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