like a stone arch

I'm eating take-out sushi and drinking peach kefir: like the woman my mother raised me to be.

I drove J to and from the orthodontist this morning and I saw several people suffer from curses on their lives: a car stalled in an intersection; a racing bomb-squad ambulance; and a car who could not brake fast enough as he came up behind me at a red light: I had nowhere to move as I watched him barrell towards me in my rearview mirror, and then cut his stearing wheel just in time to hit a tree and a no-parking sign.

How.Un.fortunate.

But as for me?

I feel blessed beyond measure.

The following is an email my visitor-friend Amy sent to me yesterday:

hello dear, even though you are sitting beside me i just wanted to tell you how much i appreciate you. our talk this morning and talks yesterday and especially last night were so wonderful. so good for me and my soul. i honestly feel more like myself and more alive and normal than i have in a while. its amazing how good old friendships can be for us. im so glad that david and i could come. im glad i get to wake up with the excitement of knowing i am with you for a couple more days. you provide good waking up excitement.

amy

In short, I feel humbled.

We all know what a wicked flirt (cocktease?) that I am, and how I refer to any man who reciprocates as though he were some sort of conquest.

I'm not saying it's totally cool that I'm like that... but admitting one has a problem is the first step of a thousand miles or some shit.

But then a girl like Amy - who I met four+ years ago, and who's shared classes, weddings, parties, funerals, graduation, and conversations with me - sees me again after long, cold months apart and pours out her love for me (eagerly, openly, freely) and I'm completely humble.

When the boys wink and kiss I feel like I earned that... but when true, honest, unabashed, unsolicited love is spoken over me I know there's not a damn thing I could do to earn that. If anything, I prove my lack of worthiness day after day.

What other news?

Um... summer = more shaving = more irritation of already-delicate-as-shit skin = rash and reddness = having to dress as though you didn't shave = deciding to stop shaving = grody to the max....

New CD's:

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

...And you will know us by the Trail of Dead

Yeah Yeah Yeah's

Oh, and I was leaving HMV, hadn't talked to Mark, and I just waved at him, and he said he had something for me...

perfect

...it was just a Radiohead sticker.

I love every last thing that a boy has given to me, because usually they are random, otherwise-meaningless, akward little tokens and I keep them all in a special box (because everything any boy has given me is small).

Someday the man I have will get me jewelry, but in the meantime I treasure the stickers and buttons as though they were made of sapphires and rubies.