Tuesday, August 28, 2007

My Anxiety

Lily is going to the vet tomorrow to be spayed (and also for her shots: rabies, feline distemper, and for micro-chipping, just in case). I am terribly worried, which is ridiculous because these people know what they are doing, and I know, logically if not emotionally, that she will be fine and perfectly healthy. Still, after my darling boy William, it is difficult not to be concerned. I'm working on it.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Mark

Some people go through their entire lives never feeling love this deeply. Funny how the time goes. People say, when you're in love, that time slows down or speeds up. Time always seems to be doing funny things in these varied renditions. Watching the tape -- watching her -- it wasn't like that at all. Time was the way that time always is, consistent, marking down the seconds in linear fashion as I didn't think of what to say next.

The air outside the apartment is cold, and I vacillate. There are defining moments that you can recognize -- I am trapped in self awareness, turning circles on the concrete, and feeling the air burn down my esophagus, move cleanly through my nose, trickle down the open sides of my collar. I am trying to locate myself in the physical world, out of the mental, which churns not understanding how everything quickly towards entropy.

And, if she had never been Peter's (or her own) I still would have wanted her for mine, that I know. This is not a case of jealousy or misplaced affections. If I had only seen her in passing the result would have been the same. Wait, I take that back; how can I know what I would be in other realities that I have never experienced? All I know is this turmoil that I try so hard to quell, this secret that is bust wide open. And what to do what to do -- there is nothing to be done.

I don't kid myself into thinking that I am lucky for loving, for having this depth and strength of feeling. Unrequited love is the most romanced of all. Like so many others, I dwell on what is never mine to have. The sweetness is that it will never grow old. How can the actual compete with the imagined? The daily realities can never compare with these perfections our minds create. It is the ephemeral. It is that which can not be grasped that will forever rattle around in our consciousness. We can not have good days, bad days, anything that will taint the image.

I am rationalizing to save myself. What can I do now? Isn't that the real question. My most private thoughts, hidden for all our sakes, have been blasted on the screen in Technicolor, overly dramatized, too clear to be denied. It is not to be pursued, and I will not apologize for it. This walk in the cold in not contrition. People do not apologize for loving others.

And if there is a tightness in me not derived from the cold but from you, I can distract myself ever so briefly by the tactile as I run my palm over this curve of concrete. There is nothing to do now but walk and not think of what comes next.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Lily!

Here are two pictures of our beautiful baby girl. I took more, but they didn't come out that well.


Saturday, August 18, 2007

I was too lazy to create an actual post...

.:*blah*:.
How tall are you?Five one.
Do you like bananas?Yes, but not with great frequency.
What is your favorite song of all time?"Anna Begins" by Counting Crows
What do you do on Fridays?Go to work. Come home. Varied.
Flip flops or sandals?Flip flops.
Vitamin Water or Gatorade?Vitamin Water.
Have you had a beer in the past week?No. I am not fond of beer.
If you could have one super human power, what would you choose?The ability to transport myself anywhere I wanted just by thinking about it.
What is your favorite place?My home.
Do you read Harry Potter books?Oh, yes.
What is your favorite food?Matzo ball soup.
Where do you want to travel next?I want to go back to England when I have a chance.
What is your favorite PJ fabric?Cotton, or I'll get overly warm.
Boat or bus?Bus. Boats make me ill.
Walking past a beggar, spare change or ignore?I will admit that I don't give change to beggars.
Do you shower every single day?Yes. Usually twice. Once in the morning and once after I exercise.
Kill the spider or let it out?Let it out.
What is your favorite TV show?Star Trek: Voyager.
Do you eat cold cereal at night?Not usual. I may have once or twice.
Define yourself in 3 words?I don't feel like thinking that much at the present.
Would you rather be blind or death?What!?
Are you a cat or a dog person?Cat person.
Which is worse? A bad laugh or a bad cough?Is the cough perminent the way the laugh would be?
Favorite fruit?Raspberries.
Juice and crackers or milk and cookies?The former.
Who are you going to vote for in 2008?It is too early to tell.
Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape or other?Firefox.
What was your last thought?Firefox.
Favorite element?Hydrogen.
Where is Waldo?He's on vacation.
Do you support Paris?
Why did the chicken cross the road?I am sure the chicken was not aware of his or her decision.
Your favorite Disney films?Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
If you had to pick one car, which would it be?My car! Volkie, a VW Beetle.
Most embarrassing moment?I must have blocked it from my memory.
Most memorable past?How could one think of something *so* specific.
What is your favorite clothing brand?Gap.
Opera, Musical, Concert, Play, Performance, or Other?Musical.
Favorite Place to Eat?Judie's.
Would you rather lose an arm or a leg?Arm.
Would you rather be hot or cold?Hot.
T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Cingular/AT&T, or Sprint/Nextel?I have Verizon.
Water or 100% Juice?Depends on my mood, and if I want the calories.
What size shoe do you wear?6 and a half.
How do you feel?Relaxed.
Romance or Kinky Sex?-
Get the number or give the number?Who cares?
When do you plan on getting married?When I feel like it.
Do you have any tattoos, and if so what and where?No.
Who do you admire most?It depends on the scenario.
Do you own any pets, and if so what do you have?Yes, our cat, Lily.
Where do you see yourself in five years?Where I am now.
If you had only six months to live, what would you do first?Try to not freak out about the fact that I only had six months to live.
What is your favourite word?Prodigious.
If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?Other than here, England.
Take this survey or other MySpace Surveys at PimpSurveys.com

Thursday, August 16, 2007

New!

I haven't posted for a while. I have been busy. Busy with things that are NEW!

New #1: My job.

I have not written about New #1 yet. Not at length anyway. Although New #1 tried to make at least a brief referential appearance in the August 4th post.

Here is the deal (and I am telling you "the deal" as I sit in my office, during my lunch break [How exciting! I have never had an office or a lunch break!]): my cool job supervising at the Annual Fund at UMass got me this cool job running the Phonathon at Smith College. More specifically, I will be responsible for: managing the phone program(!), the Senior Appreciation Program, and the ten most recent graduated classes. I have been doing mega outlining and planning and learning (mostly the latter) in the past two and a half weeks I have been here. I am enjoying everything immensely. I am even enjoying the difficult things like trying to figure out how to roll my ING retirement account from UMass into my Pax World 413(b) account here at Smith. And, of course, trying to figure why someone who is twenty-two needs a retirement account in the first place. (Although, I suppose one day I might not be in my twenties anymore....perhaps.) My co-workers are extremely nice and extremely helpful, making me extremely grateful. If, in the future, I am ever the one with the experience I will try my best to help "the new guy" the way everyone here has helped me.

New #2: Lily!

We have a (new, obviously) cat. Her name is Lily. She is as sweet as that also new yellow cake flavored ice cream with frosting and sprinkles. We were gifted Lily by Sean and Missy, Seth's brother and sister-in-law who, with a seventeen-month-old son, were already busy enough. They found her in Greenfield all by her lonesome, which is a bad way for a half-year-old cat to be. Don't worry though; she's as healthy as can be. After William getting so sick, I took Lily to the vet her second day with us. A traumatizing experience for the both of us but also a necessary one.

Lily being older than William was is a bit more calmer although she also likes to play. She enjoys: feet (which she will lick and wrap her paws around to hold in place for more licking), sleeping on our bed with us at night, lying in windows at all times of the day, the red feather on the end of her teaser toy, drinking water out of my glass instead of her water bowl, and other cat like behavior.

I have not taken Lily's picture yet. After all, she is (remember) new. Even newer than the job. She is this Sunday new (aka. five days new). But I will take lots of pictures because she is very beautiful (Tiger pattern but darker than Tom and William's. Medium hair yielding a fluffy face and magnificent tail.). And I will be sure to post the aforementioned pictures.

Oh, my lunch break is no longer new. I had better get ready for my database training in, ek!, ten minutes.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Love

Hoober! (And his middle.)

Saturday, August 4, 2007

The Other Plans I Made

I never would have thought, stepping foot on the UMass campus, a young girl from a small town overwhelmed by magnitude, that this is how things would end up - that a place that I had thought of with a certain disregard would one day become thought of with pride as a home.

One day, turning my car towards the Central living area, held rapt by the massive buildings, all viable from University Drive,it hit me with such force as to almost make me cry that this place, this mega-university was a place I loved greatly, a place I would miss.

___

I never would have thought, coming to UMass with notions of a degree in astronomy, that I would end up graduating with a B.A. in English and a desire to work in Advancement. I could have imagined graduate school in astronomy at an East-coast school with stone buildings. (In my youth, every college was to me Yale.) I could have even imagined, late, and if I stretched myself, working in publishing because I was (and am) a lover of books (literature) and creating the written word.

___

I did not imagine, when I first descended the unkempt steps towards the basement of Memorial Hall to begin my job as a caller at the Annual Fund located there, that I would in the course of this one job fine a career and a sort of extended family in the staff of the Annual Fund, people that even now I am loath to leave.

___

Cliché as the phrase now is, John Lennon was right: Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.