here i am

sometimes i wonder if they really put the right number of garbage bags in the box. it never seems like i could have gone through, say, 45 garbage bags. and like you'd count them! i wonder if they bank on that, and try to shave a few pennies off their costs. bastages. m

hello i'm here! i'm here, i'm here, i'm here. the wind is cold, the world is strange. i've had a cold. angry sinuses. cough. something. i have less than twelve weeks left to train for the 1/2 marathon. i decided i hated the treadmill and ran in 4 degree windchill the other day. i might have to go back to the treadmill though. this bums me out. i'm in love. (again. but can this be the last time? please?) and ... i need to write. more. but someone is calling me now. and i answer, i do. m

i feel scratchy and longing. i feel lost and found. i feel ghostly and away from me. i feel in the dark with the hallway light on and the glow of the computer screen lighting up the wrinkles on my knuckles and one tingle in my left shoulder because i didn't do my exercises this week and it's weak. i feel so far away from you and you feel so far away from me but you're in the bottom of my stomach curled up like a warm firm trustworthy ball of a feeling that makes me smile. i'm listening to a song called other side of the world because that's where you are and that's all that i can think of. i went to a chinese new year party tonight. there were some karate kicks and lovely pink fan scarf dances and the best of all was the incense sticks dancing in the dark ... sparks everywhere and i thought the stage would light on fire but it didn't and we all clapped out a good solid rhythm for them and they did a good good job those incense stick kids. i got a red envelop...

there is a box. the box spends most of its life in the attic. inside this box there is another box. it is in that box where my memories reside. little things that, upon seeing them, you wouldn't have any idea why someone would have them saved like this inside of a box ... part of a movie ticket, a piece of candy, a shopping list, a bookmark, coins from various countries, a bit of wrapping paper, photos of certain people, a round white pebble, a grocery store receipt, a bus transfer ticket, a bracelet made by a child ... but they are things that have been carefully chosen. each one of them transports me instantaneously, forcefully, with all emotion imaginable, to an important moment of my life. most of them remind me of happy moments. all of them make me smile. some of them make me cry at the same time. they remind me of the people and events that have formed an integral part of my life. that changed me completely. that made such an impression on my life that after having experience...

hay una caja. la caja vive la mayoria de su tiempo en el ático. adentro de esta caja hay otra caja. está en esa caja donde residen mis recuerdos. cosas pequeñitas que al verlas, no tendrías ni idea por qué alguien las tendría guardadas asi adentro de una caja ... la parte de un billete para una pelicula, un dulce, un marcador de libro, monedas de varios paises, un trozo de papel de envolver, fotos de ciertas personas, una redonda piedra blanca, una pulsera hecho por un niño ... pero son cosas que han sido escojidas con mucha atención. cada uno de ellos me transporta instantáneamente, y fuertemente, con toda la emoción imaginable, a un momento importante de mi vida. la mayoria de ellos me recuerdan a momentos felices. todos me hacen sonreir. algunos me hacen llorar a la vez. me recuerdan a las personas y los eventos que han formado una parte integral de mi vida. que me cambiaron por completo. que impresionaron tanto a mi vida que después de haberlos experimentado, no era después yo la m...

i awaken. i shut off the alarm. i see your photo. with a huge smile i remember that you exist in this world. that on some part of the planet, you are still alive. as far as i know. it could be that you exist. i can’t be sure. i try to get up. i sleep ten more minutes. i sleep ten more minutes. i make a cup of tea and try to focus on the day to come. day full of wind. of rain. of gray skies. where might you be? what might you be doing? how is it that you smell? i have no idea anymore. traveling to work. putting on lipstick on the way, because as usual, i’m in a hurry. because i’m late, as usual. i get to work. the day continues as the days tend to continue. with happiness, with frustration, with weariness, with complexity ... but every once in a while, i stop, and i smile, because you exist in this world. on some part of this planet where we live, there you are. you are still alive, as far as i know. and so i spend the day this way....

me despierto. apago el reloj. veo tu foto. con una grande sonrisa me acuerdo que existes en este mundo. que en algún parte del planeta, sigues vivo. segun sepa. puede ser que existas. no puedo estar segura. trato de levantarme. duermo diez minutos mas. duermo diez minutos mas. preparo una taza de té y trato de fijarme en el día que viene. día llena de viento. de lluvia. de cielos grises. donde estarás? que estarás haciendo? como es que hueles? ya no tengo ni idea. viajando al trabajo. poniéndome pintalábios mientras estoy en el camino, como siempre, porque estoy de prisa ... porque llego tarde, como siempre. llego al trabajo. el día sigue como los dias suelen seguir. con felicidad, con frustracion, con cansáncio, con complejidad ... pero de vez en cuando, paro, y sonrío, porque existes en este mundo. en algún parte de este planeta en que vivimos, estás tú. sigues vivo, según sepa. y asi paso el día. con una sensación en mi estómago que me deja saber que hay una felicidad en esta vida q...

okay. i'm just gonna say this. say what? say everything. i've been trying too hard. i've been sleepwalking too scared. i've been hesitating the what ifs and what nots. i can't get to my gut. i can't get out. so. i just keep. just keep doing. just keep doing it. over and over till i get to it. and you'll just have to wait till i get to it. because i might have to try twentysixthousand different ways. but what the fuck. who cares. suffer me my fuzzy tongue. tonight my doorbell rang twice. i answered hesitantly (and to be honest, a bit irritably ... wet-hairedly) and two different girls asked for two different boys two different times. i gave them skeptical raised eyebrow answers. some other house must be your boys are hiding in. *shrug* my good friend mike assured me that it will be hard for me to find someone for me, because i am so very special. i could have kissed him. but he is in winnipeg, so really i could not have. then my ex told...

the book about dr. king that i read to my students on monday had me tearing up a bit, but i guess that's okay. they get it. they get the absurdity that was segregation. they get what the whole thing is about. they understand what it is to be so angry that someone has mistreated you that you want to use your hands and not your words to fight back. they understand the power of loving words, and the impulse toward fairness and what is right. the know the value of what he did and said and taught and showed. when they asked me why someone shot and killed him, a thousand different ways to answer shuffled through my mind. i settled on, 'because they didn't like what he was doing and they wanted him to stop.' by this point we had collectively determined that what he was doing was good. contemplating this event brought to a whole other level my frequent admonition: 'if you don't like what someone is doing, you need to talk to them about it and use your words t...

noodles are like, flour and water. and then you dry them out so you can save them to use later. that's so cool! m

this morning, leaving my overnight job - sans makeup, hair disheveled, eyeglasses on - i got a genuine, grinning (non creepy) ' hey pretty lady, how you doin'? ' from a fella in coveralls on his way to start the day. heheh. m

my life used to make a certain kind of faithful sense because you were the most (perhaps the only) consistent point of reference in it since i was sixteen years old. our love was the epicenter of a world that i could understand. the capacity for tenderness in my heart was inspired by your eyes. you made the way soft for me. you understood my idiosyncracies and you were patient with my neverending illogical obsessions. you smiled at me across the table of my insecurities, knowing that my strength was even clearer there, though obscured, below a few various layers of mock carefree bravado. we took care of one another's hearts. so now in some regard, my life has lost its moorings, and my being is adrift. most of my days are spent wandering happily oblivious to this fact, and then suddenly sometimes it hits me hard ... driving home from work at dusk, seeing shadows fall, knowing that you're sitting somewhere living the same sort of new emptiness. m

sorry ... it's been almost two weeks of this strict no bread, no sugar thing. just had to let it be said. whoo hoo - three and a half hours of salsasambamerenguebachatareggaetonchachacha! too much fun! i gotsta get me to bed. i'm gonna be dead tomorrah. m

after the most recent relationship flop, i'm on the phone to my mother and declare my ever so determined intention to live a year of solitude. so last night she doesn't catch me on the phone (it was only around nine, i was probably too immersed in ipod shuffle-land to even have heard it) and leaves an accusatory sounding message about how she hopes i'm not out on a date ! she's the major inspiration of exasperated headshake in my life. i'm putting lots'nlotsa songs on itunes right now, and then i'm a gon' go shoppin'. i'm all excited because i've got some things i'm going to try to learn to make, so my list is so purposeful today. then i'm going salsa dancing! yeepy! it's a good good good day! m

so i went and got a shuffle today. there were a few glitches on installation, and i missed half of lost tonight trying to figure stuff out, but i think i'll be very happy with my choice in the end. the worst part was waiting for it to charge! i'm like a little kid, so terribly impatient. it's al(l)so ironic, because i ran outside today. i ran four miles. it was an amazingly spring like evening. the sunset was warm koolaid pink and the air smelled like puddles. i also made a new friend. she's in her sixties and has run 28 marathons. she's lived a life and has great stories to tell. we have uncommon amounts of things in common. she will be inspiring to me, i can tell. i've come across so very many inspiring things and people lately. life's incredible in this way for me these days. this is all for now. m

today was just so heartbreaking and true. i just kept sitting down staring into the distance, knowing things. knowing things like ouch my heart hurts. knowing things like damn i'm a nice person. and i'm super fantastic and one of a kind. knowing things like i need someone to be good to me. knowing things like i'm not being treated as well as i should be. things like i need to stop being addicted to falling in love and selling myself short and taking less than i really do deserve. today felt like a scone. like you might groove more on a puffy glazed donut or a gooey piece of chocolate cake, but all you really need is just the slight softness and crumbly sweetness of a scone, and you know it. a scone is enough. a scone is more than enough - it is precisely enough. something quiet, with hushed grey skies and a breeze moving bare branches sadly. i kept almost crying, and knowing it would be okay if i did. not fighting the cry. knowing i deserved to be sad. knowing...

ate the rest of the aforementioned packages of wasabi peas made a batch of pretty good hummous and a really good omelette and some corn tortillas was beaten at scrabble, but had a score of 253 was given a pack of beemans gum grinned happily upon receipt of said gum looked up a recipe for something i want to learn to make made a shopping list did a funny dance across my kitchen floor reconnected with someone i thought i'd never speak to again made yet another someone smile listened to the same album about 4 times and another one twice made a realization that humbled me to the core of my being didn't call my mother back washed the dishes lickety split drank several cups of temple of heaven special gunpowder green tea although it doesn't feel like it, it appears to have been a pretty eventful day. m

i bought the new silver jews album by accident. i wanted someone to hear them, but i lost the copy of natural bridge that i had, so we went to the record store to get some silver jews and all they had was tanglewood numbers, so we got it. i didn't even realize it was brand spankin' new. so now i'm all excited about them again. i ordered the natural bridge again, and i will probably get their other ones too. too good stuff. i guess david berman has a book of poems out as well. gonna look for that. i also got some other new things - si*sé - more shine derek bailey - ballads kid dakota (my friend from college's band) - west is future and i have an ep coming in the mail from a neat dark folk guy that i found on ... some other site. it's been a new music buyin' kinda month. i need to get an mp3 player so i don't go insane staring at my reflection in the mirror on the treadmill at the ywca. the world is conspiring to overcome my luddite tendencies. next thing ...

i decided to wander in while i waited for my thai take-out next door, see if they had any of the 'special ginger candy' that i love that comes in the little white cigarette pack type packages - yes they did! i got three of them! aaaaaaaaand, i also got: two packages of wasabi peas (almost got three - shoulda, these will be gone in a flash) two packages of rice noodles one box of temple of heaven special gunpowder green tea a tea ball one bottle of lucky fish sauce one jar of chili paste and a bottle of low sodium authentic chinese soy sauce ... ... all for under 15 bucks! yeepy! m

though i had the worst new year's eve ever, for some reason i'm really feelin' the resolution vibe this year. it's easier, because most of the things i'm resolving to do, i've already been moving toward, or making a habit of. it's just about digging my heels in and getting serious and more determined about them. they are the things that make my life run more harmoniously anyway, so it's not like they're difficult or anything. a lot of them involve treating my body well, and in ways that enhance the other aspects of my being - eat well (no more cookie binges - no more sugar, period) sleep enough (this means actually going to bed) exercise (i've already built a daily yoga practice, have to get back to running regularly - i joined the y - gasp!) other things - go to more meetings get to work on time be more dedicated in my work go to shul meditate more regularly be honest. really really honest. and more kind and more compassionate ...