stomach flu

um, everyone in philadelphia is sick right now. luckily i got a flu shot so i’m just losing my voice, which ideally will end up being sexy for a few days. we’ll see. i think about the weather a lot when i’m in the city since interaction requires me to actually go out into it and right now it’s being a total fucking dick. like last night, it was doing the really pretty quiet snow thing and i walked home all smiley listening to it being silent. then i woke up this morning and the sidewalks were all slippy and melted and it was raining. come on, weather. stop being a tease.

also, i hate alligators and they are on tv right now in my living room. people are provoking them. oh god. i hate alligators almost as much as i hate rabies.

speaking of alligators, have you seen this video? please watch it.

i am going to make t-shirts with this little guy on it.

incidentally, have you noticed that obama is left handed? i am left handed. i think all left-handed people get secretly excited when they realize someone else is a lefty too. i know i do. why do left handed people die younger than right handed people? why do i get my university’s hillel newletter? do the colors on my blog make it too hard to read? why is the discovery channel now the home shopping network? life is full of questions.

HOMYGOD THEY ARE LETTING ALLIGATORS CHASE THEM. he just said “we’re gonna put on some heavy armor and agitate the alligator to try to get him to chase us.” guess what mythbuster? elbow pads are not exactly what i’d call “heavy armor.” actually, not even close; maybe if you’re five and trying to learn to rollerskate. that motherfucker is going to crush your bones into tiny tiny pieces.

i bought lotion the a few weeks ago that smelled like last winter, but now i don’t even notice it.

isn’t it funny how smells fade into familiarity? and you know how smell is supposed to be the sense that’s most tied to memory? try to describe how something smells. it’s hard. but then, when you talk about how something looks—there are so many words! flat, smooth, small, close, easy, curvy, ugly, young, red, blue, alive. scent escapes language and lurks somewhere back in your head, back where memories are spun.

it’s almost february, too. i’ve been waiting for it since november so i can listen to “february air” while i walk to class because i like songs with specific months and days and times in them.

there’s not really a point here. i think the point is: i would like some bike-friendly weather so that i can go outside and start making sense.

Consider the Hands that Write This Letter

after Marina Wilson
Consider the hands
that write this letter.
The left palm pressed flat against the paper,
as it has done before, over my heart,
in peace or reverence
to the sea or some beautiful thing
I saw once, felt once: snow falling
like rice flung from the giants' wedding,
or the strangest birds. & consider, then,
the right hand, & how it is a fist,
within which a sharpened utensil,
similar to the way I've held a spade,
match to the wick, the horse's reins,
loping, the very fists
I've seen from the roads to Limay & Estelí.
For years, I have come to sit this way:
one hand open, one hand closed,
like a farmer who puts down seeds & gathers up
the food that comes from that farming.
Or, yes, it is like the way I've danced
with my left hand opened around a shoulder
& my right hand closed inside
of another hand. & how
I pray, I pray for this
to be my way: sweet
work alluded to in the body's position
to its paper:
left hand, right hand
like an open eye, an eye closed:
one hand flat against the trapdoor,
the other hand knocking, knocking.

[Aracelis Girmay]