And then. . .

The thing about waiting, for anything, whether in a line at the 24-hour Walgreens or the drive-thru at Starbuck's waiting for your morning Skinny Mocha, is that, well it sucks. No one likes to wait in lines, and in a world where we can do multiple things at once at all times and post how we're feeling to the world in seconds, the waiting seems worse. It seems like, well, we're waiting that much longer. We're standing behind the guy with a shaved head and tattoo's who's moist pasty skin rolls peak out from the rolled edges of his cut dingy t-shirt waiting to get the birth control that will keep us from having his three noisy kids that keep grabbing the bottles of vitamins off the shelves as ten people stand in line try not to stare at the kids like they are monsters.  It's also sitting in our cars Tweeting, Facebooking, Google +ing, Instagraming, What's Apping, all about coffee, then wrinkling ours noses as we notice we forgot to hit the re-circulation ...

Yesterday I went for a walk in downtown El Paso. The older part where they are trying to turn the hood into a postcard where everyone is smiling brightly and sunlight reflects off chemically whitened teeth.  I won't get into how I feel about parts of it: disappointed and choked with things being forced down my throat as the city officials place their hands on the back of my head. Or how I feel about the other part of it: nostalgic with it's restored beauty and I remember my childhood, clasping my grandmother's sweaty palm as we walked the downtown streets. As I walked by Firefighters Memorial Park, a small corner hidden behind tall buildings and homes, I snapped some photos. The sun was bright and unforgiving--it must be called that in El Paso because it's the best description--but I still wanted to look around and get close to the vintage light posts which have replaced the tainted silver ones that used to be there. Beads of sweat were already beginning to surface ...

1. Set a schedule 2. Stick to it 3. Read lots of books. The trashy kind you haven't had time for because of school 4. Work out. Beat him in the P90X challenge 5. Take long baths and stay in until your fingers look like pink little prunes and you think you might drop your book 6. Wake up at 9am everyday, even when you don't have to 7. Write, but only things that don't have anything to do with the memoir you've been staring at for the last year 8. Go see bands, even if they might be bad. El Paso is full of free summer concerts to go to, sit on prickly crab grass and enjoy the cooler evenings 9. See your friends, the ones who have stood by the sidelines cheering as you wrote and wrote for the last few months, the ones who checked on you, gave you the love you needed to finish, even if from a distance 10. Celebrate being married, finishing your thesis, and being at a giant crossroads marked Future 11.  Purge things: all the things that clutter and get in your way,...