leaving

I'm bad at leaving, bad at saying goodbye. I hate packing. Despite all of this, I will have plenty of practice at it. What to do?

the Olympics

I think the Olympic Games are too contrived, mawkish, over-hyped (and maybe I'm not the only one--apparently only about half of the tickets have been sold). But. The men's swimming still gets me excited. I find swimming more interesting than other sports to begin with--fun to watch, fun to do--and then there's Michael Phelps: woo and hoo. Go Team USA, go!

sushi

Do you like sushi? I know I'm addicted and if you are you might just find this as cool as I did. Makes me hungry. And how are you decorating your dorm room this year? Maybe this poster is just the accent you've been searching for. I also found this website (featuring bento boxes) which is hysterical and kind of interesting to look at. Yes, I am a teeny bit bored.

remembering Julia Child

epicurious.com remembers the inimitable Julia Child with an interview, recipes, books, and photos. Rest in peace, Julia.

elm

For Ruth Fainlight

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, this big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches? -

Its snaky acids hiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That kill, that kill, that kill.

-- Sylvia Plath

perseids

I'll be watching, will you? Well, you should be. The meteor showers are an awe-inspiring experience, silent and beautiful. I have very fond memories from when I was little of going camping and watching them with my father.

no no no

I realized this morning (yes, only this morning) that I return to school in nine days. Nine days! I feel like calling the administration and saying: No! I can't come back, I just got here! It really does seem like only yesterday that I got off the plane. (Okay, maybe not yesterday, but not very long ago.) I don't feel vacationed-out, I don't think I've done enough of doing nothing for this vacation to count. Summer has slipped through my fingers. I have done some really fantastic things with fantastic people, though: I went to three museums I wanted to go to, ate good food (lots of Asian--Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese--and grilled food), shopped, swam in the ocean, went to beautiful concerts, slept on the beach in the hot afternoon sun, went to parties, watched people breakdancing outside a T stop in Cambridge, saw movies that I've been dying to see, spent time with my family and friends, met new people, read good books, discovered new music, finger-painted (!), cooked a lot (by myself and with friends), and traveled, among other things. I guess the problem is that there's so much more I want to do (per usual) and I simply don't have the time. And, also, I know I'm going to miss my family and friends like hell as soon as I leave. I suspect that a fair amount of other college students can't identify with that, but I really love my parents (we don't agree on everything, not by a long-shot, but I respect them so much and recognize all the sacrifices they've made for me), siblings, and grandparents. And my friends are irreplaceable. I know I'll do better than I did first semester freshman year (when I was so homesick that I felt physically ill), because I've made some good friends and the whole experience won't be so alien to me. But. I still worry about things, because I'm always worried about something. So, I wish I could delay it, just a tiny bit longer. I wish there were more hours in the day, more months in summer.

Massachusetts

I just returned from camping in the Berkshires. I'd never been there before and I absolutely fell in love with it. All the cows with their little baby cows (calves, I know), the encircling mountains (as large as the ones in Southern California, but far prettier, densely wooded) that are blanketed with fog in the morning and the evening, the faded old houses and barns with brilliant flower gardens and crooked fences, the little college towns, the placid lakes being fished in the twilight by children, the soft humid air, the dark clear night skies with their rivers of stars. I felt like I was in a James Taylor song every time I saw a sign that said "The Berkshires" on it.