Saturday morning

Fresh coffee, imitation radio, flock of sparrows in the back lot, goosebumps, waiting, whole grain English muffins with cheese. Feet in foreground, self in background, sprawled out like this on the couch. We'll trade it for the squashy tan one later, and I'll keep drifting off to sleep on your lap.

not eloping

I am much less inclined to suggest a last minute elopement now that I've had another dress fitting, and oh man. Oh, MAN I think I might rock the limelight when the time comes. I'm relieved. I've been having self-excoriating days lately wherein I cannot find my own beauty. It's nice to catch a sideways glimpse in a mirror every now and then and think, oh hey, perhaps I do deserve a chance to stand up in front of a crowd and announce my love and my intentions publicly. Perhaps I will deserve to be called 'beautiful.'

No predictions yet as to what effect picking up a marriage license this afternoon will have on my itching to just, damnit, elope already. It may bring all that roaring back. WE'LL SEE. Patience and drama do not come naturally to me. And apparently both are part of the last few months before a wedding.

everything

The fact that I can stream NPR on my computer all day is the second best part of this office, next to the kick-ass coworker with whom I share a space. BUT, today NPR keeps using that five-note intro to Radiohead's Everything In Its Right Place to piece together its programs and it is not helping get that hook out of my head, where I think it always has been and always will be. If this sounds like a complaint it shouldn't be. Sometimes I pick up on that theme in the sky early in the morning when I set off for work on foot and I breathe in the air that is starting to smell less and less like summer. That's what this whole day will sound like.

in the library

I am the kind of girl who never says no to stone fruits, and the kind who pencils, 'I am a woman. My power is non-negotiable,' in the margins of a scrap of paper halfway between the second and third floor.

catching up

Well, to catch you up, yesterday my spider blew off. And I spent about two hours Saturday evening, which was of all things, my anniversary, being kind of petulant. But, before both of these things were a hearty German meal and proclamations of love, and before that I got to hold a two day old baby, who is so. tiny. and before that S and I spent an evening eating red and green crackers and talking about our odds for success (I think they're high) with our mentors. But afterwards, on Saturday after my petulance rolled out and the fog rolled in, S and I went up on a hill until late, and watched the clouds fill up the night sky and blot out the moon. We felt like we were on a planet we'd only just then discovered. Yesterday was a fine day, too. Aside from the spider blowing off, or letting go, or who knows. I hope it landed feet down in a welcoming ditch. I kind of feel like that's what I've done.

RESIGNATION

I love you
 because the earth turns round the sun
 because the North wind blows north
   sometimes
 because the Pope is Catholic
   and most Rabbis Jewish
 because winters flow into springs
   and the air clears after a storm
 because only my love for you
   despite the charms of gravity
   keeps me from falling off this Earth
   into another dimension
I love you
 because it is the natural order of things

I love you
 like the habit I picked up in college
   of sleeping through lectures
   or saying I'm sorry
   when I get stopped for speeding
 because I drink a glass of water
   in the morning
   and chain-smoke cigarettes
   all through the day
 because I take my coffee Black
   and my milk with chocolate
 because you keep my feet warm
   though my life a mess
I love you
 because I don't want it
   any other way.

I am helpless
 in my love for you
It makes me so happy
 to hear you call my name
I am amazed you can resist
 locking me in an echo chamber
 where your voice reverberates
 through the four walls
 sending me into spasmatic ecstasy
I love you
 because it's been so good
 for so long
 that if I didn't love you
 I'd have to be born again
 and that is not a theological statement
I am pitiful in my love for you

The Dells tell me Love
 is so simple
 the thought though of you
 sends indescribably delicious multitudinous
 thrills throughout and through-in my body
I love you
 because no two snowflakes are alike
 and it is possible
 if you stand tippy-toe
 to walk between the raindrops
I love you
 because I am afraid of the dark
   and can't sleep in the light
 because I rub my eyes
   when I wake up in the morning
   and find you there
 because you with all your magic powers were
   determined that
I should love you
 because there was nothing for you but that
I would love you

I love you
 because you made me
   want to love you
 more than I love my privacy
   my freedom   my commitments
     and responsibilities
I love you 'cause I changed my life
 to love you
 because you saw me one friday
   afternoon and decided that I would
love you
I love you I love you I love you


~Nikki Giovanni

tick tick

I am behaving as dictated by my emotions this week. I can tell by the way that my eyes keep welling up at the thought of my cousin's brand new baby boy named Julian. It's the name that gets me as much as the image of new life. Julian. Makes me think of the Beatles and I am letting it make me cry.

snazzy

Sometimes, just for kicks (I like to assume), my work computer starts turning black print to neon pink. It is an easy fix, though bewildering. I am usually at least a little tempted to just let it stay. My co-worker is dyeing all of her gray hairs bright pink one by one and I imagine there's a correlation. She supports my computer's free spirit. So do I.

hitchhiker

I spend a lot of time talking to the spider who has for the past few weeks made her home on the web stretched out at the bottom of my car's driver's side mirror. Oh, she sometimes makes me a little frantic with the way she stays on the thin strands in the middle of the air when the car's in motion. Just go sit at the base of the mirror, please! Are you suicidal!? Watch yourself! The web shakes and twists when I accelerate but she holds on and I guess she'd know better than me how much torquing her handiwork can hold. Sometimes at a stop light she'll sidle on up to the mirror and crouch there at the bottom away from the wind all casual like, and I'm just so relieved. I tell her where I'm going and how I'm feeling and most of the time I'm just scolding her for not sitting tight and for making me fret. I'll try to avoid highways.

I'll call it a vigil

I've been up since 4:00. For a change it's a little peaceful.