have you given your cat a name yet?

You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-You Are?

You're chicken,

you've got

no

guts.

You're afraid to stick out your chin and say,

"Okay, life's a fact,

people do fall in love,

people do belong to each other,

because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness."

You call yourself a free spirit,

a wild thing, and

you're terrified somebody's going to stick you in a cage.

Well,

baby,

you're already in that cage.

You built it yourself.

And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somalia.

It's wherever you go.

Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

--Paul Varjak, Breakfast at Tiffany's

Love is about belonging to each other.

Love is about you taking me and me taking you and us being fiercely loyal to each other.

I will fight for your happiness like mine depended on it,

because it does.

A Prayer to the Gods

a glimmer of hope

like Icharus' shining wings in the sun

flying out and up

before the plunge.

O my fragile soul!

Shards of foil in the sun

shaken

then jolted

then tapped casually

only every now and then,

and now still.

Hope tired like the Lethe

one million years of lonely travelers,

weary travelers,

and confused.

Where am I? Surely...no.

I am NOT getting on that boat, wha-choo think I am, CRAZY?

Where is my wife?

Where is Abelard?

And ne'er a bright-eyed Hercules.

Only Psyches,Psyches,Psyches,

bemoaning their serpent loves.

Is there always fear behind the disbelief

at finding themselves at your shores?

Or only sorrow.

Row on, row on.

Boatman, row on.

Persephone! every springtime

Persephone, every fall...

and they forget and forget and forget.

O River, what have you seen?

You must know,

you have seen their eyes,

the vacuous stare...

Sisyphus rolling his stone up everyday: do the shards still sparkle for him?

Or is eternal amnesia

the one and only

way to survive in this place,

so dark and wet and empty.

Tell me, father,

Ferryman,

when you lay your oars below

and look to the open door

and see the Fields,

golden barley folding and flying,

do you remember the dreams you too once had?

Do you have a cup?

Do you drink the Lethe?

And is forgetfulness,

this long, long river,

the only way to rock a soul after seeing across the fence,

the only way to pretend

an Elysian fields for those of us never worthy to find ourselves there?

Give me a cup.

I'll guzzle it like Joel and Clementine,

so that tomorrow I can dye my hair blue to fit my insides

though tomorrow I won't know why my insides are blue.

lafftur?

two people in the last week have questioned my sense of humor. most of the accusations stem from the fact that i have never seen anchorman, billy madison, or hot rod. so i started thinking and here's what i remember: about four years ago my music taste took this mad left turn. dashboard and yellowcard and weezer became sufjan and bon iver and jack's mannequin. contemplative stuff. what the?

i attribute a lot of that to joshua james.

i don't know what happened! i got serious about life. all of a sudden i look for "MEANING" in everything. it wears me out. i am thinking zero deep thoughts, have zero meaningful conversations, and writing about stupid things like sweaters and surfing and the pacific coast highway for the next year. peace!

the girls

this weekend i went home. this is what it felt like:

wise words: the meaning of love

yes, the majority of my february posts have been about love. sorry. as it happens, it's the month of love, what with valentine's, so obviously it's what's swarming around in my head. today i asked my students to write about what love is. this is what one of them said, that leaves me wondering when i decided that love had to be all complicated and difficult:

"My favorite thing about my current crush is that she isn't shy or nervous around me. We like each other and have for a long time. She isn't all lovey dovey, she just likes to chill and be around me. She can tell me anything and I can talk to her about anything. She is caring and always there when I need her and I'm the same for her when she needs me. Her family loves me and my family loves her. It's not awkward when it's just me and her hanging out--we can always find something to do, if it's going on a walk or a drive or watching a movie."

there it is, the simplest thing in the world.

hand on your heart

unconditional encouragement + two-way trust = friendship + self-confidence + safety = nothing better in the whole wide world.

this is a video made by a fifth grade teacher so his students could learn who their true friends were. i think it hits the heart of friendship, and the heart of love.

a little math for the most romantic day of the year.

so tomorrow is the day of looovve. begs the time old question:

is there only one "right" person for each of us?

well, i say no. i think you can be happier with some people than with others, but the idea that there is only one person out there for me is a little scary:

A) because this is a big world. what, you're just going to happen to run into each other one day and know? as if.

and B) because it makes me feel like this:

insta-math: 65298 seconds=18.14 hours. yeah right.

so marcilyn and i did the math. assuming there are many people we could be happy with, what are the chances, in this little town of byu-provo, of finding a happy-to-be-near-you Other. a-hem: approximately 30,000 people at byu. half of which are girls, which brings us down to 15,000. we're guessing a little shy of half of those are married--8,000 left.

we estimate that we'd be at least somewhat attracted to 10% of those: 800*. those that are actually older than us? probably only 200. and then from those, how many have girlfriends? valentine's is tomorrow, so we'll be optimistic: let's say 30% have girlfriends. which leaves us with 140 gentlemen. that's it. 140 potential best-friend|lovers.

*those of you who judge us harshly for only saying we'd like 10% of the eligible men, please consider the factors going into it: personality, physical attractiveness, intelligence, future goals, odd/repulsive habits, kindness amount, overall demeanor, height, ability to commit, WoW addictions, etc.

one hundred and forty. i swear, getting married is the biggest miracle in the world.

to all those of you who I lovelovelove:

HAPPY VALENTINE'S

(and good luck out there)

stop! in the name of the law!

dear officer h.,

thank you for being so kind when you pulled me over this afternoon. you see, it was my first time being pulled over. ever. so i was a little shaky and nervous. but you were so nice--so nice, in fact, that after you handed me the ticket, i said thank you.

also, thank you for choosing to pull me over on a day when i was only going 13 over.

and since i could tell you felt a little bad about giving me a ticket, i should tell you this: i've chosen to look at the $155 i will be paying for those 13 mph as follows: if i divide that by all of the other times when i probably should have been pulled over in the last year, it only comes out to about 0.42 cents per incident. that's probably less than the average american spends on lottery tickets everyday. guess we all have our addictions.

sincerely,

carolyn

please read this

i taught poetry today to eighty-nine fifteen year olds. "here kids, here's a poem. it can make you cry, laugh, mourn, understand, change........good luck."

this is one of my favorite poems. i have put the words here so you may read them. then download it from itunes (because justin vernon deserves tangible compensation for bringing beauty into the world) and let it change your life, heal your heart, hold the storm, peel away the shell. it will do all of those things.

then, if you still want more, read this.

re: stacks

This my excavation and today is kumran 

Everything that happens is from now on 

This is pouring rain 

This is paralyzed  

I keep throwing it down two-hundred at a time 

It's hard to find it when you knew it 

When your money's gone 

And you're drunk as hell  

On your back with your racks as the stacks as your load 

In the back and the racks and the stacks are your load 

In the back with your racks and you're un-stacking your load  

I've been twisting to the sun, I needed to replace 

The fountain in the front yard is rusted out 

All my love was down  

In a frozen ground  

There's a black crow sitting across from me; his wiry legs are crossed 

And he's dangling my keys he even fakes a toss 

Whatever could it be 

That has brought me to this loss?  

This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization 

It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away 

Your love will be 

Safe with me

three cheers, skeet skeet

"Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice- it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts, and to love the wrong people, and die."

-Ronny Cammerari, Moonstruck

tonight there is a full moon. despite the cold, there is a breeze that is carrying the promises of spring on it's tender tendrils. i am standing beside a lake, everything silent and silver with the moon. i am waiting, i am listening, i am waiting.

on nights like this the world unfolds before you and the impossible enters your heart again. i am learning to fly, or at least how to jump out of nests. one million moments of peace from all of your life rally and bolster your empty heart, and you dare to breathe again.

i plunge my anchor into the waves and look forward.

and dancing keeps saving lives. this one thing i have learned: dancing saves lives.

--jan 29

mad hops

i just put on my skinny jeans for the first time in a few weeks. they're super tight on my calfs. you know what this means, don't you? don't you?! it means i'm getting mad hops!

too bad i missed my bball game today (angry face). since the last game, i have learned how to effectively (and correctly) block, how to box out, and how to screen (which involved me getting plowed over by paige while we practice with the pax-man).

woot woot.

and a word from ben harper: you put the "happi" in my "ness". isn't that a beautiful line? i think it is.