whiskers on kittens
These are some of the things that have been rocking my world lately:
- Rainy days in spring. I like to have the clouds block out the sunlight so that you have to turn the lights on inside. Not every day (Seattle, pay attention) but every once in a while it's refreshing and cheery. I feel like we should be playing Heads-up 7-up or mancala on our desks. On days like these in grade school we'd go outside for a short while until the teachers reluctantly realized we couldn't spend recess doggy-paddling around the playground. Indoor recess. Lunch inside at our desks - planks sprawled out over the flooded dips in the sidewalk - the taxpayer's dollars unwittingly constructing rude bridges for our little LA-geared feet. Heads-up 7-up then left little rain pools on our desks. The smell of wet shoes and hair mixed with little nervous quiet breaths sucked in and out under our folded arms - I hope he picks me, I hope he picks me, I hope he picks me.
- This question I've been asked a lot lately: Are you a vegetarian? The answer is no, but I like the question anyway. It's something subtle that's flattering when people notice. Like a new haircut or not having an iPod.
- I just booked my hostel in Grasmere. 68 days. I should write that paper.
- Romanticism. Still, man. I dub the Big Six my collective boyfriend. Keats, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron - you owe me dinner and a night on the town.
- I finished my first midterm yesterday. Literary Theory. I talked about Heidegger. We didn't even read Heidegger. I am in the knows.
- The library. The library is my alternative boyfriend. Good idea - buy every book and movie and CD and put it in a place. Let people borrow it from the place as long as they promise to bring it back. How does this even work in our society? What a great idea.
- Rainbow yoga mats. I don't have one, but I hope to have one someday. It fills my heart with joy to look at it.
- Yoga. I am going to work my way to Sargangasana and Bakasana. I don't know how long it will take me, but that's the plan.
- The Weepies new album. Hideaway.
- Devotional Lyric. Louise Glück's Wild Iris has been one of the more beautiful collections of poetry I have read. I also read some of James Galvin's Resurrection Update and liked several pieces from that as well. These poems poignantly articulate the "post-modern" conflict we have with language - with reality - with truth. There isn't an established pool of belief we can all splash around in. There are literary habits our language has kicked itself through for ages - the God conversation (in Judeo-Christian terms) is one of them. He's become a literary trope - a means of understanding our conflict with language. This is also cool because, more importantly, these poems really do articulate what individuals experience in relation to God. The questions, the fears, the serious conflicts of the mind and heart we sometimes encounter in faith, in scripture, in prayer. All those God-fearing (fearing to believe in or accept God) atheist intellectuals have decorated my table with spiritual food to quench these anxieties and insecurities. It's really cool. This is a place I can stomach spiritual poetry - it's not Footprints, saints be praised.
- Red galoshes. Red umbrella. Red necklace. Red bracelets. Flocked with a smattering of white polka dots and pearls.
- The cats that sleep in a warm, huddled mess on my front lawn. They're stray cats - like those wandering felines that sun themselves on Puerto Rican rocks. Like lizards with fur, round faces, and warm cheshire grins.
- Finally turning in my English 150 forms. I accept that I am teaching here - yes, yes! Give me some work I enjoy.
- The boy in the blue house who has his own zen garden. His sister made it for him. She carved him a miniature park bench and shovels, rakes, spades. There are polished river stones and a tiny watering can crouching next to a thin metal wheelbarrow the size of a golf ball. He traces patterns in the sand and ponders the books he's read. Tom Jones is on the list next. He is leaving in two weeks for Hawaii. Medical school. In the summer he and his family will go to Finland for five weeks to live in their cabin with no electricity, no phones and no city. There isn't a road to it. You have to row a small rowboat for groceries or visiting the town. He says they sit in the sauna then break out into the open air, charge down the dock and plunge into the lake - gasping into that cold, pleasant shock the Finns love so much. "I'm sad we weren't friends sooner" he says. I liked him for my roommate, Chelsea. They share an inner quietness that's enviable. How is it okay for people like that, with knowledge of how the world is and all the things going wrong - how can they sit and trace circles in their zen gardens and say, "It will be alright"?
- Being able to say, "It will be alright."
- Rainy days in spring. I like to have the clouds block out the sunlight so that you have to turn the lights on inside. Not every day (Seattle, pay attention) but every once in a while it's refreshing and cheery. I feel like we should be playing Heads-up 7-up or mancala on our desks. On days like these in grade school we'd go outside for a short while until the teachers reluctantly realized we couldn't spend recess doggy-paddling around the playground. Indoor recess. Lunch inside at our desks - planks sprawled out over the flooded dips in the sidewalk - the taxpayer's dollars unwittingly constructing rude bridges for our little LA-geared feet. Heads-up 7-up then left little rain pools on our desks. The smell of wet shoes and hair mixed with little nervous quiet breaths sucked in and out under our folded arms - I hope he picks me, I hope he picks me, I hope he picks me.
- This question I've been asked a lot lately: Are you a vegetarian? The answer is no, but I like the question anyway. It's something subtle that's flattering when people notice. Like a new haircut or not having an iPod.
- I just booked my hostel in Grasmere. 68 days. I should write that paper.
- Romanticism. Still, man. I dub the Big Six my collective boyfriend. Keats, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron - you owe me dinner and a night on the town.
- I finished my first midterm yesterday. Literary Theory. I talked about Heidegger. We didn't even read Heidegger. I am in the knows.
- The library. The library is my alternative boyfriend. Good idea - buy every book and movie and CD and put it in a place. Let people borrow it from the place as long as they promise to bring it back. How does this even work in our society? What a great idea.
- Rainbow yoga mats. I don't have one, but I hope to have one someday. It fills my heart with joy to look at it.
- Yoga. I am going to work my way to Sargangasana and Bakasana. I don't know how long it will take me, but that's the plan.
- The Weepies new album. Hideaway.
- Devotional Lyric. Louise Glück's Wild Iris has been one of the more beautiful collections of poetry I have read. I also read some of James Galvin's Resurrection Update and liked several pieces from that as well. These poems poignantly articulate the "post-modern" conflict we have with language - with reality - with truth. There isn't an established pool of belief we can all splash around in. There are literary habits our language has kicked itself through for ages - the God conversation (in Judeo-Christian terms) is one of them. He's become a literary trope - a means of understanding our conflict with language. This is also cool because, more importantly, these poems really do articulate what individuals experience in relation to God. The questions, the fears, the serious conflicts of the mind and heart we sometimes encounter in faith, in scripture, in prayer. All those God-fearing (fearing to believe in or accept God) atheist intellectuals have decorated my table with spiritual food to quench these anxieties and insecurities. It's really cool. This is a place I can stomach spiritual poetry - it's not Footprints, saints be praised.
- Red galoshes. Red umbrella. Red necklace. Red bracelets. Flocked with a smattering of white polka dots and pearls.
- The cats that sleep in a warm, huddled mess on my front lawn. They're stray cats - like those wandering felines that sun themselves on Puerto Rican rocks. Like lizards with fur, round faces, and warm cheshire grins.
- Finally turning in my English 150 forms. I accept that I am teaching here - yes, yes! Give me some work I enjoy.
- The boy in the blue house who has his own zen garden. His sister made it for him. She carved him a miniature park bench and shovels, rakes, spades. There are polished river stones and a tiny watering can crouching next to a thin metal wheelbarrow the size of a golf ball. He traces patterns in the sand and ponders the books he's read. Tom Jones is on the list next. He is leaving in two weeks for Hawaii. Medical school. In the summer he and his family will go to Finland for five weeks to live in their cabin with no electricity, no phones and no city. There isn't a road to it. You have to row a small rowboat for groceries or visiting the town. He says they sit in the sauna then break out into the open air, charge down the dock and plunge into the lake - gasping into that cold, pleasant shock the Finns love so much. "I'm sad we weren't friends sooner" he says. I liked him for my roommate, Chelsea. They share an inner quietness that's enviable. How is it okay for people like that, with knowledge of how the world is and all the things going wrong - how can they sit and trace circles in their zen gardens and say, "It will be alright"?
- Being able to say, "It will be alright."