AYAYAY


I can't explain my love for this man. Put him back at short, where he belongs.

(I saw the Dodgers today)

I'm off to the forest!

PS Laura - I haven't seen the end yet. And apparently Season 2 doesn't come out until Sep. 12 (!) so... it might be a while.

Cure

Funny - when I need to write it out most, I don't. Or can't.

Maybe if I start with a list, or something objective:

James is here. I'm excited and happy and worried about being a good host. I hope he understands.

I've been spending all my time with Mel. I couldn't love her more. I've always liked that phrase, the way it says that I love you and the way that it says I'm trying. Those, together, are the sweetest things.

I took to wearing headbands, but right when I fell in love with the predominantly feminine accessories, I got my hair cut. Even if they're unnecessary, I'm rocking them. Thx to Megan and Mel for the Adidas 3-pack ft. pink, purple, and white.

It's still there, in the back of my head - what is it? Something weighing on me, not bad, maybe, I don't know. I feel like I'm struggling with a lot of things, while at the same time I feel contented. Man, I should just start a LiveJournal.

KTHXBYE!

Junebug

My favorite moments at home are when we are sat, the four of my family, around the dinner table. Where we talk, or laugh, or don't (oh, and eat - we do that too). Where I can watch the most important things in my life interact and I can love them: a face, a smirk, a story and the familiar grace in these nuanced, connecting gestures. It's with a similarly attuned eye, then, that I watched Junebug, a film of family and the problems and responses its love comprises.

There are plenty of interactions here: quiet and loud, between siblings and strangers, between generations and across obstacles impossibly large, invisible only to the eye. The premise: a young man, George, brings back to his Carolina home a city-suave wife, and she doesn't fit in, not exactly. But, thank goodness, it's not a simple case of outcast vs. hard-to-break family, and as the movie spreads its generous reach, it becomes clear that in fact few things fit together very easily. Instead, the characters have convincingly realistic and identifiable methods of - and this won't sound right - dealing with each other. What I mean is loving each other, but where dealing sounds harsh, loving comes off as zealous and overly happy. So think of where they overlap, which is likely to occur more often than you'd think. It's also why we watch movies like Junebug, portraits of unremarkable people in seemingly unflattering circumstances. Maybe resolution doesn't come, but it's not the angles (or lack thereof) at fault, and so it's not as frustrating as it would seem. Our omniscience shows us there's an undeniable graciousness, really, it's not so sad, in the pockets of this film, in the inherent loneliness and the admirable fortitude of family.

It's this kind, honest eye and deft acting which set Junebug apart from similarly quirky movies by lending it a warm-yet-substantial weight. As in reality, there are no protagonists or villains per se, only faults and mercies, mistakes and the way we deal with them, the way we always try (there is one particularly heartbreaking scene where Ben McKenzie's younger-fuck-up-brother character is trying, desperately, to do something for his wife, surprisingly selflessly - though it doesn't work out, there's a feeling of assurance that it will, another time, it will). And, true to life, there is an inaudible dinner scene where the glances and the faces say it all, and we glimpse contented hearts, people loving as we have.

Dear Davis,

Thanks for having me. Giving me a job, a plan for the future, a good time and a gnarly hangover. Truly, it was good to be back.

(And about that plan for the future: looks like I'm graduating on time. Who would've thought?)

Played baseball today with Team Treetop. 0-3 (eep!), one walk, two plays at third. Um, perhaps "defensive specialist" will be my calling card. Whatevs, though, because we won.

June is going by way too quickly - I feel like I've just begun what was to be my relaxing month at home, only to realize that it's racing by, and I've made more plans than I had thought.

Go USA!

Happy Birthday Megweg/Cavewoman


I fixed some gourmet sandwiches for lunch!

See that? I built it all.

I went on a bike ride!

right place, wrong person

I fixed some gourmet tapas for din!

similar to this, really

I am in Davis tomorrow! Everybody: come see me!

Who you're looking for (glasses no longer broken).

Load of This


I left my heart in Edinburgh. Do you know what love is? There is a Fiery Furnaces song whose title, I think, couldn't describe it better: "Teach Me Sweetheart." Think about it, it's all there.

Home has been wonderful, and I couldn't love my family any more.

Bedtime, because this couldn't possibly get any sappier.

Everyone Needs an Editor

It's June, which means 2K6 is half-over. Take it in stride, take it in stride, take it in stride...

So, for those of you who missed my latest Foreign Correspondence, it's because it didn't exist. Not physically, anyway (it is "unsatisfactory"). However, like everything I do, it does exist on the Internet here.

Here's something I wrote last night:

I was just kicked out of 6/2 Darroch Court yesterday morning, ten a.m. Forcibly, too, as our witch of an Accommodations Manager collected keys for the final inspection with me still struggling to sort a few piles of random junk in my otherwise barren room. In the courtyard, then, I sat on the wall in early sun, a shoebox of paper, two coats, a bag of batteries and six or seven books all at my feet. I didn't know what to do.

Perched atop that wall, one of the last to leave Darroch, I felt like a survivor. I had come and stayed and now been spit out, dizzy and sleepless and finally breathing deep through an insistent grin. It had been a propulsive ending, forceful and fantastic, full of movement (my thing!). I suppose that's the way something like this is meant to end, hurried and harried by the slow yet steady accumulation of curiosity and regret over the span of months.

And so I made my best effort: seeing friends, laughing and trying and making promises I want to keep, I really do. Taking trains through Europe, keeping my eyes open, still trying. And saying good-byes that pull me a hundred terrible ways, pull my heart up my lungs toward my throat, good-byes so tremendously unfair they leave me feeling sick and humming inside with disbelief. (About good-byes: "Everyone struffles against despair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It's the thing that lets us say goodbye." That's from Middlesex, and I'm strill thinking about what it means.)

Anyway, I'm not despairing. That would ruin my momentum, which can't be rebuilt, at least not in the same way. I guess I've discovered this too, that the excitement of moving, of momentum, isn't as broad a feeling as I had thought. It's tied inextricably to the events which birthed it and fed it: it's got shape and it's got nuance. What I'm feeling is more unique, more special than I could ever imagine. It's because of this that I feel a thanks is in order, to my loving friends, of course, and beyond: to the laughing and the trying and the trains and the good-byes that press so hard. To the Accommodations witch and her kingdom, to everything behind my grin and all the excitement and optimism and wonder it entails. Keep in mind that I still don't know what to do, except maybe keep trying.

***

As you may have gleaned from the above, I was in Europe just recently. With my awesome (former) flatmate Nick. I suppose I could put up pictures later. Thanks to Emily for being a gracious host in beautiful Angers.

I will write in this blog more, now that I've got the time. Or at least I expect to have the time. Do you realize that everytime someone says that, they completely disappear, like, three posts later? I'll try not to have that happen. I've almost been doing this for a year, 160 posts.