Rheanna Explains It All

I'm at work and I sneeze. All I can think about is this episode of Clarissa Explains It All that I saw years and years ago. In this episode, the flu is going around and the title character is terrified of getting sick. So when she sneezes once, she explains that it's just a natural, uncaused thing. Then she sneezes again and she credits it to an undusted room. She sneezes a third time and decides that she must be sick.

I didn't just sneeze once. I sneezed FOUR TIMES. IN A ROW. Someone had better get me to a hospital STAT because Clarissa never explained what four sneezes mean and frankly, I'm worried.

In other news, "sneeze" is a funny word.

I'm Not Lying

It wasn't fair, not to me, but least of all

to you. It became a game between three

players, one player who didn't even know

he was playing.

You may have had no chance of winning,

but here's my truth: I would have given

it up, all of it, just to have the assurance

that everything would be ok.

I would have saved you if I could have.

I'm Not Lying

Ellen Wittlinger

I am lying in a clapboard shack

the wind blows through. It has followed me

all the way from Boston to this sheltered

harbor where I am less protected than I've ever

been. Invisible as a fish in the ocean

I've tried to listen, to understand the

mystery of two people who could almost

touch, except they have in common trusting

no one. I'm not lying when I say I tried.

I'm not lying next to you

and I never will. There was a night

we needed more than affection

though neither would admit it.

To tell the truth it couldn't matter less

who wears the pants or the dress, but only

who becomes visible to whom.

You saw me truly, and I saw all you let me;

I'm not lying now, and I hope I never will.

Typical

This week is the first week of classes. I don't know if this is a normal thing to feel, but this week always gets me anxious. There's all these new people to meet, and unknown classrooms to find and then have to choose who looks the nicest to sit next to, and waking up at earlier hours. It just generally sucks. The worst part, though, is when I have to introduce myself.

I don't know why college professors do this. For every course, during the first session, the professor always makes the students give their names, usually something interesting about themselves, and where they're from. I thought maybe my Church History professor would be different. He spent half of the class yesterday talking about the syllabus and why you have to be selective in teaching this subject and the connection between studying Theology and History. But even he finally got to the part that I hate.

"Ah, so far we're all from California. Who's next... Rheahhhna Cline?" He reads from the roll.

"Actually, it's RheAnna."

He jots down a note on the list. "And where are you from?"

"Quito, Ecuador."

At this point, the room erupts in a burst of "That's so cool!"s and "Wow, how exotic!"s. In most classes, at least one person mentions how their friend is from Ecuador and I say, "Sarah Miller?" or "Paige Larrea?" or "Maia Froehlich?" or any of the other Alliance classmates who ended up at APU and we have a brief connection over the impossibility that we would both know the same person from a foreign country. Except it's not that impossible.

And that is how it always is during the first week of class. I'm considering changing my hometown to Azusa.