Odds & Ends

Two things to feel good about today:

1. I received my graduation evaluation in the mail, which means I do, in fact, get to graduate in June. Thank god! And hoorah! Despite the horrible truth that I am required to take two science classes and philosophy next quarter, in three and a half short months it will all be over, and I will not have to suffer any more college stress. For a while anyway. Also, I got into a Dream Writing class next quarter that I am really excited about, especially because I will formally be required to set aside time for poetry, which feels wonderful.

2. My final project for YA Lit is due this week, and my assigned portion of the project was to create a better book cover for the novel How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. I was really pleased with the way it came out, so I thought I'd post it here.

Making Dough

The quarter is coming to a close, and although all I'm doing is reading, reading, reading...all I've been thinking about is making bread. And by bread, I mean cash...because I'm so broke and ready to get a real job. Are there any real jobs out there anyway?

It seems that when I have a million things to do and very little time to do them, all I can get myself to accomplish is roasting garlic and doing an unnecessary load of laundry.

This Side of the Mountains

My fingers touch glass and are a paled reflection of rain,

slender trails of what has fallen first,

and you're there too, in the muddled colors,

and then I know it's my cheek that's glass.

Dry mouths are asking wet questions

but the wind blows their syllables crooked,

rips the vowels out--

E's and A's are bleeding bad intentions and

you are always looking away.

On this side of the mountains it's a storm

(one you've said you can't withstand)

and so occasionally I have stood with others.

Under their elbow it's never the same,

and I come out feeling numb,

and smelling like an unfamiliar armpit.

I should not say,

I love you for your armpit

but how else do you categorize

one million unmatched puzzle pieces

that are telling me the same story?

We duck the billowed clouds,

two silhouettes made damp by their own breath,

and try to remember how hands fit together,

clapping like oncoming thunder.

Tiny Moon

" All that has touched me is carried inside a swarm of bees.

One day that swarm of bees will carry me to heaven.

This is why the compass and our bodies

both swing north. "

-Anis Mojgani

Anis Mogjani - Shake The Dust

Just because I love him and have been feeling this poem so much lately.

I'm wishing I was in Germany today. What I wouldn't give to eat a nice pot roast from the Agustiner.