when there's nothing left to burn...

...you must set yourSELF on fire.

This is a lyric that always cracked me and Michael up quite a bit. Stars. I saw them open for Death Cab a couple of years ago.

This was my Memorial Day Weekend (sorry, no pictures. I was just living life):

Friday - Opening Gala for the UW Senior Thesis Art Show at the Henry. Delightful company. So many creatively-dressed patrons. A scavenged buffet table. Then: Nanaimo Bars. Cinerama. Indiana Jones.

Saturday - Coffee with a very dear friend. Fall-down laughs. A bus ride. Folklife. Delicious dinner and conversation with a roommate. A walk through the dusk drinking organic strawberry lemonade. Feeling like kids. Falling asleep on the couch. Welcoming in a friend at 2am.

Sunday - Roadtrip to the east. Sunlight on trees and miles of green. Sasquatch! Blue Scholars, Cold War Kids, White Rabbits, Tegan & Sara, Rogue Wave, Mates of State, The Kooks in the sun. Running into friends. Death Cab at sunset. The Cure under the stars. Falling asleep in a bunk bed.

Monday - Breakfast and anecdotes at a beautfully set table. Wind in my hair all the way home. A barbecue at the home of beloved friends. Swinging in a hammock. Lying in the grass. Crawling in bed early for a sleep full of dreams...

Tonight I fly south. Yes, again. It seems these days and weekends of escape are never quite enough to satisfy.

why i love tuesdays

I may have just seen the cutest film I've ever seen in my entire life:

A power struggle with the box office Snape-alike, a sympathetic concessions girl, complimentary water, a secret picnic, little boys with British accents, lots of laugh-out-loud moments, an '80s soundtrack, a French kid with crazy style, Chuck Bass, and a heartwarming conclusion. Who could ask for anything more?

(Also just found out that the band members of Travis have a cameo in the Teacher's Lounge scene. How I missed them, I don't know. Too enthralled with the guy who looked like Reuben. Clearly this film and I were meant to be kindred. Must see again.)

giddiness

A little dream has come true this morning. I have been a talented artist's muse!!

remembering parachutes

i wanna live life

and never be cruel

i wanna live life

and be good to you

and i wanna fly, and never come down

and live my life

and have friends around

we never change, do we?

no, no

we never learn, do we?

so i wanna live in a wooden house

i wanna live life

and always be true

i wanna live life

and be good to you

and i wanna fly, and never come down

and live my life

and have friends around

we never change, do we?

no, no

we never learn, do we?

so i wanna live in a wooden house

where making more friends would be easy

oh and i don't have a soul to save

yes, and i sin every single day

we never change, do we?

we never learn, do we?

so i wanna live in a wooden house

where making more friends would be easy

i wanna live where the sun comes out...

Anyone heard the new Coldplay? What do you think? I'm still a little peeved at them for putting on exactly the same show in the same city less than six months apart on the X&Y tour...

poetry

I was introduced to Denise Levertov as a junior at the University of Washington, in a poetry class of seven people and a young, arrogant professor who nonetheless respected my interpretations as the only known Christian in the class. I remember reading Evening Train as I walked down The Ave at lunchtime, in the rain. I sat in coffee shops and marked it up with pencil. She was a woman, she was a Seattleite, she was a Christian. Her poems were a honeycomb to an aspiring writer. I wrote what I then considered to be my best college paper on this woman who had passed away the previous December. It is buried now on some floppy disk in an old backpack at the bottom of a box in my parents' basement, perhaps. But the poems still strike my heart:

Variation on a Theme by Rilke

A certain day became a presence to me;

there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:

a being. And before it started to descend

from the height of noon, it leaned over

and struck my shoulder as if with

the flat of a sword, granting me

honor and a task. The day's blow

rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,

and what I heard was my whole self

saying and singing what it knew: I can.