There is a paper lily perched on the computer tower of my 'work' computer, orange and green paper thrown together by me in a fit of boredom. Picture to come when my camera returns.

---

The camera is on a journey. On Tuesday, I sat in front of a UPS drop box with a just-very-slightly-too-big cardboard box hugged to my chest, waiting for the 7 o'clock pickup to come because I couldn't fit the box into the deposit slot, sitting in a back alley on a concrete stair. Within, my poor, senile camera was nestled in too many layers of bubble wrap, victim of a defect triggered only in hot and humid environs; another belated casualty of Southern weather. Fortunately for me, I had the foresight to research solutions to the constantly-malfunctioning LCD screen which started spazzing last year but threw in the towel permanently in early May. Canon will repair the defect free of charge.

Bottom of a sheer asphalt slope sliding at a precarious 45-degree angle to the ground. Cheerful place for a drop box. I dozed there, waiting for what must have been an hour, and awoke with a start. 7:30 and still no truck. I wondered at how futilely and dumbly I had been waiting, and turned to the side.

There, snaking up proudly between the pavement cracks, was a curious-looking purple wildflower. It resembled a very miniature gladiolus in the way the intense little blooms alternated across the stem; the top blossom was the most recently-opened, and each of the flowers below it was in a successively more advanced state of wilting or decay, some nothing more than faint cream-colored wisps like faded newspaper. As if each flower were building on the death of its peers. Weeds in the cracks indeed, like none other and yet like every other one, growing only where the ground has been disturbed and jumping at the slightest weakness. People can be like weeds. Weeds can be like people. Personification can be amusing.

I may not really have my camera right now, I thought, but I'd like a picture of this.

Then I returned to the deposit slot, wedged and shook it until my own box finally went through, shook my head at the thought that I could've done that an hour ago, and went back to my dorm richer one memory.

---

After writing this entry, I found myself on Wikipedia looking at the articles for "gladiolus" and "newsprint", and somehow wound up reading extensively about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an Australian drag character, and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

In the very merry month of June-not-May, my posts have been infrequent, but the insanity is in a more highly concentrated form. I blame whimsy, sleep deprivation, and (delightful, I admit grudgingly) insufferable parts of my life.

Maybe I'm crediting myself unfairly. It's probably simply the tendency that comes with being a writer that makes me mentally wax on so much that I resemble a person-shaped candle by the end of the tangent.

At any rate, the most beautiful fireworks display I've witnessed in my life, marking the end of my stay here and many milestones-- 1st? 25th? 50th? nth? reunions-- and paid for with love, explosives, and alumni donations soared overhead half a mile in the distance, neatly framed by trees from where I stood leaning against a lamppost. After going dutifully through a checklist of reactions in my brain (curse my malfunctioning camera and subsequent inability to capture instances of this beauty? check. ponder how graduates are indoctrinated into making a big deal about reunions before they've scarcely left their dorms for the last time? check. marvel that I inadvertently took an opportunity to witness it at the closing of my first year? check.) I ran into the reluctant conclusion that wide-eyed joy was not natural to me when I was by myself.

Forwards and backwards, long and (very) short, I'm a people person. And this is bothersome because at this age, the people factor is still fleeting.

From the people I knew and called friends in high school, already a small pool to begin with, I give a damn about perhaps four, bluntly put.

One of my greatest fears was, is, and remains that I will ultimately go through life and end up alone. It is irrational. It is unlikely. It is a bone-chilling, breath-catching thought that never fails to make me freeze for an instant, mentally or otherwise.

But standing there, without a friend nearby or anyone closer, I felt rather glum.

Irrational? Maybe, and as the evening went on, and as alcohol flowed and music blasted and I found more semi-sober friends to dance the night away with, my mood skyrocketed. But coming back to find another hope seemingly blown to dust, I think the best policy is to keep my mouth shut, chin raised in defiance, and any notions of being able to trust someone implicitly under firm lock and key.

('course, hope springs eternal, and that spring shall be the death of me)

EDIT, 3:40 PM: Into my mind came a flash of shade and grass, and leaping into a tree with a swirl of skirts, saying: "Already I am not a child, and sooner I am expected to tamp down that of me which is young and lighthearted; will you not let me live how I am and if you so disdain it, let me go until my flame has been extinguished? Then you will find that tame, predictable figurine you so desire, but until then, I only have scant years to continue living in idealistic joy like this. Better with you than alone, but better alone than not at all, with you."

10:51 PM: As I wandered campus after dinner with delicious organic artisan ice cream in hand, marveling at the sun's persistence even as it drew close to 8 pm, I smelled bliss as I walked past a hedge.

I stopped. That was something I hadn't smelled since I was at least ten. Pause, turn-- bam. Honeysuckle.

That made my weekend.

The expression on the other's face--with sidelong glance, eyebrows raised in supreme amusement--must have been priceless, because both burst out into laughter.

"Guess that's why they're dating us," one gasped, and as the other did not bother to correct this incorrect assumption, the laughter subsided.

He is not difficult, she had said, and it made sense for her, as well. He was practical, intelligent, rational, but caring. The other was none of the above save for a skewed sort of care borne of the desire not to be alone. Physically.

The summer should be interesting.

---

Said a sister over a month ago, "The bell curve glides up for now, and hopefully it’ll help you cope more when the down turn revisits itself." I think it's less the upswing that's helped sustain me these days and more so the backbone that grew during that time. Either way, I'm glad.

"Live like you're gonna die tomorrow
Dream like you're gonna live forever"

and I smiled unconsciously, an upward curl of the lips that I only noticed when it stopped.

---

There is nothing quite like getting lost in the half-underground lower levels of the largest library on campus, all sounds and even silence itself muffled by shelves and shelves and volumes and volumes and the very air infused with histories upon tomes upon -- if knowledge had an oppressive weight to it, this is how its atmosphere would feel.

---

"It's the small things," he said, "that make life happy." And I agreed, and knew that this probably wasn't one of them.

Suddenly, colors were thrown into sharp focus, and I couldn't help but grin more and more on my way up campus-- a nod to a friend walking through the magnolia grove, a sunny grin received and returned to a former classmate walking past the dogwoods, smiles to acquaintances in the crossing paths across a hill, a high-five-- "only two more days!" to a dormmate as I left the building I sought to run an errand in...

I woke with my mind in a muddle confusion but now, as I wait for my thrice-damned and ever-beloved camera battery to charge, and for the sun to come out once again, with salmon and avocado sushi in hand, I can only grin and love life.

Updated with pictures.

The day before yesterday, I played tag with a spring robin.

But that's another story.

The day before yesterday, I experienced the picture-perfect seminar, six of us in a loose semicircle around an enthusiastic professor on a comfortable green lawn by a tree on a stunning spring day; we all began cross-legged, attentive and formal, but as the three hours progressed the students began shifting, leaning back, and after a while most of us were sprawled out in one way or another, lying on our sides, stomachs, chins propped up on palms and folded hands. It was amazing. It was beautiful. Thick spring grass is more comfortable than any couch and, thanks to today's especially marvelous weather, I'd chance to say that this time, it was more comfortable than any extra-long twin-sized college bed, no matter how richly furnished, because the beds had the disadvantages of being inside.

And with just enough of a cool breeze to counteract the ever-warming sun, I was in a state of supreme bliss.

Yesterday, I looked outside, looked at my errand list, looked at the assignment that I had barely just finished and the lecture that I was 20 minutes late to because of it, and said to myself, to heck with it, I'm going errand-running because I can be outside.

And as I strolled up campus, down campus, along the main street off-campus and got my errands done, black skirt billowing silkily in the beautiful spring breeze and feeling the wind curl around my ears, I didn't regret a minute of it.

Today, I write this sitting in front of the university's main Fountain, on the extended stone bench along the wall that borders the plaza, sitting under the row of magnificent flowering trees and typing while pear-shaped petals waft down to perch on my head. Delicate pink streaks up from the base of the petal's convex side to white at the tip, sturdy and thick petals with a tinge of brown suggesting why they fell in the first place; the inside is white as bleached paper. and somehow whiter in its naturalness.

There is such incomprehensible beauty here that photographs cannot do even a fraction of one aspect any justice.

In the face of the changing seasons, how can I not hold nature in reverence?

As if in agreement, a petal fell onto my laptop and clung-- pointing directly down at the sentence I was typing and perpendicular to the keyboard-- onto the screen.

I gave a sigh, glared at my ever-malfunctioning camera, and swore that I would manage to take some pictures today, regardless.

When I turned it on, it flashed a distorted magenta screen at me balefully and I nearly gave up. I took a few distorted magenta pictures and futilely changed settings on the phone when it occurred oddly to me to use an outside method. I turned the lens of the camera directly to the full afternoon sun, and the image on the screen blanked under the light and resolved itself into something resembling normalcy.

Flowering tree is in the middle, flanked all around by bare trees. Notice the strange lines on the light background of the sky, though. My camera won't give me flawless images anymore, but they're close to perfect save for light backgrounds, upon which those lines are evident.

Squirrel like flowers. Flowers pretty.

And then my camera started failing again, this time irrevocably-- the sun had gone behind a cloud, and I doubted the same trick would work twice.

Still, it was worth more than worth the hassle to get the shots I did manage.

There is a little vertical line flashing at me from the screen and with each equally timed flicker, I fall further and further from sense.

Creative writing exercises. If I get the little mindworms and mindwords out, perhaps it'll give me more room to think and concentrate.

---

Comfort eating doesn't have to be nutritionally unhealthy, but as the fruit and crackers and various snacks disappear from the room in the course of one day, one wonders what kind of mental void is frantically seeking to be filled.

---

She, unnoticed, flips the tarot cards of her mind idly during lecture. Plenty of better things to be thinking about. Like lecture. But here, a card, she finds that graduate student so heartwrenchingly dashing because of his resemblance to a man who no longer remembers her. Shouldn't think about such things. Perhaps lecture. But there, a flip, she is unsatisfied with her lives despite all indications and suggestions to let things unfold as they will. She has to force herself to take note. Notes in lecture. Yet here, crossed, there is a little scrap labeled "silly frivolous notions" wrapped in delicate green tissue paper and dismissive laughter with a faint faint note of hysteria. Unwrapped to reveal marks of superstition and premonitions from childhood, she thinks desperately that she will one day still spend the rest of her life with a man around four years older than her whose name begins with a J-- or with no one at all, and not for at least the next nine years. The no-one-at-all is far more likely. She does not want to remember this, and shuffles the scrap back into her deck.

---

Force to be reckoned with, swishing and clicking down the marble stairs of a lofty building, untouchable, untouched, still trying miserably to build a mental fortress that is quickly deteriorating. There is no reason to kick the self down yourself. In the end, a stable sense of self-worth is all one has and one needs this to build upon. If no one else assigns a worth to you, there is no reason for you not to.

---

It is when he loses the ability to rub salt into wounds that he will feel completely helpless. In the meantime, still having control over something provides him with a malicious source of amusement; dolls and marionettes dancing helplessly in nets.

---

I slid outside my building and saw the clustered leaves of tulips springing from the bare soil.

---

Three months' worth of bottles, paper, boxes, and various recyclables tumbled down the chute, and though I felt the satisfaction of recycling so much, I grimly hoped my roommate would appreciate my having to take all of her shit out myself because she now chooses not to live in this room.

---

Do I claw at my skin and hair to make myself feel better or worse?

---

Scraping of metal against metal, and a not-pristine but well-loved pan escapes the red-hot racks of the oven. It is an art and a science, such a calculating thing but only made real when substantiated with whimsy. Such an innocuous thing could easily leave one burned, scarred, seared over the stove but it holds such gentle gifts made with such care.

Take one out; break it open, suppliant and unresisting. Fascination curls upwards in delicate tendrils. Do you hear the wisps of steam sighing? Is a child's sunbeam illuminating them against a soft kitchen wall? Do you smell the spices, mixed in perfect counterpoint to sentiments and memories?

Can you taste the trying to forget?

"Meow!" comes from the other side of the road, and I stop and turn, staring. "You!" I call back. "You don't even live in my room anymore. Don't talk to me."

My erstwhile roommate grins at me from across the street, racquet slung over her shoulder, on the way to practice. "I was just back at the room," she says, "and I was sad. I was like, Meow's always supposed to be there!"

"And you come the one hour I'm not..." I say, trailing off menacingly.

She gives a non-committal shrug. "I'll see you later," she says, and we part ways.

Oh, people.

I always feel a little bit like I have to justify myself-- yeah, it's bizarre, yeah, it's sudden, yeah, we're actually really different people but for some reason the mutual-- it was there, not even physical at all (oh god no), I don't know how or why, it just was; the lack of reason or explanation scares me, too. The scramble to justify is absurd-- only do my closest friends know, anyway; there's none of the judging, the scrutiny, the social circle disdain. But they still measure, they calculate, they know my standards and my utter confusion because it's all a bit beyond me, and I myself don't understand it. It still bothers me a bit that there's an inability to move in the societally strict circles of my upper-tier world. I doubt that's going to change, nor would I want to force that change. It's not who he is. It's really not. He'd stick out like a sore thumb. It is part of who I am, though, but I guess I'll keep tackling it solo. And, as my roommate pointed out, I can't foresee the future much anyway, so it's a moot point until further notice.

Better things to worry about for now!

---

I shouldn't have started out majoring in engineering, but it's too late now.

---

As I shuffled blearily out of my room this morning, one of my friends strode by. Even without my glasses on and my consciousness at sixty percent, I could tell something was different, and let out a whistle. "Looking sharp," I drawled at his passing back. "Interview?"

He stopped. "Uh, yeah," he said sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. "Thanks."

Ah, my wandering eye and I are quite fond of men in business attire. This typical Asian boy looked rather dashing; I was even more impressed because he dresses very casually (read: like a slob) at home, in the hall. I appreciate that contrast.

---

I own a crystal of guilt; it has since shattered into pieces. There is a fragment in the back of my mind, there is a sliver in the bottom of my heart, and there is a tangible reminder coiled in the bottom of my jewelry box.

Welcome home.

---

...I should be in class now. But it's snowing hard. And I am really not enthusiastic about this attending class bit when my instructors are so shoddy.

The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough

(The entire article is interesting, but page three is of particular interest. Those of you who know me well may fathom why.)

Part of being a realist is also realizing that things don't need to be perfect in order to work. But the location of distinctions and limiting lines to be drawn does ultimately differ from person to person; the article, I think, is overly cynical and pretty much applies to those who don't go into life with their eyes open from the start. All I know is that happy solitude is possible for many women these days, but something of an uncomfortable prospect for me. It's possible to be happy and alone (oh, if I had more teardrop ornaments it would be gorgeous...ooh, wind!...and no one to stare blankly at my tangential rambling.) but for some arbitrary reason, biological (ugh) or psychological (ugh), the be-happy-when-you're-single is ultimately a short term plateau meant to be perched on for the duration of a time period during which you've got other priorities. Once the rest of your life is sorted out, why not start up another incline?

('course, at this point in my life, I am far from sorted out. Hence why I agreed with the twin-sister when she suggested that my answer was pending.)

Of course, though, one has to wonder what the flip side is for men. Women are oh-so-affable to voicing their thoughts and ponderings (if this circuitous sort-of-blog wasn't enough of an indication) but men aren't. And perhaps they don't think about these things as much as we do. Is it simpler to them? Were it so simple for us, maybe things wouldn't be so convoluted in these lives. We are the ones biologically and sociologically wired to think about consequences and benefits; we are the analysts, minimizing shortfalls and cushioning impacts, applying bandages to skinned knees and creating the statistic that married men have longer lifespans than single men (scientific proof: getting laid is good for you. cultural premise: it's easier for the guys to do so) and married women might not-- mostly because we spend our times making sure that they're healthy and dressed correctly for x number of meetings or dinners and finding that having a significant other is much like taking care of a child who's at least your age. When men come home, their levels of stress hormone decrease. When women come home, their stress levels reach a second peak-- it's time for the second work shift of the day, at home. And thus, cancer incidence. Go figure. Of course there are other facets unexplored. Of course I haven't touched on a thing that's objective. But these are all there.

My mother concedes all this and tells me to be strong and independent and-- but, dear, don't marry a man who'd just stay at home, you know? You still have to get one that is capable, strong.

Facepalm, ma. Yes, ma. Subtle contradictions, ma, but I think my judgment's gotten better (in regards to myself). It's always been fantastic (in regards to helping other people with their relationships and god knows not mine). And if needed, by the skies, I will raise myself because the strength and capability of a person have almost nothing to do with their commitment to another.

College first. Work next. Surreptitious harboring of doubts at the back of my mind to be taken out and mulled over every so lonely often. And now, an extra variable in the equation. I think I'll label him l.

---

"It is cold as a bitch bent on revenge," I gritted out, and my friend laughed hysterically; we would have said more but every movement of lips exposed them to the ravaging wind (oh why, wind) and each step lenghtened the distance to warmth.

Welcome to winter. I love it so and it is merciless.

---

Singing and writing. Science and waffling. I would much rather do the former than the latter. Such is life.

There is a delicate glass hummingbird dangling below a shelf in Favorite Tiny Shop. Seven dollars. Anything that can be captured solely with a photo is not worth it-- but frugality overrode.

EDIT 7:35 PM: I'd like to point to Alice's comment below for truth. From long-lasting marriages, like my parents' and those of others of my friends, and from those that didn't work out, I'm inclined to agree that friendships and compatibility go farther than any flash-flame of passion will ever reach.

And wound up at my favorite tiny shop in the world.

I am not the sort of girl that does comfort shopping. As a matter of fact, I don't much like shopping, period. But when confronted by a tiny whitewashed shop with a door that doesn't close by itself and clean shelves full of the nature-y things I love so and-- a window full of glass ornaments marked "30% off all ornaments" because the winter holidays are over?

...Yes.

This little local shop has been the highlight of my semester. Just walking in and not buying anything makes me happy, if wistful.

And my affinity for glass drew me to the ornaments. I shopped here for others for Christmas but didn't dare get myself a thing; now faced with glass drops, my eyes refused to turn elsewhere. I first waffled over the mid-sized teardrops, sky blue with a dark violet sheen, $3.50-which-would-be-around-2.50-with-the-discount, bargain shopping wheels turning and automatically number crunching in my head, standing there for a good 15 minutes comparing sizes of blue drops, six of them, almost identical but anything handmade is always unique, checking for scratches, looking at the curves formed as only hand-shaped glass can...what's this?

Okay, larger teardrop, twice as long, $6.50-which-would-be-around-4.50-with-the-discount, significance of color, not-quite-clear but with a green tone running under every inch of glass, only one of this color, hanging unabashedly between the light blue and dark, dark midnight blue; large drop and middle drop in my hand, an earthly dance of green and blue evoking earth and sky aaand I should not be indulging myself like this, $10-would-be-$7-with-the-discount, imagine green and blue hanging against an apartment wall of the future, okay don't think about apartments because if your grades are like this in college you'll never get that little dream law school apartment don't think about that either okay drops are alluring, catching the setting sun reflected in the windows across the street, because this store is facing east, not west.

But look! tiny teardrops, so very thin and delicate, a little shorter than the blue, clear with a faint faint sheen of purple but so clear, like an icicle frozen to a round anti-point, three of them hanging shyly against the end of the display rod, $2.50-that-would-be-$12.50-altogether-why-am-I-doing-this? hanging all three drops off my finger, and it looks too crowded, even against the mind's-eye apartment wall; so holding each combination, green and clear, blue and clear, green and blue, and something doesn't seem right, I am not meant to get more than one.

I hang the tiny icicle drop reverently in its place, and go to the girl behind the counter with the blue and the green. "Do you think 30% is about as low as you'll go for this season?" I ask.

"Yep," the girl says, waving a hand at the window. "They've just been...going since it went to 30. We're trying to get rid of them all."

"And you won't have any in stock until next winter?"

"Nope. But we carry them every Christmas. Er, winter holiday."

"Okay," I say, "I'll take this one." I hand the long green drop to her.  "And I'll go hang this back over there."

I hang the sky blue drop back on the rod, and promise to come back for it next year. I don't like spending all at once, but $12.50 over three years doesn't sound so bad. One for each waning winter. One for each fall semester closed. For better or for-- okay, nothing can get much worse than this.

Long, green teardrop. Barely green, like old glass, tainted glass, like the crying earth, like tears I should cry but can't, like failure encapsulated somewhere away from me.

Like denial, but not as blatant.

I will still excel. But not this year.

and as if in response, tiny white flakes wafting down from the sky, not dancing, just falling--

Part of snow's beauty is in its silence. Rain is a force making itself known to be reckoned with, announcing its presence to everyone, any open surface its percussion set.

Snow is the rain of the wind. The tiniest breeze sets it sideways, stinging into cheeks and necks, snapping eyes open and burrowing into sleeves.

(...Snow is pretty badass.)

I look over again and the heavy, thick snowfall is gone with nary a trace on the ground to recall its passing. But I sometimes I wish I was that delicate, fragile but still lovely snowflake, short-lived but blissfully oblivious to its falling.

Somewhere in my mind, I thank existence for giving me a mind that can understand why this works, and wonder if I'm just a little bit crazy, because soap surface tension reminds me of the way people act.

Then again, how many people have enough time, are bored on dish shift in their university dining halls, and have enough of flexible minds to contemplate a pool of dish detergent behind them?

---

People drive me up the wall. Potential unfulfilled pains me to see. Ignorance is despicable. Posturing gives me a headache. Incompetence disgusts me-- but especially when I know they're under-performing in something I know I could do better myself. People with egos larger than their capacity for eloquence? Augh. And recently, people thinking they're more intelligent than they are. Thanks for trying, but someone might pop your little balloon facade with a pin and find it to have been full of hot air.

Yet such things as compassion, insight, and empathy keep tipping me backwards. Because I can understand why they do it, what causes it, and my sort of understanding means I can't hate people.

Someday, this tidal push and pull is going to tip me emotionally off-kilter-- oh, wait.

That suddenly makes a lot of sense.

...To be honest, I suppose I'm just restless. Blogging as an outlet makes me sound more depressed than I really am. Restless and tired. And I don't have anywhere to go--

No, not true. I just don't have anyone to go to here. Or there. Or anywhere but home.

Conclusion: I just need to shut my brain off. I need to put stock in others much, much less. Put stock in myself much, much more. And life will be much, much better.

But I won't do it, because that'll just make me like the same people who've been driving me up the wall. I'll keep caring and wondering even if it kills me, because hope springs eternal. If I put myself out there for the crows long enough, maybe I'll catch an eagle or two.

Whoo!

I love religious ambiguity. It truly does let me accept everything more. I have faith in beliefs, but none at all in the power of any single one.

---

Now is not the time to be distracted, but life is just nothing but good-- as long as you ignore the little decimal number that is my prospective GPA.

---

after late breakfast--
All that glitters is not gold-- nor is it jewels. The shifting sunlight, changed every few moments by the clouds racing across the sky, driven by a sudden and merciless (happy) wind-- it reflects dazzlingly off of the ring on my finger, an intricately metalworked band reminiscent of other worlds and kissing cousin to my knot pendant. I've taken to wearing it more often when I previously never did.

The tip sweeps outward, and I think of a claddagh ring. The ring is on my left index, and so would mean nothing to the viewer. I can't ascribe that meaning to this ring, because something tells me I am unlikely to turn this ring inward, and if that reflects my future-- that, I don't know, and don't need to ponder.

---

early afternoon--
I was doing a very good job of loving life. And then I saw the summer photos an old flame of mine (if mindless high school dalliances can be counted as such) posted, vacationing in South America, arms wrapped around the girl who was a point of contention way back when anyway.

I am not bitter. I am slightly jealous. I also have better things to be doing. Go!

Couldn't they stay for a little bit, just to make the sun's rays all the more brilliant as they poke through?

---

When you see something in the distant future and go so far as to set up events so that the expected outcome goes through, it's infuriating when it finally does, because being right is never satisfying. Most especially not when it involves making other people realize things about themselves.

Incredulous looks from passersby are priceless.

But seriously, I must've been some sort of deranged nature sprite in a past life, because I so love the wind, whether it be snowstorm or hurricane. Wheeeee. Life is good.

It has been a bit since I've actually communed with nature and my life is finally, if nothing else, worth living to experience wind and soft gingerbread cookies.

You also know there's no chance of that.

It feels as if you're alone on the grounds, without a person in sight, without a sound to mar the heavy quiet, without a breeze to stir the comforting stillness of the evening.

But as you walk away from one flight of fancy past another who lives in those very buildings, how can you say you're alone at all when your mind knows otherwise?

It would be nice if you were oblivious enough to really imagine it.

[and the idle thought, why do people always address hypothetical situations to "you", not wanting to sully their own selves with speculation?]

point, shoot, and stick that in your portfolio.

I like not wearing my glasses. I wish I could.

---

If I stretch, I can almost hear sore muscles protesting and wailing for rest in the aftermath of yoga soreness from yesterday. I love it. I haven't felt this limber in well over six years.

I am not happy, but I am content with the illusions I immerse myself in.

---

My secret goal in life is to be the lead singer of a symphonic metal band. Without losing my hearing or my voice. Yesss.

---

Spent fifteen minutes racking my brain for old art history lessons and looking up art movements trying to figure out exactly what category my painting was in. Gave up out of sheer "...this isn't art..."-ness. Jackson Pollock, eat your heart out. Brain-sister, help?

12 x 16 in. /~30.5 x 46 cm, acrylic on thin canvas.

The leaves are falling, swirling in a golden rain on the way to my computer science precept; the maple leaves aren't falling regularly, but there is a lovely red leaf on my desk.

This is my maple story, suckahs.

The sidewalk that was blocked by construction in front of my dorm has been reopened with a chain-link fenced corridor through the rubble; we still often veer to go around it, out of force of habit. The rubble, too, is clearing, and from the ashes rise a revolution. In housing.

The black bird feather I noticed lying on the ground three weeks ago is still there. It is slowly disappearing.

There are so many beautiful people at my school. And I probably know the names of thrice as many people that know mine; the classically, radiantly pretty Welsh girl who lives in the building farthest up campus that's still in my dorm group; the slews of dapper Canadians that I keep running into; the crazy bunch of Asians that comprise the frosh council that I'm on; the Taiwanese student that lives across the street...I wonder what his story is, actually. From photos (I am not a Facebook stalker, I swear) it seems sweet. And bittersweet.

I like computer programming. I'm just slightly mediocre at it.

I do not like integrals. I'm distressingly mediocre at those, too.

You can take the girl out of the writing classes, but you can't take the writing out of the girl... no matter how sub-par it is.