when you are old

when you are old and grey and full of sleep,
and nodding by the fire, take down this book,
and slowly read, and dream of the soft look
your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

how many loved your moments of glad grace,
and loved your beauty with love false or true,
but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
and loved the sorrows of your changing face;

and bending down beside the glowing bars,
murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
and paced upon the mountains overhead
and hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

- yeats

i miss you

i haven't missed home much since i've been here.
but right now...
i want to curl up on a couch with my anna and watch gilmore girls, drink wine, and giggle for hours.

la cocaracha

i locked myself out of my car today at work 'cause i'm fabulous like that. i didn't realize it until i got off, so i had to stand there in the rain and wait for the darien police to come unlock it for me. speaking of fabulous, my chin has broken out for some odd reason and everyday i'm looking more like a pubescent teenager.

my 8 hour shift at work consisted of me getting a large majority of my homework done, which was nice. not sure what i'm going to do with my 4 hours tomorrow. i sit there feeling guilty the whole time because i feel like i should be doing something, but no one has really shown me the ropes yet so i'm pretty much useless.

my family celebrated rosh hashanah today. wish i could have been there.

i smell like mangoes.

books

took a trip to quimby's and myopic books this afternoon. only spent around $23. i wasn't as bad as i thought i'd be. collected for oyez...quimby's sold 8 copies! so i left them 5 more of edition 34.

quimby's has a crimethInc section and i bought off the map! though i've read it, i vowed that i'd own it at one point since i loved it so much and now i do.

also picked up the june 2005 and april 2005 editions of poetry, the spring 1988 edition of the spoon river quarterly, which i'm in the process of submitting to, and hands on stanzas, 2001-2002 anthology of poetry, which is from the poetry center of chicago.

i should eat something and watch john wayne now.

this is now my desktop background...

...how sweet is that?

pearl jam is on the radio

i'm in darien at kda. the full time receptionist left because she's due to have a baby like now, so i'm here killing time until i'm off at 8. the showroom is really nice. i want a house so i can buy some snazzy cabinets.

when i got here, pete, the manager, briefly explained to me about the manufacturers that kda displays. he also ran through info on counter tops, framed and unframed cabinets (european), self-shutting drawers, sinks, types of wood...the list goes on and on. then maria (the nice pregnant lady) showed me what my job will consist of, which appears to be answering phones and greeting customers. there doesn't seem to be much else to it. so for $15/hour, i am required to sit at a desk in an air-conditioned building, answer the occasional phone call, say hi to people, and give them brochures. i'll probably have a lot of time to do homework which makes me a happy camper. too bad it takes over an hour to get here during rush hour.

maria thinks she'll be having the baby any time now, so i might be here alone on saturday. pete said to wing it. kind of makes me nervous. i hope the designers aren't too busy because i won't know answers to customer's questions if they are all with clients.

ya know what's sweet? i just made like $5 typing out this entry.

someone is making me feel sad and they don't even know it.

you're going to be single for a while, buddy

this article made me ashamed to be a CMU alumna. a respectable university would never have published it. its content is not only ignorant and ridiculous, but the writing itself isn't even mediocre. i won't claim to know enough about hilary clinton to say that she should be our next president, but i do know that most of the women i know personally could do a better job at running this country than george dubya. oooh, i'm mad.

chilly

so i was going to work at the broadview location for kda, but apparently now i've been moved to darien. the only good thing about this is that i'll have fridays off now. i was going to take thursdays off, but minnie called me and changed that. i was kind of hoping i could switch it to fridays anyway, so that works out.

i have to go to a poetry reading for one of my classes and write a paper focusing on how i would do spoken word. i'm hoping i can convince dennis to come with me. maybe i'll go to the green mill and see slam poetry.

i just bought a huge bottle of grapefruit juice and didn't notice that it was from concentrate. it's kind of gross.

untitled

i was able to a do a little writing today between work and class while grabbing some tea. not sure if i like it yet or what the title should be.

We are not well in this city;
the sounds hurt,
the colors sting.

There is too much gathered breath.
An untamed numbness settles
as we walk fast,
sending ourselves out for arrival.

We sway together like frightened children,
inhaling the quiet shame of the masses.

flowers in her hair

i want a calla lily.

the end.

adulthood begins in 45 minutes...

i'm lonely.

i haven't been for a while, which, considering my new environment, deserves some recognition. it hasn't escaladed yet into that cold, absent feeling in the chest or caused excessive sleeping, but it's still there just the same. i feel like i'm all alone in my head sometimes.

i feel almost as if i'm clogged (this is not to be confused with constipated, though i suppose that might have been a sufficient adjective taken into context...). my head feels overloaded and sometimes i get that tickle at the back of my throat like i'm going to cry for no reason at all. i'd really just like to talk for hours with anna and watch a thousand episodes of season 6 of gilmore girls.

tomorrow i start work and have ENG 483, which may prove to be the most boring class ever. needless to say, i'm less than stoked.

i wish someone would come lay with me until i fall asleep.

go back to bed

it's 6a.m. and i'm up. why? no idea. i've been a really restless sleeper lately. i'd love nothing more than to just fall deep into dreamless sleep for a night, but that doesn't seem possible at the present time. for some reason i think it might have to do with my lack of physical contact since i've left michigan. hugs and snuggles have a calming effect on me. without my mommy, anna, and charles, i'm lacking in the department.

i feel like i went from kid to adult in 5 seconds flat. i went from having no responsibilities this past summer to having more than i ever have. i know my limits and i'm getting nervous i may have over-stepped them. i suppose that is yet to be seen. deep down i'd really just like to show myself that i can handle it, but i'm afraid my writing will suffer and that bothers me a lot.

i had a fantastical time with ashley. we're all giggles and smiles when we're together and this past week has been no exception. it was also really nice to see my aunt, uncle, and my dad. sometimes i think that i neglect my dad because i'm such a mommy's girl, so it was nice to see just him for this visit. my aunt missy is just too much fun. i love her to pieces. she's the one part of my dad's side of the family that i believe genuinely cares about me and that means a lot. i miss my cousins.

missing people is a strange thing. with some i've noticed that i see things throughout my week that remind me of them and then i think...aww, i miss "insert name of friend/family" here. this type of missing really isn't that bad. the other type is slightly more complex. with other people in my life there seems to be this constant ache. to be completely cliche, i understand why people have associated love with the heart, because it's there; a hollowness in the chest. i have this with anna and my sister mostly. i miss my mom, but in a completely unique way. sometimes it feels like leaving anna came with both types of missing. it's hard to see things everyday that make me smile or laugh or cry and not have her there waiting for me after class or across the hall to share the moments with.

on another completely unrelated note; i met a boy. he's nice.

oyez on myspace

as part of the advertising/publicity group on the oyez staff, i volunteered to make a myspace page for the magazine (not my idea, but i thought it'd be fun to do). i just finished setting it up. i think it's pretty sweet.

http://www.myspace.com/oyezreview

check it out.

today i discovered that quality haircuts are way out of my budget...but i got one anyway. ash and i bought matching hats.

ashley time starts now!

i sat logging in submissions today in the oyez room and thought - this is me. for so long i felt...uncomfortable. like i didn't fit. like i was doing things that i wasn't supposed to be contributing my time to and things that just weren't worthwhile. as i sat there reading poetry, fiction, and non-fiction from writers; men and women, both young and old from all over the country, i felt more complete than i ever have.

my little sister is arriving at union station today at 11:14am! this makes me very happy. she's my sunshine.

lalala

new musical obsession = the fray.

i desire more usb access on my imac. also, i love my mighty mouse, but i can't play wow with it. the scroll ball is a bit fidgety as well. these are my only apple complaints. so far it's pretty and i love it.

i always want to call and talk to people when it's too bloody late in michigan. i've noticed lately that i only call my mum. (i also think I've been watching dominic monaghan too much on lost because i'm speaking like an englishman.) i'm usually the one who calls people. i'm not sure why this is. it's almost as if i'm a different person here. i'm no longer needy or lonely, which were both pretty dominant characteristics of my personality before. well...i'm still a bit needy, that's just who i am, but not so severely, i suppose. i'm just a lot more independent here. i like this.

bored. going to read a widow for one year and hopefully zonk out.

oh yay

went flyering today for the review even though it's rainy and gross out. covered about 2 miles on division. i was surprised at how many places are happy to put up a flyer for you.

when i got back there was a snail in front of the apartment door. he had a shell and everything. i've never seen a snail away from a water source. i moved it out of the way so no one would tread on it. he looked lost.

i remember

i noticed today that when i grin, the sides of my lips turn down.

i don't think i like this.

grrr

boone dies?! that makes no fucking sense. why the hell would they kill him off? he's tortured his short life by his stuck up step-sister who he's in love with (why, i have no idea) and then survives a plane crash, only to be killed in another one filled with statues of the virgin mary stuffed with heroin. oooooh...this angers me. fuck fuck fuck.

employed

i got a job! i was hired today by kda (kitchen distributors of america) as a receptionist/sales assistant at their broadview location. my starting wage is $15/hour, which is more than twice what i made at my last job. i'll be working there part-time, thursday - sunday. fabulous.

it's really not so bad

i miss home. i miss my sister. i even wouldn't mind seeing toby.

charles will be here tonight. this makes things better.

RIP drama queen

walked 2 unnecessary miles south on wabash today. suck. finally made it to my interview late looking like death, but the lady was understanding due to my newbie status. rocked the computer test segment. non-work study interview tomorrow which would be really nice to get.

sweet jazz saxaphonist in the jackson station on the blue line. first ever grad class tonight at 6: internship on the oyez review.

over my head

i adore my apartment and i love this city.

i went a little crazy and downloaded around 100 songs today. so my next day out will have a soundtrack with my cute little black ipod nano (holy adjectives!). i'm thinking about going downtown tomorrow and doing some writing. maybe i'll find a nice cafe i like.

i miss my sister and anna + i need a job. other than that, life is pretty peachy at the moment.

woohoo

i have an imac. and an ipod. they are beautiful. i feel disgustingly materialistic right now.

i also don't know how to change the font in blogger on a mac. so this is what ya get.

super freak

go see little miss sunshine and laugh your ass off like a crazy person.

my mum and dad will be here tomorrow. that's pretty wonderful.