"It may be a rollercoaster.

Your highs are going to relieve you but your lows are going to feel extreme. It may feel frustrating and in fact it probably will feel impossible. But you know what? Its who you decide you are going to be in the end that will determine the outcome. What satisfies you will be the result of how you've hung in there- how you never quit. And not quitting will make all the difference."

"Being tender and open is beautiful.

As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. Too wishy washy. Blah blah. Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a rain drop, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep, feel it all – look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love." --Zooey Deschanel

Ow. I'll tell you what, ow!

(my feet hurt so badly.)

Summer is here!

It's been awhile since I posted. I've been keeping myself busy with many things: reading, movies, Joe, visiting home and friends, running/working out, and Town & Gown.

...what's Town & Gown you ask? It is a non-profit chamber music association in Ames that puts on five chamber music concerts a year, does community outreach events, and hosts an annual Musicale, a gala fundraising event featuring esteemed local musicians. I just joined their board of directors as the new secretary, and I couldn't be more excited. We had out first meeting last Thursday and I already feel at home.

I also just read a pair of REALLY excellent books by Chris Cleave: Little Bee and Incendiary. I would highly suggest you pick them up. If you don't believe me, here is a passage I thought was particularly striking from Indendiary:

"Before you bombed my boy Osama I always thought an explosion was such a quick thing but now I know better. The flash is over very fast but the fire catches hold inside you and the noise never stops. You can press your hands on your ears but you can never block it out. The fire keeps on roaring with incredible noise and fury. And the strangest thing is people can be sitting right next to you on the Central Line and not hear a sound. I live in an inferno where you could shiver with cold Osama. This life is a deafening roar but listen. You could hear a pin drop."

Cleave's writing style is very different in each novel, but has a beauty to it that makes them hard to put down.

The weather is really beautiful today, which means it is hot in my apartment. I have my fans going, though, because I refuse to put on the a/c just yet. It's not quite that hot.

I am looking forward to seeing Brooke next weekend for my birthday! I know I just saw her last weekend for her graduation party, but I always love having visitors in Ames. It makes things more exciting. AND I am excited for her to finally meet Joe. :)

I guess that's all for now - oh! I've recently been playing my violin with a little regularity! Huge shock, I know! It's been years and I was really rusty when I first picked it up, but it's amazing how quickly things come back. I'm really enjoying it!

Okay, that's really all. Besitos!

"And by the time I was wishing I'd washed my hair

this morning instead of just bathed and was practically doubled over with gratefulness that I'd at least brushed my teeth, out of the blue, he kissed me. Right in the middle of the Robert E. Lee Hotel Restaurant, he kissed me so slowly with an open mouth and every single thing in my body--my skin, my collarbone, the hollow backs of my knees, everything inside of me filled up with light."
-The Help by Kathryn Stockett

"Adrian, imagine everyday is Independence Day

and save us from traveling the river changed; save us from hitchhiking the long road home. Imagine an escape. Imagine that your own shadow on the wall is the perfect door. Imagine a song stronger than penicillin. Imagine a spring with water that mends broken bones. Imagine a drum which wraps itself around your heart. Imagine a story that puts wood in the fireplace."
-The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie

"'Well I woke up this morning

and diagnosed a very early case of happiness.

'Never heard of it,' he says.

'It's a rare disease. I caught it just before the neighbors woke.'

'Is it contagious?'

'Don't you have it yet?'

...I told him that I loved him and that I'd always love him and I felt like a child who throws a centavo into a fountain and then she has to tell someone her most extraordinary wish even though she knows that the wish should be kept secret and that, in telling it, she is quite possibly losing it. He replied that I was not to worry, that the penny could come out of the fountain again and again and again."
-Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann

"Outside, there were two tickets

in the window of the Pontiac - a parking fine, and one for a smashed headlight. It was enough to almost knock me sideways. Before I drove home to the cabin, I went back to the window of the bar and shaded my eyes against the glass, looked in. Ciaran was at the counter, his arms folded and his chin on his wrist, talking to the bartender. He glanced up in my direction and I froze. Quickly I turned away. There are rocks deep enough in this earth that no matter what the rupture, they will never see the surface.

There is, I think, a fear of love.

There is a fear of love."
-Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann

"That's one of the advantages of being an adult.

You get to act like a kid anytime you feel like it."
--Jack Taylor, "One Fine Day"

"What do you want?

You-you want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey, that's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon...Well, then you could swallow it. And it'll all dissolve, see. And the moon beams that shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair...Am I talking too much?"

Nicest note ever from one of Hallie's friends in LA:

"Kimpossible-

It was very nice meeting you. If there was a single quality I wished to instill in all women with beautiful noses, it would be the ability to immediately and appropriately recall previous jokes - you are an expert at what those of us who dabble in whimsical intelligencia call WIT.

That said, your short visit was hysterical and utterly funtastic. Not that you need to hear it from me, but please come back any time. The pleasure would be ALMOST entirely ours, except that I think it's reciprocal. :)

-Harry Doggins"

This made me laugh so hard. Apparently I look like the human version of Kim Possible (the cartoon)

I already miss California and have posted my pictures on Facebook if you want to check them out.

"You know that point in your life

when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone...You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place."
[Garden State]

"Laugh Curtain old boy!

It's a great joke played on us by the Lord, or fate, or nature, whatever you prefer. But whoever or whatever played it certainly had a sense of humor! Ha! The gold has gone back to where we found it!... This is worth ten months of suffering and labor - this joke is!"

It's a two post day.

Why you ask?

Because I am thinking way too much for my own good, missing my friends and family back in Wheaton, and pondering some of the friendships that I feel drifting away.

Some of those friendships are going faster than others. They seem to be high tailing it out of here and I can't quite figure out why. There are a few in particular that I never in a million years thought would end up like this.

Was it something I said? What it something I did? Or is this one of those "It's not you, it's me" scenarios? Either way, pouring over these things never does me any good, and brings me to tears more often than I'd like to admit. I try to be tough, but let's face it: I'm a softie.

To the friends that are sticking around and are wonderful: I am so thankful for you. For the ones drifting away: I wish you wouldn't because you're still important to me. Those that are drifting at a quicker pace: I'm sad things have turned out this way. I already miss you and am hoping things will turn around.

Well, I guess that's enough Debbie Downer for one night. Sorry about that...

"Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos."
Charles M. Schulz

"I like you to be exactly the way that you are,

because in all my experience, I have never known anyone like you."
--A Streetcar Named Desire

The best version of soft kitty yet!

(Nathan, if you read this, turn back now!!)

"Life isn't simple

it's complicated. We're all just thrown in here together, in a world full of chaos and confusion, a world full of questions and no answers, death always lingering around the corner, and we do our best...you have to go for what you want in life because you never know how long you're going to be here. And whether you succeed or you fail, the most important thing is to have tried. And apparently no one will guide you in the right direction, in the end you have to learn for yourself. You have to grow up yourself."
--Death at a Funeral