4:06am...

I am warm all over. I am wearing a coat indoors. My mind is mushy and indistinct...I could go for a walk or I might just go to bed. There is a candle burning beside my bed, and a pile of [clean] laundry in my chair. Know what's great about the night? It's risky, hard; you never know what might come next, and nothing seems the same...You see with changed eyes, you squint and cock your head and still the shadows speak. I complain a lot about missing sleep. But I am a night-time person. After all, how else can you meet your dreams face to face, take a negative of daylight, or stop looking for God with your eyes long enough to see He is right there?

When I Shall Die

By Anna

When I shall die,
I shall do it myself.
Nobody shall do it for me.
When I am redy,
I shall say,
'Fin, stand me up',
and I shall look
and lagh merry.
If I fall down,
I shall be dead.

-Mister God, this is Anna, by Finn

It has been a very long time since I read a book that made me really cry...but this book, as my dearest friend would say, 'speaks my language'.

A note to the readers of this blog: even though I hate Internet Explorer as much as you do, my blog does display properly in Mozilla, so you might want to check out IE since otherwise you will miss some of the posts. Just a heads-up, thanks!

So, after sitting for well over six months, Roslyn (the Rambler) is up and running again. And because she is such a rare and fickle girl, she must now be sold. It's hard, I put a lot (a lot!) of time and a decent amount of money into her, and I really loved her...but a car is a car, and there are much more important things to care about, so she must go. One thing can definitely be said though, and that is that it is amazing how nice it is to not be stressing about working on her anymore, and when she is gone I will surely heave a sigh of relief...I do love cars, but I hate being stuck and controlled by their problems. Onwards and upwards...

Today was long and inexplicibly melancholy. It was one of those times when there is no reason in the world to be down, but somehow a little twinge of sadness hangs around your mind and tries to trick you into thinking you are just a bit too isolated, a little too alone. This eveing the shop was cold and it was very dark outside as I was finishing up a project for a friend, and the Smashing Pumpkins were lamenting softly over the Tack House speakers. Soon after though there was good food (I took way too big of a helping!) and funny conversation, and when I got home I gave myself to the comfort of a cigarette and murmuring friendship. It is still quiet---a quiet night to follow the quiet day, but I have visions of soon riding my motorcycle, perhaps driving Mulholland again, and finding some shady grassy spot on a Friday afternoon good for dreaming and laughing and reading...

How do I manage to stay up late EVERY SINGLE NIGHT?

10:49am: Was rudely awakened by a bored Ryan.

11:13am: While stumbling to the kitchen Ben knocked on the door, so I had a smoke with him and talked for bit.

12:45pm: Coffee...

1:20pm: Wheezing my way up a very steep, impossibly rocky trail on my mountain bike, aiming for the highest place I could get before all energy was gone.

1:34pm: At near illegal speeds (well over 30mph) I slid wide on a corner, hit a deep ditch and launched oh so gracefully over the handle bars into a sticker-bush.

1:38pm: Twisted a bent derailleur back into place with bruised hands and did a little screaming victory dance, gloating over the bloody knee.

2:09pm: 40-50mph downhill sprint in top gear on an old oil road, the startled shrieks of innocent hikers echoing in my dust.

2:28pm: Lying in the meager grass outside my front door I talked long and earnestly on the phone of life and family and faith...

5:46pm: Late to Mass...(just a little)

6:40pm: Dad called and we talked for almost two and a half hours. I love my dad so much.

9:14pm: Returned a missed call to tired, sick loved one.

10:05ish pm: Phone battery died. Lame! But I had spent more that six hours on the phone today already; damn, that's a lot...

11:13pm: lying on my couch, blogging, playing Daddy's VERY NICE guitar. It has been a good day.

I spent a long day working at school, and for the first time in a very long while I made some real headway on my own car projects. It's a great feeling to finally tackle some things that have been a nagging voice in the back of your mind for months on end. Afterward Aaron and I sat down and played guitar till 2 am...I have not played like that since I fist began to be serious about guitar, over two years ago. Finally, I am really learning new things and experimenting outside of my normal run of songs and strumming, and it's awesome! What a long, full day. Tired, so very tired, but completely content.

Just finished the messiest, nastiest, most frustrating job I have done in a long while. Equivocal Catharsis and I changed a clutch on a VW Jetta today, and ended up black with grease, hungry and pissy...damn German engineers! But TSG came down and set up her own little burger joint and Nevermore bummed me some much needed smokes, so the ordeal ended well. One more confirmation to me that despite my deep love of automobiles in general, I simply cannot be a career mechanic...

And I miss her soft hair
Her cigarettes and
Bony hips
Her cheek on my chest
And
Smiling lips
It's not enough
To paint
Her image on my eyes
Or search
The wind for
Her voice
The leaves
For her sighs
I miss her silky hair
And a gift
Of weeping eyes

-A. B. (0-1:0-04:)

Re-discovered from the mists of highschool:



and:

A little over a week, just under three thousand miles, and a somewhat violent stomach flu later, I am back in the Golden State and nearly home. And though California is now home for me, (and I am glad to have it so) I am still sad that it is all over and I will miss my Northwest loved ones much. Christmas was excellent. I spent a day helping Dad fix his van, spent a lot of time with my siblings, and went snowboarding for the first time in over two years. It's not as if I didn't already love them tons, but it seems I continue to grow in love and understanding for my family every time I go home, no matter how many times I travel back and forth. Then came the flu, which would have really sucked, but I had lots of sympathy and a warm bed with blankets and things to snuggle, so it wasn't too bad. Unfortunately I was no longer in a condition to eat all the delicious home-cooked food, but there were French films and careful cups of tea to soothe the pain. On the last day Popsicle Toes and I sang and played guitar in a freezing parking lot and at the end of the song my chord fingers wouldn't work anymore; but I didn't mind, that's the stuff the very best memories are made of. Fifteen hours of rainy freeway and then six hours of ten-mile-per-hour traffic on the way back to So-Cal just about did me in, but I had a warm car and warm thoughts...Thank the Good Lord for a wonderful trip