[ saturday, november 24 ]
so, hi, new design. those are indeed my (favorite) socks, and my feet (not actual size). you would think that rainbowish-striped socks would make it easy to pick text colors, but it in fact does not, and makes many combinations look downright silly. anyway, the sidebar still needs some additions, but layout-wise, I'm all done. (yay, vacation.) I actually broke one of the towel bars on my door when I was taking those pictures -- I guess I'm not as lightweight as a towel -- so it's nice that they ended up being useful after all.by the way, it looks like this to me, at 800x600 in ie5 for windows. it seems to look about the same in mac ie. as usual, it looks like crap in ns4x, but at this point as long as it works I'm not going to worry about those of you who insist on using a browser that doesn't render html properly (let's not even talk about css, okay?). I haven't tried ns6 or opera yet, mostly because I didn't want find more things to fix. but, of course, if you find anything that looks broken or unreadable, let me know. and if you like it, let me know that too (thanks to everyone who already has)!
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[ friday, november 23 ]
ch-ch-ch-changes... (still a work in progress, yo)[ 22:07 • + ]
there are ginkgo trees all over campus, and they've just in the past week started dropping all their leaves, so the ground outside my dorm and all along the path down to the dining hall is buried under a layer of rich yellow. I walked through them this morning and they swirled up into the air over my feet, rustling softly like children sharing a secret in the corner.
(in america, the streets are paved with gold...)
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hey look! three days instead of two!
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[ thursday, november 22 ]
happy thanksgiving. I've been so stupidly in awe of the world lately that a holiday suddenly seems almost redundant, but hey, it is a holiday. so get your freak on and let's do this thing. (I'll try to be less verbose than I was last year.)
I am fiercely in love with life, and I'm not sure who or what I should say thank you to, but nonetheless ...
life is incredible and I refuse to take it for granted. I don't know what to say about this without sounding like a complete sop, so what the hell: in spite of everything going on in the world, large and small, and the sometimes-curse of being human, I am convinced that life is inherently worthwhile. more than worthwhile, even. beautiful. I smile every morning when I wake up because I'm still alive, still breathing, still feeling, still immersed in light. all of this is finite, one way or another, even if it's bounded only by the limits of my perception, and while I'm not sure that's a bad thing, it makes it awfully precious.
happiness is something that seems to come easily to me, now, and I'm not exactly sure why. maybe it's just that I'm growing up. all I know is that happiness is a lot more tenuous than we think, and a lot less grounded in circumstance than we often wish. I was born lucky, as things go: loved, smart, cute, american. my life has had its rough spots, like everyone's, but I think I've stayed pretty lucky, granted more second chances and opportunities than I was ever entitled to. and still, sometimes, lots of times, none of that was enough to make me happy, or even to make me think I had the ability to keep breathing. I know that some people still aren't happy, perhaps because of their lives or perhaps in spite of them. I don't know where my contentment comes from, exactly, but I hope I can hang on to it. I think I can.
it's bizarre that it sounds funny to say I'm thankful for food, but I am. even at the mercy of a college dining hall, I get to eat so much food, different food every day even, and it's crazy that it's just there whenever I want it. sometimes I even get things like chocolate and mango and sushi. and, well, yay.
this hasn't been the best month my immune system has ever had, but still I'm pretty impressed with how healthy my doctors have managed to keep me. I can run; I can dance; I can sing; I can swim; I can read; I can think; I can hold babies and play the clarinet and kick a rugby ball and kiss boys and lie outside in the sun. diseases that used to be fatal are now treatable and maybe someday they'll be curable. I hope I get to see that, but even if I don't, I know that the quality of my life is much greater than nature alone would have dictated.
and there are people. I thought about it the other day and was a tiny bit shocked to realize that I'm hardly ever lonely. I'm something of a loner, certainly, but I am rarely alone unless I want to be. I have my astrofriends, who are all fun and interesting and just terrific people; my rugby teammates, who are spirited and passionate and dedicated; my family members, all of whom have the good sense to never be boring; and people all over the world who remind me on a daily basis that the universe is a pretty nice place.
so I'm having a good thanksgiving. how about you?
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so, you're dating a vegan. I am amused.
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[ wednesday, november 21 ]
I don't understand how I'm supposed to get any work done when there's a whole internet out there full of pictures like this. if the sun looked like that in the sky I would have long ago gone blind.
[ 11:35 • + ]
it gets better. I had a good day; diluted pain with happiness. slept until eleven thirty after falling into bed just before six. my fingers wouldn't braid my hair so I wore it loose and curly in butterfly clips. lots of homework means I will learn lots of things. I wrap myself in silver linings.
a few moments of searing self-doubt when people were nicer to me than I thought I deserved, but I am learning to believe that even if I am momentarily petulant, I am still (somewhere inside) a person who deserves niceness and patience and friendship. I think. and I didn't even cry.
in thirteen hours I will be on break, ready or not, so I should get to work on that last exam...
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[ tuesday, november 20 ]
I try not to think about it but I know this feeling. it starts on the backs of my knuckles and on latitudinal lines around my chest, this prickly ache that spreads across my skin and seeps beneath it like rainwater into the ground, slow and persistent and everywhere. my skin is flushed with pale pink spots, all the way up my legs and arms, stretched across the bridge of my nose onto my cheeks and eyelids, in the curves between my fingers; underneath, my skin is pale, almost translucent, like silky-thin rice paper.it looked this same way underneath my hospital gown and I tried not to watch their fingers spreading across my body, because it was my body and I was barely fifteen, not even sure how to fit into clothes anymore, let alone inside the intense scrutiny of a team of doctors who surrounded me on all sides, gentle but still invasive. but I watched their hands and watched myself shrink away into a clinical object. my own hands were taped and stuck with intravenous needles so I could only sit and hold them still, out of the way, while the nurses sponged me; as I felt the water sliding over my prickly skin I thought about the bones underneath and named them, cranium clavicle scapula sternum, to keep them from belonging too much to my human self.
it's an all-over fire, sharp and stinging, beneath my hair and in the acute angles inside my elbows and knees, the hollows between my vertebrae, around the edges of my ears. I want to get my fingers underneath my skin, maybe inside the corners of my eyes or at the base of my scalp, and rip it all off. my body is nothing but a smear of toxins and poisoned battlegrounds, and I don't want to be trapped inside anymore. I can't work, can't focus, and I pass it off as lazy undisciplined distractedness to avoid explaining how I am a stranger inside my own skin, but I have to bite hard at my fingers and tongue and the interstitial air to keep from screaming aloud.
the drizzle outside is warm and soft. it's almost dawn again.
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[ monday, november 19 ]
sometimes I look around and think that there's nothing, nothing you could give me or change for me or promise me, that would be worth the absence of a single person I love.I love a lot of people, you know, and it's strange to realize that because I was so careful with that word for so many years. and even stranger to realize that I could be somewhere else completely and I would still love people but they would be entirely unfamiliar, and if they walked up and said hello to me tomorrow I would never understand what I had missed.
it frightens me to think how different my life could possibly be, but believing that I will always have people to make whatever life I have worthwhile is one of the most reassuring feelings I know. for all my environmentalism and pacifism and everything, I still think humanity is one of the most amazing things the universe has created. my universe, at least.
you have people too, don't you?
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[ sunday, november 18 ]
here is how to have a perfect night:first get paid ten dollars an hour to do something you love, such as taking care of four beautiful children. then eat poached pears and drink three different kinds of white wine, including a rare 1971 vintage dessert wine that may well be the best alcohol you've ever tasted, sweet and full and smooth. do the dishes tipsy, entranced by the soap-drenched curves of champagne flutes. spend four hours huddled with friends under a sleeping bag, watching the leonids rain cold fire between the drifting constellations. at home as the sky pales to blue, let squares of dark hazelnut chocolate melt across your tongue, one by one by one.