very real

Tuesday morning, back at work, picking a dryer sheet from the seat of my pants, letting loose streams of 'oh it was lovely! the weather was perfect! I got to see so many people I love! there was big love all around! and a lacy white dress! bright flowers floating in glass bowls! music music, bonfire, meteor shrieking across the night sky!'
I'm glad for a lot of things-- for perfect weather, to have my arms used for setting up and striking tables and fields of white folding chairs, to be a small part of the big, fluid mass that is my extended family, to have a strong arm looped through mine holding me up when my emotions weaken my knees, to have been able to eat a lot of yummy cake over the weekend. It's been real.

state of the union

Miller wedding #1 is done and done well. State of the union is restrained, sunshiney bliss.

state of the snot

Nose occlusion is at a weekly low of only 20% and outlook is sunny (beyond the thunderstorms in the forecast, that is). I am so fantastically excited to get all this family and friends lovin' started, kicking off with rehearsal dinner and evening of celebration tonight. I have always loved weddings, even at those moments when I felt like anything but marriage material myself. And there have been plenty of weddings I've gone to in the past few years that have made my heart just tear up and weep with happiness because I love the bride and groom so much and because their love is so... oh lord, LOVE. But this is the first time a wedding has been as close to me as could be without it being my own, and I can already feel the perfect happiness of my heart welling up inside me. My baby brother, who has been throughout my growing up my favorite human in the world, gets to marry his perfect woman. I am crying just thinking of this. Well damn. All these tears are NOT going to help stem the snot.

punk

I am drinking oceans of lemon water. It's probably not hurting anything, aside from interrupting my already interrupted sleep/work with trips to the bathroom. It is at least half as soothing as the spicy chicken sandwich I got for free from Chick-fil-A for lunch today. Though forgive me, my math is fuzzy, and at least half as might be more like twice as or almost as much as. I blame this on the stubborn plug in my nostril.

snotty frenzy

I am 3/4 of a person. I am not referring in this case to the fact that I'm still fighting a losing battle against a head cold. I am not bouncing back and the deadline (brother's wedding this weekend) is looming ever closer. HEAL, DAMNIT. *sneeze*
But no, I'm saying that I am 3/4 of a person because... I'm sort of barebones. I am missing the flesh to fill out who I am and what I believe and what I want. I'm much more of a mooch than you'd suspect. I sponge up other's ideas and opinions because I don't know how to have my own. I flail around a lot just hoping to stumble by chance on the right thing to do and the way to do it. Most of the time I can make this work, but damn. Damn if I'm not whipping myself into an unneccesary (and very snotty) frenzy over this, over the fact that that I really am flying blind--I really don't KNOW what I want my own wedding or even my marriage to look like and I am not currently and will never be anywhere near as steady and self-assured as are my brother and his soon-wife. I would love to fill the final 1/4 of me with some of their inimitable capability.

eyes, head cold, soul rocking

One thing I did not predict about this year: a brand spanking new set of never before experienced eye allergies! One in each eye! With extra special bonus itchiness in my right! I learn to be afraid of pollen and reliant on eyedrops and the kindly advice of the middle aged eye doctor I have a massive crush on. I can tell he likes me by the way he's extra gentle when yanking on my lower eyelids.
Finally this weekend I found a mix of preventative and restorative eye care that works to keep my eyes blinking happily... just before I was struck down by a muzzy headed spring cold. It's really nice to be able to forgo whining about my sore eyes in exchange for whining about my cottony head and snot levels! S is a saint. I was feeling especially bad on the bus ride home from the performance yesterday. I'd fallen asleep wedged sideways in the seat resting my head on S's lap and I woke feeling achy and blurry and wild, and S helped me right myself and smoothed my hair and held my face in his hands and told me he loves me and that I am an incredible writer and reader (I think he said that, though I may have still been dreaming) and then, even though I protested that I didn't want to get my germs all over him, he nuzzled into the side of my face, tracing lines down my cheeks and neck with his lips and nose. It was body-curing-body and soul rockingly sweet. I think you have to pledge to spend the rest of your life with a man who never hesitates to cradle and comfort you when you're low.

sesquicentennial

I along with 60 or so of my closest geriatric friends ((aka the community band I'm a member of) (I mean 'geriatric' in the most admirable way) (I'm really quite fond of them all. And there are actually a few of them a decade or so below geriatric (besides S and me) AND we have at least one high schooler)) are taking a coach bus down to Blacksburg tomorrow for a Civil War Sesquicentennial Conference. We're the featured performers. We'll play some (kick ass) Civil War tunes, because that's what we have been doing since even before the war itself. Without pause, every summer, this band is in bloom. I think this will be year 157. (How small this makes me feel... kind of like looking at the stars) (But then again, every little star counts (and we all know I'm a star. Heh.)).

I really didn't need to write all that down because it's just a thing, just a day of thing. But I had a whole head full of parentheses and this is such a good way to use them up.

a fit of the housewifes

My baby brother is getting married in NINE DAYS. My own wedding is in 135, which is both way too far away and so close I feel the organ music breathing down my neck. I spend a lot of time thinking about being married (you would, too) and from where I'm standing today, it'll be well well well worth the fuss, if only for the logistical ease of having a permanent claim to and a spot in the bed beside S. Plus, I have been infected with what I describe as a fit of the housewifes. I am craving badly a blank slate on which to create and organize a home, daydreaming about doing S's laundry, thinking long and hard about cooking, cleaning, and managing joint checking accounts. These longings must not be misinterpreted as promises that I'll magically morph into a graceful domestic goddess the instant we're home from the honeymoon, because I probably won't. I definitely will never be legitimately graceful about this. But it's meaningful to me that I'm having these desires and that I can imagine finding myself there--married--and capable of holding up my half of the bargain. Means I'm readier than I thought I'd be.

shank

THERE ARE SO MANY RAZOR BLADES IN THIS PLACE. I counted seven between here and the bathroom. The series of building plagues continues--half-dressed men, carpet glue dust, loud ripping noises, obstacle courses made of stacked study carrels, abandoned knife blades. Libraries are so peaceful during the summer.

damp

It's is raining so hard this morning that I'm interrupting myself to exclaim over it. Midsentence I keep saying 'would you LOOK at that sky?!' All this rain lately has been stepping on my walking toes. And then instead of feeling relieved to be sitting on a bus I feel guilty for the disuse of my legs and feet. Ai, guilt. I give a lot of it a lot of purchase.

Other than feeling damp and swollen, I'd rate myself 7 on a scale of cautious optimism. Not specialized optimism, broad-spectrum optimism. For, like, everything. It's going to be good, I suspect.

thanks you

I like thinking to myself: now that was cute! after someone accidentally says something like 'thanks you!' instead of 'thanks' or 'thank you.' It's reassuring to hear those slips coming from someone else's tongue and not just mine. I like being generous with this, like I'm giving this one to you. I'll let you have that without needing to backtrack.

blue and gray

I am spending this weekend and the next in the Civil War. You'd think this would make me feel like a Yankee. Usually it just makes me very curious. There is a difference.

that's fine

It is Friday the 13th. The day is so damp out that after my walk across town the dollar bill from my jeans pocket was hanging too limp to slide into the vending machine. I just misread the phrase 'EXPLORING THE MODERN AUDIT FIRM: AN INTRODUCTION' and thought it was talking about porn. After seeing Thor last night I am fired up about Norse mythology. And I am completely overwhelmed by the fact that I am loved despite my smelly feet.

well employed

Today work is hilarious. A little less shirtless workmen and a lot more insulting emails from professors outraged at being referred to as 'customer' and bemused building managers and a fine layer of yellow dust coating all the books. And one het-up boss who is being very entertainingly un-zen. It is a day I'd happily agree to pack up the office of the professor emeritus against his wishes because he refuses to come in and empty his desk and because the ranting going on about all of this just makes me laugh. And it's even employee appreciation day, on top of all of it. Sometimes the best kind of appreciation is a circus.

stitched up

Today, because my mother is doing much better and will probably even get to go home today, I am allowing myself to get down and dirty with customizing my standard forms and managing my spreadsheets. /metaphor?

bursting

So, my mom's in the hospital, there are half-dressed men surrounding my office, and my uterus hurts. Today isn't going so well. I'd be quite distraught if it were not for all the late night love poems and the early morning yoga.

we're going to be fine

Going away this weekend to get all my family reunited (and I mean that there are nine of us these days!) I hope this will be a good weekend for emptying heads of stress and opening of ears. Listen, think, act. Other than that, I know what's coming, and this is such a relief to me.

I don't like finals week

I don't like finals week. There's not even a bit of schadenfreude in me anymore. It's just all pity and resentment. The library is overflowing and barely containing its panic. There was a girl crying in the stairwell earlier this week. She was bunched up in the corner on her phone and was sobbing things like, 'mom, I'm just NOT GOING TO GET IT DONE IN TIME!' It makes me wince. I just had to deliver the news of a huge lost item fine to a graduating senior who was frantic about having looked everywhere and the book is still missing, and she can't afford that fee! She's practically homeless already! I could never be a counselor. I cry too easily.

And of course, this is the day that I forgot to bring a bra.

redaction

SHIT. I was supposed to be not insulting myself this month. Referring to myself as apathetic and greedy is unacceptable [until June]. Forget I said anything. I'm lovely.

apathetic greed

It's interesting that by nature I'm rather ambivalent, because that doesn't seem to mesh very peacefully with my... umm... distaste for moderation.

[...]

everything will be ok
in the end

if it's not ok
it's not the end.