Now we're here and now is fine

Sometime around the end of last month Spencer and I celebrated a whole nine years of he and I, me and him, togethery usness over a plate of chicken and waffles.
It was as grand as we'd prefer it.

I'm forever intrigued by the unique dynamic a relationship develops over time; how a couple fights, what their daily ebb and flow is like. It's a balancing act proven difficult to fine tune. That interests me.
There's also this sort of whimsical allure I feel at the idea of two very distinct personalities finding a way to mold pieces of themselves together into a seemingly third singular identity. A pair.

So in regards to us, he and I, the ideal would to always be much more of a pair now than the year past, but not ever as much of a pair we hope to be by the year next.

I like the thought of that.
You are one in a million (I love you so), 
let's watch the flowers grow.

hey you summertime

in stripes and 110 degree heat.


i don't need to explain to any mother how long summer days are.
they just are.
and it was by the end of this one that our house wasn't near big enough for myself and all three of them at once so the unruly little chicks were politely booted out back.
i later glanced up through the kitchen window to find them standing there together, huddled around the wooden swing that hangs from our pecan tree while all three busily chased the pink ice cream running over the tops of their cones to their fingers and hands.
small graces.

the sun only held them a few moments more before our summer ended and i called them back in.

pizzas off the grill with guilt-free drinks and spinning hooray for earth - true loves

  

i have a perfect body 'cause my eyelashes catch my sweat

i've recently become my own worst critic. but isn't that who it usually is.

i've been gearing up to take on that thing that almost killed me last spring.
and after weeks of effort to correct a major (we're talking major) holiday weight gain and picking my running back up after losing it completely - you mean i can't maintain by eating whatever i want and sitting on my butt all day. lame. - the scale remains the same.

running every day and focusing my meals around the holy bible of eating and not. a. single. pound. lost.
i admittedly can be just as superficial and human as the next and it's these sorts of things that have the potential to wreck me completely.
and maybe it did for a while.
but something happened amidst my self-pity party and, in few words, i got over myself; took a hammer to the scale, patted myself on the back for the small headway i have made, pulled out the old fat jeans from storage and went on with my days.
happy and healthy and with a little more junk in the trunk, i went on with my days. - and that in itself is a victory.

hurts to purr - matinee

  

happy christmas face 2010

download all tracks,
here
here
here
and here


happy christmas face to you, friends, from all of us.

sufjan in the mornings

day 36

along with the carpenters and the Jackson 5.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

time is a fever

day 28

a deceiver you think you own, it turns away.
the last time we looked,
you were danger bear.
danger bear.

you're a freight train and your heart is for beating, so lean back, tuck in,
and drift off.


kashmir has been spinning on repeat here.
danger bear

and we laughed and we laughed and we laughed

day 3

driving with just owen in the car the other day, digging through the console from the back seat, he pulled out a cd i had made for spencer.
all the names we used to know: 18 songs that remind me of you

he asked what songs make me think of him. all of the same ones, of course.


bat for lashes - daniel

  

just dance

day 88

it was at the dancing spin atop the floor waxer right around minute three where it dawned on me who this kid was.

(bang)
from the womb.

download: foals - blue blood

  

you float like a feather in a beautiful world (i want you to notice)

day 69

i am ready.
i am ready.
i am fine.









scala & kolancy brothers: creep (radiohead). colorblind (counting crows). joga (bjork)

:: this belgian girls' choir is the best thing that's happened to me all year ::

  

we shared a history

day 62

we went to see toy story 3 with the boys over the holiday.
i audibly chocked down a sob when each toy reached out to the other and held hands inside the fire's embers, resolved to their lives' immediate end.

they're just toys, they're just toys, they're just toys.

i caught a glimpse of elliot's profile as the screen sparked to bright amber. i didn't recognize him. or i missed him. i'm not sure which. - the two feelings are one in the same. - i wrapped an arm around his chest, gripping his tiny shoulder in a protective gesture to fasten him to myself, anticipating the imminent pain of separation. he quickly squirmed, ducked his head under my arm and wiggled free from my grip.
as part of a new resolve to remain still, i dropped my shoulders, laid my head back and allowed the fires of separation to drown my body.
i know they aren't mine to keep.


eisley - ambulance

  

luv-luv-luv i want your love

day 38

a casualty of listening to nothing but gaga in the car.


*flour on glamour.com (thank you, joanna!).
if it were me, i'd wear the 60s linen dress. those faux pockets are amazing.

  

patience, little shadow

day 22

happy easter
for all intents and purposes the photo a day is still happening. just at a different pace.

i don't like to think i've failed. only that i've found a different way of doing it.
kind of like havasu's half marathon i ran(that's funny) yesterday.
the last mile and a half was insane. at one point i was literally sprawled out on my back on the side of the london bridge. - and i'm embarrassed to admit that the thought of clotheslining the 95 yr old grandma who passed me by just 300 yards from the finish line, with a "you can do it. just keep going!", crossed my mind.

i tried to wing it, like the rest of my life.
13.something miles: unwingable. noted.


what i heard as i lay across the sidewalk, looking up, unashamed by my present failure:
yeah yeah yeahs -- little shadow (acoustic)

   

carried to ohio in a storm of bees

day 21.

(the days all run together anyway.)

i signed into my email(s) for the first time in nearly a month. - i think that's what they would diagnose as avoidance. 
thank you. the kind words extended to our family have meant everything.
in similar context, "i'm sorry" has always felt a hollow thing to leave my lips. it's not. it's full. and it fills.
music fills. friends fill. family fills.
the narrow line etched gracefully between bliss and melancholy fills.
and now,
our hearts are full.

the national - bloodbuzz ohio

love's obsolete

day 13.

i sometimes wonder if our children will delight in our old collections in the same way our generation delights in the one's before us. - i wish i would've thought to save all my genesis/phil collins cassette tapes.

walk in the park was taken off of continuous play for the first time today. it's a good sign.
means there's progress in the right direction.

  

i admire a girl who's not afraid to be ugly

the only thing more depressing than the day after christmas was the end of last month's dopplegänger week on facebook. i think i laughed more in that week than i ever have. (with you. always with you, never at you.)

there were far too many fantastic lookalikes to mention them all, - who knew i had so many friends that resembled heidi klum in a bikini on the beach? weird. - but the votes are in and the dopplegänger crown goes out to aaron h as john candy's character, barf, from spaceballs.

you win. congratulations.

ah, that blessed, blessed week has proven to be revealing of all of us and i find your confidence astounding, friends. - and for that i salute you.

as for us? well...
our parents have clearly failed us.

mr. and mrs. reed

sadly, fb has peaked and now there's nowhere for any of it to go but down. i don't sign on that thing to k.i.t., so what am i supposed to do with my time now? - tend to home and family? school work? (suddenly, and embarrassingly, start posting to my blog every day?) don't be ridiculous.

the silver lining of it all, as with every bout of monotony-induced depression, is the amount of movies i've recently ingested. i love nothing more than a good movie binge and rachel getting married was by far the most surprising of the lot: an a cappella version of unknown legend? my heart be still, i think i'm in love.

tunde, i'm feeling you. don't ever change.


**these photos you see here have been pirated....so what? big deal.

you're a parenthesis

a word to the wise, if you regularly update your browser and all of the sudden the saturation of the pictures stored in your flickr album is hanging around an alarming eleven, do not manually edit every photo. i repeat: do not. manually. edit. every. photo. it's more than likely a simple error with the browser's color configuration that can be easily fixed in 30 seconds or less. fml.

i don't know if i'm more upset with firefox or with my own thought process that led me to believe some glitch in the system was creeping into every photo i store online and changing the basic parameters i set for it. i want my entire month back.

oh well, here we are together in obnoxious abundance anyway. (drink it all in.) jan-feb 2010:

photos: elliot has randomly said to me twice, my eyes are biting. once for tired eyes and again days later for sad ones. it's the most sense he's ever made. o-frog. s-dog. i'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in. there's a perfectly good explanation for this. whaaaat? sunday afternoons are bbbbback. (back.) knobby knees. naughty kids. knotty pine. i apologize for the numerous toe shots. gross, i know. if you knew i'd been secretly parting my hair down the middle, would we still be friends? hypothetically speaking. listening to new beach house: norway. - in so much love.
i'm a parenthesis.

every plan is a tiny prayer to father time

in the wake of a friend's loss, all of the relationships in our lives are forced into focus. some more difficult to look at than others. our own selfish nature causing missed opportunities to foster friendships, minimizing the role we play in the lives of the people around us.

mine and spencer's anniversary fell on thanksgiving this year, which was kind of nice. and as i grieved for my friend i gave thanks for 7 years, for second chances, for all of the i love yous spoken aloud, and for what sarah said.

there's comfort in knowing that what is lost in this life is not forever.
(what sarah said)

beating like moth's wings

blessing day.
jonah wore a simple shirtdress i made from a simple fabric that reminds me of sitting cross legged on the floor in a friend's home as a child, playing chutes and ladders after school. -- i think it was the bed skirt or maybe the window treatment that was a perfect white eyelet.
worlds colliding, both of our families lined the back four pews at church. there are a lot of us and baby girl is lucky to have so many who love her already.
it was a happy day and a welcomed calm that doesn't seem to happen near enough.

since then i've been binging on some happy tunes: passion pit -- to kingdom come

if nothing works we'll do nothing

hide-and-go-seek with the boys. (they begged me to play all morning)
before i can even get "ready or not here i come" all the way out, elliot pops out from behind the door exclaiming he's been found while owen makes bird noises from under the bed and i pretend not to hear him.
i hide.
elliot counts...7 4 3 10!
they can't find me and when the moment's just right i jump out and scream, scaring them half to death. they both fall over laughing. (i think to keep from crying)
...and we do it all over again.
there are few moments i'd like to live in more than this one.

mew...beach (listen to it on repeat and play hooky from life for the day)

day 17: the beige and the brown and the bronze on fire

dear and the headlights -- mother make me golden