june 29

last night, by fortuitous accident, 7 friends and i had a pre-birthday celebration in the south end. a handful of the old law school crew, eating tapas and drinking ginger margarittas and so on.  it was a lovely and haphazard night, the sort of time that you can't have when you plan it. i felt very full.

so i can remember this night on my birthday this weekend, when i undoubtedly will feel very sad that there is no one to send me flowers. because even though that love is gone (or never was), the other love of good friends remains. and is sustaining.

june 28

i start a new job next week. i am cautiously hopeful that this is a very good thing for me. a step towards the future i want... believing in abundance.

the normal fears accompany me: will i fit in? will they like my work? what if i don't handle something the way my boss wants?

and, of course: what do i wear?

June 20: photos schmotos

city at dusk. on roof deck.

they had a ferris wheel in government center this weekend. i have a confusing but sincere fear of ferris wheels.

kimmy (my sister) adopted two little kittens. we collectively melted for them.

dave the man (my brother) and the other kitten.

father's day cookout. swimming all day in uncle herbie's pool. herbster is the one in the straw hat.

just relaxing by the toilet. the obvious place for tranquility.

we ate alot of meat at a bbq. here is melissa, demonstrating our accomplishments.

me and heather experimenting with new camera application. the mult-colored "CamWow" is a bit of a distracting disappointment. 

june 24: rain

june has been underwhelming (so far) as far as nice weather goes.

i think i made a grave error and drank too much coffee this morning... feel a bit all over the place.

update on the bed making/be more grownup plan i set in motion at the beginning of june: so far it is a smashing success. perhaps i deserve to purchase a delicious linen spray to reward myself on my crisply made bed.

june 22: love

"i love you like 20 tyrannosauruses on 20 mountaintops."

Anne Lamott's son Sam to her, when he was a little boy.

june 21: and i don't just say that to anyone

i was home for a few days this weekend, free from my jobs and unkempt apartment and shipwrecked romances. yesterday morning i made nana parsons a meatloaf and string beans (soggy, her preference) and walked them over to her apartment, per my mother's orders.

nana p is just skin and bones these days, so it is taking some prodding to make her eat. and most things she used to like--like potatoes, for instance, or coffee--she now says "don't agree with [her]" or she "is done with."

anyhow, i tried to make her eat the food, and she bustled (slow woman hustling) around the apartment, looking for things to give me. I walked away with a sample of the perfume "Angel" and two tiny corn muffins in a ziplock bag.

anyhow, as i was walking away to load my car full of clean laundry and head back into boston, she calls out: "I love you! And I don't just say that to anyone, you know."

june 16: fingers crossed

well, today began a bit rocky when the zipper on my suit turned out broken and then as i stepped out of my apartment realized it was raining. making the calculated error to walk up to a small store that sells overpriced umbrellas, i continued on. and got slowly soaked.

however, things are looking up now. i have a second job interview at 2, which leaves me feeling cautiously hopeful that my luck is about to turn, that this year interim of crazy times is coming to a close. i have also dried off and look (sort of) presentable.

june 12: maine weekend (4)

i just returned from the fourth annual maine trip, where i cart an unreasonable amount of law school friends to my family's maine house for the weekend. we did the usual: card games, walks around the point to the lighthouse, eating lobster, drinking a truly enormous amount of beer and cocktails.

it was cold this year, and rainy... which resulted in alot of inside-time. it was heart warming and excellent to be with old friends, to make new stories, to bond over the last years victories and bullshit, and to just generally recognize:

it is a wonderful life to have such good friends, to be respected and blessed. to laugh with an earnestness that can't be feigned, to switch between intellectual conversations and sexual jokes. to make fires and play silly games. to share this life with people who matter, and make this world (for me) that much better.

June 7: weekend recap.

Drinks at the Landing off Boston's Waterfront. Friday! Time for sugary booze and many straws. After this photo we wandered to Chinatown and feasted.

The sad state of my fridge on Saturday morning. Diet Coke, Vodka, Chinese leftovers, beets.

creepy self portrait. reading in the sun with Amy on Sunday. probably on the Greenway.

june 3

a series of lovely days, and mostly peaceful nights. 

resolution: make my bed every day. to start the morning clean and organized, to finish it in a calm tidy spot. on day 3. so far? triggers the sorts of good things i anticipated. 

also, i think i will pick up some fresh cut flowers this afternoon at Haymarket. because i like flowers and they make me feel happy.

june 1: a little inspiration (repeat)

whenever the day is beautiful and full and wide open, i find myself saying the first lines of this e.e. cummings poem:
_______________________________________________________________________
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day o life and love and wings and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

_______________________________________________________________________

I have loved this poem for years. I remember hiking over a mountain in the rugged Three Sister's Mountains in Oregon with John Berger, probably in 2002, and for some reason quoting this poem to him. I remember the expanse of sky and the striking landscape, but mostly the accomplishment of being fantastically present. present in a real moment.