Fun...a small word for such a large meaning.

So here's the thing.

When I tell a person - mostly people who are in my age group - that I don't drink alcohol, I get the inevitable question..."Well, then, what do you do for fun?"

I find question to be very...ignorant. I feel that when that query is posed, the person is assuming that a) that's the ONLY way to have fun or b) they have a very limited view on a good time.

The following is a list of things that I love doing instead of getting wasted. Granted, I've been around people who were drunk before and yes, I had a few laughs. Still it isn't for me. I enjoy other things instead...By the way, this list still doesn't begin to touch everything I like doing.

I like...
Laughter...crazy, loud, insane, uncontrollable laughter,walks in the park, getting on airplanes and going to NYC for the day to catch a Broadway show...passion iced tea lemonade from Starbucks and sinking down with a good book on their comfy leather couches.

I love renting foreign films from Blockbuster and Netflix, writing new blogs based on the neverending drama of my life, and shooting photographs with/of my friends. I really like going to the movies and watching thrillers, lol, and maybe even sappy romances, but I'm up for "guy" movies, too. Afterwards I love sitting at the Waffle House until 3 am making jokes with the waitress, drinking sweet tea and eating cheese grits.

Writing frees my spirit and bridles untamed feelings wish ache to run rampant when I know I shouldn't let them.

Oh, I also love seeing HORRIBLY made films and making fun of them so much that my sides hurt from laughing. Texting and talking on the phone for hours makes me happy, and sharing inside jokes with friends is definitely on my list of faves. I make up nicknames for almost everyone I meet and refer to them as that in private - or to their face if I think they can handle it, lol. I love shopping - what girl doesn't -and clearance sales are the bomb.

Flying is my passion and I love seeing new airports of all sorts.

I'm into literature and poetry, Edna St. Vincent Millay being my hero.

I love history and have a vivid imagination when I'm in a place rich with old stories. I lilke to imagine I'm part of that place in centuries past, lol.

I like to drive late at night with the windows down in the summer time - I go nowhere, really, I just like the stars and silky wind against my skin.

I am crazy about gelato and I love Tiramisu dessert. It's fun to play in fountains and make wishes on pennies.

I love musicals and singing along with them at the top of my lungs, wishing I were the one on stage. If I had time I'd love to act in plays.

I also love sad music, songs that get you more down when you're down, but in a good way. I really like rock, too.

I love experiencing cultures different from my own and becoming friends with people who can teach me things. I especially love the richness of the Indian culture and...I kind of have a thing for Indian boys, lol.

I love the bitter sweet taste of black coffee with Splenda and dipping warm chocolate chip cookies in the dark brew.

Although heights make me dizzy, I love the dangerous feeling of standing on that precipice. Heights are breathtaking.

I like rainy nights on tin roofs, the patter of the drops lulling me into sleep...searching through tins of old photographs and listening with shining eyes as I hear the story of the young lovers in the picture brings joy to my heart.

I have a liking for all things polka dot.

I enjoy laughing heartily at my cat as she spastically runs through the house, the clip clap of her claws on the hardwood floor audible down the hallway.When I hear a train in the distance I stop for a moment and make a wish - I imagine that I'm a nurse in the Revolution, off to bring the boys safely home.

I love rising before the sun on a day when you're free to traverse the country on a long road trip with friends, blaring music the entire way and taking countless looney photographs.

Trips to the thrift store can be quite an adventure - many an interesting trinket have I purchased; I love telling people where I bought it.

The smell of freshly cut grass takes me back to a time when I was young and perused my pop's rose garden as he rode the mower over his expansive yard...I wish there were a way to bottle that scent.

I love to agonize over my pale skin only to realize that in the end it is what makes me unique.

Picnics by isolated streams and rivers are one of a kind dates, especially when they are by the light of the moon. I love to dip my bare feet in the aching coldness of bubbling brooks.

Fishing is fun, although I sort of despise using live bait.

I love to rearrange my furniture when I am bored with it, this being once every two or three months. I am obsessed with Amazon.com and searching their endless list of used books which I buy for almost nothing...I love getting those packages in the mail and look forward to them earnestly.

Flying kites on a windy hill in March assures giggles galore.

Lighthouses make me happy.

Sometimes I like to cry for no reason at all other than that I feel somewhat relieved after I do.

Concerts are a blast as well as musicals and plays.

I love to dream of my Prince Charming, wherever the hell he may be, lol.

Level-headed arguments are fun and almost always lead to very interesting conversations.

I love posing for photographs. Trying new foods is up there on my list of cool things and I will try almost anything - unless it has bugs in it.

Sometimes I like to sit down to the piano and plunk out a tune I used to know in days gone past.

Old towns are fun to explore, those "cities within a city" that one hardly knows to look for. Many a delightful restaurant or eclectic music joint have a I found on such adventures.

I like speaking in a fake British accent to people who don't know me.

I love hot chocolate with marshmallow cream on cool October nights, sitting by a campfire and breathing the wood-smoked air. Freshly fallen snow makes my spirit feel clean and I love seeing my breath on a cold day.

I stare at pictures of foreign places and imagine I am standing there snapping the photograph, telling myself I only have to be patient and that dream will at long last come true.

I have a thing for quotes.I am quite the sarcastic girl at times and love throwing strangers off with a comment they least expect. Especially when I am in uniform. =)

I enjoy volunteering at soup kitchens and the like.

Renaissance Festivals are so much fun to dress up and attend.

My favorite board games are Monopoly and Clue. Nothing like the old days when games were actually tangible.

When it rains in the summer and the sky is free of lightening, I stand it in and let myself be soaked to the skin.

I love lingering in my down comforter on a lazy Saturday morning and pillow fights are always a sure way to make me laugh.

I make wishes on stars - whether they have fallen or not.

Kisses - long, slow, sensual, hot, bite-filled kisses are the biggest weakness I believe I possess. Not to mention they are WAY fun, lol.

I ache to embrace the world and all that God has placed in it with an open heart and mind. I am stretched taut with a feverish desire to dive into the Freedom of my Future. I want to explore the lives of others in such a way that a piece of that individual's heart is attached to my spirit for all eternity. I hope that my life and my actions impact this world and turn the heads of passersby. I am a deep person...no matter what a first impression may say. I like to dig in places that no one has uncovered and have spirit-curdling conversations. Music is a part of my spirit that will never be disposed of. It is my heaven on earth. I soar to ethereal places when I allow the melodies to slip over me like satin. It restores my soul.I love to gaze into the cloudless sky to try to see heaven and God's smiling face.

And I'm always up for trying new things - skydiving, scuba diving, paintball, lasertag, - the list could go on

Nightmare City

I saw him in a place he should never have been, and in a time when I least expected to see him. Sadness poured from his eyes in unseen tears and jerked hard at my spirit. The light from the chapel's stained-glass window cast colorful prisms across his hard features, the green of his eyes still glowing with heat when he locked my gaze. I queried about his well being.

"My son died." Just like that. "He was three months old."

I felt as if someone had punched me in the gut. I felt so responsible because I never wanted him to have a child with her. With anyone. Anyone but me. In the back of my mind, I knew I'd caused it somehow, that the law of attraction had brought down the hand of Doom on this innocent one and smote him because I wanted him gone.

Strangely, though, it was me to whom he turned for comfort. He mourned for days, he and I alone on my bed, no acts but the one of grief being fulfilled. Pure aching was met with as much comfort as I knew how to give. I held him as he cried on my shoulder, weeping with him in anger at myself and sorrow for his excrutiating loss.

When he finally returned home, I checked my bank account soon after to discover that $1200 was spent on a Dell laptop, one I knew I didn't purchase. Intuitively, I knew he'd retreated into himself and commited the lowest of low - he stole my credit card number and did it to make me angry. I went to him.

"Please," I begged him. "I'm not angry with you, but you need to tell me if you stole the money. I will give you anything you ask for, just be honest with me."

"YES!" he exploded. "I stole the money! Don't you get it?" He screamed in my face. "I'm trying to push you away! I'm doing anything I can to make you stop loving me, and yet you only love me more and forgive me more than I should ever be forgiven. Why? Why me?" he implores.

To be honest, I didn't know how to answer him. I just opened my arms and he pulled me into an endless embrace.

"Because," I whisper to him. "My heart needs you."

Haunted

I've heard stories about this place. Horror stories, in fact, of bumps in the night, air rustling past skirts where no air should whisper, a scream in the darkest of hours, voices in the adjacent room when the room was supposedly unoccupied.I was afraid to stay in The Lodge.

Although it is located near the Moline, Illinois airport, to be fair it is actually situated across the state line in Iowa. As our transportation rounded the curve, a small gasp caught in my throat at the monster of a hotel before me, reminiscent of a large German cottage against the black midnight sky. I tried to ignore the mocking jabs of the pilots in the seat behind me as they tried their best to imitate the voice of Chucky and quote the most terrifying of movies.

"It's just a hotel," I whispered to myself. "If you don't believe you won't be frightened."As I stepped foot inside the the doors, I felt immediately transported to the world of the Gothic romance novel, something akin to what an author such as Victoria Holt would pen. I expectantly waited for women in hoop skirts and men with top hats and coattails to waltz through the lobby on their way to the ball room. Paneled oak walls added to the heaviness of the room as did the dark wooden furniture and the large chandeliers which hung from the low ceiling. The front desk was complete with a filigreed hand held telephone, much like the ones pictured in Victorian era films, and the fireplace glowed with dying flames. I glanced at the front desk clerk but was greeted with more of a dead stare than a friendly grin. The classical melody of Moonlight Sonata lilted through the room, adding a movie-esque quality to it all.

I noticed my room number was on the eighth floor, but the elevator in front of me only listed four.

"Um, what does this mean?" I asked my fellow crew members, afraid they might say there were secret floors where murders happened or people died from unknown causes.

"That means," said the captain with a mischievous grin, "that you're in The Tower."Gulp.

"T-t-the Tower?"

"Yes, you take this elevator." He indicated a lone elevator which went all the way to the tenth floor. I was alone on the floor, bereft of my crew and left to the wiles of whatever might choose to follow me up to my room. "No, don't think like that!" I chided myself on the elevator ride. As the doors opened, I was greeted with an oil painting of a woman who appeared in dire straights, her hand reaching desperately for the cup on the table beside her large chair, a look of anguish spread across her features as if she'd been poisoned or was trying to poison herself to escape the horrors of being locked on this floor at all times, subjected to the terrors of demons! "Stop it!" I said aloud. I know how I can frighten myself at times, and this time my imagination was definitely running away with me.

My floor was eerily quiet. I almost wished for a drunken party of football fans next door as opposed to the deafening silence at this late hour. I slid the key in the lock, pushed open the door and beheld a lovely room complete with a spiral staircase that led up the "loft" area where the bed was located. The room itself wasn't as lavishly decorated at the lobby, but I was somewhat glad of that as I was already at my wits' end and didn't need to see anymore oil paintings or imagine what lurked behind dark panels. Flipping on the television, thankful for at least that reminder of modern times, I stared at it for a moment in silence before I realized that it was one of the "fireplace" channels, where I suppose one can fall asleep to the sound of a crackling fire, minus the actual blazing heat. I laughed at the absurdity of it. Finally after two hours of calming myself with a little online surfing and covering the grandiose mirrors with towels to abate my fear of seeing a ghost in the reflection, I settled down to sleep...with the lamp beside the bed on all night, of course.

My night played out uneventfully, to my delight and slight disappointment, if I'm going to be completely honest. I had hoped for a bit of an adventure, a crossing with the devil, a dance with disaster. Still, I'd not yet been to the dining room. I had a coupon for a free, hot breakfast buffet, so upon rising, I slipped downstairs and followed the long hallways to the dining area. I took in my surroundings, the crossbeams above my head coming to an upside-down V, reminding me of my favorite movie as a child, Heidi, and how it resembled her grandfather's cottage in the Swiss Alps. The stained-glass windows along the corridor had pictures embossed on the glass if one studied them closely. I came upon an open area which imitated a cobblestone walkway on an old street, complete with an open sky roof, windows to tenants rooms which looked like the shopkeepers homes above their stores, and a large, bubbling fountain right in the middle. I smiled to myself at the quaintness of this "indoor village."

The scent of gravy and biscuits wafting to my nostrils kept me moving towards the breakfast area. I was more than a bit surprised to see that I was the only soul in the large dining room besides the lone waitress. A sense of unease crept over me...it was like going to a SuperWalmart at night and seeing only one car in the parking lot. There were countless tables set with lovely china and silverware and not one living being to partake of the delicious food but myself. The waitress moved towards me and offered to bring me coffee. I smiled acceptance, noting that her voice remained at a monotone level for every question, "Regular? Sugar? Cream?"

It was a bit unsettling, but I headed for the buffet. I will say this for The Lodge - never, ever have I had such a delicious breakfast in a hotel, hot or not. My coffee was brought and I ate in silence, devouring the fresh fruit, hot bacon, lovely seasoned potatoes, and warm gravy with buttermilk biscuits.

Looking up, I jolted from my food reverie and noticed that on the seemingly mile-high wall, dead animals were watching me eat. There were at least thirty deer heads, a bison, and bulls; the adjoining wall sported antlers of varying shapes and sizes. I slowly lowered the biscuit back to my plate and took a closer look at my surroundings. On the opposite side of the room, even MORE taxidermies, complete bodies of foxes and small bears lined the shelves above the room. Again the classical music drifted into the room, almost as if on cue, and I noticed the waitress staring at me with her dead eyes. There was a shelf of old books peeking out from the loft area which was reached by steps near my table; I wondered what other dark deeds took place up those stairs. The doors to the kitchen opened and a handsome, blank-eyed boy appeared. I didn't catch his gaze, but a flash from his shirt locked my attention. It was a long silver chain accompanied by a large, dangling cross. Maybe to ward off the dead? I thought again about how amazing the food was and wondered if it wasn't a ruse to lure bait for their sacrifices! To add to my melodramatic imagination, I began noticing that as I finished my meal, more and more employees seemed to be present in the room, but never another tenant of the hotel! Maybe it was true...while no one had been "rude" to me, they certainly hadn't smiled welcoming smiles or shone any light in their eyes the way humans usually do. They appeared a bit like Vampires. I shivered.

Before I could scare myself anymore, I hurriedly finished my meal, and excused myself, hastily thanking them as I quickly exited the room. As I passed the "General Manager's Office" a man in a - no lie - black midnight suit and blood red silk shirt stepped out of the office directly behind me and began to follow me down the long hallway back to the main lobby. I could almost feel the sharpness of his teeth sinking into my neck, the warmth of my blood seeping out with my last breath until I would forever become one of...them. Perhaps it was they who were the actual ghosts of the hotel.

Of course I wasn't bitten but I am being honest when I say I was actually scared that they may happen as I ate breakfast in that room all alone.It still makes for an enchanting story...