sweet fall

everywhere i look in blogland, people are heralding the fall. this is obvious: fall is the superior season. fall makes dying look good.

i often misuse words. for example, i was going to talk about how fall makes me want to be a heathen, but really, fall does nothing to alter my religion or my level of culture. then i thought, ah! fall makes me want to be a pagan. not really, nope. a hedonist? pursuing my sensual desires is my highest good? a hippie--yes on the long hair and beads, no on the rejection of conventional values or taking of hallucinogenic drugs.

so forget the labels: fall makes me want to lay on dirt and roll in leaves and wake up outside with frost on my hair. during fall, we celebrate the earth.

here's to you.

always and forever

i hate technology. passwords of my own choosing will eventually lock me out of my own life. last weekend i forgot the password to my iTunes, so they sent a link to reset it to my email account. turns out, i also forgot the password to my email and the answer to my secret question. it's strange that i would forget the cryptic workings of my junior high brain, the brain that put "Brad Pitt?" as my secret question. there are probably infinite answers to that question. yes. no. not as hot as johnny depp (though i didn't know that in junior high.)

i suppose it is foolish to put the secret question for my email on the www, but if i bested my own brain, i bet i'll best most everyone else too. plus, as b pointed out so gently, no one cares about getting in my email anyway.

apple has proven their superiority once more, because they have a live chat support feature where my email has none. so i start chatting with the nice guy, and he's about to reset my password when i accidentally hit the back button on my computer (but the ear is in the vicinity of the face! so is the finger when you're shaving!). curses. (howst do you manage the telegrammaphone whilst wearing gentlemen's sport gloves?) every time i hit the chat button, my computer told me that no reps were available and i thought all was lost. then a friend told me to switch computers, which i did, and start chatting anew, which i did. though the second guy was a little slow (coming from the girl who hit the back button in the middle of a chat to reset the password she forgot.) all's well.

i have been measuring my time lately in the segments i'm blocked from trying to get in my email. i get like twenty tries, then i'm blocked for two days or something. very frustrating. i spend all my free thought time in those two days trying to get inside my own head. if i was me, what would i change my password to? today, after my sign-in freeze was unfroze, i sauntered technologically over to my email and on my tenth or so try, I GOT IN. mind blowing. it's like being let back into your house. so familiar, so yours, so strange to have been kept out like a thief or a liar.

i hate how bad i am at verifying my own identity. that is something i will always hold against technology. "i know i am me, i swear." just try telling that to the credit card email online retailer.

p.s. all of this has made a very compelling argument against writing my journal in code. my poor posterity.

Thanks Kim! (p.s. i miss you and the cupcake truck i never knew!)

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_1&listing_id=23993044

I figured it out!

enjoy The Avett Bros singing Salvation Song, Red Butte 2009

it's raining. trees are changing. the earth is trying to convince me to let go of summer.

"Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life--well, valuable, but small. And sometimes I wonder, Do I do it because I like it? Or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when really, shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer, I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So, goodnight, dear void." --Kathleen Kelly

One of the best lines from one of the best movies.

In other news, I've found my dream home. See below.



Doesn't that look delightful? I know it's a bit of a fixer-upper, but heck. What's time to a hog?

Next to that house, I'd like to have this barn.



Quite lovely. Just have to do something about all those holes so the livestock (we'll have six or seven) doesn't get wet.

And last, I wanted to post a vid of the kickin'-ist concert I went to this summer. But I couldn't figure out how to do it, so I can't show you. sorry.

"I want to say farewell to all the darkness in my life"

--Kevin Hart, poet extraordinaire

In honor of the places that sustain and maintain, for easing generations into their heritage, and binding us to those who've gone before.

when my children's children ask me why i didn't go, i'll say the heart of any town is the people that you know

i live a solitary life. i pass hours with my lips zipped, staring at pages in a book, with nothing but the occasional pencil scrawl to prove that my mind is not snoozing on the job. if i could materialize my thoughts, i think they would look like the wispy cotton that blows off cottonwood trees in southern utah. puffs of productivity. coherent in that they are made of the same stuff, but disparate in direction, destination. (i'm not searching for alliteration. it's jumpin' me.)

i have friends. i have roommates. i have family. my heart isn't snoozing either, (what would my material exchange of love look like?) but there is no one who i am accountable to, in the flesh and before my eyes at least. i come and go as i please, making a hundred decisions that only ask for my approval. nothing and no one grounds me, though so many lovely people greet me wherever i land.

i hear my roommate downstairs. she's talking to her mom on the phone, asking her for a piece of domestic wisdom. i'm startled by the routineness of her voice, the casual way in which she says goodbye. ("my waking thoughts of you are but extensions of the dream.") surprisingly, i rarely see or hear my peers interact with their mothers. it is always a pang. i am not inclined to preach against complacency or the taking of what we love for granted: i don't think it's possible to live every day in full gratitude and awareness of our blessedness. even now, i am taking those i still have within phone's reach for granted. i, at least, need jolts. death just happens to be a lighting bolt that sets your insides to trembling with no end in sight.

so many "i"s in the above. i'm grateful for all the "you"s.