The Agent O. and me

Most spontaneous times

Ingrid by the selby

Pallor

Something terrible

happened to my macbook today.

i am saddened but shall move past it.

A couple more favorites

Bears & broccoli

Today marks the ninth month I've been happily bear-ified (translation: smitten with a bear). 
On Friday during dinner at Esca, we discovered how delicious bay bugs were. We had a seafood feast and both got a little rosy-cheeked; he must have thought it was because of the wine but actually it was a mixture of that, plus my gratifying realization that I could indeed maintain eye contact (at various points) through out a dinner conversation.

We went back to 2H where we promptly sunk into blissful food coma and woke up the following day for brunch at Cafe Lalo. It's the same place in You've Got Mail where Meg Ryan (Kathleen Kelly) had talked down Tom Hank (Joe Fox) when he showed up during what was supposed to be her first meeting with the guy she had been emailing. I asked Drew to help me narrow down some options for what dish to order. I named four or five and he reduced them to two -- he explained something along the lines of, "it's because they include eggs." And I thought how he was the best ordering buddy because he always considered little things. 

This morning he made our breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausages. And even though he wondered aloud if the scrambled eggs were too well done, I actually thought they were perfect. It was the first time I had ever eaten the eggs he cooked.

I suppose the point of all this is just to say that every day along the way of our being together, there are these small discoveries that come with the gentle awareness of how much he means to me.

Happy ninth month, B.

Walks, a birthday and homecooked food

Burping on our walk

Helping Daniel with his Chinese hw. Grams' leopard slippers :P

Walking on the trail in the woods

sunny face

Okay so I'm a litle smug

g-chatting with jess chia

me:  hahaha

OH BTWS

I FOUND OUT MY TRUE HEIGHT

wanna know????

 Jessica:  what is it

YES

THE TRUTH, REVEALED

 me:  I'm 5'6 and a half

FO SHIZZLE

 Jessica:  NOOOOOOOOOOOO

pee lah

 me:  YES

i went to the womens health center

 Jessica:  PEEEEEEEEE LAAAAAHHHH

 me:  AND THEY MEASURED ME

 Jessica:  well they measured WRONG

wahahahahahaha

 me:  WITH ONE OF THOSE LEGIT HEIGHT/WEIGHT measuring things

oh man

u know what this means

 Jessica:  ..........i do not believe

 me:  this means YOUVE been measured wrong all these years

 Jessica:  then i must be like freaking 5 9 or something

 me:  ha!

HAHAHAHHAHAHA

ok now that is total bs

no way mang

 Jessica:  hahahaha

 me:  youre 5'7

 Jessica:  dude.....i'm taller than you by half an inch

 me:  then

you'd be... 5'7 if i'm 5'6 and a half

honestly DONT SELL YO-SELF SHORT, i'm not.

ahahaha

 Jessica:  hahhaha

 me:  i'm totally owning up to my truest height

its time u stopped stumping yourself down

 Jessica:  hahaha

 me:  but yeah i was so excited i wanted to tell you right away

 Jessica:  pwahahaha

Olivia

Jeebrey's autobiography

Here is what he wrote to sum up his feffrey self: 

A turtle that has nose hair growing out of his eyebrows x_x
A turtle that ripped 14 of his underwears from doing squats x_x
A turtle that has kissed and hugged a bunny for 8 years : )
A turto that is in love with a bunny that despises carrots (probably the only bunny in this world that hates carrots!).

Jeeb's finger gingerly patting mini Turto

Tuzhi used her bunny feet to draw another tuzhi

Gway gway's tuzhi

Something common

Dug up from abandoned playlist

TV on the Radio

Cross the street from your storefront cemetery. 
Hear me hailing from inside and realize -- 
 
I am the conscience clear
in pain or ecstasy
And we were all weaned my dear
upon the same fatigue.

Your mouth is open wide, the lover is inside.
And all the tumults done
collided with the sign.
You're staring at the sun, you're standing in the sea
Your body's over me. 


Staring at the Sun (Hollertronix remix)
 

Needed distraction from paper

she was perfectly small but liked to wear large intricate earrings nearly half the size of her face. she had the makings of the type of girl who others would part the sidewalk for: a graceful jawline and slight earlobes, a slender girlish neck preceding slender collarbones -- she was refined.

he walked proudly beside her, held her hand. but he saw that when she'd let go briefly to push her hair back or answer her phone, she wouldn't reach for his hand again afterward. and it bothered him that he'd always be the one re-clasping hers -- that she never noticed enough to initiate it herself, that it made him feel like he was holding onto her when she didn't particularly care to be held.

sometimes they'd walk a block or two and their hands would just dangle between their bodies in the air. it was childish, he knew, but he would restrain his hand from clutching hers even when the backs of their palms brushed and bumped into each other dumbly in mid-swing; at that point, wouldn't it be natural for her fingers to seek his? how hard was it for her to notice, to want it -- that warmth.

he wondered if it had always this way; he knew there was a time when she was ecstatic to be with him. but maybe things were winding down now because they were comfortable, and of course being comfortable was a good thing, not a sign that things were going stale, that they had finished discovering each other.

This cracks me up at 1 in the morning

Today in the newsroom, I asked Jordan how Ashley liked the ostrich egg he gave her for their one year. And then I told him that there was something I needed to show him, so would he please come to where I was sitting. Except there wasn't actually anything I needed to show him; I was just pretending so that it'd seem like we were immersed in some kind of serious news discussion -- something really pressing. But what actually happened was, he recited a couple of the poems that he wrote for Ashley and then he showed me more on his blog.  They are stupendous so I will be generous with my findings and share:

By Jordan **i****

Poems What What

Your eyes open
like flowers
close
like sunsets
cry
like waterfalls

I kissed you
like my pillow
in grade school--
I think the
pillow
liked it better

You popped
our love
like a pimple--
I still
have scars.

All is fair
in love
and beer pong.

I mounted you
like a steer,
you bucked me,
like a bronco.

I love you
like a clownfish
loves a sea anenome--
have you
not
heard of
symbiosis?

She said,
"Don't ever leave me."
He said,
"I'm just going
to the bathroom."

We danced
like no one was watching--
turns out they were.
We got embarrassed
and went back inside. 

Give the people what they want

She said "Hi"

He said "Hi"

She said

"This isn't

working out."

I said

"I love you"

She said

"You've got a

thing in your

teeth right

there

no

there

no--

you got it"

I learned

your body

like a map--

I was always

bad with

directions.

Spooning,

I discovered,

is nothing

like

silverware.

When she

smiled the world

smiled.

When she got

in a crazy rage--

well, let's not

talk about it.

We talked until

the sun rose--

I was asleep

for the last

two hours of it

but you didn't notice.

A poem is a plumb is a napalm

She said
"Let's go to
my place"
He said
"Can we
play Scrabble?"

Diamonds are a
girl's best friend.
I, unfortunately,
have always been a
diamond.

"Love poems are
so corny," she said.
"Yeah, totally," he said,
stuffing a love poem
back into his pocket.

Pillow talk, for me,
has always meant
talking to my pillow.

He said,
"What do you
want to do?"
She said
"I don't know
what do you want
to do?"
Nine months later
there was a baby.

Lentil

You were waiting for me, you saw me, you saw me as I wished the whole world would.
You would never hurt me, desert me or work me or all the things you thought you should.
You would lick the tears from my eyes when I cry; how I missed you when I was gone.
I want just to hold you, unfold you, I told you I am coming back for you.

Not even a century

He was outside on his wheelchair and he could only move the upper part of his face. His chin was paralyzed already. He looked like he might have been either smiling and wincing; when his wife wiped his eyes, that was when you knew that he was actually crying. And then she had to walk away from behind him because she didn't want him to see her. By that time he could no longer speak...

She knelt in the darkened stairway sobbing, knowing that he didn't have much longer, that he was nearing death. So then she applied lipstick and walked into his closed-off section of the hospital room. She plugged earphones in his ears and took off her coat to reveal a little blue sundress she was wearing underneath; it matched the bow in her hair. And she started dancing, lip-syncing to the song. His eyes smiled, were bright. But there were little second-long moments when his eyes looked away from her, upward, darting wildly, glazing still. When she was done dancing, she knelt at his bedside and placed her head on his chest. He looked at her, told her in his head what would be his last words... sorry. Said he loved her. She must find happiness on her own. She faced him then, hurt so stark on her face. "I love you, too." Crying like a child, like a wife, like one angrily not wanting to let go... one who knew of the finality and yet refused to believe in goodbye.

At that moment I thought how I loved and never wanted to let you go. I felt like I was her, imagining the unbearable pain in seeing you suffer, and being so helpless in the face of it all. So angry, so scared, so torn and wrought with stubborn love.

Scarlet

"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, 
  but that we wait so long to begin it." 
                                               --W. M. Lewis
 
A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

In a matter of hours

i can't wait i can't wait i can't wait to
leave

but you know i've got you with me.

Morning email

Jessica Chia 1:27 AM (6 hours ago)

to me:

this is why jk rowling is awesome: she had me at chihuahua flatulence

"I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before ‘thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking Chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls."

Ballet

You have to really love it. Or you have to really want the acceptance of the person who wants you to do it.

Supplement facts

I don't do it much, but once in a while I sit cross legged on the right corner of my stiff living room couch, clad in the knee-high white socks that I used to play high school volleyball in, and listen to Monay's mix CD for me. I place my laptop right in front of the post-it that reads, "Be better today than you were yesterday." And as Damien Rice sings "Cannonball," I wonder how love can teach a person to lie.

If I could lighten up a little, I'd feel my emotions in less of a flat, monotonous voice.

If it weren't too late, I'd go back to April 17 and September 1 to say happy birthday to Jess and Carol on time.

Just like all those pretty lights

"There's something to be said
           about the colors in your head
           and how they mix to form the perfect shade of sadness."

G-chatting during Day Ahead meeting

me: i dont really think in terms of stuff looking good on my resume

i just wanna enjoy what i do.

 ='(

=''''''''''(

 Jordan:  can i get you an e-tissue?

Jordan:

 [ ]

Carolynn

It was on the train back to her shoebox apartment from the diner that she first saw him.
He wasn't spectacular-looking or particularly impressive in any physical way. There was just a thing -- an unnamable air about him, not a confidence so much as an indifference. The narcissist in her screamed that in him she saw herself. She disagreed; he looked like if he wanted to, he could care. He just chose not to. She admired him.
On the sixth of their mutual train rides, he was seated across the car from her, and she was facing the opposite direction, closely examining the train ads for no reason in particular other than to avoid eye contact with every other person around her. She felt a tap on her shoulder; it was him, asking her, specifically, if she'd like his seat, because he was getting off at the next stop (she knew that, obviously). She was astounded; he had ignored all the old people and the children closer to him to ask her if she wanted to sit down.
It was the most obnoxious thing she'd ever seen anyone do. It was beautiful.

Two favorites

Playground slides and pandas.