good forecast comin' right up

well, my aunt's wedding is this weekend. it's an outdoor wedding. and it's supposed to rain. and there is no tent. and no chairs. so we'll be standing. in the rain.

i stole a gettysburg admissions umbrella from the office today.

bbbedrunkennn

fabulous book club meeting tonight ladies. well done.

almost-adventures

well, i've been proven wrong that you can, indeed, have adventures after 6:30pm. no, not that kind.

i was walking to the college so that i could play the piano in schmucker, but it was locked. disappointed, i pondered who i knew who had a piano. i called courtney, then darryl, but neither picked up the phone. being closer to courtney's house at this point, i decide to just wander over and see if she was home.

but when i got there, her car was gone, so i turned around and headed back towards the college. i paused by mcknight to rest for a minute on a bench, and noticed a girl in a blue shirt walking by me towards schmucker. i continued to watch her hopefully to see if she could get into the building, but she presently came back from the entrance, equally rejected.

i watched her round the side of the building and disappear from view. after a couple moments, i became bored and got up to walk home again. my path took me back around schmucker the same way this girl had headed down, and oddly enough as i passed by the building again, there she was, trying to pry a semi-open window fully open.

i couldn't help pausing. she looked up at me and laughed apologetically. "yeah i usually get in this way, but the window's stuck."

i blinked in surprise. "that's actually pretty clever." she nodded. "do you want help?" for some reason, this made her surprised.

"oh! sure, yeah, thanks." said she, so i dropped my music on the ground and walked up to the window. together we gave a push and ha! it went right up without sticking.

i watched as she proceeded to get a footing on a drainage grate next to the window, and hoist herself up and over so that her her legs dangled outside. apparently this was not as things usually go. "there used to be a chair here," she said, and finished by tumbling into the room.

i cried out "don't hurt yourself!" but she had already jumped up. now it was my turn. i had some apprehension, i admit; my window-clambering days had long been a thing of the past. before i could make the attempt, however, she called out to me, "oh don't bother. i'll go and let you in around the side."

thus ended my almost-adventure, but at least i did end up getting into schmucker and practicing. even if i did sort of feel old in comparison to this limber person. note to self: go to gym more often.

first step: identifying the objective

goals for summer:
•gain mastery over underarm flab cruelly found only in women b/c of connection to breast tissue by regular toning and lifting exercises

•redecorate house. had dream last night that i found a beautiful bamboo coffee table that looked perfect in living room. will reality prove possible?

•pay off credit card and develop more economic lifestyle of eating and drinking (aka, not drinking b/c alcohol is costly)

•learn key indonesian phrases and basic understanding of language structure before leaving for indonesia so as not to look like stupid, arrogant american who expects everyone to speak english, even though they do, sadly

•train cat to stop breaking vases/flower pots/irreplaceable items out of plea for attention. will encourage him to seek attention in positive ways, e.g., cuddling in lap

•create photo albums and fill currently empty collection of picture frames that i have been meaning to do since last october

top men of all time

harrison ford (in indiana jones/han solo years)
gene kelly
cary grant
johnny depp
james taylor
jimmy stewart
alan rickman
colin firth
josh bernstein (from history channel)
james marsden
patrick dempsey
jonas armstrong (robin hood series on bbc america)

other nominations?

progression?

approaching my next birthday, i begin to think again of where i've come from, and where i'm going. and in doing so, i find that i have gone all over the place and yet in some ways haven't moved at all, a bit like john donne's twin compasses that "obliquely run" and yet "make me end where i begun."

bear with me a bit; we're not done yet with the literary references.

i was remembering another entry from my journal from several years ago because i'd been brooding over the fact that a friend was getting married at what i considered to be much too young an age, even as i wished for such happiness myself. i had a dream then that i recorded and which i can still recall because of its vivid qualities. i offer it again as insight into my feelings now:

<><><>

june 13, 2005:

i dreamed last night of an intense, wonderful freedom.

i was with a large group of friends on a bright, sunny day. we were driving down a dirt lane with green fields on our left and a wood on our right. i sat in an open carriage with a young man who i couldn't really see; all i could see was the lane ahead of me, the horse drawing the carriage, the land, and the arm of this man-a black, tuxedoed arm-as he tried to control the horse. he kept losing the reins and i was laughing and enjoying the sunshine, and intermittently grasping his arm and the reins.

then we all turned down another road, all of our carriages, and came to a large clearing amidst tall trees where, spread out, were the interiors of a house without walls. suddenly we all split up, as if to play a large game of tag except it involved finding various clues and solving puzzles. and i found myself wandering down the lane and into a lovely field full of buttercups and wheat grass and i met someone from our party but we parted because we hadn't finished the game yet.

suddenly the field ended and i stood on the rocky cliff of the seashore and out among the shallows there was a large ship with sails, tipped up with its hull in the air over the rocks, like a beached whale. i asked someone where our name papers were, and they replied that they were up in the ship.

i climbed into the ship and was immediately in love with its ropes and sails and narrow stairways, and the bright, clear windows of the captain's cabin, but i couldn't find the papers. instead i found the ship's steering wheel and without thinking i reached out and turned it.

the ship lurched into the water, as if it were a great animal that could pick itself up, and began to sail.

at first i was horrified by what i had done by accident, but then i was thrilled by the deep blue sky in the horizon and the happy clear blue water. as i sailed, though, i accidentally ran the ship up against the shallows and somewhere i could hear my friend kristen chiding me to several girlfriends, "she knows exactly what she does and she does it anyway," but i knew that she didn't mean it angrily and somehow i felt as if she were smiling knowingly at me. i didn't care that i'd run the ship up; it was a challenge that i was happy to face, so i turned the ship away and sailed back on those beautiful waters, glad only to be the one who decided which way the wheel turned.

now, thinking about that glorious feeling of being out on the waves, in control of my own destiny and uncaring of what might happen so long as the decision were mine, i wonder what it means to be free. and what it means to be really, truly in love.

is it a freedom, a release, love? i never thought so, although in being bound we do have freedom from solitude, from loneliness, and from the startling unpleasantness of hearing one's thoughts echo back to one's head without being answered.

but for now the desire is to sail alone at full speed, "wherever the wind may drive the boat" until I find someone who is willing to sail alongside me and occasionally take the wheel.

<><><>

of course, as a recent disney film reminds us (yes! there is even wisdom to be found in disney!), reflection is good but brooding is bad:

yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery, but today is a gift;
that's why it's called the present.

i might have a ghost in my house

yep.

i came home the other day, and found that my bare escentuals makeup–and only this makeup–had been neatly arranged in a semi-circle formation. my makeup brush had been placed in the exact center of the semi-circle.

i live alone. and the cat doesn't have that kind of precision. and the likelihood that my landlord came over, fixed none of the things that i asked him to fix in the house, and then rearranged only some of my makeup is, well, unlikely.

i guess i shouldn't be that surprised; it is gettysburg. not sure how i feel about this. but nothing else has happened so far, so i guess i'll let it go unless something else inexplicable happens.

birthday wish

i know what it is but i won't tell!

a room with a view

"it was she who told me that you lived here."
"weren't you pleased?" she meant – "to see miss lavish," but when he bent down to the grass without replying, it struck her that she could mean something else. she watched his head, which was almost resting against her knee, and she thought that the ears were reddening.

"my father" – he looked up at her (and he was a little flushed) – "says that there is only one perfect view – the view of the sky straight over our heads, and that all these views on earth are but bungled copies of it."

a word on crust

as i sat down to table today to partake of the delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich that i'd made, i realized with a start that i was eating that sandwich with the crusts fully on.

you, my dear friend and reader, may not see the significance of such an observation, but to me the import of the event was groundbreaking.

for years i resisted eating sandwiches with the crust on them, to the point that to serve me such a sandwich was a wasted effort in sandwich-making. within the past several years, i have expanded my repertoire of tastes to allow that crusts may have redeemable qualities, and slowly but surely, i have begun to like eating the sandwich in its entirety: crusty, such as in a state of nature.

this acceptance of crusts is not to go unanalyzed. if we consider it for a moment, the crusts on a sandwich are like the parts of life that we initially find distasteful until we develop an appreciation for them. accepting crust into my life is, consequently, evidence of my growth as a human being and as a contributing member of society.

there are, i find, many benefits to crust as well. for one thing, it limits condiments on the sandwich from soaking through and getting onto the plate. it also provides a good grasping point for the fingers so that they minimally smoosh the bread apon lifting it to eat. crust, really, defines the limits of the sandwich in a powerful and irrevocable manner.

crust is the final frontier.

countdown

birthday=18 days
indonesia=40 days

eep!

missing friends

last night i dreamed of my grandfather. first i was in greenwich, or france, or some combination of both, and i was walking down cobblestone streets and stopping in small shops. then the dream moved to a river and i was standing in a houseboat, which initially belong to my friend val whose job i took over when she left our office to move down to nc, and then it belonged to whitty, who also left to move south. it was hot and humid, and the sun was extremely bright. why was i dreaming of people who had moved away frome me?

then we were in a large house or museum... whitty was back there and she was telling me that i'd better eat the chocolate in little bowls on the tables before it was all gone. she disappeared, and then i was noticing the layout of the rooms, and there was beautifully hand-crafted furniture that i wanted to commission because the artist was so inexpensive.

a huge chest of drawers took up an entire wall in front of me; it was carved wood painted blue, and the center of the chest curved outwards in a large bubble onto which was carved a face, painted a deep red. it was a person, or a caricature of the sun or the moon. it was beautiful and earthy and calm.

and my grandfather was there and i started crying because i missed him so terribly, and felt that i'd never appreciated him enough when he was alive. he told me how proud of me he was, and how much he knew i loved him. or at least, he said something which i don't remember, but it meant: i love you and i know you love me.

sometimes language in dreams is startlingly clear; and sometimes it's confused or unspoken, but you remember the essence of what was communicated.

there is no greater pleasure

than sitting by a fire and staring, lost, into the flames.

the stars spread around you. you are alone and a part.