How it went down.

I did manage to find two appropriate readings for the wedding and I read them in front of everyone without passing out. One was an excerpt from Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet and the other was this poem:

Words on Feeling Safe
By George Elliot

Oh the comfort of feeling safe
with a person;
having neither to weigh thoughts,
nor measure words,
but to pour them all out
just as chaff and grain together,
knowing that a faithful hand
will take and sift them,
keeping what is worth keeping
and with a breath of kindness,
blow the rest away.

No death. No broken hearts.

In this picture it’s about to start pouring.

The reception was fueled by cupcakes…

and tequila. (Those are my bony knuckles in the corner.)

And I went home to this face. Just try to look away.

The English major fails, but she has been drinking more.*

Hey. I’m supposed to get up in 5 hours so that I can get on a bus and go to work and that’s not really going to be a good enough reason to get out of bed. But I need your help. I’m supposed to choose and read a poem at my sister’s wedding next weekend and unfortunately right now I can only seem to find stuff that equates love to being shat upon right after you’ve showered and put on your last clean shirt. So while it’s a good time for me to get into poetry, when I agreed to do this I had forgotten how bitter, angsty, and disappointed poets are. They don’t really write for weddings. If you help me find something that is full of hope and anticipation but isn’t embarrassingly lusty, I can offer you some really awesome stuff to read at a funeral.

Here’s a great one by Donald Hall that is almost appropriate but is slightly off-topic:

O Cheese
In the pantry the dear dense cheeses, Cheddars and harsh
Lancashires, Gorgonzola with its magnanimous manner,
the clipped speech of Roquefort, and a head of Stilton
that speaks in a sensuous riddling tongue like Druids.

O cheeses of gravity, cheeses of wistfulness, cheeses
that weep continually because they know they will die.
O cheeses of victory, cheeses wise in defeat, cheeses
fat as a cushion, lolling in bed until noon.

Liederkranz ebullient, jumping like a small dog, noisy,
Pont l’Eveque intellectual, and quite well informed, Emmentaler
decent and loyal, a little deaf in the right ear,
and Brie the revealing experience, instantaneous and profound.

O cheeses that dance in the moonlight, cheeses
that mingle with sausages, cheeses of Stonehenge.
O cheeses that are shy, that linger in the doorway,
eyes looking down, cheeses spectacular as fireworks.

Reblochon openly sexual, Caerphilly like pine trees, small
at the timberline; Port du Salut in love; Caprice des Dieux
eloquent, tactful, like a thousand-year-old hostess;
and Dolcelatte, always generous to a fault.

O village of cheeses, I make you this poem of cheeses,
O family of cheeses, living together in pantries,
O cheeses that keep to your own nature, like a lucky dying couple,
this solitude, this energy, these bodies slowly dying.

*Tonight I had sangria.

I think A is for Attendance.

Hey! Guess what? I got an A in my computer science class. After taking the third worst final in my academic career. Grad school is so easy! I can’t wait until I have to make some bagpipes.

I will detox tomorrow.

I just spent ten glorious days in California and I can’t wait to post the picture evidence that my life can still be fun sometimes. However, my camera went dead within the first 4 days so I don’t have much to share. I did purchase some very large sunglasses to rock so anyone who passes me on the street gets to share that. I also kicked my DDP habit but I used tequila to help wean myself. Did you know I am going out for margaritas tonight? Because I am.

I am in Boston this week and bummed about that. Yes you can hold a grudge against an entire city when it fails you. I am here to make some cash and you can’t always shake your ass for cash. Sometimes you have to drink coffee and wear pants like everyone else. I’m going to get through it, though, because I am listening to freshly downloaded MIKA while everyone else in my work station (Bruegger’s) has to listen to Mariah Carey.