friday #5

yeah, yeah. it's saturday. so sue me.

1. i got the best compliment from a coworker yesterday - she said, "your office smells like christmas."

2. my planner looks a mess right now.

3. I think I might be addicted to cranberry-pecan granola for breakfast.

4. I really need a haircut.

5. Trick or treat?

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I am what I am

Last night, I got a phone call from a friend.

She found an unmarked CD in her CD case, and she thought, after listening to it, that it might be mine.

What was on the CD?

-Lionel Richie, "Hello"
-Bon Jovi, "Blaze of Glory"
-Jamiroquai, "Canned Heat"

There's a pretty good chance that it's mine.

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friday... #4?

I think it is. I'm all kinds of backwards this week.

This post will be about nothing, and I don't feel like putting it in a list.

WE, Goose - we.

I'm thinking about Katie. I mean how much better can a best friend get? Yesterday I was celebrating Ostracization Day and she hightailed it to the rescue with a burninating conglomo-cappuccino from Daily's. Completely covered on the outside with speed-bump spillage. We sat in my office with the door locked and ignored everyone who tried to come in. And watched strongbad emails.

Get around.

There is a lot of good music around Nashville lately. I mean, maybe the good music has always been around Nashville, but I haven't. Now I'm starting to get out a little more. I like.

I'll be home for Christmas.

My mom might not even live in Corning anymore when I go back. For three weeks. I'd like to see these guys again:


And I'm sure I will.

This has been your useless Friday post. Brought to you by the... the... maybe I need a sponsor.

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you might think i'm kidding...

...when you read my little profile caption over there to the right. Until I tell you that I tried to take some sample questions online from the Quantitative Section of the GRE today.

Waves of nausea? check. Cold sweats? check. Watery eyes? check. Crumpled pieces of paper thrown across the room? Triple check.

I don't know when it started, really. I was always a bright student and I did well in all of my classes. I usually scored lower on the math portions of the state aptitude tests, but I was always in the above average portion on the scoring sheet.

In high school, I did well in algebra - about a B. I think that, somewhere in my 10th grade year, it happened. I enjoyed geometry, really I did. But I was also a little jerk. My teacher endured relentless pestering from me that year. I didn't think she was very bright because of the way she spoke, so I harassed her all year. When she said, "patterin" instead of "pattern," I raised my hand and asked, "could you tell me, and the rest of the class, as it's not even a WORD, what a patterin is?" I didn't say I was proud of it - I said that I did it.

In addition to torturing Mrs. Sweet and performing Amy's Math Mockery Revue whenever her back was turned, I also had a crush on the guy who sat behind me. He was tall and lanky and had long hair and played guitar in a band ...and he used to pass me notes and pictures about llamas and led zeppelin. Really? You can't expect me to learn anything in that kind of environment.

So, although I passed geometry, I was somehow missing knowledge when I got to Trig. I had the best possibe math teacher. she was amazing. Nobody could fail her class. Well - except me, with a 63. When I took Course III over again in summer school, I thought I understood. Keep building on a shaky foundation. Give me pre-calc.

No nice words about pre-calc. I did not like my teacher, I did not do my homework, I did not have a graphing calculator. I failed with a 54. Somehow, when I guessed my way through the assessment for community college, I was placed in the advanced pre-calc class. I begged my adisor to drop me into a lower math so that I could re-learn.

My nonexistent graphing calculator and I obeyed my advisor and got a D in precalc together. That was in 1995, and I have not taken a math class since.

Ten years later, I am ready to apply to grad school, facing the task of taking the GRE. Out of 7 attempted questions, I got 2 right. 2. I think I've forgotten even the most basic math principles in an effort to wipe all math trauma from my heart and mind. Alas. I can't run from it forever, and it's an obstacle I must now overcome.

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love it here...

today i was on the phone with my best friend. we were taking about Very Deep Things.
suddenly, she says, "Gotta go, Tony just pulled up in the army truck."
me: is he wearing the helmet?
katie: yeah, he's coming in. gotta go!

tony is the landlord. he drives an old army jeep sometimes on the weekends and wears his full combat uniform. from the korean war.

oh, tennessee, you are packed with so many jewels.

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Friday #3

1. Acoustic guitar is my favorite sound.
2. Last night I went to a new coffeehouse, and the first thing I tried to do was find your drink on the menu. I could see it through the pastry case, red letters just to the right of the cranberry orange muffins.
3. I sure wish I didn’t just pour hot tea water down my right hand.
4. I slept with my window wide open last night, and today I feel like I have strep throat.

I guess that’s it. I’m not feeling so well today.

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it's about sugar.

I got an email from an old friend today. It was delivered to an old email account on September 26. When I read it, I could have kicked myself for being almost three weeks late.

She lost her apartment because her roommate moved out. She got laid off – too many cooks in the kitchen. She lives on Beth’s couch and rides the bus into the city every morning at 6:45 and waits for work to start – at 1030 am or 500 pm. Her phone is disconnected.

Beth and her boyfriend give her food and shelter and a bus pass.

I tried to call her last week and her phone was out. I knew then that something must be bad, but I had no way to get in touch with her.

Today I sent her an email in reply. I didn’t have anything to say except “I want life to work for you. I’ve seen behind your eyes and I know what is in there.”

And I didn’t even get that much out. I sent my love and begged God to tack on thousands of dollars.

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two of my favorite things:

pumpkins and The King



more here
problems viewing? I'd be happy to email you a PowerPoint presentation - deletedcomma@gmail.com.

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it's not friday yet.

I don’t have any pictures to post and I don’t have anything good to say. But if I do one more Friday post with nothing in between, I'm pulling the plug on this blog.

So here. This is what’s on my mind.


Katie said, “you’re not even the same person.”

She was looking at pictures that Allie took. I could imagine her at her flat-screen monitor, looking at the same pictures I was seeing on my flat-screen monitor. All I could see were small hands and feet. She said she saw now that somewhere between Corning and Portland and Corning and Buffalo and Nashville I turned new.

I know what she means, generally. I cleaned up my act. I cleaned up my mouth. I cleaned up my style, my hair, my makeup. I’ve gone through a lot of sandpaper and drill bits trying to make me like this. I can’t usually make the changes I’m hoping for.

I’m better at holding on tight when the wind blows and working with what’s left after the storm. That's me today, the me that Katie saw. There’s no way to make less or more of it, it just is.

edit to add katie's take. I send her a copy of everything I post here, and this was her comment, insightful as ever.

"There’s more to it than that. You haven’t ceased to be You, but you’re the best You I’ve ever known.

It’s like you used to be a hollow shell of You with dark cold eyes, but then God breathed into you and now, You’re warm and funny, and wise and good. And I trust this You. And quitting Us, with this You, isn’t even an option anymore, (although it used to be at a couple points in time along the way) and I’d say it’s a non-issue now.

I don’t know, but I think that’s really something.

It’s definitely more than just the You that cleaned up her act.

You’re real now. You’re like Pinocchio ~ sans wood."

I mean, it's not every day that your Best Friend calls you Pinoccchio.

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friday #2

1. i think, even after all this time, i don’t know how to receive grace.
2. i look fresh today, according to my coworker.
3. sometimes, when you think it can’t get any worse, you’re right.
4. tea has finally triumphed over coffee.
5. i’m not a red nail polish kind of girl. sometimes i wear it anyway.
6. there is one person i’d like to have coffee with more than almost everyone else. you probably don’t know him.
7. i’ll be in ny for three weeks near christmas. three weeks.
8. i wonder if he likes brown cords best. i wonder if his heart is bursting.
9. i’m craving: sleeping in the lean-to, catching bass in an aluminum boat, and ivory soap in pond water.
10. i should really put forth some effort and actually write something.

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about to get good

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october

last night i did this


and today it feels like fall.

tonight i'm going to a corn maze, and i'm nearly in a frenzy with the excitement of this season.

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i'm just a poem i'd rather not be

we talked about questions without answers
we thought we could hammer out our own
it was too late for coffee and too early to go

i fumbled pens and paper like always
i’d hate to be unpredictable i’m good for a
drop of my keys awkward eyes um, um, um
suddenly the words walked away, on the heels

of someone’s latte late for a meeting rushing
extra hot and steaming and you’re still there
across and waiting i pry your eyes off of me
let’s just laugh and make this moment less
real

if there were other people or more space between
it might work like this but it’s just us, eyeballs to
eyeballs i said it’s what i wanted but i can’t hold it
this must not even be two feet and i wish i had more

even the other ones even more than two feet at the
bottom of my legs i could get up from this table i
could crawl away fast i could go with more than two

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