always.

...so much their bones ache.

On most days I come home to an empty house and try to remember my life as a single girl. "This was your day everyday," I think. Cooking for one, eating in front of my computer, not bothering to put any clothes away because who cares, it's all my space anyway and I don't have to share it with anyone.  I do hate cooking for one, but I am starting to appreciate taking up as much space as I want and not worry about thinking about anyone but myself.

But unlike a breakup, at least this bone aching feeling doesn't have to last forever.

don't postpone joy.

I.am.exhausted.  This week was overwhelming. I wish I could enjoy the weekend but I have so much work to do and I just want to crawl under my desk and forget all about everything except dust bunnies. I'm sleepy, the weather here is weird, I miss Mat, and the internet is acting up, thus robbing me of my Friday tradition of watching all Thursday night shows on Hulu uninterrupted. And for these reasons, I am choosing the following reasons to be happy:
- just finished 5th week of school! that means I'm starting the 6th, which means I'm halfway through my first semester!
- the baby pigeons outside my window are getting older and will soon fly the coop and I won't have to hear their incessant squawking anymore!
- I went to Trader Joe's today and bought canned pumpkin and am gonna make all kinds of pumpkin smoothies!
- I found a super awesome mermaid mug in my cabinet and it's really pretty and it's my new coffee/tea mug, so I'm no longer stealing Carey's Georgetown and St. John's "I have two degrees in fancy" mugs!

Also, I really appreciate the man that stands outside my subway stop in the morning handing out the daily free paper.  He's always wearing a nice suit and hat, and always smiling. No matter what you're doing, look good and smile.

summer in the city.

sitting in the 6th floor library reading room in my favorite spot next to the window, I can see the Chrysler building off in the distance, and have a very favorable view of Washington Square Park.  As the breeze blows, you can see the occasional brown leaf swaying ceremoniously down to the ground below, and we are reminded that fall is here.

as winter approaches, and school becomes more challenging, I am reminded of one of my favorite Camus quotes: "and even in the depth of winter, I found lay within me an invincible summer."  This winter will be particularly cold for many more ways than one, so it'll do good to remember that.

'tis a fearful thing

'tis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch

a fearful thing
to love, to hope, to dream, to be-

to be,
and oh, to lose

a thing for fools, this,

and a holy thing,

a holy thing
to love.

for your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.

to remember this brings painful joy.

'tis a human thing, love.
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.

- judah halevi

zombies.

When I was in high school my friend Nick got a new computer for his graduation gift. It was an Apple laptop, and this was before everyone had them. One summer day Nick, Laura, and myself were lounging around at his house, and he was demonstrating the fancy features of his new fancy laptop. It had this function in which you could say "tell me a joke" and this digital woman would pop up and tell you a joke. The jokes were usually bad, but the feature was novel and thus fascinating to us. On this particular day we hovered around the laptop and instructed it to tell us a joke, and the conversation went a little something like this:

Digital woman: "Knock, knock"

Us: "who's there?!"

DW: "Zombies."

Us: "zombies who??"

....

....

silence.

Us: "ZOMBIES WHO???"

....

....

more silence. Apparently the fancy new laptop had frozen.

At this point Nick began screaming every expletive in his arsenal, which was a lot.

Nick: "ZOMBIES WHO YOU *&^&*&^&87#$$%@#$&*^(%^ YOU @#*&$#(*@(*&%#)"

And we never heard the end of the joke.

Several years later my friend Alex said that he had heard the joke elsewhere, and wondered if I would like to know how it ended. "It's pretty bad" he said. I decided I would just rather leave the joke unanswered, and imagine all the ways it could have ended, rather than be disappointed after all that time. So I still don't know how it ended.

As an adult, I have come to compare the 'zombies who' joke to relationships I have encountered that have ended before they had run the course that I would have thought. Had they not ended abruptly, what would have happened? Do I really want to know how it ends? More often than not, I think I would rather just be left guessing.

...because who answers the door for zombies? you're bound to get your heart ripped out. 

off the back of a truck

"If you have to ask, you can't afford it. This is the second most useful piece of romantic advice I have ever received...

If you have to ask someone to change, to tell you they love you, to bring wine to dinner, to call you when they land, you can't afford to be with them. It's not worth the price, even though, just like the Tiffany catalog, no one tells you what the price is. You set it yourself, and if you're lucky it's reasonable. You have a sense of when you're about to go bankrupt. Your own sense of self-worth takes the wheel and says, Enough of this shit. Stop making excuses. No one's that busy at work. No one's allergic to whipped cream. There are too cell phones in Sweden. But most people don't get luck. They get human. They get crushes. This means you irrationally mortgage what little logic you own to pay for this one thing. This relationship is an impulse buy, and you'll figure out if it's worth it later.

So, assuming you've gone ahead and purposefully ignored the first adage because it doesn't apply to you and you are in love the way no one in the history of spooning has ever been in love: now what? You've gotten what you want, but the state of mutual ownership has shifted. Like that piece of jewelry that you're never quite comfortable wearing, you become concerned with its whereabouts, who borrows it and for how long. You wonder if you'll lose it, if it might look better wrapped around someone else's neck. Admit it: wouldn't it be less stressful not having it touching your body at all?"