with you.

"I can't believe how empty your house is."

"Believe it, Serge."

"I don't want to," he said. "If I believe it then it's real, and then you're —"

Serge cut himself off, and the six-foot frame lanky before her turned away.

"—then I'm gone?" Hannah offered. She was wearing a pair of jean shorts and an oversize grey t-shirt she'd stolen from an ex-boyfriend. It was hot in her apartment, but they had already removed her window unit.

"Yeah," Serge said.

Repeating him, "Yeah."

"I'm going to miss you." Serge was still faced away from her. He was fiddling with her curtain. It was one of the only things left in her bedroom. This curtain and a slew of dust bunnies where her bed used to be were the only markers she'd been there at all. Hannah was thinking of just leaving the curtain there, but when she remembered how much it had cost her at World Market, she decided on keeping it.

"I know," Hannah said. Her face was soft and warm, the kind of face that a child has but is supposed to lose when they grow up, but hers stayed the same — big eyes and round cheeks, and just one freckle left of center on her nose.

Hannah wanted to say she would miss him too, but she didn't want to give him the wrong impression, which is to say, she didn't want him to think that this was the time for him to profess his love for her. It was too obvious, how much Serge loved her. And Hannah had known for a long time. She had known and she had let him sit with it because she cared about him, but not in that way and couldn't help that she was the only person who could make his unrequited love requited, but she couldn't actually. We all think how simple it would be if love was returned when it was offered. It's not fair, though, life.

You love who you love, Hannah would catch herself thinking after spending the day with Serge. Then she would text back and forth with whoever guy of the week she crushed on at the moment. And of course, those texts would go no where, and she would be alone, and Serge would be there, until one day he wouldn't be, because eventually we have to leave those sorts of situations. You settle so that your heart stops aching. You settle because you think it's the only escape from the continual brokenness that's yours until it's not. But, you always know you're settling, and the ache dulls, but it doesn't stop existing. It's just a soft stab...a shard of glass from a broken vase that shattered months earlier.

 "I know, too," said Serge. He wanted to say he knew she wanted to love him. But needs, wants, desires, unrequited, some things just are those and nothing more.

Serge looked at her; he wanted to grab her hand, wanted to hold it, wanted for his to be the hand she wanted to hold. He wished he was wearing his shoes, but he wasn't, and he suddenly felt like he shouldn't be there anymore. It would be awkward though, to just say he had to go and then have to spend a few minutes locating his shoes and then putting them on. He couldn't just up and leave.

 "Can you help me with this?" Hannah had broken eye contact with Serge. It was all too much. She was pointing to the curtain. It was white, and the bottom of the fabric had what looked like a summer grassy motif printed on it. It looked like an afterthought, and every time Serge had seen it in the past he thought that.

Serge turned to face her again, resigned to his shoeless feet.

"You're sure you want to bring it with you?"

"No," she said, brushing a loose hair from her eyes, a motion that undid Serge. Four feet apart might as well have been a world away, and they both knew it.

There was too long of a silence.

"It's better than nothing," she said.

Serge moved to the right of the window and began loosening the rod.

"You're right."

Unlikely Acquaintances Who Become Friends.

There are thirty-seven cars on her street right now. She knows because she counted them. Earlier, Joanie (don't ask, she hates her name) went for a run...what was going to be a run, and instead, she got sidetracked into a conversation with her neighbor Manuel (that's pronounced Man-Well, not Man-You-Uhl, like she originally thought). They are in their building's downstairs lobby. He's sitting on one of the Pier1 Imports chairs that no one sits in normally.

"Hello pretty neighbor," says Manuel getting up to greet her. This is how Manuel speaks to all of his female building-mates. Just your typical overly friendly 65 plus Latino neighbor.

"Hi," Joanie says. "So good to see you." They hug, and Manuel gives her a small kiss on her cheek, very close to her right eye. Joanie tags on that last bit because Manuel's face is so expectant, his cracked corn cob smile visible behind dry lips.

"We are good today," he says hoping she's with him in his we-ness. She is. Manuel reminds her of her church growing up. There was an usher at Christ the King who was, well, too excited to lead people to their seats. He would say, "Today is the day, is the day, the day for you to sit...!" and he would guide them down the center aisle to whichever pew looked most empty, and shake everyones hands proclaiming the peace of the Lord be with them. She can't remember his name now. It's not really important, either.

"I'm just on my way out, Manuel," she says still smiling. Joanie is wearing bright violet running shorts with a zebra stripe down each side, Nike stitched onto the right, and a black dry-fit tank claiming: Strength. The green iPod nano currently playing her Top Tracks playlist is clipped to her arm. It will inevitably get annoying, as it will certainly hit the inside of her bicep. Eventually Joanie will elect to hold it.

"Oh, yes, yes. I see," Manuel says, adjusting his short-sleeved button up that is indeed buttoned up all the way. "I would fall down." He laughs at this sentiment.

Joanie smiles. "Me too," she admits, a girlish giggle cropping up.

Joanie hadn't gone for a run in over a month. The last time she did she was not three blocks from her apartment when she just face-planted, licking the pavement. As far as she could tell, no one had seen her Total Life Fail Moment, but in reality, someone did see and periodically when that someone is doing dishes and annoyed at her husband, she thinks of that girl who tripped and fell and smiles, laughing to herself. Her husband asks, "What's that about?" assuming she's laughing at him, because everyone assumes they're being laughed at when they're the only other person in the room, but she wasn't. She was laughing at the girl who fell, Joanie. Joanie doesn't know she exists, so the woman is no one important, thus she has no name.

Manuel shares his smile with her again. "Please, please, go on."

"Oh, thank you," Joanie says, turning her music down finally. "Are you going to be OK today?"

"Yes, I'm waiting for my daughter to come get me." He looks anxious.

"That's great. Are you getting lunch together?"

"Yes." He pauses, and Joanie starts to turn her iPod back on, but then, "She's looking at my apartment."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

"Is she helping you with something?"

"I'm going to go move in with her."

The unlikely acquaintances who became friends both look sad.

Finally, "When?" asks Joanie.

"This weekend."

"So soon?"

"Yes."

There's another long pause. Manuel's gaze is affixed to his friend, and then he hears a car pull up.

"Is she here?"

"Yes, this is her. Arabelle."

"Beautiful name."

"It is."

"Well, I guess, I'll —" Joanie cuts herself off. She didn't expect to be so sad. Manuel's her kind neighbor, but just a neighbor. A friend, who's about her own father's age. And Arabelle is about her age, maybe a little older. "I'll get going on this run. You let me know when you leave, though."

"Ok," says Manuel. He grins, waves at his daughter. She gets out of her turquoise RAV4, "Hi dad!"

Joanie waves, then turns to go, beginning her brisk run. A Ryan Adams song begins to play.

"Hello Gracie you're a good little girl. It's a beautiful world, oh when you're out in it. Last time I saw you playing in the yard, you were running with children and the old people were smiling..."

perspective

From my perspective this is what you did. This is what happened. And this is why it's never going to happen for us. This is why I can't love you even if by some magical circumstance you got it together, which you won't, so I won't trouble my brain anymore with nonsensical thoughts about you. Foolishness. Utterly.

There were two people who liked each other. They told each other so, and then all the trouble found its way into that. As trouble tends to do to us weak people. Into those feelings. Into those people. This is what happened.

There were two people who wanted to make it work; they thought they did. But it was one more so than the other. A slight push, then an unnecessary pull. So, to make it easier on the one who wanted it less, the one who wanted it more tried to make up for the slight. Tried to convince the other through nice words and nice thoughts and nice feelings and nice nice nice, and this made the other one only more scared and more closed off and more childlike and more more more. This is what happened.

So these two people won't make it work because one person can't carry the whole load and they shouldn't have to and they shouldn't have to feel like they have to overcompensate for the let down that became the other. And the other shouldn't say anything bad about their non-partner. Because they were never in it together. This is what happened.

The other shouldn't make them feel like they did something wrong by carrying, by wanting, by hoping, by living bravely. What is that anyway? What beautiful words to characterize the actions of another: carrying, wanting, hoping, living bravely. Those are exemplary.

Living bravely and living recklessly are not the same. If you can be brave as recklessness takes you under water, threatens you into drowning, attempting to steal your very heart — then you are more than most. And we are not the same.

From my perspective, this is what happened.

I'm glad for it.

Something like it.

There were pictures everywhere in his apartment. Not pictures of family or friends, or anything that would speak to who he really was, but rather these faux antique prints. They were cool, mind you, but it bothered me. I couldn't quite figure out why until now. Something inauthentic about the nature of his life. I laid down my coat, as I had a few weeks before, on the floor. He picked it up, put it on the back of a kitchen chair. It hung there limply. We sat. We sat and starred at one another for a few seconds, each taking the other in. It felt like it had been a while, yet none at all, and at the same time it genuinely felt like it wasn't real. Oh, the irony.

A few weeks really isn't very much time. Don't we all let time slip by without even noticing? Years go by before our base instincts of "Wait! What's happening in my life" kick in. It's adult time, and a lot can happen in adult time. Blink, and you're thirty, or fifty, or dead.

It was late when I came over. Rain swept across the street, my wedges drenched in January precipitation. Not wearing enough make-up for it to run. Buzzed in. Door opened. Welcomed.

"So what's been up?" I asked, knowing his answer would be as void of content as my question.

"You know, just been busy." Ding ding ding. A pause. "You know."

But I didn't know. That's why I asked. How easy is it to get out of actually knowing a person? Very easy.

"Yeah," I smiled. "I know."

A few minutes later, jokes exchanged, conversation came easier, and with that a comfort we all long for. But it's a fake comfort. A fake relationship. More like a relationship that in the end no one wants, so we discard it like the groceries we intended to eat, but instead let spoil.

There are smiles that in the end mean nothing, and a connection that is no connection at all. So we sit at the bottom of the bin; it was anything but pretend, because it happened. And we both wish it didn't.

"And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile" -TS Eliot. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Wish You Were Here.

I've never been big into classic rock. I can safely say that I refrain from listening to it almost always. But, tonight, on my drive home from rehearsal I flipped on the ole FM, and tuned into 93.1 XRT, and Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" was playing. I always associated bands like Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, and Led Zeppelin with a certain sort of person. The kids in high school who listened to those bands (and a slew of others, ranging from MOE to Dave Matthews Band) were all exactly the same — wannabees in tie-dye t-shirts, frayed jeans or baggy khakis, and the desire to live out That 70s Show in 2000. I imagined their fathers, stuck in jobs they disliked — but too good to leave because of the money and the need to support a family on the North Shore — having a pivotal moment of man-to-man-ness where father bends down on one knee with his son beside him, blows dust off a record, and then proceeds to play it, trying to gain some semblance of the man he hoped he'd be.

I typecast this crowd like nobodies business. I'm guessing now my hippy-slacker schoolmates all work in insurance or banking, and of course do karaoke every now and again, always picking from the same 5 songs, which inevitably include Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days."

For now though, I'll revel in the fact that this song is actually quite good. It's brutal honesty made me feel sad and human.



"Wish You Were Here"
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skys from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here

Over-Rated

1. Most things.
2. Greek life. Or, college parties in general.
3. Having pets (unless it's a pup). Think: cats, hamsters, fish, et. al.
4. Caring.
5. Sleep.

So, I will be brief:
Throw your cares to the wind, because the nice thing about wind is that it can't hurt you.

Pondering loneliness

"We're all lonely for something we don't know we're lonely for. How else to explain the curious feeling that goes around feeling like missing somebody we've never even met?"

- David Foster Wallace

"'Don't you want to join us?' I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffeehouse that was already almost deserted. 'No, I don't,' I said."

- Franz Kafka

For me loneliness is a toss up. I often elect for it, but when it's just happenstance it feels like emptiness. There is something nice about not having to do anything, impress anyone or go through any sort of motion, but there is so much worth in spending time with others. There's a lot to be learned, at the very least, in as much as the same way that spending time solo can. All in moderation?

I suppose in some ways a belief system involving a creator might as well be a crutch for the lonely, but what's wrong with that? Is there anything wrong with being aware that there's a reason loneliness feels like you have lost something? Then again, there's nothing wrong with taking time to check in with yourself, think, rinse and repeat.

Apartments.

When the morning is just beginning there's the all too familiar Four-Second Hesitancy. Should you get up? Probably. Will you? Probably. But do you want to? Probably not.

Apartment hunting. It's a weekend activity akin to boating or taking your children to a park. It requires preparation and, depending on how long you'll be out and how far away everything is from the other, sunscreen. I must have forgotten how miserable apartment hunting is though, because I jumped readily at the chance to relocate. And now, here I am two weeks to go until I must go, and the road to free street parking and a coffee shop within walking distance is not yellow brick paved. I probably should have taken a Four-Second Hesitancy before giving up my darling Old Town two bedroom.

Oh, well.

Five Things I Love About 1950 N. Burling St., Apt. 2R
1. Knowing what the R stands for.
2. The purple blue wall.
3. Tricking your eyes.
4. Claws on the tub.
5. Open spaces. High Ceilings. Nice Porch.

Revitalizing

So, I have an affinity for sad songs, it appears. In which case, that's strange. This isn't the first time I've been told I'm a little depressing when it comes to music. I don't know what it is. I remember a post from Brian and I about a year or so ago chronicling this notion of me and sad music.

Sometimes good lyrics are all you need

For some reason I have listened to this song around five times today and probably will listen some more.

"Juner," Polydream, off of Send Me to the Sun

I’ve left my mind
With hopes of finding
A reason for this life.

I’ve learned to long
To lose what I’ve loved
So it goes, sometimes.

I think my life is fine.
There’s no use in asking me why.
Sometime my dreams are to die,
And I wonder what it’d be like to fly.

I’ve left my mind.
You lose and you learn...
I’ve been bitter
But I’m much, much better today.

I’ve got so long
You only live once.
I don’t know what you said
But it just don’t matter now.

And I'm doin' fine.
I think my life is fine.
There’s no use in asking me why.
Sometime my dreams are to die,
And I wonder what it’d be like to fly.

What you have is all you need.
Talking out of sympathy.
It's a final serenade.
Consider this your serenade.

Well, I think my life is fine.
There’s no use in asking me why.
Sometime my dreams are to die,
And I wonder what it’d be like to fly.

I think my life is fine
There's no use in asking me why
Sometime my dreams are to die,
And I wonder what it'd be like to fly.

quite possibly the saddest song i have ever heard

Kate Rusby's "A Ballad" from The Girl Who Couldn't Fly

Take the robe from off thy form,
And cease thine hair to braid,
Thy love to thee will come no more,
He woos another maid,
And broken are the many vows,
That he hath pledged to thee,
He woos another maid, and this,
My bridal morn should be.

False to me oh say not so,
For if thy tale be true,
And the one that I love be lost to me,
I shall not live to rue,
And if he do take another mate,
Before the holy shrine,
Another ne'er shall have my heart,
Death will be a friend of mine.

She takes the robes from off her form,
And dons a snow white gown,
She loosened from her locks the braid,
And let her hair hang down,
She flung around her lovely head,
The thin shround of her veil,
To hide the fast ascending tears,
And cheek of moon ray pale.

With hurried yet, with careful steps,
Into the church she hides,
And there she saw the false of heart,
Receive another bride,
The bridal pageant swept along,
'Til all the train had fled,
Why stands the lone deserted one,
She slumbers with the dead

Not so light reading.

Each week I leave work a little early to head downtown San Francisco in order to get my allergy shots. It's also the time that I catch up on celebrity gossip and the like while in the waiting room. This Tuesday I went to Dr. Davidson's for the usual: cat/dog, dust, trees/grass. While waiting I picked up a copy of The New Yorker to catch up on the Going's On About Town, but instead read this article.

RIGHT HERE!

I think it's really well-written and important information. It's quite long, but I recommend reading the whole thing if you have time. Really, I do.

Left and Leaving, Weakerthans

My city's still breathing (but barely it's true)
through buildings gone missing like teeth.
The sidewalks are watching me think about you,
all sparkled with broken glass.
I'm back with scars to show.
Back with the streets I know.
They never take me anywhere but here.
Those stains in the carpet, this drink in my hand,
these strangers whose faces I know.
We meet here for our dress-rehearsal to say " I wanted it this way"
and wait for the year to drown.
Spring forward, fall back down.
I'm trying not to wonder where you are.
All this time lingers, undefined.
Someone choose who's left and who's leaving.
Memory will rust and erode into lists of all that you gave me:
some matches, a blanket, this pain in my chest,
the best parts of Lonely, duct-tape and soldered wires,
new words for old desires,
and every birthday card I threw away.
I wait in 4/4 time.
Count yellow highway lines that you're relying on to lead you home.

Real Life Version

Voxtrot

Love, spread out like seeds
Somebody walked away from landscape poverty
I came to find you
I came to see the beauty underway
That bloomed love, energy
And it turns around like you
And it turns around like me
Into something new
But the only thing I see

I see you, I see you
I see you, always struggling
To find some gentle song
Some mode of simple trust
and ways to understand
These reaching orchards
Of broken fame
Grown deep inside of us
By forced and troubled hands

I see you, I see you
I see you, always struggling
I see you, I see you
I see you, always struggling

To find the sun
Reaching down through shadowed brush
Breaking off the bitter branch
Twisted roots like tans
Dreams of all these spotlit kings
Drinking up the light
Like California redwoods
Splitting up the night

And it turns around like you
And it turns around like me
All the talking we could do
Oh if only we could be
A real life version of you
A real life version of you
And a real life version of me
A real life version of me

I see you, I see you
I see you, always struggling
I see you, I see you
I see you, always struggling

A Bitter Sweet Semester

So, the year's started. Classes are into their second week, and homework has already been a burden. While I'm graduating with degrees in Journalism with Honors and English, I still feel like I somehow missed out on some of my education.

Example, last night famed whistle blower Dr. Daniel Ellsberg came to Hancher Auditorium at the UI to speak about his role in the greatest act of defense of the 1st Amendment, and I missed it. I was busy learning about dead poet and puritan, Milton. Granted, the class only meets once weekly and it was the first one, but nonetheless, I feel I've missed out on something truly remarkable.

I must add, however, that I did get to meet Ellsberg in my Writing Across Cultures class, which was pretty sweet. It would have been wonderful to see him in front of a large audience though.

But in keeping with this talk of education and earnestness for knowledge, I should get started on my various reading and response papers due for tomorrow.

Although I only have class Monday through Wednesday, those days are full, but so are Thursday and Friday. The nice part of only having class three days per week, is that there is outside work that I can complete on my own schedule the other four days. I thought 19 hours was going to be impossible while I balanced my duties at The Daily Iowan, Content Magazine and KRUI 89.7, but I am looking forward to a really wonderful semester.

Along with all of that, since it's my last here at Iowa, I'm simply looking forward to spending time with my friends, not killing myself too much, and meeting new people and having new experiences every day.

Atonement

I just watched Atonement in theatres.

Can you imagine having done something as a child, which the repercussions of that act, you knew not of?

Can you imagine having to know that you were partially to blame for the currently dreadful situation of others?

I, for one, couldn't imagine having to walk around my entire life knowing that if only I hadn't done this terrible act, things could be different.

And trying to atone for this horrific deed isn't even a possibility.

Just having that "if only" mindset is deeply unsettling and makes my heart break inside. It actually hurts to think about it.

Venting

I hate Pier 1

I hate credit cards

I hate the fact that to drop or add a course, one needs a signature by everyone, their mother and an advisor I've spoken to less than I can count on one hand

I hate that I woke up at 7:30 a.m. and have class at 1:30 p.m.

I hate that I need 3 more semester hours in English to have my degree

I hate that no one tells you things ahead of time

I hate the fine print

I hate that to take an online course at the University of Iowa, it's an additional $672 on top of the other additional fee of $15

I hate that I don't get my credit card mail sent to my school address

I hate that parents try to make life more difficult than it has to be

I'm done complaining. Now here's a word from Natalie Dee:

C'est presque fini...

I'm nearly finished with France. Rather, I'm nearly finished with my first go at France. I'm confident in my will to return to this country. Honestly, I really like France. I may not be shouting at the top of my lungs for Pau, but I certainly have enjoyed being away from home, both Chicago and Iowa City.

It seems surreal that I've got little over one week left here. I'm rehashing the sentiments of my last posts, but wow. You come to a country, know it really isn't home, but just when you've begun to call it that, the rug's snatched out from beneath your feet, and you're left with a bruise on your rump.

Would it be a terrible cliché or something like that if I said Pau will always be a bruise on my ass? Probably, but I've gone and said it anyway.

I've got so many stories about what's happened over the last few days, weeks and months, I don't think that when I tell them that anyone aside from those involved will get it. Maybe. But it's an extremely strange concept.

Some things I'm looking forward to comes next Sunday, December 23rd:

1. MacBook Pro

2. Sledding in 12 inches of snow

3. Christmas, for perhaps the last time at 995 Beverly

4. Speaking French when annoyed

5. Passing the time slowly

6. Taking showers at night

7. Central Standard Time

Continuum

Yesterday I went back and read most of my blogs that have led me up to where I am now. It was odd. All the ones of last year had to do with my impending life here in Pau and the impossibility of fitting everything into 24 hour days. How did I let myself get so busy? And how in the world was I able to enjoy anything with that much on my shoulders? It's only weird now because here in France it seems I have all too much time and none at the same time. I can't really comprehend this notion that has seemed to plague me throughout my university years. This same problem, I fear, is going to follow me everywhere. It's here in that I have nearly 23 hours of class per week, so I don't have enough time to spend doing other things (such as travel as much as I'd like or simply pass the time with new friends). There doesn't seem to be an even playing field for all the things I'd like to be doing versus those I must. In anycase, I'm bothered.

On an unrelated note, I have just over one month left of my study abroad experience, and it's as if I have nothing to show for it. Things have happened, yes, but at the same time it seems that everything is exactly the same, even though I know it isn't. One of my best friends has gotten engaged while I have been away, I have visited many places and met a lot of interesting and fun people, but I still feel as if I don't really know anyone. It's unsettling. What's more, is that the friends I have at home have gone on without me, not that they had any choice either. And I'm certainly not asking that they stay in the same spot I left them. No. That'd be unfair and impossible anyway. It's just odd.

It doesn't help anything that all of my expensive items save my hair straightener have been stolen. First it was just my iPod and camera, but once I got back from London I found my laptop and jewelry had vanished as well.

Anyway, I'll be sad to leave Europe, but it won't be that hard to leave Pau.

Here & Away

You come for me in the worst of places
You come for me, you come and try to take me home
I'm always in need and it's hard to be reciprocating
The fabric of our life gets torn
And everything's changing so how am I to know
How I'm going to hold on to you when I'm spinning out of control

-Ryan Adams "Everybody Knows" off of Easy Tiger