• Halo on xbox
• A literal, tangible box full of games to get us through the Dark Months
• Warm weather during winter – warm enough to walk outside comfortably. Walks outside, even in the cold
• German chocolate
• Irish cream and maple whiskey
• Roscato (bubbly sweet red wine)
• Charcuterie boards
• Breakfast quesadillas w/ salsa, chips, hot sauce, saur cream, guacamole, cheese dip
• A bowl of pomegranate seeds – hail to the goddess of fertility and death
• Worcestershire sauce
• The sound my dad made when he walked past me by the door to the kitchen and noticed that I was listening to my partner’s heartbeat with one of his stethoscopes
• Stuffed peppers
• Library books
• Christmas lights
• Trinkets!!!!!
• Cinnamon roll coffee creamer in a mug of hot coffee in the morning
• The ability to reach out to any person you love who is inconveniently far away and talk to them when you miss them
• Spending time with family at the holidays
• Spoons
• Cat
• Edgar Allan Poe: The Ultimate Collection
• Mornings (also evenings) with my partner
• Jigsaw puzzles. Especially the one with the koi pond.
• Sudoku, crosswords, logic puzzles, anagrams, cryptograms, coloring books.
• The promise I made to my little sister that for as long as I am up and about and still breathing she will never run out of cooking oil or salt. This year I gave her glass bead mushroom earrings, bracelets, almond extract for baking, a scarf, a throw blanket, a lavender scented candle, slippers, and a glass liquid measuring cup. I spoil her more than I spoil most everyone else.
• Cowboy hats
• Chex mix, snickerdoodles, and frosted sugar cookies: the homemade holy trinity
• The pineapple we got my sister’s boyfriend for Christmas.
• He got her a bread maker. We are all about to enjoy the results.
• My sister’s stick and poke tattoos
• Christmas movies: Scrooge, It’s A Wonderful Life
• Winter break between semesters
• Blankets!!!
• A playlist of all our favorite songs from this year
• All the Christmas cards that I sent out, and all the cards that I got back (yours is on the way, if you haven’t received it already)
• We have always had a dining room table but now we finally have dining room chairs at the table. We’ll likely keep the piano bench for working on puzzles.
• Books
• Music library
• Philosophy & math
• Spooky podcasts
• True crime stories
• Murphy, who is goode
• Old family pictures.

In a saucepan with olive oil: a mirepoix of celery, onion, carrots garlic. Then slice up a potato and a roma tomato into the pan. You have to hold the vegetables in one hand over the saucepan and slice with a small knife the other – like that. Once the mirepoix is translucent or a little carmalized but Not Burnt, add a handful of uncooked brown rice and a smaller handful of dry lentils. Cover everything in vegetable broth and add a splash of vinegar. Add more salt than you think you need and some ground black pepper. Add a fuckton (unit of measurement) of spinach right at the end. Too much spinach. It’ll cook down. Drown everything in some kind of Italian spice mix.

This soup is really boring on its own, so you have to serve it with crackers. It’s also fun to add smoked gouda, parm romano, roasted sweet potato, and a garlic parm seasoning.

I’m trying to tell you something ’bout my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It’s only life after all.

Well, darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable
And lightness has a call that’s hard to hear
And I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it
I’m crawling on your shores

And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine

And I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind
Got my paper and I was free

And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine

I stopped by the bar at 3 A.M.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
And I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I’d been the night before
And I went in seeking clarity

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
We go to the doctor, we go to the mountains
We look to the children, we drink from the fountain
Yeah, we go to the Bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival, we stand up for the lookout

There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
Closer I am to fine

Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine

~ The Indigo Girls

“One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.”
John O’Donohue

“Taylor Swift is a poet who makes me feel utterly seen in my human experience, especially in my experience as a woman. Stay mad haters.”

~ Clementine Morrigan, @clementinemorrigan on IG, Dec. 20th 2023

she was not a lover,

not a warrior,

not a magician –

but a theif

a natural born theif

who invested in deep pockets, the pockets they don’t make for women’s clothes

a pirate with one leg

a raven

a crow

maybe even a swallow

collecting shiny things that caught her eye

to bring back home to the nest

that was already lined with the remnants of one cracked shell

but had never known the helpless cries or the warmth of a baby bird.

a moth

fluttering too close to the lamp

a moth

almost a mother

if the “er” had only been there

when she missed her carriage.

–

“I am no mother, I am no bride, I am King.”

~ Florence Welch

In no particular order, try:

• A brisk walk in the outdoors, maybe after dark in the snow on a clear night, or early morning. Look up.
• The smell of baking sugar cookies
• Peeling clementines.
• Broken concolor fir needles held close to the nose and examined
• Blowing out a beeswax candle and watching the smoke
• The sound of wood crackling on the nearest available hearth. Perhaps a woodstove.
• A string of Christmas lights, or that one specific kind of reindeer decorations
• A handwritten note to a loved one
• Chocolate covered almonds with coconut flakes and sea salt. Or chex mix baked in the oven
• Raw snicklerdoodle dough rolled in sugar and cinnamon
• Three big spoonfuls of honey, two cups of water, the juice from three lemons, and three shots of brandy in a saucepan until hot. Makes two full mugs.

Thank you.

The tiny dot of blue ink from the chemo port on his chest is a constant reminder to hold him a little more tightly, and not take a single moment of our life together for granted.

Merry Christmas.

Tenzin Chopak’s music is pure magic. Beyond a couple of live albums, you can’t find much of it on the streaming services; in order to aquire his music, you may actually have to go see him perform live (Naples or Geneva or Ithaca, usually) and buy his merchandise in person. I only ever see him live at Grassroots. He’s just made the tough decision to step away from being a caretaker of dementia patients in order to work on his music more of the time. The fundraiser for the next big project is open. Here is the Patreon.

Oh, and he’s also a fairly excellent wildlife photographer. The dark fairy prince man with the guitar and his piano magician buddy have my whole entire heart.

(Steve Rogers can share.)

Tenzin’s Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/fragile-legacy-94943507?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link&fbclid=IwAR0Z6dooqbQZrY6UVmbO1kncZtFaCejOASQ5Zyu1YSDP5K71ASoZ9ssZg0s

If you happen to have old CDs sitting around to which you will no longer listen because you use other music listening platforms or streaming services, I would also love to borrow them or adopt them for you.

Especially if they’re from these artists:

Jewel
Hozier
Florence
Wild Rivers
The East Pointers
Mumford and Sons
Aoife O’Donovan
Sarah Jaroz
John Mayer
Taylor Swift
Chris Stapleton
Gregory Alan Iskov
Nickle Creek
Rising Appalachia
Tenzin Chopak
The Dead Tongues
The Horse Flies
Billy Strings
The Lil Smokies
KT Tunstall
Maggie Rogers
Taylor Ashton
LP
King Princess
Lake Street Dive
Susan Tedeschi
Eric Clapton
Keb Mo
Big Theif
Melissa Etheridge
Taylor Swift
KC Jones
Alison Krauss
Port Cities
Patty Griffin
Brandi Carlile
The Duhks
Bob Dylan
Chris Thile
Yo Yo Ma

I also take recommendations.

My entire IG account is mostly just hundreds of photos of album covers that I like.

If you happen to have, or know people who have books (by any of these authors) to which you are no longer attached, I would love to have them. I know some people are at a stage in their lives where they are trying to let go of some portion of their book collections, but I am still very much collecting. At some point more bookshelves may be in order. Or a bigger home with a room that is just a library. Preferably with a secret door hidden somewhere in amongst the shelves.

I am a simple creature who does not ask for much. Just,

in no particular order:

Edgar Allen Poe
John Muir
Tamsyn Muir
Mary Oliver
Maya Angelou
Neil Gaiman
Derek Parfit
Joseph Campbell
Carl Jung
William Blake
Robert Frost
Andrea Gibson
Terry Pratchett
Loren Eiseley
John Lewis
James Baldwin
Stephen King (The Dark Tower series, specifically)
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Theraeu
Wendell Berry
Douglas Adams
Aldo Leopold
Pablo Neruda
Rumi
Carl Sagan
Stephen Hawking
David Whyte

Dr. Seuss

Ursula K Le Guin

Madeline L’Engle
Amanda Palmer

I know that libraries exist for a reason, but also I’m kind of book dragon who wants to sleep surrounded by my ridiculous hoard of superfluous possessions.

Still open to recommendations, as always.

I feel like this Christmas tree farm would be a good place for a wedding.

I’m not wanting fancy things in particular. These are enough.

“It’s not the long, flowing dress that you’re in
Or the light coming off of your skin
The fragile heart you protected for so long
Or the mercy in your sense of right and wrong
It’s not your hands searching slow in the dark
Or your nails leaving love’s watermark
It’s not the way you talk me off the roof
Your questions like directions to the truth

It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
Maybe we’ll get forty years together
But one day I’ll be gone
Or one day you’ll be gone

If we were vampires and death was a joke
We’d go out on the sidewalk and smoke
And laugh at all the lovers and their plans
I wouldn’t feel the need to hold your hand
Maybe time running out is a gift
I’ll work hard ’til the end of my shift
And give you every second I can find
And hope it isn’t me who’s left behind

It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
Maybe we’ll get forty years together
But one day I’ll be gone
Or one day you’ll be gone

It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
Maybe we’ll get forty years together
But one day I’ll be gone
One day you’ll be gone…”

~ Jason Isbell

“It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.”

Oriah – Mountain Dreamer – The Invitation

“Bans off our bodies.”

“Headin’ down south to the land of the pines
I’m thumbin’ my way into North Caroline
Starin’ up the road and pray to God I see headlights

I made it down the coast in seventeen hours
Pickin’ me a bouquet of dogwood flowers
And I’m a-hopin’ for Raleigh, I can see my baby tonight

So, rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama any way you feel
Hey… mama rock me
Rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a southbound train
Hey… mama rock me

Runnin’ from the cold up in New England
I was born to be a fiddler in an old time string band
My baby plays a guitar, I pick a banjo now
Oh, north country winters keep a-gettin’ me down
Lost my money playin’ poker, so I had to leave town
But I ain’t a-turnin’ back to livin’ that old life no more

So, rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama any way you feel
Hey… mama rock me
Yeah, rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a southbound train
Hey… mama rock me

Walkin’ to the south out of Roanoke
I caught a trucker out of Philly, had a nice long toke
But he’s a-headin’ west from the Cumberland Gap
To Johnson City, Tennessee
And I gotta get a move on before the sun
I hear my baby callin’ my name and I know that she’s the only one
And if I died in Raleigh, at least I will die free

So, rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama any way you feel
Hey… mama rock me
Oh, rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a southbound train
Hey… mama rock me
So, rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama any way you feel (oh, I wanna feel)
Hey… mama rock me

Rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a southbound train
Hey… mama rock me”

~ Bob Dylan

“Somethin’ happens when everybody finds out
See the vultures circling, dark clouds
Love’s a fragile little flame, it could burn out
It could burn out

‘Cause they got the cages, they got the boxes
And guns
They are the hunters, we are the foxes
And we run

Baby, I know places we won’t be found, and
They’ll be chasing their tails trying to track us down
‘Cause I, I know places we can hide
I know places
I know places

Lights flash and we’ll run for the fences
Let them say what they want, we won’t hear it
Loose lips sink ships all the damn time
Not this time

Just grab my hand and don’t ever drop it
My love
They are the hunters, we are the foxes
And we run

Baby, I know places we won’t be found, and
They’ll be chasing their tails trying to track us down
‘Cause I, I know places we can hide
I know places…”

~ Taylor Swift

“Build me up from bones, wrap me up in skin
Hold me close enough to breathe me in
The moon’s a fingernail
Scratching on the back of the night in which we lay beside

I held every inch of you
I wrote every line for you
I made time when time was all but gone
You’re the love I’ve always known

The night’s so dark and gray
But you’ve helped me find my way
Through the wild and wonders of this world
So take me with you now
‘Cause I need to show you how
I can love you better than before

I held every inch of you
I wrote every line for you
I made time when time was all but gone
You’re the love I’ve always known…

So, play it sweet and low
We’ve got nowhere to go
I am yours and you’re the love I know

I held every inch of you
I wrote every line for you
I made time when time was slow but gone
You’re the love I’ve always known…”

~ Sarah Jaroz

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. Once in a lifetime, perhaps, one escapes the actual confines of the flesh. Once in a lifetime, if one is lucky, one so merges with the sunlight and air and running water that whole eons, the eons that mountains and deserts know, might pass in a single afternoon without discomfort. The mind has sunk away into its beginnings among old roots and the obscure tricklings and movings that stir inanimate things. Like the charmed fairy circle into which man once stepped, and upon emergence learned that a whole century had passed in a single night, one can never quite define this secret; but it has something to do, I am quite sure, with common water. Its substance reaches everywhere; it touches past and present and future; it moves under the polls and wanders thinly in the heights of air. It can assume forms of exquisite perfection in a snowflake.”

~ Loren C. Eiseley, “The Flow of the River.”

“The best way to overcome it [the fear of death]—so at least it seems to me—is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.”

~ Bertrand Russell

“When I believed [that personal identity is what matters], I seemed imprisoned in myself. My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air. There is still a difference between my life and the lives of other people. But the difference is less. Other people are closer. I am less concerned about the rest of my own life, and more concerned about the lives of others.

When I believed [that personal identity is what matters], I also cared more about my inevitable death. After my death, there will be no one living who will be me. I can now redescribe this fact. Though there will later be many experiences, none of these experiences will be connected to my present experiences by chains of such direct connections as those involved in experience-memory, or in the carrying out of an earlier intention. Some of these future experiences may be related to my present experiences in less direct ways. There will later be some memories about my life. And there may later be thoughts that are influenced by mine, or things done as the result of my advice. My death will break the more direct relations between my present experiences and future experiences, but it will not break various other relations. This is all there is to the fact that there will be no one living who will be me. Now that I have seen this, my death seems to me less bad.”

~ Derek Parfit

“Fare thee well
My own true love
Farewell for a while
I’m going away
But I’ll be back
Though I go 10, 000 miles

10, 000 miles
My own true love
10, 000 miles or more
The rocks may melt
And the seas may burn
If I should not return

Oh don’t you see
That lonesome dove
Sitting on an ivy tree
She’s weeping for
Her own true love
As I shall weep for mine

Oh come ye back
My own true love
And stay a while with me
If I had a friend
All on this earth
You’ve been a friend to me”

~ Mary Chapin Carpenter, “10,000 miles”

“The sound of a bell
Still reverberating,
or a blackbird calling
from a corner of the field,
asking you to wake
into this life,
or inviting you deeper
into the one that waits.

Either way
takes courage,
either way wants you
to be nothing
but that self that
is no self at all,
wants you to walk
to the place
where you find
you already know
how to give
every last thing
away.

The approach
that is also
the meeting
itself,
without any
meeting
at all.

That radiance
you have always
carried with you
as you walk
both alone
and completely
accompanied
in friendship
by every corner
of the world
crying
Allelujah“

~ David Whyte

One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring. A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges. A March morning is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese.”

~ Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your placein the family of things.”

~ Mary Oliver

“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

~ Wendell Berry

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

~ Robert Frost

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”

~ J.R.R. Tolkien

“It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

   By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

   Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

   Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre there by the sea—

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.”

~ Edgar Allen Poe

“US vetoes UN resolution calling for Gaza ceasefire. The US was the only nation to vote against the Security Council resolution. Aid groups condemned the veto.”

~ CNN

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour”

~ William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthy and abhorr’d commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprison’d, thou didst painfully remain”

Shakespeare, The Tempest

Standing in mountain pose, “head over heart, heart over pelvis,” then hands up over my head, lean to the left, lean to the right, stretch, swan dive into a forward fold, halfway lift, back to mountain, dive into downward facing dog, upward facing dog, cat/cow, inhale/exhale, downward dog again, hop to the front of the mat, warrior I, warrior II, lean back for peaceful warrior, look up, lean forward for triangle, don’t lock the knees, don’t wobble, don’t fall, back to warrior II, warrior I, downward dog, same sequence on the other side, make my way to a seated position with legs folded, twist to the left, twist to the right, lean forward so forehead rests on the floor, same thing with the other leg folded in front, child’s pose, bridge pose, happy baby pose, corpse pose, then 75 crunches and 25 push-ups, twice, and 30 squats.

Every day, if possible.

The other day I “ran” on the elliptical for an hour at a 15 minute mile and I think it rewired my entire brain. Totally different set of neurotransmitters. Runner’s high felt lovely.

There’s a weightlifting circuit at the planet fitness 10 minutes from the apartment where I am training my muscularskeletal system to lift heavy things. A couple times a week. I am stronger than I was this summer.

Yesterday I went out for a walk around the apartment complex on my own and listened to music and the cold air stung my recovering lungs and there was a lot of coughing, and my socks were uncomfortably wet and cold, but I felt better after.

“You got to leave me now, you got to go alone
You got to chase a dream, one that’s all your own
Before it slips away
When you’re flyin’ high, take my heart along
I’ll be the harmony to every lonely song
That you learn to play

When you’re soarin’ through the air
I’ll be your solid ground
Take every chance you dare
I’ll still be there
When you come back down
When you come back down

I’ll keep lookin’ up, waitin’ your return
My greatest fear will be that you will crash and burn
And I won’t feel your fire
I’ll be the other hand that always holds the line
Connectin’ in between your sweet heart and mine
I’m strung out on that wire

And I’ll be on the other end, to hear you when you call
Angel, you were born to fly, and if you get too high
I’ll catch you when you fall
I’ll catch you when you fall

Your memory’s the sunshine every new day brings
I know the sky is calling
Angel, let me help you with your wings

When you’re soarin’ through the air
I’ll be your solid ground
Take every chance you dare

I’ll still be there
When you come back down
Take every chance you dare,
I’ll still be there
When you come back down
When you come back down”

~ Nickle Creek, “When you come back down,” Nickle Creek. Sugar Hill Records, A Welk Music Group Company. 2006.

“Find yourself another place to fall

Find yourself up against another brick wall

See yourself as a fallen angel

Well I don’t see no holes in the roof but you find yourself another place to fall…”

– K.T. Tunstall, “Another Place to Fall,” Eyes to the Telescope. Universal Music Operations Limited. 2005.

“Oh captain, my captain…”

The other night I woke up in a cold sweat and remembered that I haven’t seen my favorite button down shirt in months – possibly since last summer – and with all of the busyness of life it’s taken me this long to realize it’s gone. So this morning I took apart the apartment trying to find it – unsuccessfully. I got that shirt the weekend I stayed with my sister and went on adventures with the hillbilly rednecks she lives with in the trailer park. That was the weekend everyone thought I was in the psych ward but I wasn’t. I loved that shirt. Its loss was a devastating thing.

So today I went for a joy ride. I took Rt. 33 west over to Bergen and turned north on Rt. 19 over the railroad tracks, droveober the top of the hill into Brockport, found the plaza with the outlet where I first acquired the favorite shirt a little less than a year ago. I found the same shirt, it was the only one left on the rack, acquired the shirt, drove home. The drive is vaguely wet and grey and brown and quietly pleasant. Nice to get out of the house after being sick. Listened to Scott Regan on Different Radio, WRUR 88.5 FM – found some good music, it sounds like there’s going to be some live music at the Little Theater in Rochester again. He says Sarah Jaroz released a new album recently, must listen.

Went to the gym and got groceries with Steve Rogers. After dinner we put a comforter and some couch cushions down on the living room floor and played Halo for a couple of hours. I am still not very good at this game. I die and come back to life with embarrassing frequently, but at least I shot and killed a bunch of gnarley looking bad guys. My partner is being really excellent about being patient with me while I learn how to do this thing, and both of us are having fun.

This is all for now.

Last night we watched the first half of a movie and then drove through the pitch darkness and the pouring rain to procure a small black raspberry milkshake from a drive thru around the corner. Because I was really craving a milkshake. We blasted a song by Bastile through the speakers on the way home and then hid under the same umbrella on the short walk from the parking lot to door to the apartment building. And then we were home, in our lovely cozy little space – with our books and our piano and our christmas tree and our fairy lights and our cat and our comfy blankets on the couch. It feels like something out of an illustrated children’s book.

I am so happy.

Took a bath today.

Turned on the shower and let the room fill up with steam. Tried to just breathe. Made myself drink bottled water from the fridge. Water ran hot – not too hot, because that becomes unhelpful.

I think I’ve been suffering from dehydration which is slowing my recovery from the the upper respiratory infection. I’m going to try to see if I can find myself some broth, next. For now – just moisturize everything and sleep.