Caitlin Rulien was born in Gainesville, Florida, but has spent the majority of her life residing in a blue-painted house in the suburbs of Jacksonville. She did run away to spend several months in Africa, but is now back to find an adventure states-side. When she is not attending community college, she is working as a freelance photographer or drawing pictures with the youngster she nannys.

Caitlin's main interests in life include journaling, Harry Potter, and puns. She loves drinking hot tea and listening to people tell stories. Activities she involves herself in consist of: ambiversion, making mountains out of molehills, Ultimate Frisbee, screen printing, writing some things, reading other things, crocheting, vegetarianism, photo-taking, and left-handedness.

“Great Expectations,” she read to me, “is a buildungsroman,” like it was some sort of vocabulary sentence I was writing for my fifth grade English class. This was a habit we’d grown into, yesterday I learned The Hunchback of Notre Dame was written to encourage Gothic Architecture.

I spent my evenings sitting in an upright chair I constantly thought of turning over. Seeing the white satin pillow strewn across the floor and the highly polished legs twisted and broken was a mental image that kept me sane those two hours every evening.

“Great Expectations,” she read to me, “is a buildungsroman.” My father walked into the room with a glass in his hand and a phone in the other, I was busy looking through the sheer curtains at the sky, which just recently turned a dark shade of grey. The birds were flying recklessly, erratically. Erotically, I thought instead, I’d like to see birds fly erotically, could you imagine the passion? I wanted to ask her this, but with, “What an untimely moment for a phone call,” she left the room. I listened to her soft murmurings through the walls and never before realised what a pleasant voice she could have; when she wasn’t asking me to define Ambiguous or explain Plato’s allegory, without the encyclopedia. I brushed cracker crumbs off the seat and decided my fingers were much too fair, and hoped an ant would come so I could crush something. I paused to lick salt from my lips and wondered if my hips were supposed to be getting this large.

She returned with a crater of grief in her eyes, “That was the highlight of my day.” I didn’t find it appropriate to ask what. Two ants battled under my chair.