back to back

this morning my favorite pen ran out of ink. this pen has been my faithful and favored writing instrument for the last two and a half years. when i discovered this wonderful pen by chance in a bookstore i promptly bought ten of them. slowly, on-by-one the other nine disappeared. some were stolen by greedy hands. others gave in to an unfortunate structural flaw by breaking in half under pressure. still others were lost to the abbyss of my bag or fell out of my planner. i jealously gaurded that one last pen, careful not to let it got lost. i carefully tucked it away in the same place after every use so that i wouldn't misplace it. i even bought other, more inferior pens to use sometimes and make my beloved pen last just a little longer. it's hard describe just exactly why this pen was so great. Maybe it how small and light it was, maybe it was how finely it wrote. either way, i will miss my pen friend who stayed with me through thick and thin, writing endless notes and sometimes even thoughtful musings and doodles. thank you for sticking it out till the end and farewell.

naked conversations with cats

few things make me happier than quail season. i love seeing them running around in the bushes and across streets. they're so charming and i think the fact that they can't fly is endearing. i love the little feather on their foreheads. quails are definately birds with style.
i've loved quails ever since i was a little girl when a family of them lived in our yard for a few days every spring. their return was so exciting to me because they were exotic and adorable. one of my brothers would spot them in the yard and yell for everyone to come see and we would stand watching them in awe from behind the sliding glass doors. one year a couple of the babies fell into the pool and drowned and i cried over their sad, bloated little bodies. they had trusted me enough to come stay in my yard where they thought they would be safe, and i had failed them. when we got a pet cat they stopped coming and i resented them for scaring away my little friends with fancy headdresses.

tinkling the ivories

You know how there was that really awkward moment in About a Boy when the crazy mom starts singing Killing Me Softly with her eyes closed? Well I had that same kind of uncomfortable moment today in class of all places. I walked into my last class of the semester to find that someone was playing the piano that sits in the front corner of the lecture hall. I thought that this was odd, but they were playing beautifully and although it was weird I didn't mind so much. Then a minute or two later the singing started. It was soft at first as our impromptu serenader scanned their audience furtively to gauge the reaction. Then slowly the volume increased as did the passion and enthusiasm. Their eyes closed as they belted out the lyrics. This is when I started to squirm. It was too intimate and soulful for the this room with its bright florescent lights and beige carpet. Please, please stop I thought as the hum of conversation in the room continued in spite of the heart, and occasionally ear, wrenching ballad of the middle aged Sarah Barreilles impersonator singing her heart out. I wanted to laugh and cry and leave the room all in one uncomfortable moment.

scratchy sasquach

To the girl who I have seen wandering campus without shoes on:

Do you not have shoes? Are you on a shoe fast? Is this some form of protest? Do your feet get severely claustrophobic if you wear shoes? Do you have an irrational fear that if you put shoes on you won't be able to take them off? Did you have a bad experience in your childhood with shoes? Perhaps you lost one shoe and decided to just go shoeless instead of only wearing one? I hope no one stole your shoes. Did you lose a bet? Are you trying to feel more connected to Mother Earth by removing any barriers between you (do socks not count as a barrier)? Are you just in so big of a hurry in the mornings that you forget shoes altogether? I'm obviously very concerned about your lack of footwear and possessed with a desire to know why you choose to forgo what I feel is the basic right of all human beings to wear shoes.

slice

i would like to know the thought process that preceeds a worm's decision to leave the grassy ground in favor of the sidewalk when it rains. i genuinely feel sad when i see their little bodies writhing on the cement. today when the side walk was so full that i couldn't avoid stepping on them, i wondered if this was possibly some kind of mass suicide. I could just see a charasmatic, yet deranged worm named Gary convincing his fellow worms that they must drag their bodies to the sidewalk in order to await the arrival of the mystical Shoe which brings nirvana.

when i was a litle girl i would occasionally visit my great-aunt fawn in the summer. we would go to the pool together and on our way there, sometimes there would be worms on the sidewalk who had fled the water from the sprinklers. she and i would pick them up off the sidewalk and throw them back into the grass. she told me that we had to save them because they didn't know any better and couldn't save themselves. everytime i see worms on the sidewalk i think of aunt fawn and i want to throw them all back.

Excuse me. I'm sorry, but can I sit there? Thank you. My name is Amelia. Nice to meet you. No, I'm from California. Southern California, in the desert. It's called Hemet. There are lots of cows there. I don't really know, there are just lots of dairies. I've never really liked cows very much, they smell. And they make me nervous. Why? Well, I know it's weird, but I'm always afraid that I'll end up that one unlucky person that you hear about on the news that is killed in a freak accident where a seemingly docile cow charges. I know it's completely irrational, I feel the same way about ducks and geese. I like feeding them, but when they swarm around me I get scared and have to go back to the car. You too?! Well that makes me feel better. Where are you from? Oh, really? I've never been to that part of the country. I've always wanted to go to South Dakota just to see if it really exists. Well, this is my stop so i have to get off now. See you. Good luck with the ducks.