braided bones

I was strong
before I met you
now it all hurts
Including
the bits that are sublime
Because, even then, I am in turmoil

I feel joy,
which is passion,
which is drama,
Which is turmoil.

and the pieces of me between my ribs
which are bones
are the pieces that hurt
all the time

grown up friends

On just getting married: “Now that we’re married, nothing has changed. We are still the same people and everything. Well… I guess it is a little different now. In that whatever happens, it happens to us. If she loses her wallet, we lose our wallet. People had told me that would happen, but I never believed it would be so completely true.”

On having a baby: “You are with someone for so long, you think you know everything about them. And then a baby comes, and they really surprise you. I’m learning things about him that I never knew”.

On childbirth: “I never ever knew just how much of a badass I am. I mean, I am fucking strong.”

i bet art got in the way of a lot of love.

"A Little Cage Music"

I know why the caged bird sings...

It's because there's a cat out there
and he's purring and preening for me

there's opera on the radio
there's pasta on the stove

he works on a thorn in his paw
i fight for his attention

but i am awkward and have forgotten
all my best dances

i compete with the am/fm
and sing a perfect fifth alongside the soprano

now i've got him

i sing my best song

he forgets his pain
his gaze sustains
he doesn't see the cage.

appalachian redemption

car was broken into last week. they took all of my burned cds (I've been meaning to get rid of those) my debit card and gas card (won't do you much good, sir) and my climbing gear. They left a pile of shattered glass and a crack pipe. Thanks guys! Cool trade. I like to picture us (the thieves and myself) in a split screen picture, with wes anderson-like composition. On the left, me in my work clothes, sitting on the trunk of my nissan alitma smoking a homemade crack pipe. And on the right, a tall, scar faced thug in a baby blue women's climbing harness and shoes, tangled in rope.

Midterms are this week. Halloween is this week. The combination of the two makes me feel like a wee lass. I'm just going to study my little tail off, then reward myself with a keg party on friday. No, but really. I am.

Working and going to school at the same time is really a feat. Without you noticing, i have been slowly digging a hole through the wall with a spoon behind my Sade poster to make an escape from this self imposed jail. I'd really like to fall off the grid again. Hopefully by way of the Appalachian trail. Though, i hear walking is much slower than biking.

i just miss the feeling of not knowing or caring what i look like. i miss the feeling of wearing myself out to the point of full breakdown. I've heard that after training for the olympics, people often spiral into bouts of depression. I get it, man. I totally get it. It is such a nice thing to be focused on what your body can do. not what it looks like. Sadly, i think i'm back to the latter.

I hear that the trail can be very lonely. That does scare me a little. But that's ok. Scary is good. It was great the last time.

oy. school is mind-numbing.

dear canyon, grand

The desert boasts
some kind of silent rhythm
"yes, i do"
my hair and eyes say to the wind and
when it gusts
i give up
some kind of belly-howl
an ache of adoration
a hollowness filled
with only wind.

Double Happiness

Went to Evelyn and Nick's wedding last night. What a surprisingly beautiful day it turned out to be. Everyone packed into plastic folding chairs, just warm enough to still don sundresses. Sun streaming through the courtyard. Wildflowers hang in glass ball jars. Super awesome crunchy farm feel to the whole scene. Everyone tattooed, beardy, suspender-clad. Good job dudes, your friends are a weird bunch.

Ana presided over the wedding. I gotta say, this is the closest thing I have done to church in a long time. And if Ana was the priest at any church, i would seriously fucking not miss a mass. She is unnecessarily emphatic and cried more than once. She did manage to sneak some bible stuff in there, but it turned out to be a riot. We can all thank our lucky stars we didn't get, "Love is patient, love is kind". Rather, we heard, "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor". HAH. This is the most terrifically dry and wonderful thing to say about a couple. Hey, two 'a yous guys can dig a hole faster than one of yous guys. Superb! The only biblical wedding verse I will ever tolerate from this day forward.

I have always measured the success of a wedding by how many times I cringe for the bride and groom. "Eeeks. Sorry, your uncle is the weirdest sweatiest and most long-winded fellow in the world. That speech really destroyed the mood". Perhaps, "Your Uncle Linda is a real nice lady, but she sure made a fool of herself on the dance floor". Someone falls down on the way to the alter. Any combination physical foibles. The funky chicken. And of course, the possibility of a sweaty, three hour, pray to the virgin mary, catholic pain festival. None of that.

We danced to soul until the cops booted us out. I am quite sure I saw several men lift other men into the air in jubilation. Evie was the most zen-mellow bride i have ever seen. Carefree as the wind, dancing and comfortably moving between friends and family. As my sister so astutely recognized, it's a difficult balance to be hip enough for your friends and traditional enough for your family. Way to go, Ebert, you nailed it.

After the reception, we headed to the appropriately titled, Double Happiness across the street. Where i watched everyone get drunk. Things devolved into a slew of dares involving putting your balls on statues around town. I had to get out of there. But not before listening to several, "How i met nick" stories.

"I was having pizza at adriaticos years ago. After everyone had finished and people were getting cash together, we looked around and nick was gone. There was a fifty dollar bill on the table. THAT ASSHOLE!" Yeah, that guy's the worst. He wouldn't let you pay your own phone bill. What a freakin gem.

I part ways with the bride, chain grease all over her white satin dress and the groom, flat cap and grin, hugs so big i thought i'd cry a third time. Holy shit, guys. you got married.

Sounds of Silence

Home again, home again, jiggity jig. Now what? Jesus.

I am Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. I am sunk like a stone in the bottom of the pool in total isolation. Cue the Simon and Garfunkle. Everyone is wondering when I am going to get out, dry off, and start acting like a person again.

Something huge happens and you have no where to put it. After diligently keeping a civil war general's log of everything that happened this summer, people expect for me to sum it up with some succinct answer about the general order of things.

Hey, remember that time you went to France with your high school French class? Well, when you got back no one asked you, 'What's the meaning of life'. Right?

I don't know exactly why I am so sensitive about this. Maybe I have imaginary audience. Or maybe it's my mother on an hour long phone call trying to figure out why I haven't called in two weeks. Either way, it's giving me ants of the pants.

My Dad said to me as the trip was coming to a close, "Jeez, Lauren. I'm not sure if the end of this is going to send you into a spiraling depression or energize you." Thanks, Pops. I'm not sure either. I have all the energy of a caffeinated toddler but not a single place to channel it. So I spin on my floor like Homer Simpson and listen to the Flotation Walls. It can't be healthy.

But I don't feel like drinking. I don't feel like attending parties. I don't feel like going to the bar. I missed everyone a whole bunch. But seeing people just makes me feel further away. I feel like I am communicating absolutely nothing when I make small talk. I am fully aware that this is the lament of any person in their late twenties who is not married. I aint sayin' my sadness is unique. I'm just sayin' I got it.

So, until I figure out the meaning of life, I'm just going to wander around Bexley at night, clumsily navigating potholes in the road on my Tomasso. Text me if you get some ideas.

schooling

It's working. I'm doing it. I'm learning. I think.
If nothing else, I'm really enjoying not going to an office every day. I'm still working, but i'm now my own boss. Which means i have ordered myself to ride my bike, drink coffee and people watch in the short north. What a slave driver!

I'm taking four classes. All of which are labor/research intensive. I guess i'm ok with that. I must admit, i'm learning a lot more from staring at the internet than i am from any of the lectures of i have attended. The major problem with all of my professors is that they color all of their teaching with the theme of the last 500 page academic journal they wrote. So i'm learning plenty about the interests of these women but almost nothing about the topic of the course.

I'd like to think that i'd be a little more objective.

The students are the same way. They can answer absolutely no question from an autonomous or objective perspective. EVERYTHING begins with something like this, "i mean... i don't know exactly what you're talking about, but i know this one time when my neighbors dog...."
ARGH.

And, as expected, i feel old as dirt. I am the only student sans topknot, deep tan, tights, uggs, and north face jacket. I have no stories about how wild the brewery district was last night and i have no desire to chill on "oval beach" with you.

Despite 5 quizzes, one test, a presentation and a 5 page paper within the first two weeks of school, i am basking in the glory of nuzzling up to ye old lap top, chugging a gallon of coffee and not wearing a monkey suit.

love.

COLLEGE!

This spring i will be returning to The Ohio State University to pursue a degree in Social Work. Actually, to be honest the title of my degree will be a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Science. I realize this sounds made up. But the fact of the matter is, a little shift in field of major is the difference between 5 years until becoming a counselor and 2 1/2 years. So, the choice was obvious. Made up major it is.

I am, at once, totally thrilled and totally terrified. I am excited at the prospect of escaping the daily grind of this grown up position that I have half-assedly filled for the last three years. But I also know me. And i know that the giddiness i feel at the thought of being a college student again could send me right back into the kind of behavior i participated in when i was a student previously. (You know, back in 1989.) this kind of behavior being taking any drugs handed to me, wandering to buckeye donuts late at night, drinking so much that i'm not sure what karaoke song i'm singing and crashing my bicycle into things.

If i don't manage to treat this like a full time job, i may just fuck up big time. Now is the time to muster up any maturity i might have and sally forth back into the world of academia. I wonder if i've got it in me.

Life, the Rager

Well, the holidays are over and i, for one, am glad.
now i can go on enjoying my unhighlighted calendar days. as i have said before, christmas is an illusion; no different from any other day. just like friday, it is a construct. monday can be just as good as friday. and i think if people start viewing it as such they could stop throwing away so many perfectly good mondays.
if you view tuesday as punishing torture, then it will so be. if you spend every sunday through thursday anticipating the weekend, life will surely be wasted.
this is the problem my mother seems to have in a much greater sense.
'Fuck all the rest of these days, if i can just make it to vacation, i will be ok.'
I simply cannot live this way.

Ram Dass encourages us to "be here now". And i can't think of a more beautiful thing to say. Right now you may not be at the most miraculously righteous rager of your life, but guess what?
You have arms and legs and eyes to see and ears to hear, lungs to breathe, skin to touch and people to love.
Take stock of all the good things that are happening to you at this very moment. And forget that you are not at Skully's, chugging dollar shots will all of your favorite friends.
Today is a day, just like the rest. I, for one, will be living out the rest of this tuesday like the most righteous party of my life.