never be afraid to sit awhile and think

1. When did you last move residences?
   mid-May, I think? This whole summer is a blur of packing and moving and unpacking and the pains associated therewith.
2. What song leaves you completely unmoved even though it seems everyone else is moved by it?
   anything by the Glee cast or The Bieber. They're way over-processed in an attempt to make up for no real talent.
3. On what kinds of mornings is it easiest for you to jump out of bed and get moving?
   I really only feel like that when I'm getting up to throw my stuff in the car and drive to a friend's house - the Cat-Beast's - for a weekend or something along that line. I'm really, really not a morning person.
4. What object do you get most annoyed about when people move it without letting you know?
   anything at work. The packing tape seems to grow legs and wander (and flip itself over, so that it attaches to the cabinet) regularly. Don't get me started on copy paper....
5. In what way are you waiting on someone else to make a move?
   I've made the first move toward a Serious Talk with someone at work. But in all other ways, my frame of mind is firmly in the "fuck it" arena; make a move at your own risk - that is not at all welcome.

[from The Cat, who got it here; the title quotation is by Lorraine Hansberry, from A Raisin in the Sun]

just hold on loosely, but don't let go

• If you could go back in time what would your current day self tell your 18-year-old self?
  
  • finish the Mass Communications degree - at least the Minor. It will pay off in ways you can't imagine.
  • stay away from Brian-the-Army-guy; he will break your damned heart.
  • take the $100 cash home before you go to the party, stupid.
  • when you get the chance to date the rugby-playing dishwasher: don't.
  • take every class you can from your mentor, even if they're a lot of work and he kind of scares you sometimes. It's totally worth it.
  • buy the flowered dress!
  • when you want to break up with Steve because he's got a kid and you think you're too young: don't. You'll regret it.
• Name one thing you could do to improve any important relationship in your life.
  I'm doing it--I'm letting go.
• If you were guaranteed honest responses to any three questions, whom would you question, and what would you ask?
  I'm not sure that I could ever really ask the questions, since it's a basic tenet of my life that I don't ask questions that I don't want to know the answers to. But I suppose that some part of me does want to know them, to whatever end, or they wouldn't be here, right? So, Counselor...
  • Did you ever return my affection, or was it always strictly business?
  • What was the deal with your boot heels on the edge of my bench? If that was just lunch between would-be colleagues, you should know that it sent a very different message that I spent it 'trapped' - and gratefully so - essentially between your legs. While we drank, relatively heavily, and talked off and on about sex.
  • When did you figure out that I was interested in you? Was it in the emails? Or at lunch? Or was it during the deliberation, or even before the regular jurors left the room? That was a bizarre game that we played, with the others who may not have even realized that they were playing. I wish I hadn't lost it so badly.

[from The Cat, who got it here; title quotation is from Hold on Loosely by .38 Special]

he who sings scares away his woes

"I Love the 80s!"

1. MADNESS: OUR HOUSE ... “I remember way back then when everything was true and when we would have such a very good time, and such a fine time, a happy time”....
   What is a funny memory of a parent, sibling or guardian in your childhood home?
   I was too young to actually have a decent memory of this, but it's become family legend. My brother, sister and I had a babysitter, someone from the neighborhood (which, if you know anything about where I grew up, tells half the story) - an adult, but someone we didn't know well. And she clearly did not have the measure of the three of us, because she was plunked down someplace else in the house, reading a magazine or something, while the three of us...had a mustard fight. In the kitchen. Which was surprisingly complicated, given that my mom was (is) the frugal sort, and didn't buy "squeezy" mustard, but rather the kind in the short, squat glass jar. God knows how we managed to sling it around the room, but we did. Well, I don't know how much I was slinging, but I know there was a lot of mustard on the [formerly white-painted] ceiling, on the cupboards and counters, and ground into the carpeting. It was kind of awesome, in the original sense of the word. I don't think that babysitter's services were ever employed again, and I doubt that she was paid for that night's "work."
2. MEN WITHOUT HATS: SAFETY DANCE ... “We can dance if we want to, we’ve got all your life and mine...as long as we abuse it, never gonna lose it, everything will work out right”....
   What activity did you do that would be considered dangerous or reckless?
   putting aside (for once) all my clearly criminal behavior, I'll say that flying to another state to meet a guy with whom I became acquainted on Facebook was, if not dangerous, at least reckless. That it turned out only to be bizarre was just luck.
3. FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD: RELAX ... “But shoot it in the right direction, making it your intention...live those dreams, scheme those schemes, got to hit me, hit me, hit me with those laser beams”....
   What was your dream job and what did you actually wind up doing?
   when I was very young, I only ever wanted to be a photographer. Of course, I had no idea what that actually meant, in practical terms (what sort of photographs would I take? For whom would I work? Where would I live? How would I actually make money, to live?) Once I started college and had a dose of that version of reality - which isn't the full version, but is at least more than that with which I'd started - I came around to my a new dream, which shifts and changes but hasn't ever left: I want to make a living through writing.
   Instead, I'm making a half-assed living through other peoples' writing. Isn't that just the way the world works?
4. MODERN ENGLISH: I MELT WITH YOU ... “I’ll stop the world and melt with you...you’ve seen the difference and it’s getting better all the time, there’s nothing you and I won’t do...I’ll stop the world and melt with you”....
   What is the most romantic getaway you have taken?
   hindsight being 20/20: 10 hours in Chicago.
5. THOMAS DOLBY: BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE ... “I don’t believe it! She’s tidied up again and I can’t find anything! All my tubes and wires, and careful notes”....
   What valuable item have you lost?
   in literal terms, $100 cash. During college, that was the equivalent of the entire farm, and I was financially and emotionally devastated for a long time afterward. In more metaphysical terms: it's got something to do with my feet.
6. DEVO: WHIP IT ... “Crack that whip, give the past the slip, step on a crack, break your momma’s back”....
   Were you spanked as a child? How were you punished?
   I was spanked two times, and I viscerally recall both the reasons for and the results of each event. The more frequent - and probably more consistently effective - punishment that I received was "a walk" with my dad. In my dopey naivety, it took me a remarkably long time to figure out what that meant. We'd start walking, get however far away from the house (proportional to my age and ability, I suppose), and when we were as far as we were getting, we'd turn around, and then Dad would heave a big sigh. "I've been thinking...." He would, in some open-ended way, lay out the problem (I wasn't pulling my weight, I was being a trial for my mom [nonstop from age 10 to when I moved out, I think!], I'd committed some violation of an agreement and failed to remedy it), and it was weighing on him. And it might sound lame or trite, but I know that it's true - I know that he wasn't just reading some parenting manual and following some expert's advice in how to do deal with "a kid like me." Because it really did work, and yet that's really my dad, too. I can still feel the sting of those conversations, of wanting to be...better. So I wouldn't make him feel bad about the bad stuff that I couldn't help but do. Childhood is hard.
7. ANIMOTION: OBSESSION ... “You are an obsession, You’re my obsession, who do you want me to be to make you sleep with me?” ....
   What is the oddest thing you ever did to get someone to like you?
   wow. Um, at the moment I'm more like to share my failures than my successes, so this is pretty awkward. I guess I could link to the other blog, where it's all laid out in horrifyingly graphic terms - but, no.
   I tracked down an orange camouflage cowboy hat, just to prove that I could. In the words of my friend Sparky, "Epic Fail."
8. TOMMY 2-TONE: 867-5309 JENNY JENNY ... “Jenny Jenny who can I turn to? You give me something I can hold onto... I know you think I’m like the others before, who saw your name and number on the wall” ....
   Who do you regret giving your phone number to?
   no comment. The walls have ears!
9. KAJAGOOGOO: TOO SHY ... “Modern medicine falls short of your complaints, ooh, try a little harder, you’re moving in circles won't you dilate? Baby try”....
   What is your favorite medicine or drug?
   Fioricet. It's made from a combination of butalbital (a barbiturate, 50 mg), acetaminophen (325 mg), and caffeine (40 mg). It is generally prescribed for tension or muscle-contraction headaches, but is also used as a supplemental prescription for migraines. It's got some interesting side effects, but as compared to a migraine, side effects are nothing. This stuff is amazing - for the purposes for which it is intended.
10. GARY NUMAN: CARS ... “Here in my car, I feel safest of all, I can lock all my doors, it’s the only way to live, in cars”....
    What was/is your favorite car?
    I think about this a lot, and I've yet to come up with an answer. It was obviously time to be done with my last car, the '02 Civic (manual). And the new one (the '11 Civic [auto]) is running right - though it still gets 1/4-1/3 lower gas mileage than the '02 did, which burns me. The worst thing, though? It's incredibly, terribly, horribly BORING to drive. I mean, I can't stand getting in it for a trip of any distance, because it's just...ugh. If you don't like to drive, there's no way I can explain this to make you really understand, but anyone who occasionally just gets behind the wheel to let go, for no other reason than to drive, you see what I'm getting at. I haven't just gone for a drive in months. What's the point? It's not fun. Surely there's a car that I can afford, that's safe, that's fun to drive. Right?
11. THE GO-GOS: OUR LIPS ARE SEALED ... “Can you hear them? They talk about us, telling lies, well that’s no surprise” ....
    What is the worst lie or rumor anyone ever told about you?
    that I know of? The first guy I ever kissed told "the world", with the help of one of my good friends, that we'd done much more than kiss. Up to that point, my reputation was spotless. From there, I was making up for something I hadn't really done.
12. DURAN DURAN: HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF ... “In touch with the ground, I’m on the hunt I’m after you, smell like I sound, I’m lost in a crowd, And I’m hungry like the wolf” ....
    What food do you crave so much you would brave a long line or travel a far distance to get it?
    I've moved too much to be like this, but there's definitely food in each place where I've lived, or even spent a lot of time, for which I'd happily travel. Around here, you can get some pretty good Mexican and a really good steak. In A2, I'd need a few days, to work through Marco's Pizza's breadsticks, Mr. Spots Philly cheesesteaks, and everything at the Gandy Dancer. In W-town, it's all about the donuts.
13. JOAN JETT: I LOVE ROCK N ROLL ... “I saw him dancing there by the record machine. I knew he must have been about 17. The beat was goin’ strong, playin’ my favorite song” ....
    What was the last song you paid to hear on a jukebox?
    probably "Fishin' in the Dark", at Shorty's - which has been closed for ages (since it burned down!). It's been a while since I've paid for music in a bar.

[from The Cat, who got it here; title quotation by Miguel de Cervantes]

the very meaning of one's soul

1. Adam Duritz (writer and lead singer of Counting Crows) mentions previous girlfriends in songs. In Mrs. Potter's Lullaby he sings “There a little piece of Maria in every song I sing.” Is there a piece of an ex that will always be a part of you?
   It's actually "There's a piece of Maria in every song that I sing", and the next line is just as important - "And the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings." This might make it clear that, yeah, I've thought about this quite a lot. The easy answer is that of course I'm still pulling along pieces of those who've gone before, whether exes or friends or family. Life isn't lived in a vacuum. The more complicated answer is that my 'Maria' is two-fold. First, my friend Heidi, who's lived hundreds of miles away for longer than we lived close by, is always with me in some sense, helping me hold it together. Second, the man I think of (for ease of explanation) as my soulmate left an imprint that won't go away - not that I've tried very hard to make it so. Right or wrong, they're in every song that I sing.
2. Who was your very first significant friend?
   her name is Jennifer, and, as she recently put it, "I believe we spied each other across a hot and crowded room, synchronized our Snoopy watches and never looked back."
3. What are four (4) things you hope to do this weekend?
   
   1. take my birthday present to the craft store for [custom] framing
   2. water the plants
   3. watch the Steelers game (possibly while wearing my obnoxious Steelers hat)
   4. post the pending book & movie reviews that have been piling up for the [work] review blog
4. What do you consider to be the main purpose of your blog?
   this one? God knows. It seems to be pretty aimless lately. Much like its author. An overhaul is in order, in all ways.
5. Tell us something that you've never before written about in your blog because it's too personal.
   tempting, but I don't think so
6. If you could choose your doctor, do you prefer someone of the same or opposite sex?
   I'm incredibly picky about my health care, and I'm completely unconcerned about unimportant issues like gender and ethnicity. I care much more about personality and the ability to make complex information relatively understandable. Sticking to a schedule is good, too.
7. If you could dream about anything tonight, what would the subject matter be?
   no dreams, please
8. How do you react to practical jokes when they're played on you?
   not a fan
9. What's on your agenda after this weekend for the upcoming week?
   work M-F, shopping with Shoe probably Wed. evening, returning the soup pot to Penny, seeing the dentist on Thur. (regular 6-mo. appointment), and otherwise lots of reading and sleeping

[from The Cat, who got it here; the title quotation is by Edith Wharton, and reads in its entirety: "There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul."]

of bad books we can never read too little; of the good, never too much

• Has reading a book ever changed your life? Which one and why, if yes?
  The Brothers K, by David James Duncan. I read it the first time the summer I was married. I'd bought the book through Book of the Month club, primarily because it had cover art that drew my attention.
  
  The book made me laugh harder than anything I'd ever read, and it made me think, and it made me cry, in earnest, in a way that I never had because of something that I was experiencing with my brain and not my body or my heart. It was revolutionary, and wonderful, and indeed life-changing. As soon as I'd finished it, I thrust it into the hands of my best friend and no less than forced him to read it. I've done the same thing with innumerable friends since then. It has been a while since I've read it - I think I'll start it again over Christmas.
• Name one book you had to read but hated, and explain why you hated it.
  J.L. Ackrill's A New Aristotle Reader. I read it for a course called Aristotle and Late Classical Philosophy, one of the last I took to satisfy the requirements for my Philosophy minor. My boyfriend at the time, who later became my spouse, also took the class, but for general education credits. We thought it would be "fun." It turns out that I'm not a big fan of Aristotle's philosophy (who knew?), and there was a boatload of reading for the class (during a term in which I was taking an overload of classes, working three jobs, and maintaining what could generously be called an 'active' social life), and my BF took surprisingly well to the whole philosophy 'thing', which was somewhat unanticipated since it was his first class. Yeah, he was the teacher's pet. He got the highest grade in the class. And I scrambled for a MFing B-. And that book didn't help at all: dry and irritating.
• If you could pick a book you’ve read to make into a movie, which one would you choose?
  The Man Who Wrote the Book, by Erik Tarloff. It would be absolutely delicious.

[from The Cat, who got it here; the title quotation is by Arthur Schopenhauer]

illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead

1. What was the best thing that happened to you this week?
   I got a bunch of new clothes: two sweaters, a blouse (and another one that I'm returning for a different one that's closer in style to the first one), a fleece jacket, jeans, and slippers.
   The worst?
   I've had some illusions...revealed as illusions. Which is hard. Better than basing any time or energy on something that's not true, of course, but still rough.
2. What's the best thing someone's done for you (recently or not so recently)?
   lately: sat by my side and let me put my head on her shoulder
   What's the worst thing someone's done to you (again, recently or not so recently)?
   lately: one of my friends has a tendency to say asinine things without realizing how foolishly he's behaving, and how what he says will make other people feel
3. What's the best thing about your job?
   at this moment, I'm struggling to come up with anything, but I suppose it's the puzzle. Almost every day, there is something that needs 'figuring out' to some degree, and I like that challenge.
   Worst?
   I really cannot get into it.
4. What's the best new website you've found?
   It's not new, but lately I've been spending a lot of time at the Jim Brandenberg Gallery site. I love his work, and I dream of outfitting my space with his photographic prints that evoke feelings of home.
   Worst?
   just the one to which I contribute on a daily basis in order to pay the bills
5. What's the best book you've read?
   that's a ridiculous question, considering who you're asking. How about a short list?
   • The Brothers K (David James Duncan)
   • Nice (Jen Sacks)
   • The Girl She Used to Be (David Cristofano)
   • Finny (Justin Kramon)
   • the entire 'The Song of Ice and Fire' series by George R.R. Martin (although I'm in agreement that the 4th is by far weaker than the previous three - and I'm very much looking forward to reading the 5th, to see what in the hell he's setting up with this seemingly senseless dervish)
   • What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (Charles Bukowski)
   • The Silent Miaow (Paul Gallico)
   Worst?
   I don't want to give anyone the urge to read them, and I don't want to make them findable through the blog. There are a bunch, though, and if you need to know, I can tell you one-on-one.
6. What's the best movie you've seen?
   Another list.
   • The Professional [Léon]
   • Trust
   • The Big Blue
   • The Big Bad Swim
   • Henry Fool/Fay Grim
   • Beautiful Girls
   • The Rundown
   Worst?
   one more time: no promotion of the bad ones. I'll let you know if you really need to know.
7. What's the best meal you've had?
   it's usually about the company, not about the food. If someone wants to change my mind about that, they're welcome to try.
   Worst?
   it's not the worst thing ever, but I over-cooked some eggs the other night. Burned eggs are really something.
8. What's the best holiday?
   oh, Thanksgiving, for sure.
   Worst?
   Thanksgiving, duh.
9. What's the best thing in your future?
   I suppose it's the very fact that the future itself is there. Today is just one day.
   Worst?
   my ARDC fees are due in about a month. I don't know why, but that is absolutely the worst bill to pay, of all the bills that I've ever had to pay. I wait until the last minute and then grind my teeth for the 5 minutes that it takes to make the online funds transfer. HATE it. Grrr!

[from The Cat, who got it here. The title quotation is by Sigmund Freud, and reads in its entirety: "Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces."]

when you walk in, the noise disappears

A is for Age: somewhere between majority and Aquarius
B is for Beer of choice: today, Molson Canadian
C is for Career: stagnant, stalled, and pathetic
D is for favourite Drink: tea
E is for Essential item you use everyday: antihistamine with decongestant
F is for Favourite song at the moment: "I Just Knew" by Better Than Ezra [the title quotation is from  here]
G is for favourite Game: ping pong
H is for Hometown: I don't know anymore
I is for Instruments you play: I probably shouldn't claim anything except some very amateur piano
J is for favourite Juice: pineapple
K is for Kids: signs say No
L is for Last kiss: August-ish
M is for marriage: not for a while now
N is for full Name: N is also for "Not Bloody Likely"
O is for Overnight hospital stays: not since my own birth
P is for phobias: dogs & heights
Q is for quote: "life is hopelessly frayed, all loose ends." [Lyn Hejinian]
R is for biggest Regret: today? Not accepting the clerkship.
S is for sports: I watch several, play a few (rarely)
T is for Time you wake up: too early - usually around 7:30
U is for colour of underwear: pink
V is for Vegetable you love: corn
W is for Worst Habit: stubbornness
X is for X-rays you've had: probably 95% of my body has been x-rayed, and the majority of it numerous times
Y is for Yummy food you make: I've got a consistently good lasagna recipe that's pretty adaptable to various circumstances
Z is for zodiac sign: Virgo, though it really only suits me in certain specific areas

[from The Cat, who got it here]

all creators draw in part on the work of those who came before

1. What was the last song you listened to that wasn’t sung in English?
   probably something by Shakira. Maybe Ojos Así?
2. One of our SS players generally leaves a critical comment on our memes. Which is fine. All's fair. Do you let meme authors know when you hate their memes?
   no, in part because I think it's rude and in part because my blog isn't a meme blog, per se. If I'm doing one, it's because there's something about it that I liked a lot - or I wouldn't have chosen it in the first place.
3. What TV show would you like to be on?
   CSI (the original series), although I'd make a pretty boring victim. I've got lots of identifying marks, I've had probably hundreds of x-rays done, and my DNA lives on (in outstandingly creepy form) in a little plastic "treasure box" in my parents' fire-safe. That's where the 12 teeth that I had pulled when I was little went, and since I never threw them out, I'm sure they're still there. All this adds up to an easily-identifiable victim and a potentially quick resolution. I would be the B-story for sure, which makes me sort of sad.
4. What was the last video game you played?
   bubbleshooter
5. Have you ever been in a musical? If yes, do tell.
   "in" in the sense that I've attended many of them, yes. "in" as a performer? Hell, no.
6. Do you follow your own style or everyone else’s?
   To quote the majority opinion in Alexander v. Haley (460 F.Supp. 40 (S.D.N.Y. 1978)), “Nobody writes books of purely original content.”
7. What’s the last store you bought from?
   I bought gas at the Clark station on the way home from work
8. In retrospect, have you ever let a person use you a lot?
   some people, in some ways, sometimes
9. What are you doing two days from now?
   with any luck, absolutely nothing at all. I'm really freakin' exhausted.
10. Did you ever believe there were monsters in your closet?
    no
11. When you graduated high school, did you let random people sign your yearbook or just close friends?
    just a few very close friends
12. Would you consider adopting a child that had a mental illness?
    no - but I'm also not in the market for a child without mental illness.
13. Does thinking about death scare you?
    not exactly
14. If you died, do you believe that you go to Heaven or Hell and where would your spirit go?
    "if" I die, I'm fairly certain that "I" will come to an end right then and there. My spirit, as such, will then be free to explore such possibilities as are made available to it at that time.
15. Who did you last write a snail mail letter to and why?
    my former spouse, in sympathy for the death of a family member. It's not a terribly rare thing for me, though.
16. Do you care what people say or think about you?
    you might be surprised...
17. Have you ever been threatened?
    yep
18. Which side of your family do you get most of your qualities from?
    physically, I'm a pretty even mix of both. Intellectually, I'm an anomaly. Emotionally, I'm probably more like the paternals. Spiritually, likewise. Strange....
19. What was the last thing with alcohol that you drank?
    last night, I had half a Sand Creek hard lemonade
20. Have you ever kept a relationship a secret?
    isn't that obvious by now?

[from you-know-who; s/he got it here; the title quotation is from Judge Alex Kozinski's dissenting opinion in White v. Samsung (1992); the passage reads in its entirety: “All creators draw in part on the work of those who came before, referring to it, building on it, poking fun at it; we call this creativity, not piracy.”]

do not pose and pretend

“Jeremy Taylor gives us some fundamental rules for prayer. And the chief of them is this: ‘Do not lie to God.’ And that curt piece of advice, so bluntly thrown down for us, is indeed all-important. Do not burn false fire upon God's altar; do not pose and pretend, either to Him or to yourself, in your religious exercises; do not say more than you mean, or use exaggerated language that goes beyond the facts, when speaking to Him whose word is truth.”

[A. J. Gossip, from Feast of Joseph of Nazareth, Continuing a Lenten series on prayer]

    I have been thinking about this lately, since I came across it while searching my computer for something else. While trying to wrap my brain around it, it has taken me in two distinct directions. The first, and more obvious (to me), is that it is a waste of time and energy to pretend to be something that we're not. God knows, after all, so what is the point? And anyway, it shows a lack of respect, or knowledge, or awareness. Or even self-awareness. What are you doing, if you are posing and pretending? Where does the truth leave off and the act begin? Or is it all an act?
     The other aspect to this is more public; it is about pretending before others. What does the phrase "church clothes" mean to you? Or, as some people I have known might say, "Sunday go-to-meetin' clothes"? For that matter, what does "churchgoing" mean to you? Or "God-fearing"? "Faithful"? "Religious"? Is it about the freshly-scrubbed child, well-mannered and quiet, filing into a sanctuary behind his parents like a duckling on Benadryl? Is it the teen--however rambunctious, as young adults are known to be--who nonetheless chooses to be a part of her parish's youth group, regularly performing acts of charity because she truly believes (or, even better, just because it is part of her regular, everyday life)? Is it an adult who has been through some hard times and trials, and come out on the other side with scars but also faith--whether or not that adult expresses that faith through organized religion? Or is it a member of the cloth, life lived in relative seclusion, seemingly untested by practicalities and experiencing something simpler than the rest of us can imagine? Is it, in other words, about what we seem to be, or is it about what we are, and believe, and how we behave based upon those beliefs?
    If we show up for church all shiny and obvious, and say all the stuff we are supposed to say, but cannot really tell when we are done what we said, much less whether we believe it or not, then is that not the most dangerous of the false fire? It makes others believe that the lie (or, at best, the negligence) is truth. What a huge lie to tell, after all. Since God, y'know, knows.

[I realize that this is way outside my normal boundaries. My brain's been chewing on this too much for too long to keep it to myself.]

the ruinous work of nostalgia

As an insomniac compulsively flips a pillow
to cool the cheek, I turn you over again & again
& again in my mind when I need the cold side
of the said affair to rail against
"the ruinous work of nostalgia."
If life imitates art, then each stillborn
has its own mucus-bright Blue Period.
Sharks keep moving to prevent dying.
People keep moving too, unwittingly staving off
the comfort of stasis, the virility of expiration, blah, blah...
But Death, the great highlighter, makes us all shine
a bit more dearly. I'm a widowchild who needs sunblock
against your blinding legacy. I used to get my cardio up
by just sleeping next to you. In a sane world,
I'd be bumped off to warn the others of a sky
so blue at the end of the working business day
if your veins hadn't stolen the purest
Pearl Paint blue first. A broken thoroughbred—
I need a passport & vertigo pills to reach you.
Godspeed, galloping into your Misty Blue
OMG I miss you.

[Jeni Olin, 'Pillow Talk', from Hanging Loose (reprinted in Best American Poetry 2011)]

brute manifestation of personal choice

“Somewhere along the line he’d simply stopped trying to plug the myriad gaps in his understanding of her heart. She was another person. And what for years had felt like a searing judgment on his soul he now viewed rightly as some brute manifestation of personal choice. It wasn’t the choice he would have made, God knew, but he could accept it. And somehow that acceptance, however humble or hidden, had allowed him to regain his dignity.”

[John Burnham Schwartz, in Claire Marvel]

the fox-demon

“The fox-demon often takes the shape of a beautiful girl. You fall in love with her and she leaves and you live for thirty days more afterward and die of missing her.”

[Alexander Chee, in Edinburgh]

and that could be the world

"There would be no action, no doing; but he'd be there. He'd be, and that could be the world. Sometimes it is nice just to see the face of the beloved--the excruciating pain comes later. And she could see him, maybe every day. Fine, she thought, as if she had made a pact with the devil and come out on the losing end--here's love, but it's attached to a string and a hook, and if you try to grab it, I will yank it back again and again."

[from This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park]