retiring a notebook

highlights from the Book of Everything that has gone with me [almost] everywhere for the last 2 1/2 years:

"It might be best if you think of me as a terrible advisor." -Mike G

"I don't generally do math for fun"
-Alex, 9/8/2005

"Something rhymes with can't, but not fact . . . and that's a fact"
-Grant, 9/16/05

two brown pigeons in a flock of two score, or more, echoing the way (that) today, fall looks like an old man, fading and curling and waiting for death to come, marching stoop-shouldered into the gray. the sun peeks through these trees and casts odd shadows onto my page, my hands the not-yet-gnarled limbs of a tree that doesn't belong in this season.
11/15/05

this is probably the most valuable experience i could have had today. nevermind all the things i could or should be doing--there will be time for all that. it's january and it's 60 degrees; i should be sitting outside on a blanket with other people, reading, writing, relishing the sun. this is the sense of community, the relationship of books to grass, that i was looking for when i came to college. days are few, and days like this are fewer. if my plan is to live without regret, i will take this opportunity and every other one like it. school can wait--this is life.
1/13/2006

"I know, nerds are supposed to play chess, but I don't."
-Doc Stewart, 1/16/06

PEOPLE ARE FUNDAMENTALLY GOOD. and i love the times when i am unexpectedly reminded of this.
2/11/2006


Do nothing without meaning.


Sermon: "God's Gift of Sexuality"
Reverse: "Single Parent Dinner"

"I don't like tomatoes because they make my bones rumble like a tractor."
-Jack, age 4

i feel best about my life on bus rides...train trips...long car rides (especially when i'm not driving)...maybe i just feel good when i'm moving...
8/7/2006

Judy Shepard, 2/7/2007
"You are who you are, and you love who you love, and that's just the way it is."
"The most important reason to be here, to be a human being, is to love and be loved in return."
"We hate what we don't understand."

"There is limited time in the world. You will not be able to do everything you want to do. You will be able to do a surprising amount of what you want to do."
-Amanda G, 2/23/2007

"I'm going to be a speech therapist when I grow up."
"Does that mean you're going to speak Chinese to people so they calm down?"
-Andy, age 12

"I say 10%, plus or minus 9%."
-Prof. Michele DiPietro, 3/22/07, on the percentage of the population that is gay or bisexual.

i forget who i was talking to, it was probably c*, when i said i feel like mary poppins...i'm really starting to believe this, that it's my job--my purpose, if you (or i) will--to meet these people and fix (things for) them and then when they don't need me anymore, to move on...the problem is that, like those kids, they don't seem to realize at the same time i do that they don't need my anymore...
AND WHERE DO I COME INTO THIS?
the sky is blue...why isn't the air blue?
3/25/2007

walking to class in the morning is positively cinematic when the soundtrack is good.
3/29/2007 7:55 AM
"woman" - wolfmother (DRAG NUMBER NEXT YR)
"cold day in the sun" - foo fighters
"hunger strike" - temple of the dog

"Dudes already know about Chris. Ladies also already know about Chris. It's okay to vandalize Chris."
-@ the bowling table

African Music & Dance Ensemble 3/31/07
i love watching the people in the audience at concerts...it reminds me more and more of that Lily Tomlin sketch with the aliens: "The play is soup. The audience is art."

[a big red section of my notes from Ann Coulter's lecture that still makes me angry when i look at it, even if i don't read any of the words]

IS THIS A PLACE OF MANY SOULS,
OR JUST ONE VERY LARGE ONE?
i love that there is so much going on all at once right now...music and juggling and talking and reading and people...children and grown-ups and students and teachers and friends and lovers and Watchers and Doers and Seers and Feelers and Knowers and all- and none-of-the-above...take me and make me know i am one of you
part of you
you . . .
4/20/07
schenley plaza

i'm in the odd and frequent position of knowing i need to write something and not being quite sure what. i see an old man and an old woman lying on the grass [the way i like to do with people i am dating], and i feel hopeful and jealous. i just checked slaughterhouse five out of the library because i've never read it and kurt vonnegut just died. the sky is blue and there is a long line at the chinese food place behind me. these are all places i could begin.
5/7/07

"...her eyes were great big blue things with timidities inside"
-Jack Kerouac, On the Road

ominous awkwardness

Rhododendron "Sappho"

"I have a childhood memory of my mother and father beating a squirrel to death with golf clubs."
-Stan 7/9/07

"I'm not getting upset. I'm just stating a fact irritably."
-Keith 8/15/07

"You're not supposed to say it. This is a secret conversation."
-Willie 8/27/07

"...so i plunged my hand into the flaming hot jello..."
-Lorin 9/10/07

i listened to "Nights in White Satin" on the way to class one morning last week...and, Wow.

Brendan Fay 10/10/2007
"people longing for an equal place at the human table"
"Love is the core of what it means to be human."
"The problem in the Catholic church is the silence of the majority."
"Don't let the Church get in the way of your relationship with your God." -Fr. Mychal Judge

"I wanna solve mysteries with the 59U. It'll be my Mystery Machine!"
-Chris 11/3/07

11/6: my red-is-gray-and-yellow-white flowers are all gone.

Pow-wow in Dorseyville
(i am starting to rememver that when i feel the need to talk with someone, there is a reason.)
i sat near this person on the 59U and thought, "there is God in this man."
11/13/07

"...there's undead zombies waiting to eat you at every turn...well, that's kinda like Monroeville"
-Lauren C, 11/26/07, on how WoW isn't like real life--mostly.

"I hope it snows all night."
"We'll still have class in the morning."
"Of course we will, but it'll be like walking through a fairytale."
-kid in my ASL 3 class, 12/3/07

The Pennsylvania Carpenters Greater Regional Council has an enormous christmas tree in front of their building.
12/30/07

Haley Bonar - "Lure the Fox"

"I have hobbies. They're in storage."
Amanda, 1/20-21/08