Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010

Here is my "Christmas Letter":

I hope this finds you all well and peaceful during the Holiday season! Even more, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Most of us are looking forward to what 2010 will bring, but I am also looking back with thanksgiving for all the blessings I received in 2009.

I have continued my studies in Early Childhood Education and Child Development. In 2010, I will graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Human Environmental Sciences with a concentration in ECE and Child Development. Throughout my studies, I have gained knowledge in the field through hands-on learning experiences at the University of Alabama's Children's Program and the university's RISE School program. Aside from that, I have worked in practicums at Holt Elementary in Tuscaloosa County with the HeadStart program where I mentored students and shadowed a kindergarten teacher. The HeadStart program I worked this past summer, focuses on developing cognitive, social, and behavioral skills in underpriviledged and poverty-struck children. This Fall, I worked with fourth-grade students with disabilities at Verner Elementary in Tuscaloosa County. Both experiences were very eye-opening and deepened my passion for working with children with special needs.

I enjoyed my job as a hostess at 'Chuck's Fish' in downtown Tuscaloosa, which I worked from January-July, but had to give it up in order to focus on my heavy school schedule. This Fall was the first semester I did not 'nanny' for the Duckworth family, also because of my studies. However, I was able to help out with Camryn and Jace whenever the Duckworth's needed extra help.

Aside from schoolwork, my main job was raising "Millie", my now-7-month-old boxer. I got Mildred Jean ("Millie") in June and we have developed a special bond ever since the day I brought her home. She continues to brighten my day and keep me company while showering me with the kind of unconditional love that only dogs can give. She has been quite the travel-partner as well. Since June, she and I have gone to Lake Mitchell, Fairhope, Asheville, and Orlando (twice). She loves to accompany me to Ashley and Tyler's in Trussville where she gets to play with cousins Maybelle and Beau.

Even with my change in undergraduate studies, I have continued to write. Obviously, since this is my blog, those reading this are aware of my passion for writing. I also write a sport's blog, which is where my "blogging" is founded. That blog stems from the sport's column I wrote for my high school newspaper. This blog can be found at, www.justjonesit.blogspot.com.

In March, I spent a memory-packed Spring Break with friends in Key West. My friends Will Pappas and Bess Pickett drove down with me and stayed at my parent's house in Orlando for three days before we packed back up and met a large group of friends in the sub-tropics. Actually, I drove the large Chevy Tahoe which felt as if I was driving a monster truck. In Orlando, we spent a full-day at Epcot Center in Disney World by participating in the "Drink Around The World" event that college students nation-wide have labeled as one the "Must Do's" as a young twenty-something year-old. With true Southern pride we started in "America" with a Budweiser before we began our parade of margaritas in "Mexico", beers and brats in "Germany", sake shots in "Japan", more beer in "Canada", Irish car-bombs and Guinness in "Ireland", and much more. Mom and Dad dropped us off and picked us up as we practiced true 'responsibility.' After lounging around Oviedo and visiting New Smyrna Beach, we spent the rest of the week with friends in our three-bedroom suite in beautiful Key West. After a few days of the "Duval Crawl" which involves bar-hopping in true college student fashion on the island's most famous street, Duval Street, we were exhausted but satisfied with an unforgettable trip.

Also in the Spring, I was able to spend a relaxing weekend at Lake Martin with a bunch of my guy friends before buckling down for Spring semester exams. The exams went well and Spring was my best semester thus far, but I still managed to celebrate like a crazy Tar Heel when Roy William's and his boys won the Final Four in Detroit, before I had to hit the books for those successful exams.

Now, the crazy Crimson Tide part of me is in heavy celebration after the sweet, sweet victory over the Florida Gators in the SEC Championship game in Atlanta that followed the Tide's undefeated regular season. Beating my home state, where it seemed championships were falling into their laps, was just an added bonus to the conference championship and bid to the BCS Championship Game at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Even more of a bonus? Our leading rusher, Mark Ingram, won the Heisman Trophy and became the first player in Alabama history to receive such an honor. Needless to say, my heart is pounding for my school and the happy tears I've cried after monumental victories and watching history be made have never felt so good!

This past year has seen up's and down's. Yet, as the year ends and a new one peeks it's head around the corner, I find myself with much peace and happiness. I've made long strides in my life as a young lady by defining 'me' for who I am and not wavering for another's acceptance or nod. I've found out who my friends are, and who they aren't. In August, I met a wonderful, Southern-gentlemen from Mobile, AL named Preston and have continued to date him and get to know him better while sharing the excitement of football Saturdays with him. I've made new friends that I believe will last a lifetime, and I have had to say 'goodbye' to friends who are moving away from Tuscaloosa but will always be special to me. I continue to stay close to my family and stay true to my firm belief that they are the most important people in my life. I am more thankful for their love than I could ever express in words. Last but not least, I remain a God-fearing Christian and have been blessed with many answered prayers this year.

I hope that everyone is full of thanksgiving for the things that 2009 have brought, and I hope even more that 2010 continues to be full of blessings.

To God be all the glory and praise!
-BJJ
The 'Other' Sister

The Reason for the Season

As I witness the hustle and bustle of the holidays I can not help but be overwhelmed by the exhausting love that parents show their children. Fighting lines at the toy store so that the newest toy is within reach or the hours of preparing festive meals and holiday treats. The sacrifices that parents give in order to pleasantly surprise the little ones on Christmas morning is indescribable and it makes for a very humbling experience.

I have always had parents that wore themselves out in order to give me a complete and merry holiday season. I always was pleased and never disappointed in my gifts from Santa, my parents, and my grandparents. When ripping apart gift wrap and going through boxes of presents like a tornado in my younger years I did not realize how much of a fortune I had. Not in monetary terms, but in the terms that I was blessed with beautiful and loving people all around me. As I grew up and as each Christmas went by I learned more and more about life and how I have all things to be grateful for and even the wrapping that covered my gifts was more than some people had on Christmas mornings.

Some do not even have families.

I have always been especially concerned for children who do not have families or parents that love them. I am a firm believer in adoption and I stand against abortion. I think much can be learned if we would all slow down and spend a little more time in the volunteer force or charity campaigns because the individuals that need the services are not stupid or any less of a person than we are. They have feelings, emotions, amazing abilities, and lessons that are more valuable than any college curriculum textbook. It is amazing how beautiful a child can be when she seems to have nothing to be smiling about. No wrapped Christmas presents, no parents, no hams and turkeys and pecan pies, and no Christmas tree to adorn with twinkling lights.

I asked her what made the holidays so special for her. She answered, "my brother that got shot and my grandmother that raised me were both my favorite people before they went to heaven. They always told me that Christmas wasn't about presents and decorations but it was Jesus' birthday and I know they're with Jesus so I'm just glad they're up there having fun."

Tears poured from my eyes as they stared at this poverty-struck fourth grade girl that I mentor on occasion. I found myself in awe of her. How strong, sensible, and sincere were her words and how grateful her aching heart was. Her hair bounced in diva-like ringlets and her teeth shined when she smiled so big. She laughed as I sat there and wiped tears from my eyes as though she couldn't believe I would be 'sad' during the season of Jesus' birthday. She had no idea how humble she had just made me and how fortunate I was to have the things that so many other children don't have. I felt sick to my stomach as I made a note to send a special wrapped holiday treat her way before I went home for the holidays because I have spent many days of my life living selfishly and by taking the little things for granted. I've had reality checks in my life before but none like this one. This reality check sent me home from her elementary school in the poorer part of town with a lesson that can be recognized but never truly learned and accepted until it's right there in your face smiling back at you as your whole being seems to grow in holiday cheer and thanksgiving.

So, as the holidays approach us I hope that those of us who live a fortunate life can give back in some way to make a difference in the lives of people who don't. Even more so, we should focus on making the lives of people with needs better by spreading this fortune throughout the entire year and not just during the holiday season.

Like her brother and grandmother taught her, and Jesus taught us all, we must remember the reason for the season and be thankful for Jesus Christ, our Lord, because no gift is better than the gift he gave us and no ham or turkey is better than the bread of life that is the Gospel.

Merry Christmas and God Bless each and every one!

-BJJ
The 'Other' Sister

The Best of Friends

Proverbs 17:17
A friend loveth at all times.


















Something that I have always believed is that friends are the only family we're allowed to choose. We don't choose who our parents are, who their parents are, who our siblings are, or who our siblings choose to marry. Fortunately, this part of my life is one of the things that worked out perfectly for me. I was blessed with extraordinary family members. In other faucets of life, however, I have had to forgive those "friends" who trespassed against me.


Like they have always told us, 'you find out who your friends are.' The part they forgot to tell us was how bad it was going to hurt when we 'found out who our friends aren't.' Just as it is in all of the other lessons in life, that part about finding out who your friends aren't stings - sometimes more than others it can really, really sting.

But then once in a while you can come across a friend who shares the same quirky sense of humor, the same sense of Daddy's little tom-boy style, and a mutual amount of respect and admiration. It's hard to understand that this certain friend hasn't shown herself by the time seventh-grade rolls around and it's even harder to digest when you find out that all of those close friendships in high school died right when you were handed that diploma. However, when you take a leap of faith - a big risk - and leave that small-town teenage heaven and aren't under Mom and Daddy's watchful eyes anymore it is worth the reward. At least for me it was. I met this special friend on a Sunday afternoon. Caught in one of those rare moments when it feel like the hour-glass stopped in the middle of it's cycle - defying physics - was this particualr day. Exactly a week before I turned 18, on that late-August afternoon where not only it seemed I was caught between the hot heat of a Southern summer and a promising and comforting Fall but I was in that 'I'm not a girl, not yet a woman' gap that was probably an epitome of every other newly accepted sorostitute on that front yard. I would soon find out that my best friend was in that group of sixty, and just as I had chosen the three deltas across my chest, they had chosen me as well....






The only "family" one can choose.

She told me to call her "Kabbie" but that her real name was Ruth-Kathryn Rains. She went to an all-girls prep school in Memphis, Tennessee and was as pretty in the face as she was in Southern charm. She played sports, no cheerleading uniform. She was a Daddy's girl, a Memphis Tiger die-hard, and her mother's best friend. Her admittance that she actually was from "West Memphis, Arkansas" made her even truer and more fitting as I'm not really from "Orlando, Florida but more small-town suburb - Oviedo" I admitted back. Her family took me in on the Labor Day weekend that I realized everyone was 'going home' but my home was too far away. It wasn't very long until she was my best friend, my confidant, and my friendly rival when we were the only two girls in our new football-crazed state that cared whole-heartedly about college basketball - two different teams, of course.

We linked our families up on Tri-Delt Parents Weekends and we found outselves linked up with the best friend of whoever the other one was dating. We cooked dinner together when we had no boyfriends to cook for, we helped each other learn the in's and out's of parenting dogs, and we never ceased (and still to this day we still not cease) to make a scene wherever we went. More than that though, we always have had each other's back... since that very first day on the lawn of our sorority house. We don't get sappy with eachother in the annoying way that some girls do - we're aware we have other friends, other engagements, and a family in our small-town homes that love us unconditionally. We push eachother's buttons the way that a married couple would but we admit more to eachother than some sisters even would. She drinks Bud Light and I drink Coor's Light, she likes Merlot and I like Chardonnay, she wants to work for a Fotune 500 company and I want to teach preschoolers with disabilities. As different as we are, we share that certain, special, cliche-type bond that is a diamond in the mine.













Apparently four and a half years went by faster than I ever would have imagined it could. She's packing up her quaint and cozy studio apartment and I'm not emotionally stable enough right now to face it. She's going to be an Alabama Alum in two weeks and occupying a 'big-girl' apartment in downtown Memphis and I'm going to be left here without her. Maybe it just hit me, maybe I realized it all along and that's why every memory I have with her has been special, but I only hope that she leaves Tuscaloosa with a sense of relief from the stress that college wears on you but I most importantly want her to know that she's much of the reason why I am who I am today and I can only hope that I touched her life in some way as well.

Like I said before, she has always shown me mutual respect, admiration, and love and I know this because of the unsaid yet understood - the silent conversation - that came from swinging on the crimson red swing on that 16th Avenue front porch. She'll be missed but not forgotten and I'm pretty sure she is well aware that no friend can ever take her place and no friend will ever hold the same memories as she and I do.



























I don't know, though, we'll have to see how the friends that await her in Memphis will handle her dancing skills. Remember this Kabbie: the best kinds of friends laugh in your face.





-BJJ
The 'Other' Sister


P.S. Cheers to many more tomorrows! I love you :)

The sun hasn't shined in days. The notes, outlines, powerpoints, and text chapters seem to have all jumbled together in my mind. The pretty Autumn leaves are on the rain soaked ground and the fog makes it hard to see in the mornings. I feel frumpy in my winter clothes. I'm not going home for Thanksgiving. I can't grasp Environmental Biology and I'm not the biggest fan of the members in my developmental communicative disorders research group. But even on the worst of days, I notice a pretty Alabama wildflower that is perfectly out of place in the shrubbery and I found it even more touching that my heathen-dog saw it, too, and ripped it out of the ground and placed it at my feet before cocking her neck and showing me that precious little wrinkly face.

Even my little discount dog knows I like wildflowers.

Life's not so bad after all.

Far Away Eyes

Regarding my anatomy I fall in to the category of being a "Right-Brain Thinker." In all aspects of my cognitive development that began before my fetal self decided on my gender, my genes and chromosomes had determined that I would be the sort of thinker and learner that is creative in language, writing, random thought, abstract views, and subjectivity. When you really think about it, and have Human Development, Psychology, and Family Studies text books surrounding you, it's funny how the way we do things and who we are isn't just by some random chance or coincidental occurrence. We are who we are because of a lot of things. Yeah, my DNA holds in every little cell in my body the blueprint for my dark brown eyes and dirty blonde hair. My DNA gave me thick eyebrows, pouty lips, chicken legs, and oddly curvy feet. A handsome father and a beautiful mother.

I'm more than thick dirty blonde hair and skinny little legs. It's the life-span, the whole concoction of family, friends, culture, environment, experiences, and morality. These things make us who we truly are.

In my life, I find myself wishing that some of my relationships, with friends or family or boyfriends, were different or that I would have handled certain life experiences in a different way. It's a mind-teasing thing to sit in deep thought at what might have played out differently if things would have been done in another way. The stillness of such deep thought can send you into painful regret or grateful relief. It spins you in circles until you can't bear the thought anymore and sometimes it just stands still in a flood of nostalgia. Whichever way you look at it, the human mind always wonders what could have been or why did I do this and not do that. Then, after we've taken the beating from all the theory, memory, and wonder we find it in ourselves to say we mustn't live in the past and we should worry about today because someone once said, "Today is a gift, that's why we call it the present." But what does that make the past? The pot of gold or a lump of coal? And what is the future? They tell us 'the future is in our hands' but then one day far down the road we'll look back at days like today and sit still in the whole nostalgic gaze wondering thing and contemplate whether or not we did things right.

Everyone wants to put things in sequence. You know what I mean - beginning, middle, and end. Past, present, future. But why? Isn't life just a cluster of experiences that we either enjoy, hate, regret, long for, and embrace? Maybe in my 'Right-Brain' mind I just look at it and think - life just is. Don't get me wrong, I don't think we're all just floating around in some black hole. I believe in God and his son Jesus Christ and I believe in their divine power and I forsake all others. This aspect of who I am is what makes looking at things in whatever part of the sequence a situation is in - the past, the present, or the future - with a sense of security that their is a purpose behind everything. Actually, there is a purpose that we sit alone on our porches thinking about the past. There's a reason we're stuck in the still of that moment but we, as humans, want the answers to fall in our laps. Are we supposed to forget everything about that boy that broke our heart? Were we really supposed to forgive that friend that betrayed us? Did we pick the right place to move? Did we tell that person "I love you" enough times? See.... it drives you crazy.

I've walked around for a couple of weeks with a blank stare. I've been that girl with far-away eyes. I'm not sad, angry, emotionally unstable, nothing like that. I've simply been using that abstract mind I was born with and I've taken in things and thought about things that at one point I forgot to take in and embrace or at one point I promised myself I'd bury in the back of my memory and never think about again. Times of happiness, struggle, joy, sadness, celebration, self-pity, and times when I didn't feel anything - just numbness.

There's no answer, though. That is part of life - how it just is. You can spend hours, days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years spinning around in circles playing the 'what if' game. The only answer I've come up with is that the time spent wondering is time spent wasting. We can't change what happened in our past and we sure as hell can't prevent what is to come in our future. We can fight the current and try to keep our heads above the water but eventually we all surrender and let it carry us away. That's when the divine power saves us and we are reminded once again that purpose defeats all uncertainty. It really is true, I suppose, everything happens for a reason.

-BJJ
The 'Other' Sister

The Little Things

I have always found myself guilty of not looking at the 'big picture' in many situations. Even though I am not one to pay much attention to details, I am one to dwell on the 'little things'. Sometimes, this habit is a good thing; I can find happiness and warmth in knowing that someone noticed the little things in life that make me happy. Other times, it is a bad thing; I dwell on the partiality in many cases. I've observed this self-behavior in all areas of my life - friends, relationships, school, family, my interests.

The other day I got to thinking, do other people notice this behavior of mine? I wonder if it is a barrier in some of my relationships with friends, family, and love interests. On the other hand, I wonder if it is something that can be seen as admirable. I obviously don't know the answer to this question. All I know for sure is, I am glad that I am able to pinpoint the behaviors I portray because, in my opinion, it is the only way I can move forward in my quest for self-discovery. Most importantly, I must look at the pro's and con's of my personality as a whole. The problem here is, looking at something holistically is my inner conflict in the first place.

I have always remembered that there is a difference between confidence and being conceited. In my younger years, coming across people who were conceited and self-indulgent seemed to happen more often than now. I can assume the reason behind this is the fact that most people have been knocked on their asses (for lack of better words) a few good times. In these cases, most people seem to rely on confidence to get back on their two feet and after a few good stumbles the conceit eventually goes away. Unfortunately, confidence can go away when people stumble as well. This, in fact, is why I am grateful for the confidence I still have because let's be honest - I've hit rock bottom a time or two. Admitting that I struggle when it comes to looking at 'the big picture', I can truthfully say that the 'little things' are usually the main reason behind my comebacks. In my life, failure could be more dominate if it were not for the many small gestures from friends, or the notes of encouragement I receive in the mail from my mother, or a bouquet of flowers sent from someone at home. The confidence that comes from random acts of kindness is exactly the kind of confidence that empowers success and diminishes failure. The 'little things' are without a doubt an important part in creating the big picture.

In my life there are so many 'little things' that I can recall. When my sister and I open presents to one another on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas. Seeing a young child place a dollar bill in the offering plate on Sunday morning. The feel of a new pair of socks. A dance with Daddy. The smell of my house in Florida. Sunflowers and Daisies. Mom's Key lime pie. The way my brother-in-law looks at my sister. The inside jokes only shared with my best friend and when a boy opens the car door. The little things that are sometimes over-looked in the hustle and bustle of every day life. Sometimes, slowing down and giving a thankful nod to the things that get me through each day is exactly the relief I need. Even more so when I am fighting through a troublesome phase in my life; those times are when I need the 'little things' more than anything in the world and I must say that I am fortunate that the random acts show themselves and carry me through.

Having a father who was diagnosed with cancer was the hardest thing I have ever faced in my life. Sitting in the chair next to him during his chemotherapy treatments, conversations about life, and his appreciation when I would attempt to make him a smoothie or juice drink, were what got me through the toughest of days. Giving away my sister to be married was emotional but a monogrammed handkerchief she wove in to the stem of my bouquet reminded me she was only changing her name, not changing all together. The simple gesture was a reality that she would always care about me and look after me. Chicken nugget Happy Meals with my grandmother on Fridays. The Hershey kisses that are always at my bedside when I spend the night with Nana and Papaw. My favorite beer in the refrigerator when I visit my Aunt and Uncle. The way 'Miss Bai' sounds coming from the excitement of the children I nanny. Walking through Christmas lights and dying eggs at Easter.

I swear I could write a book by just listing the little things that give me hope, help me keep the faith, and reassure me that I am loved. It's good for the heart, even when broken or jaded. It's an easy way to put an honest smile on your face. Giving recognition to the 'little things' helps you remember that the big picture isn't so bad after all... no matter where you are in life. Nonetheless, it is a way to rebuild your confidence and give you something to be grateful for - and let's not kid ourselves, we all need that once in a while.

-bjj

the 'other' sister

January 19, 1943 - October 4, 1970

(I meant to post a blog on October 4th in memoriam for the "Queen of the Blues." )

Janis Joplin died in an L.A. hotel room on October 4, 1970 while recording her album 'Pearl.' The post-humous album included "Me and Bobby McGee," "Mercedez Benz," and "Buried Alive In The Blues." At age 27, she had fans falling in love with her and her music. She was engaged to the man of her dreams, Seth Morgan, but cried to her Bobby McGee, Kris Kristofferson.

Ironically enough, the day Janis was found dead on the floor of the L.A. hotel room, she was scheduled to finish the recording and edits on the song "Buried Alive In The Blues." She was supposed to spend that night in the hotel with Seth Morgan, but his womanizing ways found him bedding a waitress in San Francisco and not with his soon-to-be wife. Her excessive heroin use, cocaine use, and chugging of Southern Comfort didn't mix well in the lonely, blues-singing heart and soul of Janis that night. The 'Queen of the Blues' was almost a martyr to her own destiny when she was quoted, on more than one occassion, to foreshadow what lie ahead of her.

Her former lover, Jimi Hendrix, was dead only a few weeks when Janis finally went too far with her self-destructive ways. After Hendrix perished in London, Janis was quoted, "I can't say that I was shocked. I guess this just decreases my chances. Two rockstars can't die in the same year." Seeming invincible, Janis assured her worrying friends and Texas family that "Nothing will ever happen to me." In the twenty months leading up to October of 1970, she had overdosed six times and one being almost fatal. On October 4, she was dead and a part of rock-and-roll's "Forever Twenty Seven" club.

The way she expressed the intense emotions of life in a pure, honest, and riveting way left her fans needing that release. Only, she was dead. Never before was a raspy, beatnik from Texas so relative to everyone that listened to her. In twenty-seven years, she did more than most will do in a lifetime. Yet, she felt the same feelings that her fans did. She was human. She got too drunk, she made mistakes, she loved, she never felt loved, and she wanted more. Always wanting more, until too much was too much.

She drifted, always feeling lonely and alone. She left her parents in Port Arthur to study at the University of Texas. She hitch-hiked to Greenwich Village, she rode a bus to Berkeley, she found a home in San Francisco. Unlike anything my generation will ever know, she was a young and ambitious adult in a time where music was what kept the world going. Not Wall Street, not civil rights. Music. You were for 'peace', which was only found in music, or you were for 'war', which wasn't found in her neck of the woods. She released herself from her bindings in music. When music wasn't enough she turned to booze - always Southern Comfort, of course! When booze wasn't enough she turned to cocaine. Cocaine turned in to heroin.

When it seemed like the 'Queen of the Blues' was finally figuring it out, she let her last 'release' go too far. At age twenty-seven, she was dead. She left one final gift to the world. Her album, "Pearl." The album was filled with Janis. Screaming her words like only she could do, exploding her soul into her lyrics and proving that fame doesn't make you immortal. She was lonely, she was depressed, and she didn't think anyone could hear her.

On October 4th, 1970 the world heard her. They heard the silence. They lost inspiration. They lost liveliness of her performances. They lost Janis Joplin. Silence.

Her motto, "The more you live, the less you die." was perfectly fitting for the twenty-seven years of her life. What could have killed her way before her fatal night was what kept her alive. She lived up to people's expectations even when people didn't live up to hers. "People like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards."

Her need for her audience's adoration was enormous. When she got it, she claimed that was the only thing that made her feel. She compared performing and moving her audience to feel what she is feeling to 'having a baby' and 'falling in love twenty times.'

It makes you wonder what she may have accomplished had she continued her legacy and not become a legend so soon. If she had seen what the album "Pearl" did for blues, rock, and soul music. It is hard to fathom what music in general would have been like if Janis lived another few decades.

We may have never known Madonna. Me may have never known Stevie Nicks. We may have never known Courteney Love or Mariah Carey. Sheryl Crowe or Celine Dion.

What we do know is that no one can touch the heart and soul of America the way Janis Joplin did. A small-town girl with dreams bigger than Texas. A tomboy, a beatnik, a gypsy.

Her career that turned into what she called "the whole success thing" was always embarked upon by staying true and righteous to herself. In all aspects of life she vowed she'd stay real. One of her most famous quotes was "Don't compromise yourself, you're all you've got." Nothing else said could prove this more true than the life she lived and the legacy she left. She never compromised, she never was anything but human.

No one can turn vocals and instrumentals into the sublime power of one's heart, soul, whole self, the way she could. Her words were relative, her music was riveting, and her performance was empowering.

What is it about this woman that I'm so intrigued and inspired by, many ask. Why do I love her as if I knew her? She was real. She was lonely. She was yelling but no one could hear her. She had passion. She was a musician because it made her feel good. She didn't want money, she wanted the experience. She was a tomboy. She let no one's expectations be limitations. She was boundless, out there, and made being 'different' something to be proud of.

Janis, as she described herself, was 'one of those regular weird people.'

-bjj

the 'other' sister

Download these Janis Joplin favs:

- A Woman Left Lonely

- Ball And Chain

- Me and Bobby McGee

- Mercedez Benz

- Tell Mama

- Piece Of My Heart

- Little Girl Blue

- Down On Me

- San Francisco Bay Blues

And, remember... "Don't compromise yourself, you're all you've got."

Florida Girls

Although I was born in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, I spent the majority of my 'growing up' years in Florida. Only two months after I began kindergarten in Asheville, NC my father's promotion moved us to 'The Sunshine State.' Our family's vacations to Disney World in Orlando and to the charming Marco Island in the Gulf of Mexico had set the standard for what my imagination had created as I made my move from our shared hometown to our new beginning. Unable to comprehend it back then, I was unaware of the completely different lifestyle I would grow up knowing for the next seventeen years.

Oviedo, Florida (above)

Granted, I have been a year-round studen t at Alabama for four years now. My residency still h as the status of Florida citizen, however. This month marks seventeen years of Florida-hood for the Jones Family. My sister graduated from high school in 2003 and moved to Birmingham, Alabama to attend Samford University - the lovely, small, private school that sits atop rolling hills that are impressively and neatly defined with landscaping perfection. She said good-bye to her little sister, who still had two years of high school left, and set out into the wild blue yonder. Like most things about my sister's life -her college choice fit her perfectly. The perfect, 'to a tee' fit that Samford University provided for her was an impossible stretch of some people's imagination it seemed. To the three of us she left at home, no imagination was needed. Her acceptance to this school and decision to go there were easy for us. She was made for small and intimate places that gave opportunity to a challenging four years of education and a hard-earned and honored nursing degree. Wake Forrest, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Vanderbilt also seemed fitting but like I would experience two years later upon making my college decision - when you know, you know. For us, we knew Ashley and we knew when we were in Alabama visiting Samford that it would not be our last visit to neither the Southern state nor the school. Maybe the fact that a small, private, Christian affiliated college in Birmingham seemed undesirable to the typical student in central Florida. However, she was not typical. She stood out from the crowd of peers.

She swam up-river to a place that would provide a breath of fresh air at the first sign of Fall and Autumn. She didn't swim with the schools of fish that went to Tampa, Gainesville, and Tallahassee or with the one's that simply stayed put to attend community college or go to nearby University of Central Florida. Neither of us considered the Florida schools that were well-known and popular to attend by fellow graduates of our high school.

When I graduated from Oviedo High School in 2005, I had made my decision about where I would attend school that coming August. After debating whether to go back 'home' to a school in Carolina or to move near Ashley and attend Auburn University or The University of Alabama, I decided on The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. "Why?" people would ask instantaneously. The number of reasons far surpassed any reasons why I would want to stay in Florida. The fact that I would be attending a school in a place other than the beloved city of Chapel Hill if I chose to head back to my home state was too hard to grasp. A disappointment in Auburn that resulted in an instant hatred for the school that sat on the East side of the state made Tuscaloosa and The University of Alabama feel sacred to me and I developed an instant passion and love for my future school and future town. Only 50 miles down the interstate from the hill that perched Samford University, I have always been able to see my sister often and make it convenient for our parents and their weekend visits to the deep South's "Bible-belt."

Alligators in Lake Jessup, Oviedo, FL (below)

While we experience the change of seasons - Summer to Fall, Fall to Winter, Winter to Spring, and Spring back to Summer - our peers experience the dull but high-heat of Florida sunshine and the suffocating feeling of Central Florida humidity. While Ashley experienced close personal relationships with her professors at Samford where enrollment averaged 5,500 undergraduates; our peers went to mega-size universities such as UF and UCF where enrollment is 50,000 to 60,000 and only continuing to grow. From my window on the fourth floor of the fourteen in Tutwiler Hall, I could look a block away at the freshmen sorority pledges in cocktail dresses and high heels overflowing the lawns of the sorority mansions on Magnolia Drive and in to the student section of Bryant-Denny Stadium with a boy wearing a coat and tie on her arm. We left palm trees for giant oak trees and beautiful, blossoming dogwood trees. We made friends from Atlanta, Memphis, Mobile, and New Orleans. We went out on dates with boys who had their mother's maiden name and natural Southern charm. We pledged Chi Omega and Delta Delta Delta by fitting in at our respective schools and showing our own charm and well-mannered upbringing. We fit in but it didn't change the fact that we were the minority - being from Florida made us a minority group.

Proving that we were sisters despite our different styles and personalities was our common ground of standing up for your beliefs that was as strong as the argument that made up my great-grandfather's legal cases when he was a Wake Forrest Lawyer and an outspoken member of North Carolina's Public School System. The fire that would run through us when we would protect one another, was a hot temper controlled by poise and grace just like our Mom taught us in true spirit of women in the South.

We preferred different flavored ice cream from one another but loved all the cuisine that defined our upbringing. Pudding was meant to be banana, it's a Coke whether Classic, Diet, or called Sprite. We could spit our own watermelon seed out in a lady-like way in order to keep our favorite fruit in July as natural as we could. Our hometown knew Southern food, and made sure it was served with utmost hospitality. Tea was nothing short or sweet and rice, potatoes, biscuits, and meat were supposed to be served with gravy. All vegetables can taste good fried and we prefer a menu item we can actually pronounce and if truly a Southern dish, can give away just what area of the Southern region your from. Both of us being one part Carolina girl and one part Florida girl, we each know our seafood and we both enjoy good, homemade grits at any time of the day. Oviedo's famed 'Mom and Pop' restaurant, "The Townhouse", does breakfast just right and is probably why even our Yankee friends enjoy the small-town's "place to be" atmosphere. The 'Oviedo Chickens' that hang out on the street corners of downtown Oviedo underneath signage that warns drivers to yield and stop for our bird friends as they walk from the restaurant to the ironically enough Popeye's Chicken establishment next door and across the street to the First Baptist Church's sprawling campus.

The Town House Restaurant, Downtown Oviedo, FL (above)

Each of us being tagged a "Florida Girl" in our new Alabama home was something we didn't necessarily brag about but also did not mind admitting. Many of my new friends in Tuscaloosa have only Destin, Pensacola, Disney World, and Miami to think of when they picture life as a full-time resident rather than only one of the millions of Florida vacationers. I received a somewhat odd amount of sad looks on the day I confirmed their worst fear: the fact that NO, I DID NOT GO TO DISNEY WORLD EVERY DAY JUST BECAUSE I LIVED IN METRO-ORLANDO. AND NO, EVEN AS A KINDERGARDENER FROM NORTH CAROLINA I NEVER ACTUALLY THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO LIVE IN CINDERELLA'S CASTLE. As if I had just told them Santa Claus wasn't actually real but rather a childhood fantasy, they looked at me in astonishment were honestly appalled at my lack of taking advantage of my living so close to Walt Disney World. I lived in a real house in a country club community, not in a beach condo that was surrounded by cheesy beach-themed restaurants and mega surf shops. This, too, came as a surprise to my new sorority-girl friends. When we go home for holidays and visits, we meet our group of small-town twenty something year olds at a biker bar that shares a water-front view with our local fish camp sitting on our famous pool of fresh water - Lake Jessup. Sticking in your toes to feel the water is comparable to sticking your finger in an electric socket while dripping wet. The lake is recreational only to the large population of airboat owners in our town. You are guaranteed to see an alligator from your own table if you bring an Oviedian with you - we can spot those red eyes from a mile away. My friends from Memphis and New Orleans understand what I mean when I break the news that we don't party it up with the rich and famous in South Beach like some of them imagined a Florida upbringing would involve. Just as they have other realistic things they do rather than hanging out with the tourist on Beale Street and Bourbon Street. In my small hometown we prefer a rowdy get together with old friends at The Black Hammock, Froggers, or The Hitching Post. As patrons in downtown Orlando at high-end clubs, bars, and other establishments we don't look like a bunch of hillbilly bumpkins. With true small-town kid attitude we act like we run our town, we relax in denim, boots, and pearls. When we downtown or to the layed-brick of Park Avenue in Winter Park where the infamous Rollin's College yupsters and former prep-school trouble-makers and their entourage seem impressed by a group of sorority-clad girls from UF, Florida State, Alabama that show their own sophisticated style of the always loved, Southern girl. The number of similarities being up there with the number of differences in our Florida style and Alabama style, has always made the transition from school back home and from home back up to school and easy feat.

We did it well, however, because Alabama had called us there for a reason and no Florida school had ever really interested us. We were Southerners from North Carolina who came from a long line of hard-working and successful people on both the Redmon, Fox, Pless and Jones sides of our deeply rooted family tree. We grew up in a small-yet-booming town of Oviedo in the nature-loving county of Seminole County where swamps and lakes add charm to a town that for decades has revolved around the Oviedo High a class 6A school, which earns highest honors for academics, athletics, and arts year after year - seemingly equal and sometimes even higher than the preparatory schools that are found few and far between in the public-school dominated Seminole and Orange counties that make up the Orlando area.

When I pledged Tri-Delta at Alabama in August of 2005 I was the only pledge, out of fifty-eight girls in my pledge class, that hailed from Florida. The only other members of the sorority from Florida were 2003 private school graduates from Pensacola, FL. The panhandle, usually not even considered "true Florida" to the peninsula's residents, is definitely a different lifestyle than the Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, and Miami havens. So, my Orlando-area hometown and the age margin between the veteran Florida Tri-Delt's made my acceptance to the very tradition-oriented and very Southern group of women was considered a high honor and an impressive feat by my fellow pledge sisters and even by the one, two, and three year veterans. I had to remember that Florida was a vacation destination to my friends, not a home. They seemed to not comprehend, but be amazed by, Florida being someone's home state. My fear of sticking out like a sore thumb, despite my shared upbringing and values as the girls raised in the deep-South, I was intriguing to them. Girls from Mountain Brook and Mobile; from Brentwood, TN and Charleston, SC. Girls that grew up in the Kentucky bluegrass and in the muddy water of Memphis, TN. Girls who were raised in Buckhead and St. Simons Island but loved Alabama too much to go to Athens the same way I didn't go to a Florida school. New Orleans wild-childs and Montgomery prim-and-propers. I was one of them. The way I wanted to know what it was like growing up down the cobblestone street from the Battery Park in Charleston, they wanted to know what it was like growing up in Florida and what my town was like to have raised such a well-fit Alabama sorostitute.

To some people being "Southern" depends on a geographical location. To others being "Southern" is determined by social hierarchy, family history, and outward appearance. To some, however, being "Southern" is a state of mind and a way of life that is rooted somewhere below the Mason-Dixon but can be taken to any state, region, or university.

This state of mind can move with a family to a charming, Civil War town in Central Florida and does not have to be left behind in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains. The promotion that moved a family of four from their roots was an example of true Southern-hood by being a reward for hard-work and determination - qualities that have been passed down in our region for generations. Well-dressed and well-mannered, a North Carolina family can fit in right away in their new town because Friday night they'll be at the football game and if you miss them then you know where to catch them on Sunday morning. If it's an emergency, you know you can call that family at any time of the night or just drive over to their house and go on in - being welcomed with twang in their voices and sweet-tea in their refrigerator. Their neighbors are wine conoisseurs from Virginia, a former University of Alabama football player and Athletics Director, fellow North Carolinian's but rivaled Duke fans, middle school teachers with deep accents from Jackson, Mississippi and Columbia, South Carolina, a family from Troy, Alabama, and Junior League mother's from New Orleans and Atlanta. The kids I grew up with are spread out across the nation from Georgia Tech to Wake Forrest to Alabama to LSU and to Kentucky. As Southern Baptist's we get baptized as a personal testimony when we find redemption in the Lord whether it be at Vacation Bible School when we're 5, during a visit to our house by the Senior Pastor when we were in middle school, and maybe not even until we're 56 and about to be a grandmother. We are taught how to make coconut pie despite the Florida heat ruining our meringue. We can cook like a Cajun, like a Cuban, like an Italian mobsters wife, and like our great-grandmother did when we'd go to potluck family gatherings.

Even though our climate is sub-tropical, we still know Oaks and Pines in addition to the many types of Palms. We know how to wear floppy hats on the beach with our sorority sisters no matter how old we are, even though we go skiing out West to make room on our beaches for our neighbors from Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia. We know how to shake a martini, we just prefer to blend daiquiris made with our world-reknown citrus. The celery factory down the road that sits underneath the water tower makes the celery stalks that garnish Bloody Mary's in New Orleans and Mobile. We embrace both college football and college basketball because our state is big enough for both ACC and SEC schools, and we are Tar Heel die-hards that come from basketball's finest state. The quarterback still marries the Homecoming Queen and high school sweethearts go to small schools in Alabama and Virginia but bring it on home for a high class Southern-style wedding that gives out R.C. Cola and a Moonpie as the favor at the reception. We raise our children to follow Jesus, to respect their Mother, and to mind their Daddies. Just because our country clubs sit on some of the world's finest golf courses and PGA and LPGA properties instead of in a downtown historic district does not mean we don't have tradition. We went to school with kids who came from minority backgrounds and we and were friends, teammates, and lab partners with dual-language students, but we made sure they taught us 'Roll Tide' and 'Bless Your Heart' before we left our little-but-big, big-but-little hometown.

The City of Oviedo, Seminole County, Florida (below)

Even though I came to Tuscaloosa a couple of weeks shy of my eighteenth birthday, I had been brought up and raised to have the same lady-like poise and elegance that my grandmothers portray through their golden years, just like a Southern lady should. I carried with me Christian values, good morals, and a strong sense of family and community. I appreciated history and 'what was' by having knowledge of the storied history of the Confederacy, but I looked ahead to 'what is' and how the Southern region is changing just like the rest of our nation. My sister and I hold on to every little piece of Southern charm that our hometown of Oviedo still has, and will never forget the many things that have already changed from the way it was in my own glory days. The town I call mine is small enough to keep it's old-Florida charm but big enough to stay in touch with the reality of the post-industrial, techno-savvy and almost futuristic world we live in. A town that used to survive in very large part by the family-owned celery and citrus farming companies named Nelson and Co. and Duda & Sons, Inc. can still find itself to be a cozy-yet-quickly-growing community made up of engineer's at near-by Kennedy Space Center and Lockhead Martin and home to college professors who help the nearly 60,000 students of UCF earn their college degree at the sprawling campus just a short, five-minute drive from our high school. The same August I started my college endeavors at Alabama, a second high school opened it's doors for the Oviedo community - a community that rocked on Friday Nights by coming together as one and making Florida high school football an equal to the always dominating high school football-crazed state of Texas. We smile when we see the flags of the Confederacy still flying in Oviedo's "little sister towns" of Chuluota and Geneva. We wake up and sip coffee in sorority t-shirts on a weekend back home to see Momma and Daddy but prove miracles exist when we make it to church on time in our Sunday best and sit beside our favorite Deacon and his offering plate.

Whether in pearls or pony-tails, the 'Florida Girl' twosome made up of my sister and I always dress ourselves in the correct state of mind. We proudly show our twenty-two and twenty-five year old Southern manners and we take good care of our Southern men in our life just like we do our favorite strand of pearls. We don't show up empty-handed and we would never buy it from a store when we've got the recipe for it memorized. The seventeen years in Florida falls short of the twenty-two years in 'the South.' Simply, our twosome may only be evidence to Alabamians that even in Florida your sister's your best friend and your strength in your moments of weakness. We may only be evidence that not all Florida residents spend their college years in Gainesville and we may only just be the most naturally tan out of our friends but we above our 'Florida Girl' status we are Southerners.

As sure as we are that the sun comes up in the East and sets in the West - thanks to our short drive to each Florida coast from our Spanish-moss decorated driveway - we are sure of our Southern-hood, proud of our style and grace, and Alabama Girls going on five years and running!!

-bjj

the 'other' sister

Destiny

"I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time." -Forrest Gump

My friends have always joked with me about my cynicism and sarcastic nature when it comes to topics of fantasy, fairy-tale, destiny, and fate. I'm deemed unworthy of happiness and doomed to fail by my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed girlfriends who believe in happily ever-afters just as much as they did when they were eight years-old. My guy friends are a little more tolerable of my realistic outlook on this subject. In relationships, some take it to be a personal message from me to them despite that not always being the case. I've been told that I was a pessimist and that I should try to be more optimistic when it comes to 'everything happening for a reason', as the cliche goes. However, I consider myself neither a pessimist nor an optimist, but rather - a realist. A realist is someone who looks at the reality of situations without manipulating it as either negative or positive. Instead, a realist looks at a situation as a whole and considers a situation's factors and outcomes in their entirety. Therefore, I look at the 'destiny' and 'fate' topics with a more realist-oriented mind.

I do believe in happily ever-after. I believe in serendipity, destiny, and fate. I believe that everything happens for a reason and I believe in fairy tales. I know what it is like to dream big and I know what it feels like to reach a goal that was set. However, I don't believe we just sit back and watch it all happen. My belief is that we all play an intricate role in determining whether our life ends up with either a happy ending, an epic or heroic conclusion, a horrible and painful ending, or a cliff-hanging end that puts us all on hold for the sequel to come out. I do believe that fate and destiny exist by giving you the hand you were dealt. What you do with those cards is up to you, however. Depending on the choices you make, your feelings and emotions, your core values and morality, and many other factors, is whether your personal life story is worth making a movie out of, and if it is - what is the genre? Would you be an Oscar-winning drama or a horror story? Would you be a tragedy of misfortunate events, or a black and white film without any splash of color? A comedy? An epic tale? Maybe fate and destiny dealt you a jackpot winning hand by making a Disney Princess movie out of you. Nonetheless, you are given the opportunity to play the hand you are dealt which means that every thing doesn't 'just happen', you can make them happen or prevent them from happening.

As a little girl the movie Forrest Gump, my all-time favorite, could use it's dialogue to teach me some of life's important lessons. Today, I still use some of the memorable quotes said by Forrest, Jenny, Ms. Gump, Lieut. Dan, and Bubba in order to relate to my own life. Most of us have all probably seen this movie, released in 1994, that portrayed revolutions that filled the United States in the 21st century. Like a U.S. History textbook had come to life, we learned about Vietnam as well as segregation in the South and the historical 'stand at the schoolhouse door' that took place at the University of Alabama. We learned about the Anti-Vietnam hippie-movement, the 1960 drug culture, and the storied musical era. We learned about political assassinations, the Watergate Scandal, and the military. We saw Elvis, Bear Bryant, and The Beatles. We watched a boy with special needs grow up, become a hero, fall in love with his best friend, become a millionaire, and bury his only love after she lost her battle with HIV/AIDS. Loving these characters was the only option I was given when I was first introduced to this movie fifteen years ago.

However, when I first saw this movie at age eight, I obviously did not relate in the same ways I do now. When young Jenny would pray "Dear Lord, make me a bird so I can fly far. Far, far away from here" I related when I was having a bad day in school or was sad due to the miniscule personal tragedies that taunt a third-grader. Now, I relate to older Jenny when she throws rocks at her old house and Forrest narrates by saying "Sometimes, I guess, there just aren't enough rocks." After being hurt, lost, and wandering in the world, I know the intense pain that your past can hold over you. Regrets, guilt, disappointments - sometimes throwing it all back doesn't equal a full relief of the pain and eventually you run out of rocks to throw. Maybe that's why my take on destiny and fate differs from most other girls. Maybe they still have rocks to throw, maybe they never wandered outside of their comfort zone so they have no reason to look at it from my perspective. Maybe the pessimistic girls were hurt even worse than I was by past relationships and therefore they feel as if all signs lead to negativity and as if they can't throw some of the rocks back at where they came from.

Forrest, narrating another pearl of wisdom from Ms. Gump says, "My momma always said, sometimes we've got to put the past behind us in order to move on." This quote has sought me through more trials than I can remember and also plays a factor in my personal views of the topics on destiny, fate, and serendipity. It has a way of explaining that the past affects our future only in the way that we want it to that helped me to develop the way I looked at life - it's opportunities, it's setbacks, it's risks, and it's rewards. Putting the past behind you in order to move on has always been an incredible truth in my life and it has helped me gain perspective on life's most important lessons - love, family, and happiness.

Lately, my ability to put the past where it belongs - behind me - and my recognition of destiny being both a thing of 'chance' as well as a thing of 'choices', I have seen fate at work in my personal life. I've witnessed serendipity and I've found a level of contentment that I have never felt before, yet I somehow knowingly accept my new happiness as 'what's meant to be will be.' I've let friendships that were empty of intimacy and mutual respect become things of the past in order to move forward into new chapters in my life. I've moved on in school, romantic happiness, and personal confidence because of the choices I've made in my life when fate and destiny deal me a new hand. I've left things behind because destiny and fate have given me new chances, and sometimes it's more fun, and a better decision, to be out with the old and in with the new so as to be lucky enough to experience serendipity for the first time in your life. Trust me.

Forrest asked his mother, "What's my destiny, Mama?"

She answered by saying, "You're going to have to figure that out for yourself."

Each of us are given opportunities, chances, consequences, and rewards throughout our entire lives. Sometimes destiny and fate help us out a little or cut us break; sometimes they're absent and we feel like we are going to be stuck spending our whole life searching for meaning and purpose. But in my life - and my realistic perspective makes this even sweeter - my destiny and fate presented themselves for the first time when I least expected it. I guess, in the grand scheme of things, I am a true believer. When I was at a point in my life that I least believed in happy endings and I was bitter toward my lack of 'everything happening for a reason,' I was dealt a new hand, I played my cards right, and I know serendipity on a personal level now.

I used to wish I never had to experience the turbulence and setbacks that hurt me so badly, the ones that left me wounded and scarred. I wish some of my past mistakes would go away at the throw of a rock. Now, however, I am grateful for all of my experiences - because without pain and without hurting how are we supposed to know how good it feels when the pain and hurt go away? Without a bumpy past, how would we know the smooth ride we're on today is the better feeling one?

"You have to do the best with what God gave you." -Ms. Gump

-bjj

the 'other' sister

more.than.just.a.pretty.face

"I'm trying to find myself as a person, sometime's that's not easy to do. Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do" - Marilyn Monroe

Some people may look at the life and legacy of Marilyn Monroe, one of my favorite women in history, and think 'sex icon', or that she was too controversial to be a role-model, or she was responsible for the doom of the perfect American political family. To myself, she is someone who shaped history. She allowed us to be 'wild at heart'. She was a 'black sheep' in a white dress; and she was good at making trouble.

Marilyn Monroe was more than a pin-up, flirt, and blonde bombshell. She lived her life in search of finding herself. Born with the name Norma Jeane Mortenson, she was baptized with the name Norma Jeane Baker, and when America fell in love with her as an actress, her name was Marilyn Monore. To girls like me who still admire her legacy, decades after her 1962 death, she is simply 'Marilyn'.

She was American. She was divine. Her pin-ups were all over Army, Marine, and Air Force bases during the second World War. She was beautiful; round; real.

As a model, people couldn't get enough of her. People wanted more, and this hunger for more of this scandalous and sexy star propelled her acting career. She taught us 'How to Marry a Millionaire' and that 'Some Like it Hot'. Her popularity is one that is hard to match. Her glamour is timeless.

Most people know that my favorite cultural decade in American history is the bohemian, hippie culture. The free-spirited, wandering, experimental, and ruthless women who changed women across the nation from 'idealist' to to 'realist'. Where did this fear-less attitude come from? Sure, marijuana-filled joints and the infamous Acid Kool-Aid Tests. But, not all bohemians, feminist, and realist were part of the drug induced crowd. Some were mothers, some were Preacher's daughters, and some were sister's, girlfriends, and wives of a man in Army green. My respect for Marilyn Monroe is born amidst the recognition that she changed the face of the ideal American woman. Marilyn taught us that a woman in the 1950's didn't have to adorn aprons and 'ooh and ahh' over microwaves, Chevrolets, and 'Honey, I'm home' type husbands. She showed the nation and the world that a 1950's woman could bare her skin and that people could 'ooh and ahh' over her beauty or gasp at their own jealousy of such a trend-setter. She curled her hair, painted her lips, took risks in her fashion, and although she gave birth to the 'dumb blonde' persona, she was a genius in the mind of girls who were born to stand out. She set an example for all the women who wanted to be different, always looking for that 'Marilyn' attitude in order to not blend with the crowd.

But do most people know the story of such a timeless icon? She was more than just a pretty face, like most glamorous people are. She was a foster child; her mother being too mentally unstable to care for her. She was passed around from one family friend to the next, never really knowing who she was or given a chance to foresee what might she be like when she grew up. At age 16, she was to marry a man in order to avoid another foster family or orphanage.

The nation wept at the thought of Michael Jackson being robbed of a childhood. "That's what made him so damn weird," some would say. Just like we've witnessed with the recent loss of pop music's "King", Marilyn's post-humous reputation would be loved and admired or hated and wanted to be forgotten. However, you can't just forget a woman like Marilyn. She wasn't the Audrey Hepburn or Jackie O type. She was the mistress, not the wife. She was the pin-up, not the Sunday School teacher. Simply, Marilyn, was who she was.

Norma Jeane was a wife before some of us could master the skill of driving our first car. Yet she used her past to create her future, in which she wasn't weird or creepy, she was beautifully artistic and deviously loved.

She taught us that 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' and lived like a real-life Barbie. Her rendition of 'Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend' was associated with her. She married, separated, and divorced Joe DiMaggio then showed us all 'How To Be Very, Very Popular'.

Marilyn Monroe was what Elton John refers to as 'A Candle In The Wind' and the only other rendition to this song was an exchange in the lyrics appropriate for the death and funeral of Princess Diana. Marilyn was royalty in lingerie. She was a life in the spotlight. She herself changed the tune of the widely known 'Happy Birthday' song that every three-year old to 90 year-old knows by heart. We know when to sing it in normal tune, and how to sing it when a tool for seduction. She could make the President blush; she could make a white halter-top dress a must-have for four decades of young women; and she made wind blowing your hair and skirt up sexy rather than embarrassing.

She is more than just a sex icon, let me remind you. Sure, she could make a grown man's jaw drop or be responsible for a twelve-year old's first experience of puberty. But she is an Oscar and Golden Globe winner. She is a comparison for the other blondes who follow. And, she is inspiration for the women like me in search of themselves.

She is Los Angeles. Born in LA, died in LA. She set the mold for the California-girl. Her life can be told in the historic theatres that are still used in the West coast's favorite city.

Her ashes are laid to rest in The Corridor of Memories in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetary and the corridor to her left is owned by Hugh Hefner, where he will be laid to rest when the life of another sex icon, genius, and scandalous figure comes to an end. Talk about appropriate.

A woman who shaped history, defined beauty, and lives on nearly fifty years after her 'death by conspiracy'. She reminds me each time I read one of her flirtacious and ruthless quotes or see one of her iconic images that it's okay to not know who you are. If you were one of those girls who never settles for anything less than exciting or can't put a "type" to your look, personality, or attitude, then you're not a failure. She was a success. She made housewives envious. She was the lady in red, not the girl next door. She constantly changed her mind or made a frenzy wherever she went.

She was Norma Jeane to the traditional girl, but Marilyn Monroe - glitz and glam, sugar and spice - to the innovative girl that believes in finding yourself but having fun while you do it.

As I venture out into the wide-unknown each day, I take a little bit of the women who shaped history for me. The ones I know, the ones I only know of reading about. I know I haven't 'found myself' but I'll be damned if I'm one of the millions who never do. So, in my opinion, learning a few lessons from the words a girl like Marilyn left behind, I do believe I'll find myself one day - and I'll give credit to the people who helped.

"I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful."

"I don't mind living in a man's world, as long as I can be a woman in it."

"If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never gotten anywhere."

"I am trying to prove to myself that I am a person."

"It's better to be happy alone than unhappy with someone."

"It's better for the whole world to know you, even as a sex star, than to never be known at all."

"If you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."