I think how different everything might have been
had I judged your loving
like I judge your sidestroke, your butterfly
your Australian crawl.

But I always thought I was drowning
in that icy ocean between us,
I always thought you were moving too slowly to save me,
when you were moving as fast as you can.

—Jan Heller Levi, from “Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad” in Once I Gazed at You in Wonder (Louisiana State University Press, 1999)

Notes on cleaning your room :

You just gotta get down to it and do it.

I can't shake this horrible feeling that my life is predestined somehow, in a way that is prefixed or predestined for things that I do not want to occur. But it's not like that, I hope; I know God has a plan for me, but from what I understand, it's supposed to be free-willed and full of free choices. I just hope it is.

God, relieve me of my thoughts that tell me constant lies of my supposed unworthiness and inability to flourish, succeed, and be consistently happy.

To A Stranger

Passing stranger! you do not know
How longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking,
Or she I was seeking
(It comes to me as a dream)

I have somewhere surely
Lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other,
Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me,
Were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become
not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
face, flesh as we pass,
You take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you
when I sit alone or wake at night, alone
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

- Walt Whitman

‎"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

Today reflects my sincerest appreciation for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s persistence to speak out against racism and hate, and speak up for civil rights and love. I am reminded that it is his personal contribution, efforts, and influence that allow for me to love and know the many people that I do, where our eclectic array of colours and cultures continually unite us together, rather than divide us apart. I am thankful for his courage and his words of love!

“Your task is not to seek love, but mere­ly to seek and find all bar­ri­ers with­in your­self that you have built against it.”

- Rumi

‎"Maybe tonight you're scared of falling, and maybe there's somebody here or somewhere else you're thinking about, worrying over, fretting over, trying to figure out if you want to fall, or how and when you're gonna land, and I gotta tell you friends to stop thinking about the landing, because it's all about falling."

- John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

I HATE plagiarism :

I HATE plagiarism.

If you have the audacity to call yourself a student, an artist, or a decent human being, stop cheating and stealing from others' work, get resourceful and creative, and do your own damn work!

I am so thankful for my schedule this semester. I work afternoon/evening/nights M-TH with a random day off, Sunday mornings and am off for the evening, and am unavailable for Starbucks' purposes Fridays and Saturdays. I have a super chill, no paper post-Civil War through modernism American Literature course Monday and Wednesday mornings with a hilarious professor (and I have the class with my boyfriend), have a once a week Saturday morning anthropology class with a very sweet and passionate professor. I have Tuesday and Thursday mornings to myself, so I can read and explore and chill and watch Pawn Stars and go to art museums and the like. And I get to be with people I love very much and do things I love very much and learn things I love very much and teach myself what it is like to be balanced.

one does not simply sit down to read a novel without distractions