bird by bird

I know just how she feels. 42 hours to go!

And I'm ready to go.

I'm re-reading this book in preparation of my MA Exam on Friday. I have been getting funny looks when people walk past me as I'm reading it. I don't understand why. A part I like: "How far back could you remember? The last time you were really happy--happy about nothing? When you were happy about nothing you had to jump up and down. 'Can't you keep still, child, for one moment?' No, of course you couldn't keep still. You were too happy, bursting with happiness. You ran as if you were flying, without feeling your feet. And all the time you ran, you were thinking, with a tight feeling in your throat: 'I'm happy--happy--happy...' That was the last time you were really happy about nothing, and you remembered it perfectly well. How old were you? Ten? Eleven? Younger... yes, probably younger." After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys

1 week from today I'll have a cold beer in my hand, my mom and sister at my side, and these guys rocking on a stage in front of me. That's right. My mom, sister, and I are going to a Styx/Foreigner/Kansas concert next Monday in some random town in Nebraska. My family rocks. So do these guys.

I have a dozen phone numbers programed in my phone of people I will never call and people who will never call me. Ex-employers, ex-friends, ex-boys. One number with no name assigned to it, just a question mark and one number that is named "don't answer." The number of the movie theater in my hometown and the number of USD Foundation. 2 numbers in my phone belong to people who are dead. I can't bring myself to delete any of them.

KG, ST, and I listened to this song as we drove back to Vermillion from the Golden Bubbles show last night at 1:30am. The song reminded me of a couple of Aprils ago when my parents and I sat in crowded bar in Indiana, Pennsylvania listening to an old guy with a guitar, and I decided that was where I belonged. I  wanted to go East for grad school and I wanted to get out of Vermillion forever. "Tired of myself, tired of this town." It didn't really work out though, in the end. But when I came back to Vermillion the following spring, it was a different town and I was a different me. So I guess that part worked out. It's still a great song. It reminds me of him and that bar and that feeling. Last Dance with Mary Jane By: Tom Petty

"Not til we are lost, in other words, not til we have lost the world do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations." --Henry David Thoreau

Texting while studying... LS: Are you studying away? AL: Oh yeah… at the MUC today bc its too windy to read outside. I like this place deserted and student-free LS: Totally agree! Maybe your Breakfast Club will come true and a cute boy also spending his summer there will sit by you! AL: We have to get sent to detention first. Yikes!! LS: But then you’ll make out in a closet and later you’ll get his jacket AL: And I’ll give him my earring… And in 20 years I’ll get to be the mom of a secret American teenager! LS: Hahah. I think I would be the girl wearing all black who puts sugar in my sandwich and slams my head on the table. AL: She’s my favorite. LOVE the make-over scene! LS: I’d like to think under this sarcastic shell of average looks is a hot mamma waiting for her Emilio. AL: Hahaha. He’s out there, girl. You just have to stop wearing so much eyeliner. LS: This is going to be a chapter in our book.

For MM's 21st birthday, we flew to Paris to spend the evening drinking wine under the Eiffel Tower. (Also, her bday happened to fall in the middle of our three week backpacking adventure) It was my favorite birthday, and it wasn't even mine. This year I'm stuck in the library studying, and MM is all the way in D.C. probably doing something fabulous tonight. I wish we could be together in Paris. I wish we could be together at all. Happy Birthday MM! Love you!!

We lived by a lake, but rivers fascinated me when I was little. Actually bridges fascinated me. But they didn't make bridges over lakes. Every day my dad drove me to daycare in a town 10 minutes away, the same town where he worked. And every day when he picked me up, we drove past a golf course. And every day that we drove past that golf course, I spotted a little bridge that went across a little river. And every time I saw that bridge, I asked my dad if I could cross it. I begged, actually, and clearly did not understand the concept of what a golf course was or that the people walking around with clubs and carts might be a tad bit annoyed if a 4 year old girl came running on to the course just to cross a small wooden bridge. Every time I asked, he told me, "No" until one day, when he pulled over on the road and said, "Ok, go quick." It was maybe the greatest moment of my life up until that point. I unbuckled from my booster seat and sprinted as ...

Everything about today was wonderful. Thank you.

24 hours ago I put LS's sectional on craiglist. I've never used the website before, but it worked a lot like those offensive Gieco commercials (a caveman could do it). I slapped a $100 price tag on the oversized sofa and within 10 minutes, I had my first 2 inquiries. And that was just the beginning. My phone continued to blow up all day long with emails from Jeff, Steven, Starla, Brook, Niles, Rogboots, Brian, Lindsay, Michelle, Heather, Danene, Katie, Josh and Jess, Brock, Morgan, Ginger, Dylan, and Tonya. Then LS told me she was giving it to her professor for free. It was fine with me because I had no money invested in the couch, and actually neither did LS. We got it for free. The problem was that I had to tell Jeff, Steven, Starla, Brook, Niles, Rogboots, Brian, Lindsay, Michelle, Heather, Danene, Katie, Josh and Jess, Brock, Morgan, Ginger, Dylan, and Tonya. I had to email each of them breaking the news; although I will say, they took it pretty well. Except Ginge...

I'm studying for my MA exams on May 28 (2 weeks-Yikes!). I find myself drawn back to Whitman, and I found this excerpt in the chapter about him. I love birds in same way that he does. "The mystic of the poet of nature is not likely to be a good naturalist: he observes, not so much the facts, the external phenomena, as the qualities that may be translated into terms of human emotion. A bird's song is less an approximation of music on the diatonic scale than a voice of nature which belongs to that bird peculiarly. Thoreau saw subtly rather than accurately; Lowell watched the birds of Elmwood sympathetically rather than closely; and Whitman, notwithstanding his friendship with Burroughts, was precise at one moment and heedless at the next." Nature in American Literature By: Norman Foerster

"It is said that people die three deaths: one when the gaze no longer holds its sparkle, one when the body itself stops moving, and one when no one remembers us anymore." So Elvis really IS still alive..

My friends all graduated last week. Well, not all of them, but the friends that didn't graduate are still leaving me alone in Verm. And I'm going to miss them. I'm going to miss you. I'm going to miss seeing you last before I go to sleep and first when I wake up in the morning. That sounds like you're my husband, but you're actually just my roommate. I'm going to miss rushing home to smoke swisher sweets with you in our backyard when we're stressed out by papers we haven't written. I'm going to miss making racial jokes about our macs (yours is black and mine is white). I'm going to miss getting sucked into Law & Order SVU episodes for hours at a time with you. I'm going to miss you your wit and your tozzi. I'm going to miss having "picnics" with you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in my cubicle. I'm going to miss the way that you walk to class twice as fast as I do even though my legs are twice a...

Lately I've been running into people who have told me that read my blog, or at least have checked it out. And every time someone tells me this, I have a flash of fear as I think back to everything I have ever written. I think, "Have I offended this person? Have I incriminated myself? Should I be embarrassed?" Then, I think, "Who else reads this thing?" So, humor me if you will. Follow me publicly so I can see 'who the heck does read this thing.' This isn't a bribe, but if you follow publicly, you might just get a shout out. Also, YOU should start a blog too! Blog about wine (DP) or living at home job searching (EK) or whatever you think about on a daily basis. I want to read your blog, too!

By: AA Bondy   If you return to love The sky thick with sleepin' doves And the spider's dirty web Catch a ghost And a breeze blew down the tracks And her hair of rainin' black And hearts pumping blood In 3/4 time So don't leave me behind For I'm lost among my kind And now you are broken I am less And world without end O world without end And where, my girl Are you sleepin' tonight

By: Aurora Leigh In the light I could see His tattoos, and he could See mine. We couldn't see each other's Scars but we both knew They were there. Mine from a different Him and his from A different her. I showed him the light Switch plate in my room. Noah's Ark. He wanted it On, and I wanted it Off. I'd never been on that end Of the conversation before. Never not the "no." That's what is was: dark, And over, and No.

KG introduced me to AA Bondy. I told her that his music reminds me of Cherrios. And I think my dad would have liked him. I missed him especially today.

If you would have asked me two years ago if I believe in soul mates, I would have said, "Absolutely, yes." If you would have asked me one year ago if I believe in soul mates, I would have said, "Absolutely not." If you would ask me today if I believe in soul mates, I would say... I have no freaking clue.

By: Sharon Olds When I take my girl to the swimming party I set her down among the boys. They tower and bristle, she stands there smooth and sleek, her math scores unfolding in the air around her. They will strip to their suits, her body hard and indivisible as a prime number, they'll plunge in the deep end, she'll subtract her height from ten feet, divide it into hundreds of gallons of water, the numbers bouncing in her mind like molecules of chlorine in the bright blue pool. When they climb out, her ponytail will hang its pencil lead down her back, her narrow silk suit with hamburgers and french fries printed on it will glisten in the brilliant air, and they will see her sweet face, solemn and sealed, a factor of one, and she will see their eyes, two each, their legs, two each, and the curves of their sexes, one each, and in her head she'll be doing her sparkle and fall to the power of a thousand from her body. I like this poem a lot. Even t...

(Shameless plug to follow) I need ESL students, and I need ESL students bad! This summer (July 19-August 13) I am directing the USD ESL Summer Institute ! It's going to be awesome, I just need more students to sign up. If you are an ESL student who is interested, you can register on our homepage . If you know an ESL student who might be interested, direct them to our homepage . If you are neither an ESL student nor a friend of an ESL student, you can just pretend you speak another language and register for the program anyway. It will be our little secret, Pablo and Dongmei. In the meantime, if you could send good thoughts to the universe, do a lap around the beads, or rub a Buddha belly for me, that would be great. I need all the help I can get! Gracias! Toa chie! Merci! Thank you!

I wrote a check for $780 to the IRS today. But cucumbers were on sale, so the day wasn't a total waste. And it was sunny.