The past few days, weeks, maybe months I've been floating. When my eyes are closed I see candy stars. I grin stupidly to myself, lost in daydreams, and my dad asks me what the hell is so funny. I check my phone, facebook, IM hundreds of times in a day. I replay in my head those moments from this summer; I kiss my own hands and gaze into dark eyes in my memory. My god, it feels so good to be with him.




My god, I've caused such hurt.
I mean it every time I tell you I love you, but how can you believe someone so erratic and inconsistent? Remember?
Every time I see you we make mistakes.
I don't know what to do, except be honest with you now.
There's no one who's ever meant more to me than you.
I love you; God, I love you so much. Don't you see?


Love was recently defined to me as wanting the best for someone else. It's so deliciously simple, but at the same time so damn hard. So selfless.
As for being in love... it's almost the same. But now I know the difference.

After last year I'm still not ready to go back to school, but in 10 days I'll be on an airplane that will take me across the world, and in 22 days I'll be starting classes at a university whose name I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce and whose student body is 6 times larger than Bucknell's. I'm so excited I might pee myself on the plane. ...What a great way to meet new friends.

I've been away from Bucknell for over a month now. I've been biding my time, planning my days in the hopes that I won't become too bored. And, surprisingly, I haven't. In the days I didn't spend traveling to Boise or DC or Philly my body grudgingly accepted some newfound relaxation and-- gasp-- laziness. My brain is at me ferociously every day...: "PAGE! What the fuck do you think you're doing?! You're getting flabbier and more out of shape with each book you consume, with each morning you sleep away, with each day you don't run or bike or stairclimb or lift weights or, for god's sake, ERG!!!"
At first I guilted myself into sneaking into my mom's gym to endure the treadmill for about a half hour or so every other day. Now I tell my damn masochistic brain to shut up, and consider a walk with my dog in the park decent exercise.
Thinking of erging again makes something inside me wither up a little, and even thinking of rowing leaves residue of considerable doubt. What do you do when you start to forget the reasons you loved something that got you so far and has done so much for you? Sometimes I let my mind flirt with the idea of just stopping altogether. Only the idea, though.

This morning I woke from a work-induced stupor in the library to what sounded like 45 birds outside the window. For the next hour and a half I was grinning like an idiot.

The skies are still grey, but spring is coming.

I feel a little bit ousted. And a lot bit elementary in feeling that way. And confused because every single thing I do or read or watch or remember makes me think of you, and I'm surprised (but not really) to constantly find myself imagining marrying you someday. I want to have your babies. I don't even like babies.

You call her beautiful, too.
Maybe I'm threatened. Is that what this is about, Page? Do you feel threatened by a pretty, petite girl with long blonde hair who would never be asked mistakenly if she shopped at Big & Tall? Do you feel threatened that he thinks she's beautiful, or that the two of you are different on the outside but apparently have similar humor, similar personalities, similar characteristics to fall in love with? Or fall out of love with? Are you afraid that by the time you let yourself come around he'll have found someone else to pour his entire being into?
How many times have you done the same thing, Page? How many times have you maybe made him threatened? How many times have you felt out other possibilites, rushed into something you wanted to prove could work, knowing it wouldn't in the end? You're erratic, though. He isn't. You know that once he starts to love, it's for real. That's what scares you the most, isn't it?
Maybe it's all the books I've been reading lately. The last two have been by Ursula Hegi. One was about World War II. The other was funny. Really funny, and very unconventional. And not nearly as serious, but just as deep, as the first. Both involved family. And even marriages without all the glamour can be beautiful.

Did you know Ursula Hegi's characters follow her around and talk to her? Even if she doesn't want them to? She talks to them, too. Thus is the life of an author, I suppose.

Maybe I have too much time to think. I think about the books I read, and try to stop relating myself to the characters. I find too many similarities. I think about marrying you (why do I keep thinking about marriage??), and I think about being afraid of monotony and tedium and routine. I think about hypocrisy and guilt. I think about love, too. I think about how stressed out I get by thinking too much.

Christ. It's entirely possible that I'm a complete nutcase.
Then again, I suppose it's entirely possible that we all are.

I don't hate it here. I don't even dislike it here. Frederick is pretty, we live a whopping 2 minutes from downtown, and the neighbors, who admittedly are more dramatic than a bunch of high schoolers, are becoming our family.
Being here feels like we're just visiting some friends; like pretty soon we'll drive the 45 minutes to the Baltimore airport, board a plane back to Boise and be home.
We closed on our house today and the worst part about all of this is thinking about going back there and seeing the house completely changed, with new people walking around on the floors I walked on, new people who aren't even nice.
And I think about the old house in Maine, and how when we visited I was foolish enough to insist on driving down Spring Street. And how I burst into tears and never wanted to go back there again.
I made the mistake of referring to Boise as 'home' the other day. I hate watching my mom become guilty.
But I miss the foothills and Mrs. Jensen and even the stupid Y, and I miss the people I haven't really talked to since summer, and the ones I talk to a lot. I miss walking into a store and knowing where the hell things are, and I miss being able to walk around my house without spotsearching the walls for light switches.
The thing is, I miss a lot of things I knew I would miss, but I miss even more things that never mattered until I left.

Well. This is unfamiliar territory.
...and yet, I still remember how to italicize words. :)


I'd like to tell you that I love you.
Even if I can't.







Something else, from my friend Mr. Az:
If the plane goes down
I'll remember where the love was found


I can't wait for Thanksgiving.

Maybe I was wrong about you
Thought I was strong without you...










It took me 19 years to fully realize nothing will ever get easier.

Sometimes when I stop and think about it, I realize there are so many reasons for me to dislike rowing. In the shower today I pondered it as I used my less-blistered hand to massage shampoo into my hair and shaved around the infected track bites on my legs. I winced when I put lotion on; I yelped when the facewash I squeezed into my hands seeped into the torn skin. I also wondered why, as I switched from lifting to cardio to actual rowing today, I actually do this.

I guess it's a little bit like loving someone: you put in so much hard work and it's really painful at times... sometimes you just want to ride back to the dock in the launch and leave the stupid boat in the water to float over the dam... but at the end of it all, none of that stuff really matters. You can begin something with the mindset of doing it for yourself, but really, when it comes right down to it, you do it for the people you're with.

Remember, I will still be here
as long as you hold me in your memory

nobody call my old phone! the new number is 240-367-4977.

Good lord; my mod is hotter than hell in summer.

"i'm losing you
and it's effortless"





















but really, you're the one losing me.

Okay, Terry, here we go:

1. My flatulence could power a good-sized 3rd-world country. Like Haiti. Or the Dominican Republic.

2. I use tweezers/my fingers/my teeth to pluck out hairs on various parts of my body... and on other people's bodies, too.

3. I'm really bad at imitations, but I do them anyway.

4. The space between my nose and upper lip is really long (is it called cupid's bow?)

5. I have Barbie feet. Just look at them.. you'll know what I mean.

"But in his ignorance, he could both listen to the words of the reader and marvel, too, at the unspoken narrative of shapes, or concentrate not only on the script but also on the spaces in between. God was in the spaces, he was sure. God went to the very edges of the page."
--Quarantine, Jim Crace

I found my best friend tonight. Or, rather, she came out of hiding. It's what I'd been missing-- my excitement turned to spurts of orange juice rocketed out my nose and mouth. Twice.







There aren't many better things than stealing uncooked banana bread.

In my dream his eyes lit up when he saw me. I wonder how reality will compare.

vulnerability sucks. i hate letting myself down.

I don't know why I did it. You do, though.










We could have stood there together all night, and you never would have been the first to break the hug.

What I am to you is not real
What I am to you
    you do not need
What I am to you
is not what you mean to me
You give me miles and miles of mountains
and I asked for the sea

This is nothing new
no no just another phase of finding
what I really need is what makes me bleed

What makes you feel the most alive? What's the one thing that when you see or hear or feel or smell or think it, you stop and gape and just.. emote?

It's summer. As Jeremy pointed out, you're only young once.