sorry i badmouthed you, poetry, you're cooler than that (not you, amateur contemporary poetry, you still suck)

when i worked at tin house i really started hating poetry. probably because we had to wade through about one million attempts to describe a grandparent's funeral or how it feels to lose your virginity. i hated all of those poems. i found some incredible stories though. some really great ones about unicorns. unfortunately, my name did not make it to the masthead until after i left.

it has been pretty cold lately. cold enough that i've started complaining about it, although only a little and only in private. i've really been trying to be on my best behavior. it's pretty beautiful today though, so i took a walk around a little lake my grandma knows about from when she was little. i spent some time in the sunshine and checked - one more time - to make sure the ducks had migrated. i have enough things to worry about. i don't need to worry about ducks getting cold.







for the record, i know i'm not any kind of photographer. i mean, these pictures were taken from my phone. when i take pictures with my phone, it's usually because something is so awesome that i can't bear not to take a picture of it. today was like that. i've never seen a body of water completely iced over before. i was pretty excited. just ask the lady who was walking her schnauzer around.

i gave up the search for omens - carolann and marissa are going to the ball, so so am i. that's it. it's decided, and if i back out again i think marissa will slay me.

yesterday we visited james in the hospital. we made a bunch of jokes about heath ledger because it is impossible to acknowledge that your big strong friend is in a hospital gown with needles in his arm. i cried a little bit but covered it up by hugging him and then wiping my eyes in his hair.



then when we got in the elevator we felt pretty bad for all those jokes. it's my contention that his od - which i want to believe was accidental (also he had pneumonia i think) - was a direct result of his attempt to really "become" the joker for the new batman movie. he spent a month alone in a hotel room going insane on purpose. i know he was recently divorced and possibly gay, but i think that kind of thing could really break someone and probably had a much more significant effect on his drug use than all of my friends that i have talked to about this think. i'm not sure if i'm going to be able to see the movie believing that it killed someone by torturing him slowly. i do think, though, that it's going to take on some crazy significance like the whole brandon lee/the crow phenomenon. goths, welcome to the comic book world. read batman: arkham asylum. you'll love it.

also, lizzy, i'm pretty sure samuel johnson never said "choose life."