"What'd I tell you about that mat?"

One of our Level 4's is very, very shy and would not do her floor routine in front of everyone. So the girls said they'd do the routine with her (minus most of the skills, so that nobody would die).

Como agua para chocolate

Rain falls on the crooked slates leading to our door. I can see the water through streetlights.

Tonight I'm perfectly at peace. Pink and green comforter. "Sarah Lawrence College Football - Still Undefeated" T-shirt. Alexis and Jillian running laps around the trees. Ten wondrous months! And the story that runs from underneath my fingers when I actually get going with it.

Tonight I could go for a scandal.

On the usefulness of penguins

Just to immortalize it in the blogosphere:

Gia, age 7: "It's cold. I need something to warm me up. Like a penguin with hot cheeks."

I'll be dancing

I've come to see that although our girls may not exactly be taking over the podium, their personalities are second to none.

Diana: "So ,Valentina, what do you want to be when you grow up? What's your life plan?"
Valentina: "I'm going to write a book about YOU!"
Diana is flattered.
Valentina: "I'm going to write about all my coaches. It'll be a series, starting with my first coach and going up to my last coach." ::throws arms wide to indicate this spectrum::

...

"Terrific" poetry?, YAWPing in the other worldly realm of Ross, and an official title for "the story." You fly faster than I imagined, winter break!

01.11.10

I enjoy palindromes like these.

3° on 01.11.10

A part of me secretly wants to get married on January 11th. ¿Por que, you may ask? Figure that out yourselves, LOTR fans!

--

"We'll stay in the condo for a few days. Then we'll venture out. Then we'll stay in the condo for a day, venture out for a day. Mom will chainsmoke. Everyone will argue." - Jess' family vacations in Florida.

--

I lift my chin and spin in the kitchen. All is right.

rise of the poetess

Revised life plan:
-live in a utopian garden with Liz.
-frolic each day.
-feel bones.

Fire tower

Why Life is Kickin' Right Now:

-Not being in Southampton --> No duty phone, no flyers, no Dean-of-Students (or lack thereof) drama, no weed wafting through the night air...
-No drama of any sort!
-Time to work on my thesis.
-AND enjoy it!
-Googling for thesis and finding random things like Adirondack fire towers.
-Time to read!
-Time spent with my friends!!
-Time to work out/feel good.
-Real, edible food.
-Internet access to a TV show too embarrassing to name here.
-Open gym.
-Beth's love life.
-Lauren's love life: "But it didnt stop at my toes...all of a sudden...our SIDES were touching."
-Coaching. Far too entertaining...: Valentina, age 8, in response to Sue saying she's pregnant: "Why do you want to go through that pain again?" Everyone laughs and she says, "Don't laugh! You've all been through a birthing experience!"

"So when are you coming to work for us?"

I like that when my mom says, "When you graduate and get a full-time job," my dad and I both laugh.

Here are some potential life plans, Blog World.
-Miraculously land a full-time (yes, Madre!) teaching gig.
-Maintain a multitude of part-time jobs (a.k.a. life currently).
-Obtain Composition & Rhetoric certificate from SBU to entice potential employers.
-Apply to PhD programs at Binghamton, Albany. Downside: leaving my gymnasts if I am accepted.
-Get published, receive just enough critical clout so that people think I'm capable of teaching writing, hopefully leading to Life Plan 1.
-Teach, write, coach, enjoy life!
-Become Spanish.

earth turns slowly

Wind strips snow from fields (the green almost shows). It bursts in white dreams meant to blind. I turn up the radio anyway. I know what winter means.

--

The past week-and-a-half brought good friends and good laughs. Snowy days but decent roads keep me moving. Lots of sleep, lots of time, lots of words.

Life is pretty excellent!

1-1-2010

Not the biggest fan of January, but who doesn't mind a new start?

Addendum to previous post: Once in awhile, doing what I choose to do. Instead of caving to what I think everyone else wants.

--

I think part of what's kept me jolted is that I went from the midst of the game -- feet kicking, legs flying, voices shouting -- to the podium, dressed in another jersey, announcements in other tongues -- still waiting for the payoff.

Here it comes

(I'm quite blog-happy today.)

So I resolve:
-Go upstate!
-Finish the tale of Nick & Pete. Actually, I have no choice in this matter.
-Graduate in May '10.
-Avoid subsequent "What the hell do I do now?" breakdown.
-Get published afresh.
-To PhD or not to PhD? And other quandaries, grand and small, that I'd like to get under control. Gotta man up. Hopefully.
-Oh, and run the ten miles I never quite got around to this year...

Salud!

There it goes

The finest New Year celebrations have taken place within the last five years or so:

In no rank order:

-Gathering at Joy's house when Joy and Mike had just started dating, 2004: The rest of us spent much of the night freaking out about witnessing their midnight kiss.
-We all survived.
-Gatherings in Kim's apartment, the intermediate years: good people, good food, good times!
-Cuernavaca, 2007: Sitting outdoors at a restaurant (oh, hey, 70 degrees!), sharing tremendous/delicious beverages and life stories, and watching the fireworks burst into the sky from across the street at midnight.
-Wisdom teeth, 2008: A nap and a painkiller took away all my crankiness/bleeding. Snowy roads meant no one could drive. So I watched Pride and Prejudice, turned on the TV for the obligatory ball-dropping, and overall, found it to be a successful holiday.

Bad romance

Instead of the polite, restrained way, in dreams I step forward and put my hand on your face in greeting. We both understand.

come, all ye faithful

I'm fairly calm these days. More like the Sound than ocean: waves whipped in frenzy, but well-contained. And that's all very nice...

Some nights I want to stalk over cold ground in black boots, raise your eyes, stake my claim.

muscle fibres

"I don't think I know the difference between having needs and being needy."

"We've been on-again, off-again, but now we're back on again."
"For how long?"
"A week and a half." -- oh, mature adult relationships!

"They broke up, and he has now dated all of Long Island."

--

Tonight I am collected against the cold. Three pairs of lights glow green. Go. Go. Go.

So much silliness.

I'd like to announce it right here:

I AM CRANKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah. Relief. :-)

--

I think music therapy is my calling. Minus the part where I cheated on my violin practice sheet in third grade, wanted to shoot myself when playing flute, and didn't join chorus in middle school because it required waking up earlier for school.

But I can make a damn good mix CD.

--

Beth to a boy she likes: "Do you think I'm too ridiculous to date?"

--

You'll find me here two days a week, teaching playwriting. Word on the street is that there's an aquarium under the floor and you can't wear shoes...?

2009-like journeys

-Albany with a still-swollen mouth from wisdom teeth removal. No better way to kick off the year!
-Miscellaneous warehouses on Long Island in the name of gymnastics meets.
-Most notably New Image, which involved the GPS, actual directions, and texts from Mark as I went the wrong direction on the LIE. It was an accident, though. Really.
-Manhattan each Saturday.
-Cortland and its magical spring floor. <3
-Greenport gelato, carousel, and missing camera.
-Wading River beach, gnats at sunset.
-Dublin ("Can I get your mobile?")
-cross-country bus
-County Kerry (Tralee and Uncle Jimmy, Killarney for castles)
-LONDON! Bike rides to work, the Globe, Jude Law.
-Owego, Vestal, Candor, jamocha bliss!
-Southampton all day, every day.
-Wainscott, van driver of middle-aged women.
-Stony Brook, one half-asleep day per week.
-Pomona, New Jersey, for an escape.
-Greenport tea! <3
-And on its glorious return: Tidewater (Step Up 4: Wings Bowl Champions).

From the depths of the Stop & Shop parking lot

HI, MISS KIM!

::waves::

Welcome to the adventures. ;-)

"You'd need to read him his rights first."

Yay for planning New Years in Buffalo, walking into the bar to see my brother, and then receiving the text from him: "Don't talk to any guys."

If I drown tonight, bring me back to life

Maybe this has been the year of second chances.

The renewal of Nick & Pete. Returning to my youth as the caretaker of (eight) fish (horoscope today: "You may feel that you hold the reins of eight reindeer on a sleigh"). Five miles on Thanksgiving Day once again. Dusting off that Al Hambra. Another competition season. Another round at SBS. Teaching again! And after a multitude of flings, a second chance at actual romance.

And how do we take these chances?

I told them in Spanish. How much clearer could I have been?!

Winter blasts on us the day after my birthday. Soft but quick flakes as I leave the gym, more in the King Kullen parking lot, to the climax of screeching air against our cheeks as we dodge the snow from building to building. I start to panic a bit, thinking of The Shining, thinking of how easily I feel trapped.

But we make ourselves warm. Killian's on windowsills and the opening chords to "Free Falling." Sunset burns over white hills. Orange pink yellow against tree silhouette and silver windmill lining.

Today the roads are snow rifts and I remember drifting through Cortland parking lots and roads, through upstate 81 to go north because only a whiteout would take me off that road. I was determined. Maybe I still am. It needs to be in the right way, though, whatever that means.

I lie on my bed briefly, eyes and mind bouncing, and see my name on the door sign. I look at the tight curls of a-n-a in that festive font and think that they ought to be looser, ought to be more like a river dancing.

Roaring Twenties

"My jacket and my shoes match! What other guy does that?" - Peter (many times over)

Hovering over my Cape Cod at the Tide with a bottle of vodka:
Flo: "I'm adding a little fun."

"We think he might be Bret Michaels." - Jenni

"You thought he was Bret Michaels, so you let him write on your boob. He was the 2007 Wings Bowl Champion." - protecting the innocent here! (I was not involved!)

"His picture is right here!" - Jason pointing to the wall

"We have an awesome beer pong mix with Lady Gaga. Like that 'Alejandro' song!" - Fernando, who gets a shout in "that 'Alejandro' song"

"Tony, if you were single, I'd date Diana." - Flo

Jeff: "I'm thinking about us in a threesome."
Diana: "I'm gonna go..."
Jeff: "Wait! I was going to focus on Tony!"

Lauren enters the kitchen eating from a box of Italian-seasoned croutons.
Tony: "Why are you eating those?"
Lauren: "Fernando gave them to me."

Diana: "Where are you?"
Lauren: "In an upstairs room."
Diana enters upstairs room to see that five girls are on a bed eating croutons.
Lauren: "We don't know whose room this is."
Diana looks around and realizes thats she doesn't know, either.

In the midst of a Dustin-Deana-Diana sandwich:
Deana: "I think I've died and gone to heaven!"

"I like your non-denominational holiday hat." - Flo

"I can't believe you talked to him!" - Francesca, laughing for about a half hour afterwards

"I'm a disgrace to the state of Texas." - Flo

"I'm trying to cure her hiccups!" - Sean, wrapped in blue blanket

Diana: "There better not be stains on my bed!"
Lauren: "I'm smarter than that!"

Good luck in fours?

1.) Found a paycheck in a bag I haven't used in awhile.
2.) Discovered the chocolate chip cokies I bought for Dom last Friday!
3.) http://eclecticflash.com/authors.html
4.) Possible gig teaching playwriting in high schools next semester.

Good. Things. :-)

It happens when you pay attention

Last night: pizza, parties in a bag, "Peter, please answer:". Tonight: thick waves of rain cleansing ocean sky clear. Falling stars over lifeguard chairs and white water spray. Alive and well and watching.

"Similarly? More like equally."

It's 28 degrees in Stony Brook and blisteringly clear. I'd like adventure and laughter in cold air and swaying legs, but Transiberian Orchestra puts me in the right spirits.

--

Besides the portfolio and final grades, I've finished teaching for the semester. I survived. So did they. I stuttered plenty, had the overhead fail on observation day, encountered much silence any time grammar or story discussion (or, God forbid, poetry!) came up. But then there was "write a 160-character text message about what really happened," freewrite on food, Nutella ads, "Tsunami Tsurfers," Donnie Darko, six-word memoirs, Donald the WRT 101 student, the definition of "facetious," freetext, class walks, map your place, and, of course, El Nino.

And hopefully this leads to other blackboards, other faux finals on the board, other laughs. And maybe a bit of learning.

--

The other night, I watched my hair fall softly in the mirror. The natural waves from a father with thick hair and years of tight ponytails. Dark hair on top, lighter hair to the finish. I have thought often of dying it all back to dark, or straightening it, or asking Lauren to trim the bangs that can almost be tucked behind my ears--

No. Tonight, it falls just right.

"You can be our prosecutor."

Once again: Google stalking for the win!

"My life is complete."

Is it strange that I'm excited by small unexciting things such as bronchitis inhalers, stories with xylophones, everyone laughing when I say something funny, a well-organized conclusion to fall?

And by the bigger things, like riding in the backseat of Officer Burns' patrol car to Amagansett?

;-)

homo erectus

But I compare a dance step from the Level 5 routine to the evolution chart of ape to present-day man and Kaylee laughs heartily, I have no idea what I'm going to teach tomorrow and suspect that class won't be longer than, say, thirty minutes due to my MIA voice, and everything moves as it should. The lights shine the proper way over the desk and I can take this, more of this.

I can see it in your eyes

This winter might be longer than I thought. But I dreamt that I was done, and that was good.

I want to make it better but I seem to always tread in these same circles.

No matter where I am,
I can't help feeling I'm just a day away
from where I want to be.

Better than four?

One step forward, two steps down.

Discobiscuits, Genesis, and Birthdays

These rainy days wash me well.

--

When you walk up the path at just the right time -- say, 11 am -- you look down the hill and see deep gray-blue clouds above the water, water that glimmers bright as ice. Under what sun? No matter. It shines so brightly that the strip of land dividing bay from ocean falls into silhouette. These are the sort of scenes I take from this place.

--

I half-sleep and your toes half-nudge mine. In your sleep state and my half-sleep state, I don't know if you wished to find my foot there or had rather run through. On to the next dream. All the same, I slide my foot aside. Just in case.

--

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LAUREN! And happy birthday yesterday to Rob, my perpetual twin!
:-)

el primer dia de diciembre

IT'S DECEMBER.

My favorite month.

And my birthday, as Francesca noted.

I'd be intelligent, but my mind's about to fall down.

You found your way out

I spend these late hours writing and then looking, looking -- but for what? Who will appear and what will they say to take away this feeling?

Spend your time well before you go.

I think I may need a mix CD for the return.

To fictitious mountain towns

Do I use these words to try to bring myself closer?

I wonder if this place will matter as much when you're gone.

On the verge of peppermint mocha

The wind's still rolling and now I've caught on. I run quickly down alleyway and walk next to deep blue river. Reeds bend, water breaks, my hair flies. She says "beta" and I think of fish in a bowl, swishing fiesty tail. She says I'm the powerful one and I realize she's right, that maybe I have been all along.

southern lights

This wind has soul.

simplicity.

Soft rain on roof. Christmas music but I'm not cringing (too much). I am thankful for two healthy legs that will be very sore when I wake up, two feet that bounce up hills and curve around beams. Two hands for typing the two current stories. Two parents, three brothers, two girls, two boys, three teams, fourteen students, one love. Many loves. Many friends. Many words, many miles, many songs. Nights with Lauren and tea. Nights with all of us dancing. I danced all day today and never when there was music. That's the joy, I think.

On Northern shores

I look to the ocean and feel thankful for the Sound.

Home for approximately 1.5 hours

and I'm not very good at staying still.

"I'M EIGHTEEN!"

Some nights all we need is good company, windows down, and the most ridiculous songs the dial can find.

92 pages and rising

I look forward to next semester's Fridays, where I won't work for 9 hours and drive an additional two hours and then spend Saturday afternoons sleeping it away. Sometimes Sunday, like today, is the day of the sleeping-and-reading hangover. You know what that's like?

I'm all right. Amotivated but that's everyone right now. I'll miss teaching next semester and I hope that there's some sudden burst of students who need to be taught and that they'll pick me. I want to learn everything exciting and minute and breathtaking. I want something worth sweating over, something worth the miles under aching knees.

Maybe it's the YA novel-reading of sixteen-year-olds with their best friends for life, but today I miss our friendship more than normal. I know it's "people change" and "who cares" and imagined vendettas that really mean nothing. Still, though. I miss it.

Thanks for the memories

Sunshine in November, and I wake up free of everything that held me back before.

luck be a ladybug

"Can we use a springboard for bars?"
"Can I do a straddle kip?"
"Can we go to Panera?" --> followed by a chorus of "YEAAAAHHHH!"

9.3. 9.2. 9.2. I'll take it!

thirteenth, Friday

There's water on the moon and water on the south shore. Ice under speed skaters with long legs and swinging arms. It's almost that time for dancing and snow sprays and anthems. For now, I screw the lid and keep the heat.

--

There are a couple of things I'd like to say. First off, if you want to make "joking" advances, why would you do it while I'm standing there? Or at all, even, especially if I'm your friend?

And secondly, I've grown weary of consistent status updates, sad faces, blah blah blah over "I'm not in a relationship"/"I can't have her"/"But I want him/her." Yes, we've all been there! But you are allowed to enjoy the rest of your life sometimes!

We all have times when we've got to let it out. But for the rest of the time: If you have something emo to say, don't say it.

Samurai chai & 11.11

"Diana, you always keep me on task during stretching!" - Kaylee

That's why they keep me around!

--

Between the safety dance, ligers, panda death, and a single xylophone, I'm feeling pretty inspired!

"Instead of 'fin,' you'll say, 'PIN!'"

Spring '10 Shelter Island dorm themes, as composed by Ashley and me in the Tree House Lounge today:

-12 apostles
-Stations of the cross
-Communist countries
-Countries of Africa
-Colors of the Wind (shotgunning Grandma Willow)
-Boots (with the fur)
-Shakespearean insults
-Phases of Ashley's life

And on the plus side for creativity, I did win the random drawing in the name of the shoulder stick: Sebastian.

(This pursuit of the MFA is clearly paying off!)

"I'm like Enrique Iglesias."

Adventures in (real) Wainscott coupled with WEHM DJs jumping the car and the pink elephant mini golf course in Candor. Surprises in Suite 1! Quick and frigid beach trip with fuschia pink sky burning. Conflicting stories. Continuing stories. Caralyn's life story. Boys in boxes with foam axes. "...Even my smell."

And... and...

G'night!

Post-Deana Fridays

are brutal, even without Lauren's influence. ;-)

Last night: Eleven of us packed onto chairs and couches in the Greenport common area, watching "The History of Porn" or something similarly ridiculous that's even more absured under the influence. Everyone's making wise-cracks and laughing. Dom offers his house for my birthday party "as long as you invite Kimberly." 12:36 a.m. is the appropriate time for an adventure under piercing moon, deep blue sky. At 3:00 a.m. Family Guy parodies Mel Gibson and Dusty's put Deana on the couch. When I leave, the sky is perfect black and I move quickly over the sidewalk, bag in hand - the doctor is in.

And I'm a million different people from one day to the next...

Today the sun pierces just as much as the moon, but I'm barely moving. Spanish music on Pandora's the only thing to keep me awake (and Christina!). My fingers slip on the keyboard. I can only think of convenient gym closures and sleep, but neither will happen.

--

"I think we should go into business together and start a club where people can't touch each other. Like they have to wear signs that say, 'It's okay to grind on me.'"

--

The good thing this week is that I've put in the miles. Done real skills. My left shoulder's never going to loosen, both knees hurt, my left hip flexor shoots a nagging tightness down the leg, my back yelped as I turned quickly toward this computer.

And how do I feel? Fantastic.

remember, remember, the fifth of November!

Open gym, 11.4:
-System of A Down songs that I'd forgotten about blast against all walls.
-Matt swings on the rope above the trampoline, wearing a Superman cape.
-I lift into the air, twist, land lightly. Do it again.

--

"I haven't been to the library since 1984." - Tara, age 25

--

As I drink water and we discuss babies: "I hear they die easily. Like pets."

"Take your shirt off!"

So I really need a break.
And I ended class fifteen minutes early for lack of anything else to teach.
And my knees hurt despite taking today off.

But I've got a thesis settled upon,
a first-round acceptance into a lit mag,
skinny black pants,
and you know,
it's not last year
but I'm starting to
(!!!) like this year.

I need a little more time on Tuesdays

Knock it off, you dreams, you!

Nowhere to go but out, so I'm gone

There's nowhere to go in this town but out, so I'm gone. Like the ones I laughed with--they're gone, too. I don't know what's next, but I don't want to stay.

If she ever had the chance, would she do it all again?

I dreamt about this old song yesterday. We tried to make a music video to it and got as far as walking on the beach, me wearing one of your shirts and a pair of sunglasses, stepping solemnly by the water. You step elsewhere now.

But I'm back in our woods. I run because that's always been the best way to pass this transition time, the time I'm too impatient to sit through for the wait and see. Leaves cover roots so I bounce lightly, more up and down than forward, but faster than I'd thought.

Take a bow.

No. Keep going.

These two legs will save me.

Star maps to the sun.

Light streaks through the trees and breaks against the orange, red, yellow--I break faster--

You're playing you now.

drive 'til morning comes

Tonight in my car I could drive anywhere. Upstate, that state, across states to sun rising on gold coast. What would you say if I came to your door? Tonight I believe I could do it, could go anywhere on $20 and half a tank.

i miss ya kido, im glad we got to see each other in the city when i was poor and on top of the world

But I shift so quickly. Give me an audience and I tumble faster and higher than I have since summer. The time gaps are never too wide. Gymnastics means more to me than most people. I will always burn to be upside down. To raise my face to the lights in time to the music. And so I will. Even in small gyms on Thursdays nights. There is no "until."

a smile...like a lighthouse on the tip of Long Island.

Tonight I dream about running and this one and that one and our friends coming together. All of these things matter.

bury your head

I move slowly on days when I only have one (well, two) jobs. I don't sleep well, keep waking to turn onto my side, my back, my side again. It all started post-surgery with my tremendous brace, when turning had to be conscious. I need new colors, new curves in the land, new thoughts.

But where projectors fail, Nutella takes its place. A spirited discussion. The nuclear wings. Strangely enough, I've got it together.

photos of snow

Nostalgia runs rampant lately.

11:11 a.m.

This morning as I fall back asleep, I see them in parachutes lifting up and away. Not me, though. Sometimes you're the soul, other times you're the body.

crack the sky

It's the day to run at 5:06 and finish at 5:46, but the music's so good that you keep moving. You walk a campus loop as Elton John sings "Tiny Dancer" in Australia and the sky burns orange, pink streaks puffing against soft blue. You remember what Dom wrote - the sky reflects the water - and you are alone, you are filled with light.

algunas cositas con respeto a las gimnastas hoy

-I'm definitely a fan of Lauren Mitchell; very cool beam set, and at least her floor choreography attempts to go with the music!
-Same to Ana Porgras.
-Beth Tweddle's "dance" was offensively bad. In fact, nonexistent. World champion how?
-Rebecca Bross and Bridget Sloan are good, but not anywhere near as captivating as the Shawn-Nastia rivalry. No spark from either of them.
-Sun Liu (sp?) may have indeed looked like "a little girl running around the playground with her friends," but her dance showed expression and creativity beyond two poses - jump - two poses - tumble - two poses - leap pass.
-And seeing Steve Legendre on TV = freakin' sweet!

Hey, Emeline

(Set to the tune of "Hey, Jude" --> check it!)

Dear Emeline (Body Mass, as Britt would have it),

Remember that time Beth convinced me it would be a good life decision to try out for cheerleading? And I made it? And you helped me get ready for my first game in secret, then texted your mom a picture? And then the next morning I slumped into the den and Tanya noticed that one of my pupils was dilated? So you made me hide my face in your pillow and then shone a light into my eye to see if it reacted? And then throughout the week you forwarded me information about strokes, most likely while you were working at the library desk and I was on the computers there?

:-)

12:12, for lack of better title

I walk up the sidewalk through softly rolling green hills, sun filtered through yellow and orange and feel here. Not elsewhere, not anyone else.

Lately I'm not really saying anything. But nothing's raced me to do so. No kicks, no slaps. Just murmurs. She asks how I am and I say solid and I realize that is the word. Four jobs make strange harmonious sense. I love teaching. Kaylee, Hannah, and Leah now have the potential to kick ass on bars. "I saw you jogging the other day," he says. Back to the highway, indeed.

But I wonder sometimes which of these things is fleeting.

on meteor night

Where do all the lost letters run? The ones that never appear in password boxes or love messages. The poems and song lyrics scribbled along class notes, those equations and quadrants soon forgotten. The ones that disappear after the screen turns black, face snapped shut. The ones we whispered each day, each night.

What songs do they sing now?

Pueblo

I am my father's daughter. I strike up conversations with the cleaning lady who talks of Mexico and I imagine planes descending on brown valley runway. I yell at the ones who think they can get away with anything. My voice rings from mat-padded wall. Oh, no, you can't, not anymore. I find joy in the repetition of step-step-step-step-step... on pavement and treadmill track in morning piercing light, in afternoon bluster, in dusk.

--

Every Friday feels nostalgic, or maybe I'm just too quick with copy/paste, or overtired enough to let the fall air rattle me. But this Saturday afternoon speeds by like the gusts against the clouds. I am here. I am happy.

Isn't it...

5.

jersey devils

At 4:45 am, I hear conversations in the hamster wheel, think about all the e's (and the hypen) in "re-elect," remember a handout on research that I can give to my students. Write this the next night at 3:13 am when my spelling and syntax's all right but my punctuation's just a little bit off and I'd best sleep before I say too much.

Yes, I crank that every day

I write you into corners where I'm the only one who sees you.

But today I prefer wide open spaces.

Today I miss typing a quick "experiment" for Monday morning. Miss wheat bagels with egg whites and Swiss cheese, and hot chocolate on the scandalous days. Blackboard stars and photo projects on the overhead, the pain for all to see. "Too many words." Quiet Adirondack waters. Emphatic nods. You and me laughing because we always felt the same. In a way, I miss the up-and-down every-day-an-adventure-in-joy-or-pain that moved the year. Miss the barely-unbroken girl with eyes to northern stars regardless.

Don't worry about the conclusion. Tell a story.

red and black

I walked into the bathroom of the Japanese restaurant and saw my hair in the mirror. Dark as it always was after a year of red. Black as clouds streaked over piercing moon. Don't you hurt my moon, you.

--

I took on too much but I've come to love it all, come to hold it close.

soul gusts

I feel like my freshmen: I want to sleep all day. Is it the orange juice that's giving me these strange dreams and no rest? Some night I'm cold as midwinter, but you know my season's always changing.

But I love this wind. Wild boisterous gusts sending leaves spinning and branches stumbling. The kind that blows straight into the soul.

sound of distant drumming

I need my mind to be thrown wide open.

these are the lives you'd love to lead

Throwing hands up for "We Built This City," talking about overseas, cramming onto trains, torn eardrums from MSG screaming, four hours of sleep from missed alarm, Caralyn's film debut, dance dance dance.

I needed this.

Notes next to pumpkin buckets

Today:

Woke up at 6:48 and never really returned to sleep. Purple eyeshadow (why not?). 111 -> LIE -> Nicolls = NEVER. AGAIN. But the red FAC/STAFF parking permit is probably the best thing that's happened to me. Ever. Learned of Ireland's debate over voting yes or no for the EU. Glad we could stimulate the economy (or, rather, buy cheap sandwiches and let Irish boys pay our admission to the discoteca -- oops!). Refrained from reading about heinous crimes. Learned that Chicago was out in round one. Learned that Rio won. Put together a newsletter. Brought my red hat just in case anyone was giving out free SBU stuff today. Did not score any such stuff. Ate pizza. Eavesdropped on enthusiastic Spanish conversation.

"You look so pretty with make-up on!" the girls said.

"Why'd you wear make-up today?" said Valentina, age 8.

"I wanted to look like an adult," I said.

"I think it makes you look younger," she said.

Nice.

Then Fame and my cousin on screen and in the credits! And now it's getting later and I'm getting more tired, but hell, it's Friday and I should be crying by now, especially since I have to get up the morning, no?

:-)

Consider You Stalked.

Oh, Google. You make this far too easy!

10.1.09

I love that it's October. Rolling thick gray-blue clouds. Wind swirling orange, red, yellow and rattling branches. But still sunlight, slanting shadows. Sweatshirts and smoke in air. Pumpkins, apple cider, giddy fear, spirit whispers.

Let this year be the one where I'm not sad.

closing tonight with a little MJ

I'd be in bed, but I like to end my days with a word.

Writeeditreadprintgo! --> to the post office as gray wind whips the canvas bag against me and an old man calls to me as he protests Obama's healthcare on the curb --> to the pen, to the sealed envelope, to Westhampton.

I've needed this momentum.

--

Tonight the clouds are glowing.

You gave me a poem last night

I commandeered your sleeping self and wrote about it.

Thank you! ;-)

--

The dreams still drive me. After all this time, I'm still looking for signs.

For a good afternoon

Am I boring you? Do you prefer the broken girl? I can think of one who won't. Would you rather the metaphored zings? Allusions to "you"? None of this Girl And Her Thesis? There's always subtext if you follow closely enough. Face to the ground, eyes unblinking on the underbrush until something moves.

What's saved me is that I can't remember good. Just crying and cautious fleeting happiness. A high, really. I could say more but that's not the point right now. It was the point for a while. I could write about everything wrong with this place, but everyone here already knows. I could write about everything that's wrong with what you call love and friendship, but you're too busy shutting doors and I've got other stories that need a voice.

green flash

I'm surrounded by green cups. Green cups and 7-Up. This weekend I remembered what it felt like to relax. That will pass soon enough. I want the way that will write itself. That won't come.

But maybe I lie. It's 1:59 and I just remembered something. The sort of something that didn't really matter then but when I think to write of it, of course it had to be there.

Other Roads

So if a man often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it, then I'm on the proper path--agonizing over every drifting sentence, finding any other project/person/plan more enticing easier acceptable, and eventually doing what I knew I would--coming back, coming back.

"All the elements are there."

Today feels fantastic. It's almost October and almost eighty. I have a (hopefully) thought-provoking class planned. I've got some flipping to look forward to. Check check check yes.

--

Locked doors couldn't take away that smile.

secrets on small paper

(And tonight, this is okay): How will I fit all of this into one thesis? (And tonight, I dare to try.)

I like conversations with doors open, secrets on small paper, questions with so many answers. I like that I no longer need some things and like that I can't remember quite how it was like. I like humid warm night, silent thick black phone, love in pumpkin goodness, words and words and words.

It rains when you're here and it rains when you're gone

I can't help but love this line on such days:

We need the rain to wash away our bad luck.

"You don't need horses to have an epiphany."

On early end-of-summer Baltimore morning, sun dazzles off the bay and people drive past farms. Planes lift and land, someone dies, someone falls in love, someone says yes and another says no. Someone is born. Others finish waking up and stretch and look on the wall and it's Sunday.

On Long Island afternoon, comet-white streaks trail ocean boats, a power plant watches without surge, people drive and text and call on grid-schemed roads, someone hears the worst news and others get the best, someone sleeps for the final time and someone comes to stay.

that which makes the climax inevitable

Dear Christina, your comments make me smile. I'm glad we continue to be friends after our 101 Hendrick days. :-)

Dear Lena, I would be neither writer nor gymnast were it not for you.

And now I have a screenplay!

Dear Octoberfest, you make me want to dance. To be like them. I will dance again.

Right now I wish to write something profound, but I shut the door instead.

you meant to me what no other could be

I miss you all. You, and you, and you, too. I pull on Albany purple and Edinburgh blue.

I go through dreams as you. I am your man-appears-from-the-shadows-and-slow-motion-breaks-you-down nightmare. I am your all-night job, the one where you're responsible for cleaning and saving lives, and I panic but this dream has only a staff meeting, and I leave without anyone knowing that I don't know what I am doing.

Maybe this is why I don't sleep well.

When do you have time for you?

Uh. Sundays?

But not really, of course.

..

Well, I'm excited for tonight before the dreams. :-)

I hope you always find a mystery in me.

I measured distance in lines

Fall nostalgia whispers in. This is the way I'm always missing. I've made leaps and bounds, but the path still winds.

So many fires burning.

station-like activities

I can't concentrate. This is the sign of too much. But it's okay. I always say it's okay. What else would I do, scream? Today one student said, "I don't usually like writing, but your class is interesting." I'll take "interesting."

I ought to know what's going on and I don't. I'm sorry. I'm always sorry, too. What else would I do? Scream.

Remember my name

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywGNmsGoMl0 --> my cousin says, "Jaaaazzzzzz." :-)

black heart inertia

Blogger has a happy piece of cake on the log-in page. Good signs?

Thunderclouds are the signs I like. Thick black streaks above the highway. It's still so hard to let go, isn't it? Count those headlights. Whisper your wants. We'll be something. Something.

tonight smells like incense

and I haven't burnt out.

I may, though, but so far one instrument joins the hum at a time. I explain "tone" with chalk and while everything doesn't quite make sense right now, it's beginning to. I will make it do so. I will!

(Too many metaphors:)
In afternoons, the peacock strutting; by night, soft shadow moving from shelter south; in mornings, as exhausted as the rest; but sometimes in mirror glances, the bun, the red jacket, the flip-flops and ready legs of a girl prepared to spring. The one I love best.

premise as personal conviction

I'll be impressed if I accomplish anything this semester (cough thesis) that's more than the late-night slap of fingers to keyboards and colors--but hey, isn't that pretty?

It's just like the ocean under the moon

Before she rises over the trees tonight, before my knee takes a sudden stop, the sun burns into cool upstate night and I think how nice it is to lead my life not by the thunderstorm now, but by the moon. My moon.

Nineteen-year-old brothers

I'm reading first-day writing samples and walking in Southampton in short shorts and sweatshirt (what else is new?), looking at neon-streaked portraits. The diagonal stroke (rush rush)--I see the lines of light blue, light blue, dark. Yet somehow the perfect shading to the suit to the man with the green drops hailing from his heaven.

And I think that some things, you just know.

It's like a real college or something.

What I like about these crazy days is shaking out the demons (and I don't mean the freshmen) -- too much going on for too much doubt. So they sift down into dreams as I squeeze my eyes shut before the alarm, and as Billy Collins says, hell is listening to other people's dreams, and this week the dreams are a breath, a whisp, a nada.

Shelter sounds

It's 1:01 am, the time I told myself I'd stop, and here I am, stopped for now. I kept going in the quiet corridor because I had to get those letters straight - a twist of calligraphy, a thicker ROCK for emphasis. Tomorrow I'll feel it but tonight I love the bright happy colors, the Rock Star Target dollar specials on the walls, the perfect twists of the w's in "We Will." We will, indeed.

I lift the chair I had to stand on up the stairs, stepping sideways, carrying myself to bed.

one suite down, seven to go

I miss writing. And running. Sleeping. Lauren and Deana because they should be here. (And in case you stalk me, Miss Sarah, I'm in need of some life updates! Your jewelry is lovely!) For every good piece of news comes five annoying pieces. But at least there's the good, you know? I should know better, but in any free moment, I just can't be made to move. Not that way.

I want to teach, want to be in the midst of all this already. I'm excited about this class and I think this is something I can do. Something I will enjoy while the rest of me does its usual five-six-seven dance.

Dom on marrying a woman who already has children: "But then if we had kids, I'd have to love her kids as much as mine, and I'm too lazy for that shit."

I'm really, really glad that your mom is okay right now. I thought about her all day yesterday. Still thinking now.

And for the one who has perfected the field of tweezer surgery: What would I do this crazy week without you?

Friends don't let friends bite strangers.

Before I left home for college, I left Riverside for Spins. I was thirteen. The only thing that could have kept me there were the girls I'd grown attached to in our two years as a team. I don't know how many push-ups, pull-ups, leg lifts, oversplits, press handstands, failed back handsprings, and missed kips we suffered through. Recital dances to Men in Black and sleepovers.

But I had to leave. Because I shouldn't have had to want to throw up from anxiety before and during every practice. There had to be a gym where the coaches pushed me to be the gymnast I could be instead of holding me down to the gymnast they thought I was. And maybe I'd make friends there.

Ten years later on a humid summer night, five of us sweat from hot wings instead of un-air-conditioned gym. We drink beer and Grey Goose instead of water (or with water), wear cute T-shirts instead of leotards, make sure to make fun of boys (maybe that never changed). Between us we've got two associates degrees, a masters in progress, three bachelors, another bachelors in the works and the fifth just begun. An age gap as wide as nine years and as close as four days. Roommates turned besties and roommates turned...lame. New gyms, old gym, and no gym at all.
Yet no matter what we speak of, one can easily say "roundoff" or "Tsuk"' or "spotting fat kids" or "I can't even..." and the rest pick up the rhythm immediately.

I think that's how it is at home. They speak your first language. And perhaps that doesn't happen until two or three or seven homes later when you realize who you are and what you want to say. And that's when the first people listen.

So to elbows bitten and needles used and unused and Meghan's shining start to college and, most certainly, to all of us.

The world we know

It's probably awkward for me to say, "Hey, I read about your dad in the paper, and I'm sorry," but...I read about your dad in the paper. And I'm sorry.

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/suspected-drunken-driver-in-fatal-commack-crash-jailed-1.1381139

Seriously. Is it THAT HARD to resist ridiculous amounts of alcohol before you drive? Especially when you KNOW that you're going to drive later? And is it that hard to call a friend, a cab, is it so difficult to stay put for awhile?

How much more is it going to take?

"What are these 'standards' you speak of?"

I think what I've wanted these past few days is my old way -- running away to stop thinking, to maybe still think but laugh too hard to listen. Just for a few hours.

So I did.

And I could have exercised a bit longer, written a bit more, but the rest of me feels realigned.

oh, I remember, don't worry

How could I ever forget?