Once upon a December

It's not that I hate winter. I don't. It's beautiful. And there are all these awful holiday that you have to go to but secretly love. And I do love them. And there are so many great excuses to drink, not that anyone needs an excuse really. It's just that, during winter, all these thoughts and emotions and memories that are normally drowned out by the deafening sounds of nature seem to suddenly come to life.

Winter has a silence about it, a loneliness I've only seen in nursing homes and bus stops. There's something unsettling but perfect in the still, hollow of the night, the land spreading out like a dead thing for miles. But it's not dead. It's asleep, and we all need sleep. And the past is so present without the distraction of leaves and warmth and the breeze. Winter does not believe in breeze, only wind. Wind is where the breeze goes once the cold kills all the plants it used to play with.

And maybe the only reason you wish someone was next to you is because you're cold, and body heat's more effective and more fun than a high utility bill. Or maybe you have too much hot cocoa and peppermint schnapps to drink all by yourself. Or maybe you've always needed a partner to help with the crossword puzzle. And then there's always the silence. Winter silence is much different than summer silence. Not worse, just different. Summer silence seems to be alive, but winter silence is deafening.

And maybe it's snowing, and, well, everything is just as it's supposed to be, I guess.

I mean it ya'll. Do it.

Till. You. Are satisfied.

My mom is pretty fantastic.

 Mom and Cole, my nephew.

You see, when my roommate woke me up this morning at 7:52, I had a feeling that was just the start to a very long day. School starts at 8... aka - bad news. We walked in the door at 8:03. Now, I don't know what you think, but I think that's rather impressive.

The thing is, today my mom sent me a care package. She nailed it.

Cheez-its (I could make a veiled David Blaine parody reference here, but I won't.)
Neon sour worms
Gum
Mentos

These things were perfect for sharing with my students.

Purell - fantastic for teachers.

Pistachios - delicious. A+.

Photos of my nephews - exactly what I needed.

Sudoku Mania book - I just finished my old book. Yesterday. Not kidding.

CinnaMint toothpaste - I haven't lived at home for 5 years. How does she know that's the only kind I'll use?

A loofa - I've been wanting to buy a new one.

Linen-scented Air Freshener - Also the only type I'll use.

Carmex - My lips are so chapped.

Fuzzy socks - Completely unnecessary, but still.

Fake nails for little girls - I put them on immediately. The fifth graders LOVED them.

Also - straws that create chocolate milk when you use them. WHAT?!?!

Today was a good day. I love my mom.

My heart like a kick drum.

My love like a voice.

Tonight I should be curled up with wine, listening to the Avett Brothers. It is a night meant for pining and nostalgia. Those are the two things I do best. The cold brings memories and longings that summer lets you forget, like car windows rolled down too far under a canopy of glistening sky. Like being afraid to get out from under your covers in the morning. Like company in the early hours of evening.

"We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists."

~ Blaise Pascal

Some memories are realities...

... and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again. 

Cather Chronicle V

Nights like these foretell ghost
breaths through caffeinated sunlight,
facing east in dew-drenched waking
hours. The miles of barbed wire aching
to hold so many things close to us have
no comprehension of how useless they
really are. Nothing here belongs to us,
rather we to it. This. This is a manifesto
of heartbeats and things unsaid.

Here, in the middle of everything, two
stand alone, the red grass swallowing their
ankles, asking, pleading for more. Her hair
like a wild thing about her shoulders. More
animal than human and, somehow, more
beautiful than both. His eyes full of melancholy,
learning how to live from everything living,
the only way they know how.

G.K. Chesterton

Then he said,

"But there are four lamps of thanksgiving always before me. The first is for my creation out of the same earth with such a woman as you. The second is that I have not, with all my faults, gone after strange women. You cannot think how a man's self restraint is rewarded in this. The third is that I have tried to love everything alive, and it has been but a dim preparation for loving you. The fourth is... but no words can express that. Here ends my previous existence. Take it: it led me to you."

And we're brothers, and that's alright.

It's fall, suddenly and after what seems like years. And there's something about the ever-shortening days and the endless wind and the scent of dying leaves that reminds me of everything I love. I want cool days with outdoor antics in sweatshirts with friends. I want warm evenings inside on plush sofas with warm drinks and warmer bodies, remembering why the ones we loves are the ones we love. And I want it all, but I have to remember that I can have it all, just not all at the same time. 

So, for now, I'll just share with you what I love.

Soon the cottonwoods will start changing, and their yellow leaves and shining white bark will make "them look like the gold and silver trees in fairy tales." (Thanks Willa) 

Yeah... I like peach pie. I like that it feels like a foreign treat meant only for special occasions and sympathy. 

Scottish Highland Cattle. I want them. I will have them. I love them. They're like giant bear-dog-cows. Glorious.

All day. Every day. Please. Thank you.

I guess you're xbox, and I'm more atari.

Cather Chronicle IV

Here on the edge of the world
crickets find solemnity in
crimson skies, and if you believe
nothing lies past the nearest hills
but nothing. Well, God bless you.
Tonight I pray that my bed transforms
into miles of endless grass,
inhaling and exhaling as
the Earth, the earth, spirals
below the painted dome of the
heavens. Because if it really
is a dome, it too ends just beyond
the nearest hill, and I want
to enjoy it while I can

The purring of steel rails and
metal spikes provides the only
connection between this moment and
all other moments. And that's
just as comforting as it ought
to be.

Willa knows. She knows how
this solution, desolation, elation
combine to form the working
firmament of our souls.

You can hear the story of
the edge carried for miles
by an azure breeze, picking
up resolution from the
Plains. This land finds
completion in its missing
parts, fulfillment in the
things it will never know.

This... this is not a country
at all, but the material out
of which countries are made.

Willa knows. I know. That below
this carpet of grass, crisped and
sun-burnt, below this thoroughfare
of oxygenated traffic, rest unbridled
potential, unasked for potential.

Y-Town or Hot Air Balloon Central

The train that grinds past my apartment here roars four times, just like at camp. There's a comfort in that, one that I've only found in melted street tar under summer sun, community bathrooms and car soap. Two longs, one short, one long. Nights like these, I open my windows at about 10, just as the temperature drops below 75. As I lay here surrounded by pillows and basking in the glow my LED screen, I'm trying (fruitlessly) to decipher the chorus of insects below my window. Last school year, the seventh floor didn't lend itself to insect lullaby, nor did the constant hum of cars bellowing down 17th Street. I prefer the crickets. I prefer the cicadas. I prefer the dense cacophony slowly melding into what feels like silence, only purer.

High Ceilings and Higher Windows

I've reached the age where people will soon start thinking I've got problems if I'm not falling in or out of love with someone. People are so thoughtless. Falling in and out of love is not the problem. I fall in love with every person I meet every day. I have no deficit of love.

I'm just... waiting.

There's something beautiful and timeless about the freedom of being alone. And there's a certain peace that comes from being in charge of what comes next. And I need to wait. I don't know who will be strong enough to carry the other side of my burden's yoke. I don't know who will sell years of his life to give back to the world somewhere that I'm not sure of yet. I don't know who will follow my sequin-shoe path.

But someday I will.

How to be Alone

This is a controlled demolition

Cather Chronicle III

A silhouetted skirt floats a quarter
mile away against the "something
blue" sky. And I've always been
on the side of tradition because
I envy its staying power.

Butter-colored mariposas flit from
one sun-stained flower to the
next. And, for a moment, they
match the concrete path before
a celestial mountain causes the
shadows to spread, yellow fading
to gray.

And I know from experience
that beyond this deep, green
slope, there's just another slope.
Then another, then another,
spreading out like miles of
solid ocean. Perhaps emerald
fades to lime and back to
the thick shades of forest, but
mostly it's all the same.

It's the kind of majesty that
reminds you what living is. And
even if you don't think you
need reminding, you probably do.
It's hard to know what's missing
when it exists in so few a space.  

Schuyler. Skyler. Sky. Lark.

Open-windowed dreaming stands
waiting near a black bag, white
polka dots. The cicadas missed me
this summer, as did the stars.
The floor is wet and so is my
collar and so are the corners
of my eyes, but only a little. At
some point, I guess my lungs
gave out. It's maybe been days
or even weeks. They've only now
started to inflate, and my
skin is already turning a soft
strawberry.

Nacho, my yogi guide, my once
vain champion, let me listen
as I breathe at stilted and
deepened speed.

Keep on keeping on...

I just heard thunder knock meekly outside of my window. Thunder was not made to be humble, to be hushed to be calm. I need it to find its passion. If I can't feel it, I can't feel myself.

I'll have time to write soon. Hopefully.

I am important. I care for the Earth.

We often forget that we are nature.

Nature is not something separate from us. 

So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, 

we've lost our connection to ourselves. 

I do not love you

XVII (I do not love you...) 

 

by Pablo Neruda

 

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

 

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

 

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep

Eat. Pray. Love.

The last ten days were exactly what I needed. I feel so rejuvenated, so fresh, so ready.

I'm going to start reading again today. I haven't read for pleasure in years.

I bet you can't guess what I'm going to read first.

(So... you probably guessed wrong cause the library didn't have that one. The Kite Runner it is.)

Can you hear me now? Good.

When I speak of silence, I
speak of life. You have let
go of legacy. Your silence
exists in pixelated part-
time solace.

Listen.

Stop.

Listen again.

Leave your virtual lives
for the moment, let go
of the pulsing vibrations
that connect you to the
noise. Learn to recognize
the noise as it is.

In the web of trees where
the Platte River and
Missouri River valleys
collide, I found it. A
deafening silence that
spread out for miles.
It starts out almost too
quiet to notice, but once
you do, the cacophony
of stillness rocks you.
Feel the discomfort; you've
never been there before.

Absorb it.

This silence is dying. It
doesn't exist anymore in
the places where people
live. It's stifled by the
hum, by the visual and
spiritual and physical
noise of the everyday.

You'll miss it once it's gone.

Separating the awkwardly feminine from the possibly Canadian...

If things don't change soon, I won't be able to fall sleep without the distant spills of thunder and light flooding the room momentarily as lightening chains fill the sky. I like the rain and the way it smells like breathing. I like the way the fringes of my jeans get wet as I trudge across the sidewalk. And I like the silence. Most people don't understand silence anymore. It's early. This solstice brings the hope of something new. Summer has always been kind to me.

This rain, this heat, this sweat that beads above my eyes, it keeps the corners of my mouth turned upright. Give me an apple and a backpack and stream full of snails. Give me grass stains and skinned knees and sweet-smelling grass. Give me crisped skin and water bottles and John Denver in the background. Give me summer, the way I know it but newer.

I'd like to ask a stranger to dance, if I only knew how. Instead, I'll just ask for story or a heartache or a tale I can keep telling. This season is the time for reckless mistakes, for abandon, for life.

K to the C

I used to be Daddy's girl.

Hunting for morel mushrooms. Fishing in the Nemaha River. Driving the golf cart as he played nine holes. Watching a football game, beer in his hand, root beer in mine. Washing his truck in the driveway as he followed, rewashing everything I touched.

Thanks Dad, even though I'm not a little girl anymore, I always kind of will be.

Thanks for teaching me how to remove a tick, that I should be extra careful when walking through nettles, how to worm a hook, that hitting the sidewalk with the weed-whacker ruins the blade. Thanks for letting me watch Highlander and wrestling, get dirty, ride my bike down grassy hills before I knew how to stop. And even though you hide money around the house and watch paranormal investigation shows and love Huey Lewis and the News, I still think you're pretty cool.

All Secrets Sleep in Winter Cloths

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I finished my homework for tomorrow at 5 p.m. today. Now I can go out with friends tonight and not feel guilty about being there. I can also go to sleep when I get home and not stay up late and be tired at school tomorrow. Look how grown up I am!

I do need to clean my room though. I guess some things never change.

Look what you did...

You little jerk.

I going to go to sleep early tonight. It's heavy here. I can feel miles of delusion piling onto my shoulders. And the nighttime, summer air is weightless. Things stop making sense when I start thinking sensibly.

The cobbled paths, the strange atmosphere, the people... I'm starting to love it all. And I'm trying to rationalize everything else in my life. And it grounds me. But I was not made to be rational or reasonable or planted. I'm like the fluff of a cottonwood. I'm meant to wander, to roam, to defy reason and longing, to be steady, reliable, free from misinterpretation. This heart wades restlessly, waiting to be used to its fullest potential. Where is my potential? I am made for love - senseless, restless, reckless, unselfish love.

I'm a writer of words, a lover of souls and creator of destinies. Come here. Walk with me to buy coffee, one cream, two sugars. Sit uncomfortably close and listen as I spill myself to you. Come unhinged. Let go of you and me. Walk with me in silence. Stop. Don't do anything. Become one with your nothingness.

Every day I resist the urge to let completely go. I want to know everyone's life story - the past, the present, the in betweens and even the parts not written. I want to know that you don't enjoy crayons, that you eat ice cream with a fork, that your favorite color is goldenrod, that you prefer green vegetables, that you're afraid of backseats. And I'll tell you how I used to spend weeks of summer in a tent in my neighbor's back yard, how I can't stand the sound of popping knuckles, how I think that my life is not really meant for me, how I love cashews, how I prefer Michael Jackson to Alan Jackson and Johnny Cash to both.

Tonight I sleep. I'll make sense tomorrow.

BP Cares

Right now, in the Gulf of Mexico, arguably the largest man-made environmental disaster is raging. I don't know if people don't understand the extent of the oil spill. I don't know if it's just too difficult for many people to talk about. I don't know if people don't care. I just don't know. And for the last almost TWO MONTHS I've felt helpless... hopeless about it. But I have to do something, anything about it.

Below are a list of sites that I've found about the spill. There are millions of sites that talk about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that started April 20th. These are ones that I've found especially interesting. The Deepwater Horizon rig, operated by British Petroleum, exploded April 20th, and I in no way mean to forget the tragedy of the workers that died in the explosion. That in itself is devastating. The disaster that has followed that tragedy cannot be ignored.

Every day unimaginable amounts of oil are leaking into the ocean. The spill is so big you can see it from space. And just looking at video footage and photographs and listening to people who are there talk about it, you can tell that something is horribly wrong. And I want to know more. I want to see more pictures. I want to understand better what's going on. It alarms me how hard I have to work to actually find information that says specifics about what is the current situation in the Gulf of Mexico. Perhaps, no one knows. But, perhaps, no ones talking. I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but the silence scares me most.

If you're feeling helpless, as I did, please take some time to explore your options. Write a letter to your senator. Donate money. Volunteer to help. At the very least, spread the word. Oh, and I don't know how effective it will be, but I'm not going to any BP gas stations. In fact, I'm buying as little gas as possible.

Check out photos and statistics of the massive destruction taking place on the wildlife and ecosystem in the gulf coast.

And, if you're like me, you might just need some comic relief, just to make it not hurt so much.

• http://www.didbpfixthatleakyet.com/
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM&feature=player_embedded
• https://twitter.com/BPGlobalPR 

(If you have any other information that you think I (or anyone else) might be interested in, please share it.) 

Please don't stop the music...

• January Wedding - The Avett Brothers
• Birds - Kate Nash
• Raindrops - Regina Spektor
• Real Love - The Beatles
• Lovers' Waltz - A.A. Bondy
• 1,2,3,4 - Plain White T's

Have I made a list like this before? I almost feel like I have.

For British Eyes Only

I've been afraid for so long now, it's hard to nail down what exactly I'm afraid of. But, the truth is, I'm terrified. And I'm tired. And I'm so, so tired of being afraid. Yesterday it all kind of just came crashing down on me. I can't count the number of times I was on the verge of tears yesterday, the number of times that verge became a reality. Everything that has been building up since the beginning of May, it fell apart. My time at UNL is over. My time (for now) at camp is over. And the worst part is, they're so close. I can almost touch them. And that's just going to be a hard reality for me to face for a while. Somewhere in my chaos-driven head I've connected the friendships that I've formed at those places with the places themselves; but it's more than just a connection - it's like a fusion. And that's just not true. My friendships aren't dependent on those locations. They're dependent on people, dependent on me.

To quote someone special, "I'm tired of being afraid of silly things." This time in my life should not be scary. It should be exhilarating, breath-taking, endlessly beautiful... everything. And this fear that I have... the irrational and beating fear of change... it's silly. And I'm tired of it.

God takes the foolish things about this world to confound the wise.

Please grant me wisdom.

My Hair is Wet

• Five bananas sit on my desk. 
• My window view is a football field. 
• I bumped my head... hard. 
• It's strange to have a roommate again. 
• Not bad, just strange. 
• I would have stopped being antisocial tonight if I hadn't had a paper due. 
• But I finished my paper. :-) 
• I rather miss Lincoln. 
• I rather like Omaha more than I expected. 
• I love my friends, like a million. 
• No more lists for a while after this.
• I plomise. (That's like a promise I don't have to keep.)

Kiwi Tissue Box

"We are all a little weird, and life's a little weird; and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."

There is no "Lindsey" in "team."

• I have a crush on the outdoors at dusk. 
• I drink copious amounts of water. 
• I could eat avocados always. 
• Today is better. 
• I would like to give a shout out to Miss Nif for mein Alpenmilchcreme Milka. 
• I prefer Gerber daisies and pearls, thank you. 
• I aspire to cook with the grace of a mother. 
• I wasn't that impressed by the metal slides at the park downtown. 
• I was impressed by the breeze and kids laughing. 
• I'd rather have roughage than lettuce.
• A pluot is not a plum.

Light a candle for me at the grotto...

Tonight I should be surrounded
by a roaring silence and a warm
breeze. Tonight I should not be
bothered by the hum of interstate
traffic and air conditioning. A few
of my parts are still walking around,
laughingly afraid on a gravel path
through the trees. They shouldn't
be there. They're making it worse

My face is wet.

If you stop at the bottom of the
hill between East and Main, before
the light of the barn, you will
finally be able to understand the
blankness, the sky, the heart-pounding
quiet. These etches on my mind will
keep me awake a few more nights
until I get over what feels like is
missing or at least start to forget.

I know this feeling, like one of losing
a friend, like losing yourself.

Tonight I am only this pen and
this word and this longing.

Call me Mr. Flintstone...

I'm a chewy vitamin. (I think that's how the song goes.)


I'm kind of in a funk right now. This transition is hard, a lot harder than I expected. But I'm going to start giving it a much better effort.

Give me a little while. Okay?

Cool and Creamy...

Dear Uhari,

I'm campsick. Everyone here is really nice, and I've even met some really cool new people. But they all seem much more interesting and outgoing than me. They're all really nice though - a few of us even went and got ice cream tonight. Making new friends is hard work. Classes are going well. I'm learning a whole lot, and even my professor is really nice. He always refers to kids as being "naughty," never bad. We all get a real kick out of him. In fact we're so busy during the day in his class and doing work, that I hardly have a chance to think about camp. But during the down times like before bed, I can't think of anything else. I'm sure I'll miss you less and less as time goes on, but it's pretty hard right now. I hope everything is going well with you. I bet you have a new and excited group of people who can't wait to get started. Well, I hope to see you really soon. Until then, I'll keep in touch.

Love - Sarah

( I tried to write this like I was Morty Stamper, YMCA camper.)

Karate and Friendship

The sun just finished setting through a warm, pink haze outside of my window, and now campus is twinkling with a thousand fluorescent bulbs just past the interstate.

Every few months I go through a realization and acceptance of the things I feel are lacking in my life. And there aren't that many. I'm kind of incredibly blessed. I just feel like eventually it's got to be my turn to have someone's warmth radiating next to me as I drive over blank highway, one hand on the steering wheel the other tangled in a web of fingers, Johnny Cash permeating the silence. That has to happen eventually, right? I'd take that and maybe just a little more time, to write, to live, to grieve, to love.

The last time I wrote, I didn't know what to say. I still don't have many words; they're hidden somewhere in this transition time I've found myself in. But it's good. I'm just a little unsettled. I need to find my place in my new environment.

Last name Ever. First name Greatest.

I'm a powder keg of tears.

Somehow, it's only right that I'm awake at 4:47 a.m. my last night at the university. And everything around me echoes and mirrors the last five years of my life - unpreparedness, chaos, running behind, the weakness of sleep. This year has been so much better than I ever thought it might be, and I'm so sad to be leaving the home I've made here. I barely have the words for it.

I'm not going to sleep tonight. I don't want to. I feel like I have hold on to every fleeting second I have left. And please, please don't mistake my sorrow for disinterest in the future. I'm so excited for everything that's about to happen in my life, but the changes are so drastic that simply leaving everything I've had just doesn't seem fair right now. I don't know what I'm going to do when we all say goodbye tomorrow. Saying goodbye to my friends, who I'll see again fairly soon is the physical manifestation of saying goodbye to this stage in my life. This is the only stage that has really been mine.

I wouldn't change one thing that I've done in college. If I could go back I would do every last thing the exact same way. But I can't help but wonder where I would be now if I would have changed something - if I would have told people how much I truly cared for them, if I would have raised by voice louder in class, if I would have done anything different.

I'm rambling. I don't know. I thought this was going to be much more eloquent. I thought I would share some profound feelings on my college experience, on life. I thought I'd hold it together better than this. I'm going to finish packing.

Stop. Collaborate and listen.

It's cool outside, a nice reminder to enjoy spring before it turns to summer.
I'm going to take a midnight walk around campus every night this week, if anyone wants to join me.
I hope it rains every night this week.
I'm about to start cleaning/packing my room... bring on the waterworks.
Last weekend was one of the best I've ever had.
I wasn't expecting this year.
I'm incredibly thankful for this year.
Life has a funny way of never giving you what you think but always giving you what you need.
I don't want to throw anything away.
I have to.

There is no place like Nebraska...

A sheet of cherry blossom petals cover the sidewalks on campus, their subtle scent wafts between brick and mortar buildings. I appreciate the beauty of campus as it changes from season to season. I try to ignore the faint odor of urine that forever lingers on R Street. I try to imagine that the feral, sewer cats are more like pets than potential ring worm carriers. God, I love it here. I love the barefooted people sitting near the fountain on chalk-stained sidewalks. I love the tiny doors in the basement stacks of the library. I love to hear The Carpenters ringing from Mueller Tower, reminding me how late for class I really am. I love riding my bike alone at 12:30 a.m. in circles in front of the union. I love the millions upon millions of memories I've made with the people I've met here. You don't find people like this elsewhere; at least, I'd like to think you don't. I love that this is my home. 

I really do love it here. Just thinking about leaving makes my eyes well up thick with tears. It's been five years, five of my most formative years. Thank God I got to spend them here. I know I've spent the better part of the last five years denouncing being a "Cornhusker" and the football team. And I don't take it back (except for Suh, I'm on board with Suh.) I don't love Nebraska game day. I don't love the scores of people who live and die based on a football game. I don't love how much it overshadows everything else that's good about UNL, about Lincoln, about Nebraska. It makes me want to scream at the drunken masses in their Nebraska red, "Look at everything you're missing. Look at everything you think it worth looking over." And maybe (certainly) I'll be a Nebraska football fan in the future. I enjoy the games. I like football. I love a good challenge, and I've enjoyed the games I've been to. Someday, I'll proudly emblazen the word "Cornhusker" over my chest... once the bitterness has worn off. Because I am proud of my school. I am proud of my education. I really do think there is no place like Nebraska.

Here in my poorly-lit room, with a gentle breeze creeping through my window, I can hardly believe it's all coming to an end. I look at my remaining classwork. If I don't do it, will I somehow slow down this process? Can I desperately grasp for an extension? Just a few moments more, please? More squirrels, hiding things in the ceiling of Piper 3, watching storms outside of Pound, laying in the grass in the green space, parking my car late at night, riding futons down the stairs, bicycle crashes (yes, I'd even take those), opossum catching, roof dancing, dirty dirty, movie nights, Husker Hoagies, bullshit lectures, green bean casserole, anything... please just give me anything that I can keep. Two weeks from now, at this exact time, I will be spending my last night at UNL. I will be worried about checking everyone out of this dorm, wondering if I made the right choice in not walking, crying because all of my walls will be so bare. I hate bare walls. 

I made April promise it wouldn't go this fast. April is always telling lies.

Go on up, you Baldhead

2 Kings 2:23

(The rest of this post is unrelated.)

Jenifer and I drove down 27th Street on Wednesday evening on our way to Sonic. My mouth salivated as I thought of the cherry, vanilla Diet Coke that awaited me. Her poison? A chocolate Coke... gag. We jerked to a stop at the red light on Holdrege Street.

"Is that guy playing with those dogs?" She said.

In the parking lot of the Lucky Chef Express to our left, a tall man was waving his hat as two pit bulls jumped around him.

"Sure..." I said absently, finishing a text.

I looked again. No. That man was not playing with those pit bulls. The two, adult pit bulls - one black and white, the other tan - clawed and bit at the mans arms as he tried warding them off with his baseball cap. Suddenly the man ran into 27th Street, the traffic around him squeaking to a stop. He dodged in and out of vehicles, trying to get the pit bulls to stop chasing him. But they continued to bite at his baggy jeans and hands. He ran around the intersection about 30 feet in front of us on the other side of the median. Without warning he jumped onto the hood of a silver sedan.

"What is he doing?" I said to Jen, my voice rising in shock.

Then, with the grace of a man who had done it before, he leaped onto to the roof of the car, laid on his stomach facing the front and reached his hands through the open windows on either side of the car. The dogs jumped and scratched the sides of the car. As it sped off down 27th Street, the dogs ran after it.

We didn't see what else happened. Traffic started moving again, and we drove in shock to Sonic as I called animal control, trying to find a way to describe what had just happened.

(Sorry, this is a little more literal than I usually write... but REALLY... WHAT?!?!)

Sleeper 1972

It's 1:40 a.m. on a Wednesday, and all of the people should be sleeping. I should be sleeping. But I'm glad I'm not. I want to wake all of you from your crusty-eyed slumber in your disheveled sheets. I want you to greet the silence beyond your open-windowed screens. You should be outside, walking with the one you love. Walking over asphalt trails, your footsteps hollow in the dark. And don't say anything. Just walk. People always think they have to say something. Don't. And if you don't have someone to walk with, walk alone. People always think they need someone to walk with. You don't. I wish I would have walked longer, alone in the dark. I wish I could remember how much I value being alone. But I don't. Embrace loneliness. You can't truly value someone's company unless you know what life is like without it. Wake up! Nights as empty and as beautiful and as clean as this don't exist in your sleep. They hardly exist in your wake. And you sleeping fools, you drowsy angels, you're missing it.

I only like you for your large hands

• York. New York? Old York? Who knows... at least it's York. 
• Manchester Orchestra twice in three months? Oh my! Brand New and Kevin Devine better get their pelvises in gear. 
• Somehow I'll survive the next month. 
• My heart grasps longingly at the mountains, the oceans, the rivers, the lakes, the endless sky. These plains hold it steady, though. 
• You can give a man a rock, or you can teach him to rock. 
• Dear 2010, I know I said you were my year, but you better step up your game. I give you until August. 
• Ta ta ta ta ta ta taaaa ta tattaaaa ta ta ta ta ta ta ta taaaa taaaaaa taatatataaaa taa. 
• I love this life with abandon and wish to speak of it boldly. 
• Avocados. 

Also, Neil Young...

I am an agent of chaos...

I can't pick up a pen tonight. They're all too heavy, too empty, too careless. On my way back to my dorm after class the dry, browned green crisped below the rubber soles of my sneakers, below my rubber soul. And the breath of night whispered to my rouging skin. And I wish I had someone to ask to stop holding my hand in this heat. And everything about the weather makes me wish my bike had life. And everything about the weather makes me wish I wasn't so cold.

I want sweet tea in the cool grass with cargo shorts and bare feet. I want gravel roads and empty fields and ditches. I want pavement and black sky and crickets. I want the empty sounds of night, the deafening silence. I want to stand in the middle of the street, face to the sun, and greet the fairness of chaos.

And something, everything, in this 60 degree open-air palace makes me want you, too. Will you take my palm and let ours sweat together as we step over cracked sidewalk and dirt? Will you sit near me on chipped, steel benches, sipping coffee, mostly black, as the men and women pass in their business suits? Will you listen as Neil Young floats out of my windows and down the highway as we head nowhere? Will you give this season meaning?

The Symphony of Science

Everything happened.

The graduate school? I got it. The teaching position? Mine. The thesis? Started... at least. The friends? They're everywhere. They're endless. The other thing?

Well, almost everything. And "almost everything" is more than I ever could have wanted.

And everything inside of me is screaming with a wild, painful, ecstatic abandon that I cannot satiate.

I saw the mountains for the first time in my adult life last weekend. The snow in Denver kept us away the day we planned to explore the mountain sites. Later, I looked at the peaks as the white, Dodge Avenger dragged me away down the interstate, back East. A few tears came, some because I missed them, some because I'm afraid I was supposed to miss them. I'm not sure my delicate heart could take their beauty, their awe. Perhaps seeing them up close would somehow damage my affection, my passion for Nebraska. Its billowing dunes, its endless hills, they make me ravenous for the cornfields of my youth.

St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes, pray for me

Killing the Angel in the House...

"The family peace was not broken by the scratching of a pen."

- My sheets won't stay on my bed.
- I can make a kazoo out of my window blinds.
- Temporary lion tattoo.
- Jalapeno Jimmy John's kettle chips.

"Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own."

- Please don't judge me for watching every episode of The Bachelor this season.
- Starfish and coffee, maple syrup and jam.
- I've seen enough genocide movies for one week.
- I'm getting everything I want for my birthday this year.

"Had I not killed her she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing."

- Tattoo and kazoo rhyme.
- I've watched every episode of The Office too.
- I'm more hopeless than romantic.
- My pimp cup runeth over.

"It is harder to kill a phantom than a reality."

- Virginia Woolf

I never loved nobody fully...

Always one foot on the ground.

I should be cleaning my room right now. I should be writing my thesis right now. I should not have two new pairs of shoes in my room. I should not be listening to a new Regina Spektor CD.

Here's what I AM going to do. Say thank you.

Thank you to all of my friends. I must be the most blessed, fortunate, lucky person in the world to be surrounded by all the love I feel every day from you. Thank you for endlessly championing my desires and dreams. Thank you for allowing my infrequent correspondences constant forgiveness. Thank you for keeping me humble and accountable for my lack of filter. Thank you for making my life much more exciting than it is all by myself. Thank you for your constant encouragement. Thank you for accepting my sometimes brutal honesty. Thank you for passing it right back. Thank you for late night Village Inn visits, face screaming, watching TV shows I want to watch where Santa gets bit in the neck, understanding Whistley D, being married to me, participating in the thread, and making my life better. And above all, thank you for all your love.

I send it back times a million.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

(Thanks Dorothy Allison)

First - This year is going to be a wonderful year; and maybe the saddest year yet. As I walked over the lightly powdered, damp sidewalks at 12:52 last night, weightless shimmer falling softly on my hood, the hollow echo of my voice made me pause. Last night reminded me that I was home. Soon I'll be leaving this place of sewer cats and squirrels and traveling into the bliss-ridden and beautiful unknown.

Second - I'm taking another bullshit English class that I'm very interested in. It's called Rhetoric of Women Writers, thus the name of this post. I'm not sure I will learn anything truly useful; but I am sure I will enjoy it.

Third - My eye hurts.

The General Specific...

That's a good song... but this isn't about it.

Cather Chronicle II

The current state weighs
on me like the thunderous
calm of 100 larks. This
ambivalence isn't new to
me; it lingers between
the hollow purples and
grays of the evening west.
My affection for this
land of soil and sand and
cisterns seers the moistness
of my heart. Just as my
frustration for this home
of intolerance and ignorance
and idealism burrows through
the catacombs of my mind.

I love this state, my
state, with a reckless,
painful abandon. A
feeling strong enough to
move millions to action,
inaction, one in the same.
Needless efficacy, brazened
rapture, all sent kicking
and singing though a
thoroughfare entrenched.
These bring me back to
the pale tans and grizzle
of adjacent corn fields and
pine trees, spending months
amid the two.

We weren't meant for this
land of endless sky and
evasive sinew, nor was it
meant for us. But here we
are on the brink of
affection, and I've missed
my chance of leaving, and
you've missed the feeling
of the eastern wind and
foot after foot of dry
prairie grass. This weight
can wait while we allow
our codependence a chance.

This isn't a class. It's a love covenant.

I like... 

... sitting at Village Inn at 11 on a Tuesday night, sipping hot tea with cream just as the conversation gets so uncomfortable I can hardly breathe. 

... discovering a dead battery in my 1999 maroon Mercury Sable after petting Chip, the horse with the Spartan mane, past midnight in the blank darkness of camp after a failed attempt at star gazing. 

... a #1 from Jimmy John's at 12:30 a.m., no tomatoes, as I'm on the brink of a breakthrough on my 10 page, double spaced history of sexuality paper. 

... following Lynne through the fluorescent light bulb aisles of Sunmart, slipping reduced-fat cottage cheese and avocadoes into the cart while she's preoccupied with the linguini.

... the faint taste of dirt as I sit in a worn, wooden Adirondack in late July and the wind removed the remains of 4 to 1 kickball match between 10-year-olds. 

... a strawberry margarita in the dimly-lit glow of the Starlight Lounge as I listen to a conversation about Elvis Costello three tables away. 

... the crisp January air seeping into my seventh story window as I wake up to a vibrating Samsung at 8:45 a.m.

... where all of this is headed.

Here we are... four wolves.

"Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does." - Allen Ginsberg

Empire State of Mind...

Cather Chronicle I

The diamond-studded expanse

flows for miles surrounding this

blanketed time capsule called

home. Nothing has ever looked

so sad or so beautiful. I can

almost feel Willa next to

me, the cold wet seeping

into our boots, shifting

our weights from foot to

foot to keep feeling, as though

the 360 degree cyclorama weren't

enough of a dusky rainbow

to remind us how full of

life we are. As the snow

stifles any green that

miraculously had held on

until early January, sullen

mauves breathe life to

life. I drift through drifts

of fallen sky and nostalgia.

Gone are the days of reckless

wandering, worn sheets that

held together tree-top forts,

screaming at trains as they

passed mere yards away, jars

full of dead lightening bugs.

Seventeen, sitting in the summer

darkness on the cool

refreshing pavement of

my driveway, intercepting

phone conversations

from houses away, waiting

for a baby-blue chariot to

tear, sparks flying, down

the street. They're present

only in the etched glass of

ice coating tree limbs.

The world is so still in

this place that it's hard

to believe that anything

has ever moved here before.

But the streets are throbbing

with light with color with

abandon. Willa's back. I

doubt if she ever really left.

I know, like she, that I'm

only repeating one of the

few human stories, retelling

it as though no on ever

has before. But both she

and I know better. The

hollow air, the beating shades

of winter, they're our tell,

chilling us much deeper than

temperature or fear or love

or nothingness.