the rose of kiev

It's 7 in the morning and I've already gotten up, put on deodorant, and jogged more than 20 minutes with some of my roommates. Who abducted my body and is living in mine, because this just isn't something Heather does, especially on days where she has no commitments until work at 2. With every step, lungs burning with that terribly wonderful tingling, I had to tell myself that this is good for me, that I'm earning those pieces of pie back off my body from Thanksgiving, that I'll have endorphins in my system the rest of the day, anything to keep putting one sneaker in front of the other. Thank God for roommates with a sense of motivation else I would never hit that street at a pace faster than a brisk walk to work. And not only do Niccole and Erin keep me moving (my companions this morning) but the majority of my house. There's a high school a block or so from where I live and yesterday 5 of us took advantage of the obscenely gorgeous November day and walked down...

You never realize how much you like your roommates until you realize how eerie your house is without them moving around and laughing in distant rooms. My mom and step-dad drove down from Mansfield so we can all three work in the morning, then commute back for one more day with my grandparents after, and I'm home alone while my roommates are still all gone with family. Even one home aside from me would make the house profoundly less empty. It was a good Thanksgiving, yummy and funny and sad all rolled together. My mom's mom (I have a lot of grandmothers so I always have to differentiate) slaved in the kitchen all day long, getting progressively more flustered as the dishes became done in an amount her two hands couldn't handle. Papa (what we call my grandmother's husband) made a superb turkey, the melt-in-your-mouth kind where even the white meat is juicy. Yes, I prefer dark meat, and am still incensed at McDonald's for discontinuing dark meat in their chicken nugget...

My brother turned 12 on the 17th of this month. I remember when I was younger, being the bookworm I was and reading my age-appropriate books, I thought there was something magical about being 12. Not just 12, but being 12 . In the books the characters all seem to have something important happen to them. Well, I turned 12 in sixth grade and that is the reason I never turned 12 . Admittedly, I was quite the geek, but still middle school was a nasty place. But even though my brother turned 12 in sixth grade as well, he got to turn the magical 12 because he got a gift I am totally stealing a piece of when I spend Thanksgiving with my family. Me, mature moved-out rent-paying 19-year-old stealing my little brother's birthday gift not even a week after he got it. But this is one of those magical gifts. For ages I have been the only child of the three in my family who had any taste for reading. My pre-teen sister, in sheer defiance, refuses to allow herself to enjoy a book simply because ...