(to a Young Child)

Margaret, are you grieving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leaves, like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! as the heart goes older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you will weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sorrow’s springs are the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It is the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1880

• Average number of times between 10:30 & 11:20 am when a squirrel, holding an acorn, will pause outside the window of our basement classroom and bob back and forth: Two. (Coincidentally, also the number of times one side of the table will break into inappropriate laughter.)
• Things that seem less important once lying on the living room couch watching afternoon light play in the Maple tree outside: putting laundry in the dryer, doing reading for Monday, taking a picture of said Maple tree.
• Times when it would be good if someone came along and pried my fingers off of this world: every moment of every day.

I kicked and I screamed.

I plugged my ears and hollered at the top of my lungs.

But sooner or later, you have to give up…

… and admit that you are getting a cold.

*sigh *

In an imaginary book entitled “How to Write a Blog and Not Have People Hate Your Guts,” there would undoubtedly be a chapter dedicated to the prohibition of false promises.

This imaginary chapter in this imaginary book could easily use my blog as a case study of what not to do.

Take, for example, this quote from my last post, written approximately (*gulp *) three weeks ago: “I have a real, honest-to-goodness, more-than-three-sentences-long post about something other than photography coming soon, I promise.”

Ooh, there it is; the “P” word; and I don’t mean “photography.” Mom always taught me not to promise anything I couldn’t be 100% sure of delivering. I guess that lesson hasn’t quite sunk in yet.

So, look for a new post… someday. About something.

If you’re lucky.

I have a real, honest-to-goodness, more-than-three-sentences-long post about something other than photography coming soon, I promise.

But in the meantime… I finally posted some highlights from Sarah and Zeb’s wedding. So go check ‘em out!

Finals week has me in its grip right now, so I don’t really have time for words. I just wanted to share this photo, taken a few weeks ago on a brief jaunt to the river, which has been gracing my desktop and making me giggle ever since:

I think this shot sums me and my friends up pretty well.

You will buy me these.

I think I may have just died and gone to heaven.

(P.S. Just kidding. Not about wanting them… but about the whole “buy these for me!” thing. Just so you know.)

My roommate, Tiffany, comes back from spring break tomorrow. And although, while she was here, I was pretty good about keeping the overflowing containers of crap on my side of the room, in her absence I have spread piles of my own junk over every square inch of the room (excepting her bed).

Tonight I was telling another housemate, Teal, about this. “Tiffany better not come back early and surprise me,” I said, “I think she would take one look at the room and fall down dead.”

“Well,” Teal responded, without missing a beat, “At least then you would have a single room.”

…

Don’t worry, Tiffany. She didn’t mean it. I don’t think.

… who are willing, at a moment’s notice, to drop everything, come TP your car, and then leave you menacing comments about it on your blog.

Makes a girl feel loved. *sniff*

(P.S. Actually, it kind of ticked me off—at least until I found out it was someone I know that did it. )

1. I was mostly asleep when I remembered that I still had to blog tonight. Granted, I was mostly asleep on the chair in the living room, where I had been sitting trying to decide what to do with the remnants of my evening before I passed out, but it’s more dramatic if you imagine that I had to wake up, stumble out of bed, and force myself to blog. I want you to believe I have that kind of Dedication.
2. Speaking of bed… tonight is the first night in three nights that I get to sleep in my own bed. Last night I stayed at my roommates’ parents’ house, and the night before that I stayed at my parents’ house. It feels good to be back with my own pillows and blankets.
3. Can you tell I want to go to sleep?
4. Goodnight.
5. But first… I want you to know that I am currently wearing retainers (which I do several nights a week) that make it difficult for me to speak without slurping, and that I just spent a great deal of time in front of our bathroom mirror poking, prodding, squeezing, and generally trying to get rid of the horrifying zits that I photoshopped out of yesterday’s portraits. I believe this revelation is what’s known as “keeping it real.” You’re welcome.