Last Sunday, Janelle and I were stressing out doing our taxes while Greg and Adam were out rummage sale-ing. They came in smiling and Janelle and I smiled and then went back to stressing. And then we finished and were happy because we get money and they both gave us a strip of photos and a rummage treasure. Adam gave me a typewriter. And not just any typewriter. A typewriter that with high pressy keys that goes “ding.”

my friends are great.

10 Things I did Today:

1. My darks. Finally. I’ve been putting off laundry for a week.

2. Bike back and forth from campus three times (amounting to about 2 hours of biking)

3. Treat myself to a bag of peanut butter M&Ms for all the biking

4. See a man doing Tai Chi on the Capitol lawn

5. Satisfy my craving for Scandinavian food through a trip to the Co-op where I bought knekkebrød, cheese, and cucumbers and ate them.

6. Make a man’s day at the laundromat by making a game of tossing my wet laundry in the drier. Adam taught me that game.

7. Write while my clothes were washing.

8. Lie in the grass.

9. Forget a presentation at home (which explains the biking)

10. Enjoy some sweet sunshine.

You’re turn!

It’s cold after those 80 degree days…

…but really…

…there are worse things than snowy days.

På norsk time we are reading a book called Naiv. Super. by Erlend Loe. It’s a very popular book in Norway, especially with teens. I am enjoying it thoroughly, laughing a lot, enjoying its sjarm.
In a wee section of this book, the main character tells a story about his grandfather. When the grandpa and his wife got their first house, they planted an apple tree in the backyard in the middle of a beautiful garden full of flowers. After several years, this tree began to bear fruit. They picked the fruit and the gramma smooshed it into apple sauce and squeezed it into juice. It was a great tree.

One day, they woke up to find the tree destroyed. The grandfather went out to find who did it; it was three teenage boys who went to the local school. The boys had to pay them back so they could buy a new tree. It was a lot of money at the time, so the boys had to scrimp and save and couldn’t go to the movies or buy girls sodas. They payed a little bit every week for months.

On the day of their last payment, the grandma made vafler and coffee, and for the first time the five of them sat around and enjoyed themselves. They talked about school and where they came from.

Adam and I stopped at this photobooth in East Town Mall. We were there to get some juice. Adam was trying to lick my face in the third frame. I was trying desperately to keep his tongue off my cheek. Typical. I love that about him, the craziness, the playfulness. Last night we got in a tickle fight and he gave me a piggyback ride and we went out for ice cream and cheesy breadsticks. I am lucky.

today i smoked my pipe outside after class
under the tree. It was grey and my fingers
wrapped around the warm wooden
bowl. It was round and soft
like a hand. I feel
the tobacco in my body now.
when it’s cloudy and I am alone I love
the taste of its humble poison
in my veins and on my tongue.
The nicotine of open journals, poems, hair.
The same smoke i drink with my friends
on porches at night, on our kitchen floor,
our breath-smoke curls up together
dark braided ribbons

it was in the smoke that he tugged my heart
when we sat by the sea. it’s scent
was on his coat, in the curls of his hair. I learned
to smoke a lonely pipe that winter. Pursed
its poison to my lips on walks in snow.
In the bustling summer it was hot and alive
like the sun on my hand. The poison danced
and moved. you and i sat on the stoop
at night while the smoke curled
away to someplace you knew.
I’ve never known much besides you.

My love taught me to hold spoons of honey
on my nicotine tongue. I fell
a bit in love with him that day. Later
we would smoke together and kiss with dark
pipe breathes by his house at night.

In the winter, my pipe and I hid
from the wind and filled my room
with its sweetness.

It’s cold spring again. My fingertips
smell of ash and sweet soot. The soot
of my lips. The soot of the sea. The soot
of kitchen floors, of dancing, of spring.
The warm ashes we breathe

Last night was the first day of a writing workshop. We didn’t do much writing. We talked a bit about how we wanted the workshop to go and talked a lot about everything else. But I loved it. And I love that I’m in a writing workshop that will force me to write more. And I love writing. I love writing journals and poems and e-mails and short stories and blogs and long stories and things that aren’t stories at all. The more I do it, the more I find I enjoy it.I’m hoping to share more of my stories here. My journals. My poems. My not-stories-at-all. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I’m having a ball!