things i am thankful for:

+ my surrogate family in the couve
+ my blood relatives and the physical distance between us
+ new friendships and human communion
+ broken bonds mended
+ the endlessness of possibility
+ beautiful arrangements of ugly words
+ coffee, my lifeblood
+ the past, the present, the future
+ my singular education, academic and otherwise
+ warmth
+ dueling perspectives
+ the infinite wisdom of jenny lewis
+ mirrors
+ ownership of my own mind
+ free will
+ love

happy thanksgiving.

theory.

i’m a shameful example of the american practice of rushing time: paige shared with me a strategy she uses to help her fall asleep… she counts slowly from one to ten, visually focusing on each number in her mind, and then counts back from ten to one, and then repeats until she falls asleep. i’ve tried this out a couple times, but with every number i imagine, the proceeding number superimposes itself over the number i’m trying to focus on. i can’t not speed through it and slow time. i’m a creature of habit.

sharon olds blows my mind. she is so unabashedly in touch with her body; her poetry is kind of grotesque, but so incredibly powerful. it’s like her poems have an appendage that reaches out of the page and grabs hold of my heart and my stomach simultaneously, and just squeezes. i want to go to nyu for grad school just so i can be on the same campus as her.

i’ve decided i’m not getting married until everyone can. it may be a while.

i’ve gotten a lot of peace offerings and concessions lately, but none from the person i want one from most.

thanksgivingthanksgivingthanksgiving.

you go, girl.

milk.

on wednesday night, i saw an advanced screening of ‘milk.’ it was amazing. the cast was fantastic, and sean penn was brilliant; he never disappoints. watching this movie was such an emotional experience for me, between laughing and weeping and shaking my head in disbelief, and when the movie was over, i felt completely drained.

it’s unbelievable to me that in the thirty years since harvey milk’s death, the glbt community has still not been given full and equal rights. they are still having to convince the people around them that they are not wrong, or sick, or subhuman. i’m so heartbroken by the passage of prop 8 in california, and so sad that so many don’t seem to realize what a gross human rights violation this is. it’s like segregation, or like apartheid; it’s discrimination based on something a person can’t control, and it’s used to subjugate them and make them second-class humans. it’s sickening.

i’m going to an anti-prop 8 rally on saturday, and then marching from capitol hill to downtown in protest. this is so important and i want to do anything i can to promote equal rights for everyone.

please go see ‘milk’ when it comes out in theaters on november 26!

we are just the sort of people who want to hear good news.

i want to say the universe is patronizing me, but i don’t think it cares that much… i think it’s just shrugging its shoulders and walking away from me. from what i hear, bad news comes in succession; i don’t doubt it. from what today has told me, the sanctity of marriage is dead and will never be resurrected, every attempt at good is transmogrified into something bad, it is selfish to even think of rewarding oneself, and pitiful to try to be selfless. it is only okay to feel guilt.
i feel wholly overwhelmed by how shitty the world is, and i feel crushed and i feel like i can’t breathe. i feel ill-equipped to leave my bed and participate in my own life. the universe keeps breaking my heart, and it hurts more every time.

every scent that creeps up into my nostrils is just rotten, even if it shouldn’t be.

and the literature i get assigned keeps directly corresponding with how i’m feeling internally. it’s uncanny. right now it’s miz george eliot:

“we know very well we are all together in the hands of god. we didn’t bring ourselves into the world, we can’t keep ourselves alive while we’re sleeping; the daylight, and the wind, and the corn, and the cows to give us milk — everything we have comes from god. and he gave us our souls, and put love between parents and children, and husband and wife. but is that as much as we want to know about god? we see he is great and mighty, and can do what he will: we are lost, as if we was struggling in great waters, when we try to think of him.
but perhaps doubts come into your mind like this: can god take much notice of us poor people? perhaps he only made the world for the great and the wise and the rich. it doesn’t cost him much to give us our little handful of victual and a bit of clothing; but how do we know he cares for us any more than we care for the worms and things in the garden, so as we rear our carrots and onions? will god take care of us when we die? and has he any comfort for us when we are lame and sick and helpless? perhaps, too, he is angry with us; else why does the blight come, and the bad harvests, and the fever, and all sorts of pain and trouble? for our life is full of trouble, and if god sends us good, he seems to send bad too. how is it? how is it?”

i’m processing. it’s continuous.

i thought i couldn’t love keith olbermann any more than i already did…

but i stand corrected.

so beautiful.

judson came to visit me.

we drank root beers at fcc, bought some books at ophelia’s, bought some more books at half price, scoured 45th for an atm so we could get cheeseburgers at dick’s, and taught each other songs on guitar.

my brother is so damn cool.

contributors to my current existential crisis:

+ charles dickens, and particularly the ‘tempest’ chapter of david copperfield
+ arcade fire’s neon bible album, particularly the songs “black mirror,” “intervention,” and “black waves/bad vibrations”
+ david guterson’s the other
+ gnosticism
+ cdckcwmkn
+ the shiteous set-up of my contemporary fiction class

so tonight i helped out at this event for IMAGE, the people i intern for, that was at the seattle art museum… for six hours! it was actually way more awesome than i expected it to be, but i expected it to be a hellish nightmare. i got to cart around 35-pound boxes of books, arrange them prettily on a table, and then sell them to people. the book was a collaboration between a bunch of people, i guess, but the contributor who’s the biggest deal is kathleen norris; she gave a lecture tonight and then did a signing. she gave me a signed book for free… which was essentially nice, but especially nice because i had thought about buying a book, but couldn’t bring myself to shell out $27. after we were done, me and two other interns, mitchell and megan, went to dick’s and got milkshakes… we had a bet going beforehand about how many books would sell, and my guess was the closest to how many actually sold, so mitchell had to buy my milkshake. scoooooore.

last night was awful in a hundred different ways. i’m ready for the endless dramafest to be done.

the best.

i don’t think any arrangement of words can express how utterly grateful and happy i am right now.

yes we can, obama.

edit: texts i received between the hours of 8pm and 10 pm regarding obama–
“i’m crying tears of joy.” 8:03 PM
“i hope you’re sharing the excitement i have right now.” 8:17 PM
“i love this man.” 8:59 PM
“YEAH DUDE WE DID IT!!!” 9:50 PM

halloween.

the only photo of me as a sexy lion.