blame it on Wilmington, North Carolina. 

On the ride, I think of things, or think up things. I often remember Robyn as a junior in high school--the way she laughed with her teeth when she told me how on Sunday afternoons, with the car windows rolled down, she feels like she is in a gusty music video. And, on some afternoons, when I'm riding alone, I try it too--pretend she is on the side of the highway with a boombox and a camcorder. 

I think of the songs I love because my parents love them-- Rod Stewart's raspy songs about women and Boz Scaggs. I think of cleaning the house for ten dollars on a Saturday. I think of my sister, who is as grown-up as she can be at nineteen years old. I think of her perfect eyesight and her Outer Banks trips. 

I think of animal deaths and italian ice and why I hate the sounds I hate and three years from now and four years from now and what it means to be sincere or apologetic and all of my old haircuts and what lessons I still have yet to learn. I think of summer, also fall, but mostly spring. I do math in my head and attempt to invent a way all boats can travel at night, so no one has to stop enjoying themselves.