remember?

do you remember those nights that spring, i asked, when we walked the gravel roads in sandals on clear moon nights, having to stop every few feet to remove stones from toes? and we stared straight up at sky as we walked, arm in arm, until our necks hurt? and then we lay down, not caring about the oil stains on our backs, to get a better view?

we were consciously making the memories then; making plans for when everything would be better and we would be happy. we were on the cusp of something. we knew it.

yes, i replied tonight, as i lay down in the driveway contemplating orion's belt and all the genius astronomers i studied in physics. i remember.

newsflash!!

susan enan is opening for tony bennett on july 7 in liverpool!!!

yayayayay susan!!
i'm so proud!

***end of newflash***

yikes.

ok. with sitemeter, it's quite easy to see where my site traffic is coming from, how long someone stays, what pages he/she looks at, et cetera. i can also tell how someone finds my blog based on another referring site. (btw, katy and sparrow: your sites have referred the most this week...) usually, folks find my blog based on someone else's link or from a link i've left while leaving a comment somewhere. however, sometimes people find me who aren't looking for me, as they do keyword searches on search engines like google or yahoo. and it is always entertaining to see what kind of keyword searches lead to me. typically it's a search for patty griffin or even hooded raincoats. however, today, someone found me based on these four words: free horse arse pics.

i don't know how to feel about this.
(this person did not stay long.)

so. if you forget my url, simply do a google search for me with the four magic words.
scary, isn't it?

chattanooga and books.

[note: jenna, this blog entry goes out to you, chicken. your city says hello.]

rachel had a great idea the other day. let's go to chattanooga for the day, she said. we can peruse used bookstores and write if we want.
rachel has good ideas. we went to chattanooga today.

it's not so long a drive to chattanooga (as jenna could tell you). the sky was hot and the walls of trees were blue. we parked on the street and headed to the stores, where we spent quite a long time. it only took about five minutes for my fingers to be dusty with history. i delved into the worlds of katharine hepburn and her african queen journals, photo books of idyllic america and ireland, (as i futilely looked for o. winston link books...), and the heartwrenching poetry of anna akhmatova. for about $30, i made out incredibly well. here is the booty:

anna akhmatova: poet and prophet (an exhaustive biography/commentary/portrait)
robert benson: living prayer
helen keller: the story of my life (ok, so i was watching the e! celebrity profile episode on melissa gilbert this morning and have had helen keller on the brain, i guess...)
anne morrow lindbergh: gift from the sea (i never have read this one all the way through...)
alice munro: the love of a good woman (have you ever read her stories? whew. they all undo me...)
and the book of common prayer c. 1945. as a good episcopalian, i felt it high time to have my own copy. and this particular copy still bears the personality of its previous owner, full of book marks and bulletins (funnily enough, from a lutheran church...)

at 101 degrees, rachel and i walked the very hot streets of chattanooga, and we spit into the tennessee river from a pedestrian bridge (the world's longest, at that) just to see and hear our saliva slap the water. (it was awesome.) we had good margaritas with salt slipping down the sides of glasses.

today was a very good day. and the thick richness of words seeped into my skin, i think. i felt like i really could be a writer, especially if it means that i get to spend days in used bookstores, digging for something good, through moldy dustjackets (because the treasure is always there.)

today was a good exercise in mindfulness, really: mindfulness like practicing scales.
and i think i may participate in some mindful sleep now.

pee ess did i tell you that i somehow got a B in physics?
it's true.
really.

needles poking in eyes.

God bless monday, when i will never have to think of physics again.

the cosmic lesson in my daily, 4 week-long, 7:30 am physics class (of which i missed one week): perfectionism is bad.
for a girl who has not seen a C since her sophomore year of highschool, high hope for a C this time is incredibly humbling.

to the final in the morning...
ugh.

pee ess

i found a penny in the hallway, by the elevators, on my way down to the breakroom to scavenge some animal crackers.

and we had another storm.
(my windows were rolled up.)

your local forecast on the eights.

today, the heat feels like cellophane.
and then i come inside the obnoxiously air-conditioned building, and have to put on my jacket: summer in nashville.

anyway. a well of good thoughts and poignant words has been accumulating in that dry soul i wrote about the other day. (strange how that happens, isn't it?)

karen sent me a taize meditation this morning, and i think it is beautiful:

"God has buried your past in the heart of Christ; forget in him what assails your heart."

what doesn't assail my heart, i'm thinking, with a chuckle. (a homer simpson, "it's funny 'cos it's true" moment.)
the current cellophane days are filled with scattered thunderstorms (the chance of them is typically 80%). and, like yesterday, it is sunny across the street as you're getting soaked on the way to your car. and you see lightning strike and hear God bowling a perfect game as you sport a new sunburn. and you hydroplane, when the next lane is dry. you drive into walls of rain, like a carwash.
strange days. yet it's all real and unpredictable. and i simultaneously flinch with fear and laugh at the ridiculousness of our scattered storms, as the sky goes orange and blue. the weather channel can't keep up.
it feels like a God's-eye view of the world.
the wonders never cease.