Today

...was glorious.
...the weather was perfect.
...I did not censor myself.
...I did not think.
...I did not rethink.
...I laughed.
...the sun shone with me.
...the water lapped and echoed my contentedness.
...made me happy.
...I was happy.
...made me excited for tomorrow.

Not Again

Why is it that we always want exactly what we cannot have?

Somewhere within me, there is this terribly painful feeling. I do not even know where specifically it is. The closest description I have is that it feels like someone scooped his hand underneath and behind my stomach, or maybe my gut, and then pulled out whatever was there at the time, scraping his dirty fingernails against my skin's insides and leaving not only hollowness where there should be fullness, but also tiny scars that only make known their presence when I need it least.

I would like to think that what I just explained makes sense, but it barely even does to me. It's the best I can do. I really just think it's either understandable or it's not.

A part of me wonders what would happen if I suddenly rejected the obedient belief that "everything happens for a reason" and instead fought nail, tooth, and bone (and organ, flesh, and spirit) to effect the changes and outcomes I want to see. Maybe that sounds selfish. It probably does. But sometimes I feel like the way I want things to turn out makes far more sense than the way they ultimately do. Do things not turn out the way you hope because, somewhere on the other end of the situation (be it another person, the cosmos, what have you--I don't even know), the perception does not align with your own? Do desires and hopes only come to fruition when everyone involved concurs?

I'm waiting desperately for some sort of sign that somewhere, at the other end of this dream, the thing I want more than anything will nod in agreement, the thin string between us reverberating the welcomed response.

Until then, this string is frail and still.

Half-Dead

So I'm currently reading a collection of essays by a new humor writer, Sloane Crosley, titled "How Did You Get This Number." In one of the chapters, she discusses a trip she took to Alaska to attend her friend's wedding. While touring the landscape, they passed by something known as a "Ghost Forest." In 1964, Alaska experienced a 9.2 earthquake, and the land along the quake's fault lines actually fell between the plates toward the earth's core. And the trees along this area were terribly uprooted as the ground split apart, but were somehow preserved by all the salt water nearby. So some forty-six years later, these forests are still there. I think it's both incredible and incredibly eery.

Comet Pond

I get to go kayaking tonight as an early birthday present!
This has made my day.

Sleepless Long Nights

There's something about the summer that makes certain music more enjoyable. I feel like everyone has that one artist that they break out once the sun settles in semi-permanently, and as the days pass certain songs sung by that specific voice creep their way up the "Most Played" list on your iPod until people get into your car, hear the music start to play, and turn to you and say, "Again?" Or maybe it's just me. But I feel like it's not. For some reason, Feist has come to define my summers. There's something about her voice that just resonates with the weather and what I'm doing and how I'm feeling. I listen to her music all year long, but I only ever really hear her music when the weather is warmer.

I don't know. I think I'm going crazy. I certainly feel that way.

The song of the day today is "1234" by Feist. It's relatively well-known, but it's the ultimate summer driving song for me, and makes me infinitely happy and also deplorably sad at the same time.

Old teenage hopes
are alive at your door
left you with nothing 
but they want some more.

Sentimental Moment Or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?

Don't fill up on bread
I say absent-mindedly
The servings here are huge

My son, whose hair may be
receding a bit, says
Did you really just
say that to me?

What he doesn't know
is that when we're walking
together, when we get
to the curb
I sometimes start to reach
for his hand

--Robert Hershon
This was my favorite poem when I was 16.
It still makes me smile.

I'm in the hospital with Emily.

Every two seconds, a beeping noise pierces my eardrums from somewhere down the hall. I hear murmured female voices coming from behind the green-and-purple plaid curtain a few feet away. Emily's roommate has woken up for the day. We have just come back from X-rays. I got to push her in the wheelchair. I only hit something once: the corner of one of the foot rests on a doorway on the third floor.

I wish the sadness in her eyes would not betray her cheerful facade.

Four Hours Later

I never thought that registering for five classes would take me 240 minutes.

Two Sams Are Better than One!

It has been nearly a year since I last talked face-to-face with my friend Sam, and tonight we actually (somehow, due most probably to a miracle and therefore having far less to do with any ability of ours to get organized) reconnected. And while Skyping cannot replace the intimate, earthly feeling of speaking in the flesh with someone else, we live hours away from each other, and for now this is an acceptable substitute. I am sitting here in bed, with the light from the computer screen bouncing off my tortoise-shell frames, and I am beaming. In 58 minutes, we managed to seal a gap that has been growing for months. (Cliche alert!) It's reassuring to know that some things really don't change.