Giraffes & Riffraff

Whale you be my valentine?

2012-02-18T23:37:00.000-08:00

"You know why I did all this for you, right?" Guitar in hand, cheeky grin, and a wink.

"Because..." with a drawl.

"You are my sunshine, you are my sunshine

You make me happy when skies are grey

You'll never know dear, how much I love you

So don't take my sunshine away."

"Okay, that's all you get. It's crappy."

Ah, but I love you anyway.

I am growing. First, knowing what you want, then asking for it are things I'm learning to do. It's hard. But thank you for the flowers, balloons, and book, darlin'.

Toothpaste.

2012-02-18T23:15:00.001-08:00

I miss you already.

I think a part of why I feel sad is that I'm not quite sure I'm wanted anywhere. SJ is ambivalent about having me home, and ever since that talk, I think I long for a place to call home again.

So maybe I miss you, or maybe I miss being able to hop into bed and cuddling with someone who loves me. And that's not boy-specific.

At least I nabbed my favorite toothbrush from your place before you left.

My Imagination is running away from me

2012-02-16T22:42:00.000-08:00

Up in her room, she hears the sound of his car honking outside. Peeking through her window to confirm, she grabs her things to rush out the door and into the night with him.

This feels like high school all over again.

You are by far my most favorite

2012-02-10T16:48:00.001-08:00

John Steinbeck on Falling in Love

2012-02-07T12:55:00.000-08:00

New York
November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply — of course it isn’t puppy love.

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone — there is no possible harm in saying so — only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Well, tell her I miss our little talks

2012-02-06T16:00:00.000-08:00

2012-02-05T23:04:00.001-08:00

I am as constant as the north star. Constant in the darkness, where's that at?

2012-02-03T17:12:00.003-08:00

He bought me roses from a liquor store and offered them on bended knee, in the Mission after leaving the club. "Do... Do you... do you love me?" eyes downcast. "....No, no. That question isn't fair."Plucking a rose from the bunch of pretty young things, he said that we were just like the one in his hands. That we could choose to nip it in the bud, because it would die eventually. "But," twirling the lone bud in his hands, "I think it's beautiful the way it is."

"I could drink a case of you, darling"

2012-01-29T23:04:00.000-08:00

It's hard to imagine that one day, this will all mean nothing to the both of us. Am I a coward?

Level

2012-01-25T22:48:00.000-08:00

"Don't look so far off the cliff you fall off."

The way many of my friends and I think (especially the engineers) is in preventative measures. Don't fail a test by studying. Don't get burned by wearing gloves. Use a helmet so you get to keep those nice brains of yours. Don't get in relationships because of the inevitable fall.

That line of thinking eventually produces a certain lack of commitment to perceived risk. I have done almost everything I could to reasonably ensure I won't get hurt. Or clubbed in the side of the head. I got good at recognizing when you dodged a question or avoided a straightforward answer. I notice when you distract me. Redirect. Like a magician. You're a womanizer. You're ambitious. Relationships aren't your thing. And to me, that's okay. I don't want to be the center of your world. I don't want you to solve all my problems. I don't need a hero. I don't need a boyfriend. I don't need to be accountable to anyone. I don't need to take care of anyone else. You suit me just fine. You treat me wonderfully. I can live with a relationship like this. Freely given and (assumed) unnoticed.

But then you pulled me against you, leaning against the mismatched brick on Euclid. You cried as you told me you loved me. I asked you if it was a line (I not so good at this stuff). You said you'd never told anyone that before.

" I like you so much, no, I love you so much....I never tried to pull any tricks with you. I just was myself and you still liked me. You liked me for me, and no other girl's done that before. And that's why I love you"

You don't remember any of that, but I do. So I will remember and record, and tuck away those memories of a chilly January evening smiling foolishly at you and salsa dancing across the alcohol stained dance floor to electronica beneath the black lights of Casa Zimbabwe, sneaking kisses between spins. Of wiping your face and telling you that you knew I loved you in the yellow light of sodium vapor . "I know." I'll remember it all. The roughness of your hair. The silkiness of your jacket. The way your eyelashes spiked when wet. The catch and rumble in your voice.

Maybe one day we'll both find the courage the voice the I love you's in the daytime. The truth is, I think we both know. It's there in the "Good Morning's" and "sweet dreams", in the gentle censure of my bad behavior, in telling me to remember and eat before school (did you buy those oranges for me?), in shopping at Target together, in tag-team pb&j sandwich making for me, in the silence. Shouldn't that be where it is, anyway? It's odd that that would be the only way I could receive love now. I would mistrust any proof-less, showy declaration of love and affection. This is perfect.

But now, I am afraid. MW was right, per usual. I'm standing on a very tall cliff looking down, and this weekend it just got a lot higher. Terrifying. I always thought that whether something was said was irrelevant if you already knew it to be true, but maybe I don't know at all. I can hear the wind whistling, and I want to fold whatever I have left of myself around me and draw it away from anything that'll leave me vulnerable.

Ah, shit. I'm screwed.

"It's so obvious you two love each other, it makes me want to vomit. When I first met him, I knew he was a guy that would be very hard to get close to, but you did it."

2011

2011-12-31T03:13:00.000-08:00

In 2011 I began with being very well loved. I spent my break with Asu and Koi running around. I was haunted by dreams three times. I learned to walk from bad relationships. I realized I learned how to protect myself. I called someone a whore and gave him the finger. It was glorious.

I saw the alps and got to know my padre better in the hidden alleyways of Zurich. I took naps in parks and went grocery shopping for meals with him. We always bought watermelon. I ziplined through the rain forest. I saw my sister crush on a tanned CR with some gnarly scars and a pair of dimples. I swam in the Carribean with fish and dogs. I danced on the beaches of Costa Rica and walked into warm waves at night. I sun burned the entirety of my forehead. "....You.... You are red like lobster."

I lived in a crazy home. I went to the ER. I told secrets at night. Mark petted my hair, Eden&Isa, Sam, Menaka, Carlos, Max. Now they all know. Whew. I met my family. Strong, independent, witty, creative, crazy people with the biggest hearts. Holly, Stella, Marcia and my neighbor-ino Christina. Jojo, Zak, and Pardeep. Waking up every morning to Ben and Menaka's sunny face drinking endless jars and jars of coffee or PuErh tea. I watched the final Harry Potter dressed as a death eater. Wands were picked up along the way. M took me for a walk in the Berkeley Rose garden, and we ate rose petals. Came home to Menaka, Eden & Isa making good luck/I love you posters and Maxy's wonderful peanut banana chocolate chip cookies. I cried. We danced on the rooftop and stooped hard in the lazy sun. We made bubbles out of old paper towel rolls and washed dishes together. We cooked delicious food and sang our hearts out in the kitchen. Really, our hearts out. Props may have been involved. Holly kissed our heads goodnight while we cuddled on the couch. I laughed my ass off at Eden's antics ("Once I ordered sdjfls.. and it was drowning in sauce!" "Once I ordered veal and they gave me unicorn."). I love Angela's cool indifference. One hot mamcita, she is. Listened to M, Walbridge, and Fernando play FIFA down the hall. We watched the sun go down. Special dinner. I danced with you in your room. You kissed me on the head and boy did you look fancy in your suspenders and tie. Swoon. I learned what "being home" meant. Coming home to excited cries of "Kimbo!!!" and open arms. And cookies. The cookies were great.

Right after summer finals and baking a storm. Oreos were involved. I went to Outsidelands with M and Kitchin, and briefly met up with Walbridge. his sister is tall and gorgeous.. I saw Major Laser, Girls!, The Tuneyards, Beirut, DeadMau5!!! And the life changing Arcade Fire. She sang and danced on stage like a fairy. He put his soul into his music. Never before have I seen an entire crowd of thousands of people dancing and shouting all of the words to anything. Crammed back on the muni and went back home, only to see a friend from nerd camp

I went to Disneyland. I cried a lot. The Wonderful World of Color. And oh, what a wonderful world it is.

I went to Identity. Holy shit.

I pushed my body for three days on four different drugs. Then I baked pear bread. I lay in M's bed having an existential crisis. He bought me flowers. I studied. I didn't see the sun for several days (there are no windows in the Civil Engineering Building). I worked hard. I learned. I am learning.

I met the most wonderful man, ever. He is everything I have ever dreamt of and so much more. Which is really perfect because, and let's face it: neither of us wanted it. But he is kind, gracious, gentle, intelligent, understanding, and driven. He is also much wiser than me and comprehends social dynamics much better, then articulates them eloquently. I think one of the things I like about him is that he is not the type to promise the moon and the stars, but simply delivers. Oh gross, look at this.

This year I learned about love. I learned how to be loved. And I learned I am loved in ways I do not deserve and let me tell you: it is humbling. I am so blessed to have you all.

"2011 was good to me. It was also my strangest year to date, which is how I measure success. I believe that if I'm living my life the way I should, the best year of my life will always be the last one that I lived. "Best year" doesn't mean that all of my hopes and dreams have come true. And a year where all of my hopes and dreams have come true wouldn't necessarily be my best, but perhaps just be my most unexpected one. Best year for me doesn't mean that everything was peachy. And in fact, for a best year to happen, things probably can't be all peachy. That's because a best year is one full of personal growth and change, variety, accomplishment on both a macro and micro-level, and an endless string of bizarre experiences to relay to you. And by that standard, 2011 has easily been my best year to date." - It Just Gets Stranger

Excitement, disappointment, love and strange. I am coming into my own. I discovering my identity and becoming more comfortable with who I am. So bring it, 2012!

Ecclesiastes

2011-12-13T01:02:00.001-08:00

The Vanity of Life

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, aking in Jerusalem.

2 “Vanity b 1of vanities,” says the Preacher;

“Vanity of vanities, call is vanity.”

3 dWhat profit has a man from all his labor

In which he 2toils under the sun?

4 One generation passes away, and another generation comes;

eBut the earth abides forever.

5 fThe sun also rises, and the sun goes down,

And 3hastens to the place where it arose.

6 gThe wind goes toward the south,

And turns around to the north;

The wind whirls about continually,

And comes again on its circuit.

7 hAll the rivers run into the sea,

Yet the sea is not full;

To the place from which the rivers come,

There they return again.

8 All things are 4full of labor;

Man cannot express it.

iThe eye is not satisfied with seeing,

Nor the ear filled with hearing.

9 jThat which has been is what will be,

That which is done is what will be done,

And there is nothing new under the sun.

10 Is there anything of which it may be said,

“See, this is new”?

It has already been in ancient times before us.

11 There is kno remembrance of former things,

Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come

By those who will come after.

The Grief of Wisdom

12 I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I set my heart to seek and lsearch out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; mthis burdensome task God has given to the sons of man, by which they may be 5exercised. 14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.

15 nWhat is crooked cannot be made straight,

And what is lacking cannot be numbered.

16 I communed with my heart, saying, “Look, I have attained greatness, and have gained omore wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has 6understood great wisdom and knowledge.” 17 pAnd I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind.

18 For qin much wisdom is much grief,

And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

The Vanity of Pleasure

2 I said ain my heart, “Come now, I will test you with bmirth;1therefore enjoy pleasure”; but surely, cthis also was vanity. 2 I said of laughter—“Madness!”; and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” 3 dI searched in my heart how 2to gratify my flesh with wine, while guiding my heart with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was egood for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.

4 I made my works great, I built myself fhouses, and planted myself vineyards. 5 I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made myself water pools from which to 3water the growing trees of the grove. 7 I acquired male and female servants, and had 4servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. 8 gI also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and 5musical instruments of all kinds.

9 hSo I became great and 6excelled imore than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.

10 Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.

I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,

For my heart rejoiced in all my labor;

And jthis was my 7reward from all my labor.

11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done

And on the labor in which I had toiled;

And indeed all was kvanity and grasping for the wind.

There was no profit under the sun.

The End of the Wise and the Fool

12 Then I turned myself to consider wisdom land madness and folly;

For what can the man do who succeeds the king?—

Only what he has already mdone.

13 Then I saw that wisdom nexcels folly

As light excels darkness.

14 oThe wise man’s eyes are in his head,

But the fool walks in darkness.

Yet I myself perceived

That pthe same event happens to them all.

15 So I said in my heart,

“As it happens to the fool,

It also happens to me,

And why was I then more wise?”

Then I said in my heart,

“This also is vanity.”

16 For there is qno more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever,

Since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come.

And how does a wise man die?

As the fool!

17 Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sunwas distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind.

18 Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because rI must leave it to the man who will come after me. 19 And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. 21 For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill; yet he must leave his 8heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 sFor what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? 23 For all his days are tsorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.

24 uNothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. 25 For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, 9more than I? 26 For God gives vwisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that whe may give to him who isgood before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Hello, David

2011-12-03T17:26:00.000-08:00

Thanks for coming out yesterday.

Consider me updated.

2011-10-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble - "Pretend" from Cluster 1 on Vimeo.

How we wrestle is who we are

2011-10-11T18:01:00.000-07:00

>MY SON LIAM was born ten years ago. He looked like a cucumber on steroids. He was fat and bald and round as a cucumber on steroids. He looked healthy as a horse. He wasn’t. He was missing a chamber in his heart. You need four rooms in your heart for smooth conduct through this vale of fears and tears, and he only had three, so pretty soon doctors cut him open and iced down his heart and shut it down for an hour while they made repairs, and then when he was about eighteen months old he had another surgery, during which they did more tinkering, and all this slicing and dicing worked, and now he’s ten, and the other day as he and I were having a burping contest he suddenly said, “Explain to me my heart stuff,” which I tried to do, in my usual Boring Dad way, and soon enough he wandered off, I think to beat up his brother, but I sat there remembering.\

I remember pacing hospital and house and hills, and thinking that his operations would either work or not and he would either live or die. There was a certain clarity there; I used to crawl into that clarity at night to sleep. But nothing else was clear. I used to think, in those sleepless days and nights, what if they don’t fix him all the way and he’s a cripple all his life, a pale thin kid in a wheelchair who has Crises? What if his brain gets bent? What if he ends up alive but without his mind at all? What then? Who would he be? Would he always be what he might have been? Would I love him still? What if I couldn’t love him? What if he was so damaged that I prayed for him to die? Would those prayers be good or evil?

I don’t have anything sweet or wise to say about those thoughts. I can’t report that God gave me strength to face my fears, or that my wife’s love saved me, or anything cool and poetic like that. I just tell you that I had those thoughts, and they haunt me still. I can’t even push them across the page here and have them sit between you and me unattached to either of us, for they are bound to me always, like the dark fibers of my heart. For our hearts are not pure; our hearts are filled with need and greed as much as with love and grace; and we wrestle with our hearts all the time. The wrestling is who we are. How we wrestle is who we are. What we want to be is never what we are. Not yet. Maybe that’s why we have these relentless engines in our chests, driving us forward toward what we might be.

Eventually my son will need a new heart, a transplant when he’s thirty or forty or so, though Liam said airily the other day that he’s decided to grow a new one from the old one, which I wouldn’t bet against him doing eventually, him being a really remarkable kid. But that made me think: if we could grow new hearts out of old ones, what might we be then? What might we be if we rise and evolve, if we come further down from the brooding trees and out onto the smiling plain, if we unclench the fist and drop the dagger, if we emerge blinking from the fort and the stockade and the prison, if we smash away the steel from around our hearts, if we peel the scales from our eyes, if we do what we say we will do, if we act as if our words really matter, if our words become muscled mercy, if we grow a fifth chamber in our hearts and a seventh and a ninth, and become as if new creatures arisen from our shucked skins, the creatures we are so patently and brilliantly and utterly and wholly and holy capable of becoming…

What then?

Brian Doyle

Joyas Voladores

2011-10-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

Consider the hummingbird for a long moment. A hummingbird’s heart beats ten times a second. A hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser. A hummingbird’s heart is a lot of the hummingbird.Joyas voladores, flying jewels, the first white explorers in the Americas called them, and the white men had never seen such creatures, for hummingbirds came into the world only in the Americas, nowhere else in the universe, more than three hundred species of them whirring and zooming and nectaring in hummer time zones nine times removed from ours, their hearts hammering faster than we could clearly hear if we pressed our elephantine ears to their infinitesimal chests.

Each one visits a thousand flowers a day. They can dive at sixty miles an hour. They can fly backwards. They can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest. But when they rest they come close to death: on frigid nights, or when they are starving, they retreat into torpor, their metabolic rate slowing to a fifteenth of their normal sleep rate, their hearts sludging nearly to a halt, barely beating, and if they are not soon warmed, if they do not soon find that which is sweet, their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be. Consider for a moment those hummingbirds who did not open their eyes again today, this very day, in the Americas: bearded helmetcrests and booted racket-tails, violet-tailed sylphs and violet-capped woodnymphs, crimson topazes and purple-crowned fairies, red-tailed comets and amethyst woodstars, rainbow-bearded thornbills and glittering-bellied emeralds, velvet-purple coronets and golden-bellied star-frontlets, fiery-tailed awlbills and Andean hillstars, spatuletails and pufflegs, each the most amazing thing you have never seen, each thunderous wild heart the size of an infant’s fingernail, each mad heart silent, a brilliant music stilled.

Hummingbirds, like all flying birds but more so, have incredible enormous immense ferocious metabolisms. To drive those metabolisms they have race-car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate. Their hearts are built of thinner, leaner fibers than ours. Their arteries are stiffer and more taut. They have more mitochondria in their heart muscles — anything to gulp more oxygen. Their hearts are stripped to the skin for the war against gravity and inertia, the mad search for food, the insane idea of flight. The price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures more than any other living creature. It’s expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine. Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise, and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old.

The biggest heart in the world is inside the blue whale. It weighs more than seven tons. It’s as big as a room. It is a room, with four chambers. A child could walk around in it, head high, bending only to step through the valves. The valves are as big as the swinging doors in a saloon. This house of a heart drives a creature a hundred feet long. When this creature is born it is twenty feet long and weighs four tons. It is waaaaay bigger than your car. It drinks a hundred gallons of milk from its mama every day and gains two hundred pounds a day and when it is seven or eight years old it endures an unimaginable puberty and then it essentially disappears from human ken, for next to nothing is known of the mating habits, travel patterns, diet, social life, language, social structure, diseases, spirituality, wars, stories, despairs, and arts of the blue whale. There are perhaps ten thousand blue whales in the world, living in every ocean on earth, and of the largest mammal who ever lived we know nearly nothing. But we know this: the animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles.

Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers. Insects and mollusks have hearts with one chamber. Worms have hearts with one chamber, although they may have as many as eleven single-chambered hearts. Unicellular bacteria have no hearts at all; but even they have fluid eternally in motion, washing from one side of the cell to the other, swirling and whirling. No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside.

So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one, in the end — not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in a thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.

Brian Doyle

Mettle

2011-10-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

For our hearts are not pure; our hearts are filled with need and greed as much as with love and grace; and we wrestle with our hearts all the time. The wrestling is who we are. How we wrestle is who we are. What we want to be is never what we are. Not yet. Maybe that's why we have these relentless engines in our chests, driving us toward what we might be.

Brian Doyle

First Love.

2011-10-08T16:17:00.000-07:00

2011-10-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

In which our heroine has No Words.

2011-10-04T19:20:00.001-07:00

It's the rainy season again. It came rather abruptly, ending a long, (mostly) warm sunshine of stooping, sunbathing, and drinks on roofs both foreign and familiar.

You drew back the curtains and asked me if I wanted to go dance in the rain.

Your exact words.

"On the street or on the roof?"

So in a change of your clothes, bare feet in worn sneakers, we took the stairs up the third floor, hand in hand. The window to the fire escape at the end of the hall. A glance over my shoulder, just to see if you were still with me, and I pushed with a flourish, in boxers and a thin cotton Tour de France shirt, hopping up the wet steel rungs. I waited for you. You came, towel wrapped around bare shoulders to huddle beneath the solar panels.

Too windy. The trees surrounding your house bend beneath the weight of the wind while rain drops hurtle from the sky.

Shh.

And we listened.

All I could really hear was the rush of wind and rain and the feel of you against me from the rain and the words of Brian Andreas

No Words by Brian Andreas

I read once that the
Ancient Egyptians had
fifty words for sand

& the Eskimos had a
hundred words for snow

I wish I had
a thousand words
for love.

But all that comes
to mind is the way
you move against me
while you sleep

& there are no words for that.

As we clambered back down, I hear you attempting to convince yourself of an elsewhere as I slide back into the house. "Summer in Las Vegas. Summer in Las Vegas!"

To be fair, I warned you to bring a jacket.

Mother Nature is not benevolent to nudity in fall.

You are soft. You are warm. I smell like you. It is raining. It is cold outside.

But here, I am happy.

"That makes two of us."

The Lumineers

2011-10-04T02:43:00.001-07:00

The Lumineers - Flowers In Your Hair from The Sights Of Sounds on Vimeo.

The Lumineers play "Flowers In Your Hair" in the Bar Bar Apartment at Mississippi Studios in Portland Oregon.

XO

Camera: Ben Fee

Sound: Anjel Wahlman

One minute and forty-two seconds. That's all it takes for a story to be told, really.

Let me introduce you to The Lumineers, a simply folksy sweet band that'll leave you bouncing and toe-tapping.

When we were younger we thought

Everyone was on our side

Then we grew a little bit

And romanticized the time I saw

Flowers in your hair

It takes a boy to live

It takes a man to pretend he was there

So now we a little and knew a lot

And how we demonstrated it to the cops

And all the things we said

We were self-assured

It's a long road to wisdom

It's a short one to being ignored

Be my eyes, and be in my heart

Be my eyes, be in my heart

So now I think that I could love you back

And I hope it's not too late cause you're so attractive

And the way you move I won't close my eyes

It takes a man to live

It takes a woman to make him compromise

Be my eyes

I belong with you, you belong with me in my sweet home

2011-10-02T14:17:00.000-07:00

For the future.

2011-10-01T02:49:00.000-07:00

If I ever look back on this, I hope I remember what it was like to wake up in the middle of the night and find your hand reaching for mine.

What if there's not a way out?

2011-09-28T23:04:00.000-07:00

Chomp

2011-09-25T23:06:00.000-07:00

I, uh, am kind of trying to learn PS and it's hard but when your, uh, partner is a photographer, there're lots of photos to choose from...

Anyway... (:

"Hope isn't just another spiritual cul-de-sac."

2011-09-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

Make sure my sister knows I loved her
Make sure my mother knows the same
Always remember, there is nothing worth sharing
Like the love that let us share our name
Always remember, there is nothing worth sharing
Like the love that let us share our name

"A quest is different for everyone, but the courage is the same."

2011-09-23T14:42:00.000-07:00

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Mereki took 2 others with him for 44 days, 18 flights, and 11 countries to turn all of their experiences into three 3-minute films based on the linear concepts of movement, learning, and great eats.

As a wanderluster, I think this guy is the bee's knees :)

You Make Me Smile - Aloe Blacc

2011-09-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

Aloe Blacc, an american soul singer.

It's hard to complain when music sounds this good.

Coming to the Bay, December 10th!

2011-09-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

I'm letting you go.

2011-09-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

From the Angry Therapist

2011-09-19T03:42:00.001-07:00

How do you know when you love someone?

I’m 10,000 feet in the air and feeling ambitious. I figure if I go down, might as well go down swinging. So I picked the toughest question in my inbox of 208. Yes, I know they are accumulating. That’s why I’m answering questions and not surfing Facebook. Anywho, got my Dunkin Donuts coffee balancing on the lopsided tray, my half folded lap top pressed against the reclined seat in front of me, and my pants unbuttoned (two donuts while waiting to board). Okay, let’s do this!

I used to believe that love was a light switch. Something goes off. You get an overwhelming sensation. It hits you like a bag of bricks. Or a strong arrow. When you know, you know. Right? Not so much. After 38 years and an expired marriage, I don’t see love that way anymore. I’ve placed Cupid right next to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Love is a series of choices. The first choice is based on many many factors, including chemistry, principle, logic, humor, intelligence, body type, where we are in our lives, what we want / need… the list goes on and on, and the weight of each factor varies depending on the individual. Based on these factors, we either choose to begin the process to love or not. If we decide to enter this process, the action of loving can bring “light switch” moments. The way he looks at you. How hard she make you laugh. The notes he hides in your purse. The way she makes you feel when you don’t feel anything. But like an airplane flight, there is turbulence. The fights. The disagreements. The little things that bother you. His socks. Her shopping. You start wondering if you’ve made the right choice. Once you are in doubt, you have to make another choice. To continue to fly with this person or jump out of the plane. This choice is based on a thousand other factors, again depending on the individual and where they are in their journey. If you decide to jump, the scary free fall will either make you stronger (grow) or miserable (depressed). But sooner or later, you’ll find yourself back at the airport waiting to board another plane. Then you hit turbulence. Or maybe there is no turbulence. Maybe you’ve changed your mind about the destination. Either way, another choice. Fly or jump?

Love is making a choice every single day, to either love or not love. That’s it. It’s that simple. Either to continue the process or not. We fall in and out of love. Even in relationships, especially in relationships. This doesn’t mean we don’t love the person. It means we are left with a choice. There is a difference between feeling love for someone (caring about a person), and loving someone (choosing to love that person). You may have love for someone forever. But that doesn’t mean you choose to love that person forever. The choice to love is not a feeling, it is an action. That is why it is so difficult. It requires you to do something and I’m not just talking about buying flowers. It might mean putting your wants aside. Also, like chemistry, the ability to love is not a constant. It is a variable. It fluctuates, depending on where you’re at in your life and what you’re struggling with. Sometimes it is easy to love. Sometimes it is extremely difficult. But at the end of the day, it’s always a choice.

Although love varies, it also deepens. This means the longer you stay on that flight and embark on the journey together, the more fruit the process with bare. Your investment pays off. Your choices become easier. You not only become stronger as a couple, but also as individuals, assuming the love process is healthy - which means you guys are both doing work. The choice to love creates opportunity to hit notes in life that you could never hit alone and THIS is what makes your choice worth it.

So how do you know if it’s love? That is not the question to ask. The question is do you choose to love this person or not? Right now. Not tomorrow. Today. Make a choice. Yes or no. If the answer is yes, love as hard as you can. Love with everything you’ve got (your capacity right now at this point in your life). If the answer is no, promise me one thing.

Let the fall make you stronger.

- Angry

This never happens.

2011-09-18T22:50:00.000-07:00

I'm so happy, I don't know what to do.

Filial.

2011-09-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

"How goes your last days with him?"

"He came home drunk last night and fell asleep with his head on the groove of my shin to my foot while I painted my nails."

No emotional debts

2011-09-16T14:23:00.001-07:00

This baby's been on repeat. It's something about her voice. Something.

I don't understand,
Why do I stress the man,
When there's so many bigger things at hand,
We could a never had it all,
We had to hit a wall,
So this is inevitable withdrawal,
Even if I stop wanting you,
A Perspective pushes true,
I'll be some next man's other woman soon,

I shouldn't play myself again,
I should just be my own best friend,
Not fuck myself in the head with stupid men,

So we are history,
Your shadow covers me
The sky above ablaze only lovers see.

The Beauty Love Left Behind

2011-09-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

"A mark for every breath you took, every blink, every sleepy yawn. One for every time you sucked your thumb, waved hello, closed your eyes and slept in the most perfect darkness. One for every time you had the hiccups. One for every dream you dreamed within me.

It isn't very pretty anymore. Some may even think it ugly. That's OK. It was your home. It's where I first grew to love you, where I lay my hand as I dreamed about who you were and who you would be. It held you until my arms could, and for that, I will always find something beautiful in it."

Because some things are just essential.

2011-09-13T13:32:00.001-07:00

Maroon 5 & Christina Aguilera vs Alexandra Stan (WKF Mashup) by WKF Productions

Dance with me, darlin'.

"I love you."

2011-09-11T15:31:00.001-07:00

Frank O'Hara

2011-09-08T23:05:00.000-07:00

"When I die, don't come, I wouldn't want a leaf
to turn away from the sun -- it loves it there.
There's nothing so spiritual about being happy
but you can't miss a day of it, because it doesn't last."

Dust&Dirt

2011-09-05T00:03:00.000-07:00

"If most people would've gone through what I've been, I wouldn't be standing here today."

"What does that mean?"

"I got dusty feet."

Macklemore's Wings

2011-08-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

So grant me this security, this peace

Transmogrify my hesitation

Like a flavor trip,

Sweetness stripped from lemons

Just don't leave me with an ache.

So run your lips along my fingers

Smother me in superfluous affection

Like a sweet tea,

You're my sweet pea

Every hint of you only reminds me of the up and coming.

Tentative, tender.

I want it all.

So discard any attempt to wrest control of me

Before

fall

for

you.

I want to fly
Can you take me far away
Give me a star to reach for
Tell me what it takes
And I’ll go so high
I’ll go so high
My feet won’t touch the ground
Stitch my wings
And pull the strings
I bought these dreams
That all fall down

Henry and June by Anais Nin

2011-08-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

I want to hear raucous music, to see faces, to brush against bodies, to drink fiery Benedictine. Beautiful women and handsome men arouse fierce desires in me. I want to dance. I want drugs. I want to know perverse people, to be intimate with them. I never look at naive faces. I want to bite into life, and to be torn by it.

All these things that I have done

2011-07-31T23:56:00.001-07:00

"Won't you dance with me,

Lover of my soul

To the song of all songs?"

I'm going back to church.

Really, I knew I was going back by the time summer rolled around. I've had enough with my own excuses - not enough time, not ready.

The time is here.

I don't want to live eternally under the shadow of my past.

I will define my future with the freedom to choose.

"Puisque dans l'univers la vie est née de rien, et qu'une étoile renaît d'un soleil qui s'éteint."

2011-07-25T05:20:00.000-07:00

"You look happy."

"Don't I always?"

"Yeah I guess so. Then right now, you look happier than normal and that makes me happy"

Image from Weheartit.com

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

2011-07-25T04:57:00.000-07:00

I'm a means to your end, a physical obstacle between where you are and who you're looking for. I can't tell you where they are, or when they're coming home.

But I see you.

I do.

I see gravity pressing your shoulders down. I see the anticipation and excitement flicker out and die.

Come back, I want to whisper. They will come for you.

My dead wood knows. Yours can see too.

A knock for a knock.

So leave me wide open, my door and yours, to let your loved ones come running.

And I promise you, they will come.

If only you would see the joy in your eyes.

Tick Tock

2011-07-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

I must confess, there's just something about your ambition.

I like your drive. I like your goals.

I like always cracking jokes and never really having a serious moment. Let's be honest, we both can always get that elsewhere.

"Hmm something's out of place."

"Hmm? Moving around furniture again?"

"Yeah but.. no, wait come here... Yeah. Now everything's perfect."

But I think we can both agree that this isn't going anywhere. It's just for now. It's just for the summer. It's just until the real work begins.

And...

I like that.

What are you afraid of?

2011-07-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

A husk.
A condensation of past, tossed at the doorway.
The treble, the bass dictating a thump.
What was that?
A heart, a bass, fear?
Surrendered to comfort, drooping closed.
Gravitating towards open arms.
You kissed my head, but
These old bones are resting.

Robert Montgomery

2011-07-13T19:35:00.001-07:00

2011-06-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;

and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal

surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,

or cherries, the rich spurt in the back

of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.

Give me the love who yanks open the door

of his house and presses me to the wall

in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I'm drenched

and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload

and begin their delicious diaspora

through the cities and small towns of my body.

To hell with the saints, with martyrs

of my childhood meant to instruct me

in the power of endurance and faith,

to hell with the next world and its pallid angels

swooning and sighing like Victorian girls.

I want this world. I want to walk into

the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along

like I'm nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass,

and I want to resist it. I want to go

staggering and flailing my way

through the bars and back rooms,

through the gleaming hotels and weedy

lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks

where dogs are left off their leashes

in spite of the signs, where they sniff each

other and roll together in the grass, I want to

lie down somewhere and suffer for love until

it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again

and put on that little black dress and wait

for you, yes you, to come over here

and get down on your knees and tell me

just how fucking good I look

Kim Addonizio

An update, of sorts..

2011-06-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

Last night I returned to Berkles. All I've really been doing these past few weeks is releasing happy sighs every few minutes.

Sigh.

Mixed drinks on the roof at sunset, moving on down to the swoop, and chilling on the couch.

Oh! And doing a 2 hour workshift in .5 hour. AWW YEAH Bathrooms, you are MINE! That's right, I SPRAY that bleach on you!

I adore my house.

I think.

I hope.

Well. We'll see.

All that is good..

2011-06-14T19:11:00.001-07:00

Fancy a Coffee but you want more than a "boring" Espresso?? by Charming Italy

And I ask, "Is this yet of men?"

2011-06-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

2011-06-02T10:25:00.001-07:00

For some reason, there aren't people signing up for cooking shifts so I somehow get roped into "Try-Outs" for permanent cooking shifts. Anyway. Maybe this could turn into a food blog. Ha. Food-blogs are written by dainty cooking fairies who flounce through a kitchen and magically produce gorgeous, color-saturated dishes on adorable vintage plates.

Co-operative cooking involves cooking for 30+ people. Troughs of food are pushed out in a couple hours in giant steel vats, bowls, and trays. Mmm. Adorable. A minimum of 5 dishes must be made, 1 protein, 2 veggie, and I forget the rest.

The menu for tonight:

Banana bread

Baked corn

Miso Soup with Tofu

Greek Salad

Bruschetta

P.S. If your house ever runs out of milk and you use soy milk instead for your chocolate chocolate - chip muffins, don't be alarmed if they end up a certain greenish shade.

Summer

2011-05-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

mmm. Easy mac, freshly baked naan, black and white cookies, chocolate chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, garlic and rice stuffed bell peppers.

culinary dream.

qwerty?

2011-05-09T18:09:00.001-07:00

A Prayer. A letter.

Dear God,

Help me calm down. I need you to help me get a hold of myself this week. I'm scared, stressed and nervous (not that I'm complaining. I'm sure you feel much worse sometimes)., and I could really use your shoulder to lean on (or for you to carry me through? How's your back feeling this week?) Thanks for putting people in my life to help relax me, even when I can't relax myself. Also, thanks for giving me such great teachers - I hope I'm learning as much as you think I should be. I'm trying! I was a little disappointed today when I heard the test will be performed while I'm in switzerland - especially after putting on all those strain gages - but it'll probably or the best.

Love,

Kim

"No warrior will ever do a darker deed."

2011-05-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

" ' Tell me, Volker my friend, will you stand by me if Kriemhild's men attack me? Let me hear your answer, by the love you bear me, and I shall be deeply bound to you till the end of my days.'

'You can count on my aid for sure,' replied the Minstrel, 'even if I were to see the

King making for us with all his warriors. Fear shall not make me desert you by yielding so much as one foot as long as I remain alive!' "

" How often men abandon

their plans from fear

when one friend stands by another

in the loyal way he ought,

so that if they are men of sense

their enemies take no action!

Widespread harm can be prevented by the use of good sense."

2011-04-28T23:55:00.001-07:00

2011-04-26T23:20:00.000-07:00

"Give me hope for the night"

2011-04-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

On days like today, I feel invincible.

This secret, tugging at my lips, is a survivor's story. Becomes a story of endurance.

That I still function.

That I feel joy.

"Guys, can we just all admit, right now, that we were all such a shitshow tonight"

2011-04-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't really talked about what I've been doing so much as how I feel about it, so for a change of pace:

Friday I had a two hour long tea party in the Lab (things look better capitalized, dontcha think) drinking the PuEhr from Far Leaves Tea and then worked on my programming lab with MW, settled plans for the night. The twins came up to watch The King's Speech. I proposed a game of taking a shot every time Colin Firth looks uncomfortable. We agreed we weren't ready for that kind of inebriation within the first 20 minutes. Tangled instead. Btwin mocked me when I cried. All three times. Then back scratches and bonding until the wee hours of the morning.

Last night was unbelievably successful. Well. I did lose another one of my jackets, but that just seems to be trending. Fabray and Dmather blazing and reading 100 years of solitude. German majors and impromptu toasts auf deutsch. Yeah we move with the flow (or at least mo does). Burnss' John Wayne impression. Engineers. Straight drinks. Cockblocks (and marking territory). Dmath giggles like a baby penguin being tickled.

A few gems:

" I am Mary Magdalene! 'Jesus, I AM STONED!' "

" I'm singing. I must be drunk."

"My body is all messy but my brain is fine!"

Now off to do some wood/concrete homework!

Fabray does the best morning after recaps.

We fuck, we sleep, we study, rage.

Yes berkeley.

Handel's Water Suites

2011-04-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

OOHBOYOHBOHOHBOY.

The new project's begun!

Flex Core Arc Welding, Shielded Metal Arc Welding ("Stick"), Welding Preheating Standards, Gussets...

My friends, it is glorious.

X-Ray Defrac. machines in the EPS building

Shale slices

Satellite images of the earth.

Berber (Algeria), donuts, Kaberet

Note to self: You owe tea.

Julie-O

2011-04-18T23:43:00.000-07:00

Another good day.

Matt, Tey, DMat, AFreund - all fun encounters.

The new project's welding is starting tomorrow. The guys'll be there. I'm so excited to introduce myself to all of them. Hopefully become best buds?

MidPac: a smashing success! Congrats concrete canoe & steel bridge :) I can't wait to work with you next year

Masala Chai Hums

2011-04-13T21:49:00.000-07:00

Is it too much to ask,

for his footsteps to sound like sunlight,

& for these cracks to propagate

So woolen hugs don't sink

their teeth into me. The very least

I thought I could ask for was love

No, for those words to be said, &true. A thing

to ground me.

"All advice is autobiographical."

2011-04-11T13:36:00.001-07:00

Astute Observation, sir!

2011-04-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

"I'm a nudist in the emotional sense and you're a nun stuck in a winter blizzard who still ended up overdressing."

I think he may be smarter than me. This is scary.

On another note.

Confronted some secrets a few days ago.

I know they want to help me but I can't seem to find... something. I don't know how to fix me.

Goals and Fools

2011-04-01T00:27:00.000-07:00

Look, other bands, they want to make it about sex or pain, but you know, The Beatles, they had it all figured out, okay?

"I Want to Hold Your Hand."

The first single.

It's effing brilliant, right?... That's what everybody wants, Nicky.

They don't want a twenty-four-hour hump sesh,

they don't want to be married to you for a hundred years.

They just want to hold your hand.

2011-03-28T01:19:00.001-07:00

Idno what to do

3/29

Good talk with Louis today. I guess I should figure out what to do =/

Lost in my mind. You are already home; do you feel loved?

2011-03-08T12:20:00.001-08:00

Oh my brother, your wisdom is older than me

Oh my brother, don't you worry about me

Don't you worry, don't worry about me

I lost my phone Saturday. I guess it was a half-blessing. A break from the grind. None of this constant anxiety, no checking to see if I am still remembered in the thoughts of those far away from me. So upon confirmation of the loss, there was an absence of fear. I recognize my generation's addiction to constant connection, a type of comfort. So a clandestine part of me rejoiced in the freedom in being severed from the interwebs.

I liked it.

I'm missing something. I'm sad. I shouldn't be.

There is a weakness in me that I can't afford to have.

Booked and ready

2011-03-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

Just in time for wanderlust to kick in.

Zurich, be ready for me. See you this summer, Switzerland!

Internet Hilarity

2011-03-06T23:26:00.001-08:00

Asu
girl you are nekkid in your profile picture. please put on some clothes and be decent. Your body is only for me to see. Me as in kim, diana, em and me.

Amers
I really am wearing clothes though I swear! I wouldn't cheat on you guys like that. You guys get to see the whole show (;

David Foster Wallace

2011-03-06T20:34:00.001-08:00

The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flame yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don‘t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

2011-02-28T01:03:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite books of all time.

2011-02-28T01:02:00.000-08:00

Romance in the Programming world.

2011-02-23T01:38:00.001-08:00

AH!: you know i didn't take you for the type to do programming
k: Silly Andrewhsieh!
AH!: wait
k: 1) It's required for my major and 2) I already programed a video game before 8D
AH!: is that your major

AH!: what are you serious

AH!: ARE YOU SERIOUS

AH!: be my girlfriend
k: oui oui
AH!: i'm claiming you

AH!: fyi

AH!: any boy you get from now on

AH!: is your fake boyfriend

Ooh. SaRAWRities.

2011-02-22T23:28:00.000-08:00

AFreund: Thanks.

K: Now you can talk like a saRAWRity girl like me!

AFreund: I can't join because I'm a fat girl.

Serious Review in Engineering 7: Programming in Matlab

2011-02-18T13:26:00.001-08:00

"What other kinds of questions do you have?"

"What's your favorite command?!?!?!?!"

Shoooo useful.

Avoidance

2011-02-16T04:36:00.000-08:00

This sloppy pasting of words on paper.

Which is kind if silly, since word documents actually don't involve paper at all.

Caffeinated cells in my blood stream.

BLHASLDJFKSDFJSDLKFJSD I HAATEEEEEEEE EREC

True Romance

2011-02-16T01:48:00.000-08:00

"I had a nosebleed one time I saw her

no lie

after 2 years of like...

no nosebleeds, or as I like to call it, "my nose's invincibility" "

"I can hide, you seek. Come find me."

2011-02-13T23:38:00.000-08:00

Uhm so like. A-Le. this is for you. Because my name is on your blog. twice.

Friday I went to Stammtisch and the UCB Symphony Orchestra (AMAZING). At Stammtisch, I met up with Ever and Kyle (cycling). The first hour was excruciatingly awk-ward. After summing up all our courage, Kyle and I got Bier cups for our own liquid courage.

I think I may be off my boycott. who knows. I'm just ready for some hopeless romanticism today!

Asu: http://whoisthecutest.com/
Asu: happy valentines day sweetie :]

Oh the romance!

Bloopbloop.

2011-02-11T01:14:00.001-08:00

I was having a really crappy day, so to document the sunny parts.

Asu sending me a TON of music! And researching the music for the concert tomorrow... Sibelius is so epic!

Sexual tension jokes

JSpring's vomit stories. And orgasm sounds.

"The very words that they had sung became their last communion"

2011-02-08T22:46:00.000-08:00

Hilfe mit Hausaufgaben

2011-02-02T01:25:00.001-08:00

K: Make a sentence with "It's not a big deal, if"
AH!: It's not a big deal if you won't be my friend, I'll just stalk you anyway.

Uprising

2011-02-01T13:41:00.000-08:00

When I have the time, I like standing in front of the LCD wall tv always turned to CNN in CITRIS. Today I found myself engaged in conversation with two strangers, equally knowledgeable and aware of the revolution in Egypt. Later I introduced myself and discovered one was a professor and the other an electrician. Strange world, strange positions.Pretty neat.
Yup, that's Berkeley.

I'd been following the updates on Egypt, but the video footage today struck me. 2 million protesters, with riots and fights breaking out, but they still pray together. A million people kneeling and praying together during a protest.

"Planet Parenthood."

2011-01-31T00:52:00.001-08:00

"Dude, she's perfect! She's into all the same things I am, and loves it!"

"So what's it like dating yourself?"

"Kinda awesome!"