stop snoozing?

When my alarm went off this morning, I turned it off. Didn't just hit the snooze* button---turned the whole thing off**. Which means that, when I actually finally did wake up on my own accord, it was 8.30. A whole half hour into ENG 251.

There was that moment of blind panic: kicking my comforter off and leaping to my closet, pulling on a jacket and dirty jeans, stuggling to find matching shoes. I was hurriedly pulling my hair into some sort of acceptable ponytail when it dawned on me: pointless. Utterly pointless. By the time I got to class I'd have all of fifteen minutes left. Even Hawthorne isn't worth that.

So I painted instead.

* * * * *

*snooze: does anyone else find this word as disturbing as I do? That nasal double o, the sticky z ending . . . there's always that momentary spark of disgust every morning I see it glowing on my cell phone screen---'snooze?' it says. I hit 'yes.' 'Snooze on,' it declares. Ick.

**I honestly haven't done this for at least two years. I'm still kind of sort of in shock.

catalyst

Last night I came home from the late night showing of Orfeu Negro with a swing in my step and the insane desire to dance.

Follow you home,
You've got your headphones on
And you're dancing

This morning I woke up to sleet and snow and set about clearing out my desk to the latin beat of Santana's Satellite.

Y por tu cielo navegar
Abre tu corazon y dejate llevar
A otro mundo vamos a llegar

Tonight I wrote it down, made it official. I've been saying it far too long (and thinking it even longer), but this time I'm quick-quick-slow stepping into it:

this is the year I learn to salsa.

Next Time,

I'm going to hike the Abel Tasman Track, all five days of it.

We'll build a tree root hut on Rabbit Island and live there for at least an entire day, if not more. I'll weave the walls and you will fish and we'll float in that calm blue water until we've been borne across the bay and have to swim back to shore, running to our stick-and-stone hut, slap-slap across the sand.

I'll spend every single day outside, be it hiking, cycling, kayaking or running.

We won't be afraid to wave at him maniacally from the bus. He loves you, we know that now.

I'll take every offer to go out of town, be it Punakaike or Rotorua.

I'll eat a chip with tomato paste. One chip. Maybe.

We'll take the bus to Kaikoura, just the two of us. We'll pretend we're British tourists and say things like "jolly good" and "blimey!"

I'll stay over at Georgia's and we'll map out a rough draft of Footsteps on the Window. She'll still direct, though I'm not sure I want the lead anymore.

I'll do everything I did before all over again---not because it wasn't right the first time, but because we couldn't have done it better.

(And Salome won't get away so easily. Next time, I won't let her fall.)

raspberries!

Someone's left little yellow post-its all over campus---boards, benches, fence links, door handles, you name it---with the pen-written reminder "I love you."

Praise the people, I want to write this person back. He's made my day.

top five : moments of the day

5. Flashback to afternoons spent riding my bike through Hope, making me run a little bit harder.

4. Cut-and-paste doodling in my journal.

3. A call from the Fantastically Fictitious---he's coming to visit tomorrow!

2. Lexi Khan's Most Brilliant Discussion on Darfur at Students for Africa.

1. Vacuuming dirt from X's sheets as she lay there laughing at the idea that she'd just been awakened by my lovely potted plant toppling from the window sill onto her head.

post-patrick thought

I always figured that wearing green was a part of a childhood past; that the whole pinch-punishment was something to forget after elementary years. I mean, I think that---and then it's the morning of the seventeenth and I find myself threading a green necklace around my neck and slipping on my green sandals.

I'm outside all that day, passing crowds of students, families, couples. I begin to tally up the wearers-o-the-green, ticking them off on my fingers as they pass by. I am gobsmacked. They are all wearing green. Young, old, inbetween. Green, green, green. I passed a hand-holding couple that had coordinated their Patty's Day attire from green t-shirt to painted toe. I love that we are all so influenced by the whims of society.

* * * * *

On another note (albeit still green), I was once green girl. Green's girl, rather. Oh, the color-coded relationships of seventh grade . . .

flyers and ducks and pda--oh my!

I know, I know, you've heard entirely too much of me lately, but I'll make this quick. In short, Divine Comedy freakin' rocks. Tonight's show was, without contest, the best I've ever seen. From Disney princesses interrupted to Easter gazelles to idiosnyergy and philosophers speaking in hubris I was absolutely non-stop laughing. It didn't help that the central show---The Wizard of the Wilk---was spot-on; I'll be quoting that one for days.

And, in keeping with my J-named boys, I'm in love with Jono.

In love with Jono!

Iiiiiinn love with Jono, step in time, In love with Jono, step in time. Never need a reason, never need a rhyme: step in time, step in time!

Okay, so maybe you had to be there.

Pyrotechnics!