brighter

I feel pretty good about the soreness in my hamstrings and the way the snow melted away from my car before I had to clear it myself. And I feel good about the bright colors in this morning's sunrise and a lunch date that was a release of tension after a year's worth of waiting. And definitely I feel good about the afternoon nap which I spent with my head securely nestled in the crook of S's shoulder and the way the setting of the sun this evening was even brighter.

bonus

I like to give myself a hardship bonus when I'm feeling hardshipped. Today my bonus is a Starbucks mocha, and my excuse is a non-alarm and having to be up out of bed and out the door in the space of nine minutes. *Sigh*

not bettering myself

I'm going into work late today--still the snow. Trying to decide whether or not to take a shower first. I sort of feel I ought to because geez, woman, shouldn't you at least do one thing good for yourself in 24 hours? I mean, I have been in this bed for about 16 hours now, and joining me have been lots of dry Cheerios and frosting straight from the can. That, and reading back through some of my old journals. I was getting into 2004 last night. And I kept reading, 'I am just feeling a sense of NEED all the time these days. You know exactly what I mean.' And I don't know anymore. I am so quick to become a stranger to myself. But the stranger self of seven (really?!) years ago did entertain me, and did less of the making me sad than my journals from that era usually do. I read about a snow day about this time of year back then, and how I spent the entire day in the dorm room of my then-and-still-should-be-but-isn't best friend, working on a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle, ordering pizza, watching Life is Beautiful, camping out on the floor to tell stories and secrets and keeping the door open. I am positive that the first few months of 2004 were the first time in my life I left the word 'lonely' out of my self-description, and I'm very grateful for that.
Oh, this snow. I'll skip the shower. But I'll average out by walking to work in my boots instead of digging out my car and inching through the poorly plowed streets. I'd so much rather be inching through poorly plowed streets on foot, with my (frustrating, but momentarily functional) mp3 player and the warm, fuzzy scarf from my brother wrapped around my neck two or three times.
I should have used this unscheduled break to better myself, but I did not. So perhaps I'll so some push-ups on my way out.

snow day

I'm home from work early today--the heavy falling snow and slick ice (I can attest) finally caused the university to bow to the inevitable and close early. I have never been a fan of winter, other than a detached recognition of the beauty in its starkness, and this one is just as inconvenient as they all have been. But, OH, I had a ride home through the mess. Thank god I had a ride home. And although an afternoon of snow ruins plans, I am feeling lucky to be safe, and warm, and to have a chicken sandwich on my plate. Due to my track record you might think that's a metaphor but it's not. The sandwich is real, and so is the orange juice, and so are the cupcakes on the kitchen counter. I think I'll like winter a whole lot better when being snowed in at home means being snowed in with my lover. So next year, essentially. I'll try to wait.

falling

Even though I'm just fine physically aside from a scraped knee, it is taking me a while (as it always does) to shake off an early morning slip on the ice.
My mind just blurs out after I hit the pavement,
and I become
and stay for a few hours

very young.

more

Sometimes I wish love was quantifiable. Just so I'd be able to put it all on a graph and keep an eye on its steady rising.

Saturday night

I say yes to ending a Saturday by falling asleep on the couch with my head on S's lap while a few Spongebob episodes play and the ice at the bottom of my white russian melts.

boom boom boom

This is the sound of the blood in my veins fresh-off-a-morning-workout, cup of yogurt in my hands. I am learning to love this.

And it's the same kick of beat as was under my skin last night while I sat, charmed, with an old travel journal of my love's in my lap. I understand him, and it's possible that I am more in love with him having read this, having seen the vulnerability and inherent goodness between the lines. I am always surprised at the way my heart leaps.

I am feeling strong, and I am feeling optimistic, and I know I'm going to make it through today sustaining the sort of rhythm that I've already got going. Boom boom boom.

mollification of me

I am calmed. It took me a little while to get there, because I was starting from INSANE-- a sticky confluence of real and imagined faults and physical judgments. My breakdown was a masterpiece of nonsense, brought on by something as simple as a fleeting fear that someone I love isn't proud of me or the new things I'm learning to try (nonsense!) and the downslide carried along nicely through the (oh so obvious) transition to a mess of body-image flagellation and good old self doubt. Ah, I do it well.

Thank GOD for silly voices and patience and warm, gentle kisses. And for a night of sleep. It all helps.

routine

I don't like the cold of this office after the damp warmth of my body inside a shirt inside a down vest inside a coat as I walk across town. I take these things off, saving the shirt, and sitting at my desk I am suddenly COLD, DAMN IT. I know this routine. I do it every day. I walk to work with a warm body and then sit at my desk, still warm, but after three minutes the COLD, DAMN IT, hits and I drape my office-sweater over my shoulders and I break into my thermos of coffee and wrap my hands around the fresh mug and hold myself tightly until I reach equilibrium. Breathe in breathe out the smell of coffee and feel my delightfully tired legs curled up underneath me in my chair. Relax. Get to work.

am

Well, what am I? A poser, a creep, a breaker-of-plans. And someone absolutely drowning in love, of the sort that keeps me up all night and of the sort that reaches out in tentacles all over the map. To you. And you. And you up there.
Today has been highly irregular and it's got me slightly riled up for trying again tomorrow and learning to practice and saying thank you for all those hugs.
I am warm and safe, even for a poser. That's what I am.

missing

Oh whatever the whatever. Regardless of how little time I spent alone today, I am still lonely.

what this weekend is

This weekend feels weird to me. I am looking down at my feet for insight but all they are telling me is forty miles, forty miles. It gets me off topic, but I do have to thank my feet for their forty miles this week. I will do so by taking off the toenail polish I just put on a few days ago. Because I've realized I hate the color. I threw out the rest of the bottle. But what this weekend is, I don't know. S is away--I have not seen him since Wednesday night and I am not sure if that evening can even count because when he came over it was so late and I was so tired that I only ever saw him through a tiny slit in my eyelids. They were too heavy to open fully and my mind was too far gone into the chasm of almost-asleep to actually communicate in anyway other than by burying my face in his chest.
I did not think of myself as uncomfortably clingy, but I think I am becoming that way. Four days apart begins to seem like a loss of identity. I don't really like this about myself. I love S, but I want to still be a whole person minus S. It's so easy to let myself depend on him, though, because he is so dependable. He is always there. Supremely count-on-able. I don't want him to NOT be, but I suspect that he would tie my shoes for me if I ask him to, and oh LORD. That is too much of a good thing. Princess doesn't fit me.
I will take pride in being a self this weekend. I foresee tacos and audiobooks and thrift stores, walking up the hill to my favorite friend's apartment, spending some hours with my family, football, card games, chocolate covered pretzels, Hulu. You know.

ephemera

I really do not like

temporary.

requisite

Today I am comforted by Zoe Keating, Christopher Moore, waterproof mascara, and Cheez-Its.

mostly static, move along

Yarg. This day is endless and it is giving me crazy eyes. It isn’t helped by the way my hair is staticking itself to everything I walk past. And by the sloo-oow speed of work trickling in today. I have no idea what the hell is wrong with people today, the second day of a new semester. WHY ARE YOU NOT ALREADY DOING RESEARCH? It boggles the mind.

I should keep this in mind

Sometimes I'm really slow to remember that everyone is different.

Dr Love

So incredibly lucky to be marrying an April-ologist. He's like a doctor of April-love. Got me all figured out.

WITHOUT THINKING

You are as smart as the cherries that change
Back to pale when they’re about to be picked.
And fall from their tree weeks later, darker
And untouched. You know how to spell
Rain, misspell it torrent, flood, disaster.
You know words as long as your fingers.
The towel usually wrapped around your head
To soak the sweat from all this work is
Hissing on the radiator. You’ve trained
The dog to train the cat to train the mice,
Who really do need training, who are ready
At all moments to chew through the legs of
The King’s Chair. You want to train them
To bring the crown to you. When you were two,
You threw your dish out the window with enough
Spin it became the moon for the day, then
Flew back to you. If you were dead today,
You would not be as dead as most. What
Is the cost of being alive? Something multiplied,
Something divided, something subtracted, nothing
Added. Each time you think to yourself you
Lose a minute of immortality, a thing the rest
Of us think is not important enough to die for.
Which you think: yes. And you keep thinking.
First you thought love, love. Now, once again,
You think love. This is not difficult for
You to imagine, it is leaves on and leaves off
Trees, it is simply looking out the windows,
Windows all around only open always.




~Edward Kleinschmidt
from Poetry magazine, March 1986

looking forward

I slept far too little last night in between the buzzing of my head in time with the tossing and turning of my body and the extra early alarm. But I always love the mornings. That's when my optimism bites the hardest. I can do this. I can lace up my sneakers and set off at a fast walk. I can re-start. I have a tangerine on my desk and the sky is blue.

looking back

I hate that there is a demarcation in my life like, you loved me. Then you didn't. I was enough. Then I wasn't. It was my fault. And it sticks in my ribs, the way I let you down and you iced over before I had a chance to finish dividing my heat.

being where I am meant to be

The best part about home after a day on the road is a shower and legs stretched out in bed. But this is nothing compared to the best parts of all the rest of the days I've just had. I am talking bananas in a blender, futon spooning, husky dogs, champagne, spice, people to meet, people to dote on, friends who mean more to me than I know how to say in one goodbye hug. I am so lucky that I belong there. Oh and to say nothing of the hours spent on the road with the man I'll marry in less than a year. We are a team, and I will never get tired of leaning over to bury my face in his shoulder.
I have never looked forward to starting a new year more than I look forward to this one, and I am pretty sure the trip I took up to NY and back in these last few days was the ultimate line up of being where I was meant to be with who I was meant to be next to. This has got to be a good omen. I mean, it just keeps getting better.