—AND YOU, YOU’RE PRETTY AS A PICTURE, YET I DON’T EVEN KNOW YOUR NAME

  

The Backup Singers

 

Almost 65 now, I’m told, 

too much frosting, 

or not enough, 

who’s the true judge 

of such things? 

But at the family 

gathering,

the Littles flit and 

knock about, 

their parents (my children) 

oblivious but aware 

of everything-- 

my tremors and intake,

the rise and fall of 

days and years

flashing by--

slathering their faces with it,

a beautiful mockery. 

Back when I was 

an uncertain cloud,

there was a party, 

much like this one,

where the Old Littles  

also gathered behind 

the egg-shaped table

like a sinful choir, 

named as such 

by the man blowing 

out candles on

his frosted cake, 

smoke scissoring 

the terse air 

like a final threat 

or promissory note

written in smoke--

we were never sure which

until the last bottle 

bled out, 

when one of us 

would sing again,

a solo, everything

he demanded to hear,

staring at his belt 

and tarnished buckle 

the entire time,

its stem either 

a divining rod or

red hot needle,

depending upon how long 

the note was held.

 —I’M NOT HOLDING MY BREATH. YOU?

 

…I never know what to do when my computer won’t do what it’s supposed to.

 

…I still can’t tell you what a carburetor or predicate is.

 

…I want my joy pure without that echo in my head. 

 

…Whenever I hear myself starting to get a little too bleak on here, I hear my best friend asking, “Are you okay, dude?” and try to course correct, though sometimes it’s too late.

 

…I can only recall my best friend coming to my office once in 24 years’ time. After he left, my Admin came in all flushed and said, “I feel like I just met a Beatle.” That’s how much I loved the guy, and still do.

 

…Critter and Clover, the two parakeets in our house, love the sound of running water. Any time I’m at the sink, they immediately go bonkers. I always think this has something to do with their ancient DNA, like hearing the sound of waterfalls in the rainforest. But for some other reason entirely, they always love football.

 

…The best advice I ever got from my dad (and maybe the only advice I remember): You may not be smarter than everyone else, but you can always out-work them. 

 

…Can you tell a story wrong? I suppose it depends on the story.

 

…You’re all you’ve got.

 

…Even in the face of an apocalypse, it turns out to be pretty easy to have one’s feelings hurt. 

 

…You can appreciate things at four in the morning that would go right on past you during the day.

 

…What’s a little too easy is getting sucked into a bad place.

 

…The mind pulls a blindfold out of its pocket on certain occasions.

 

…I always wondered why there are so many personal injury lawyer ads, but then I learned Washington state has 80,000 car accidents every year.

 

…I thought this was interesting, especially given that the vast majority of young people, especially Red-leaning young white males, get their news from the internet:

“Let’s not forget that the people who consumed a lot of media about the Boston Marathon bombing experienced “higher acute stress” than those who were actually at the bombing. Screens contribute to a catastrophizing mind-set.” S.K. Sterling, PhD

 

…“I will never be young again. Or any younger than I am today. I will never be faster or more flexible. I will never win competitions against 22-year-old wrestlers in my weight class. I will never be a black belt. None of these things will happen. But none of that matters anymore.” Anthony Bourdain

 

…Remember how good it felt to hug someone for the first time after COVID?

 

…If I know one thing, I know one thing.

 

…Me going on a book tour is me slipping under the covers and turning on the bedside lamp with a book in one hand and a pen in the other.

 

…Writers who don’t write are unhappy people.

 

…"Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. The illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on. What else could? As pathological phenomena go, it doesn't completely wreck your life." Phillip Roth

 

…“Research suggests that most friendships dissolve over time due to life transitions, with up to 70% of friendships ending after seven years,” Dr. Christina Lee

 

…The easiest way to fix it is to just ignore it.

 

…But, like the pandemic, it’ll still be there in the morning. 

 

…“Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance.” James Baldwin

 

…What love means to the people who love me, I don’t know.

 

…“Like the man said: eat dessert first, life is uncertain. Point being, the way the world turns, the inevitable grind of history seems to indicate that places like this and people like this get plowed under, pushed aside, paved over.

Who owns paradise, after all? Who, in the end, gets to own paradise, use paradise or even visit it? That’s a question that’s probably worth paying attention to before there’s none left at all.” Anthony Bourdain 

 

…This is a little bit how I feel about my blog…

“I don't really care whether people like the show. Ideally, you'll really like this episode, you'll hate next week's episode, you'll be confused by the following week's episode and you'll love the one after that. That would be perfect for me. I just don't want to do the same thing all the time. If you are reliably making people, even your core audience, happy, you are doing something wrong. I'm much more interested in trying to be creative, trying to stay interested, trying to push my crew and my creative partners to do their best work. I'm fully aware that, if that's your priority, you are going to make some people unhappy on a regular basis. That's what I do. I don't know if that's a recipe for success. It probably isn't. The recipe for success is to make the stupidest show about bacon and burgers, fill it with plenty of rodeos and Americana, get yourself frosted tips and some goofy cargo shorts and a signature look and be sure you have a catch phrase, and you are well on your way.”

–Anthony Bourdain

 

…I don’t want to transition or anything, but sometimes I wish I wasn’t a male.

 

…I saw a huge sign in an outdoor mall that read: 

SAVE 100% 

WHEN YOU 

DON’T BUY 

ANYTHING 

 

…“Hurting yourself is easy. Living is hard.” Loudermilk

 

…Is there really light at the end of the tunnel? Hmmm.

 

…Remember when we were going to                        ?

 

…Those ducks showed up right in the nick of time. (Also, that’s an expression I’ve never used before in my life.)

 

…If there’s such a thing as better than flawless it would be “Adolescence.” 

 

…I saw an ad for a company that makes incredible recreations of dogs and their push was to get a replica of a deceased pet for someone to help them with the grieving process, but every single image was of some person squeezing the stuffed animal while sobbing uncontrollably.

 

…“The air tastes braless when I’m drunk.” Kandace Siobhan Walker

 

…Let’s get the day back, shall we?

 

—IT’S HARD TO FIND AN ANGEL WHEN IT’S HELL ON EARTH

 

 

Sugar Ants

 

Back then   he could say     he was young      and foolish      desperate for love     same as anyone    still lithe and thick-haired      easy with a laugh or smirk   Maybe it was one of the girls   who gave him the handle    Sugar   because it stuck    like a lozenge   meant to be sucked    instead of swallowed   He was different later   of course   had to find his women    through electronics  and habituation     sly scouting    At home     the ants came   out of cracks   in columns   thinner than scars    or ligature marks     black specks the size of     shredded pepper   vermin that hustled    over the sink counter     bathroom tiles and    bedside nightstand     Mom was always     jittery    yet she felt lucky    loving the quarterback all these years   jesting You still got it Sugar    even the critters want some    But at that point    it was he   who did the sourcing     a detective on and off    the job    his assignment as he saw it    to reclaim the glory days   which were my unspoken thoughts    not his    for how do you make sense    of camouflaged evil     when it hugs you    pats your back    says Son you’re a tall bastard now   that laugh again    his new set of eyes     nearly as black as     the ants that danced    throughout our home   the ones that still come looking    even after all    the carnage   and flood of    unsweetened tears. 

Why I Take The Bus

She's always in the back 

my daughter 

strapped safely in 

the car seat 

asleep or making up 

sign language 

with her chubby fingers 

the ones I used to 

nibble so she'd giggle 

my daughter 

who will never turn 

older than three 

asleep and dreaming 

in the back seat 

where the sun isn't scorching 

where no one's left her 

and she isn't locked 

inside a car 

in the back seat 

just like that

 

—I’VE BEEN STARING AT THE SUN FOR SIX WHOLE DAYS

 

…My hope is like a suntan—it looks really good for a while but always fades. 

 

…Sometimes I just wallow in it.

 

…On the flip side, there are a lot of cute babies being born every day.

 

…A few weeks back I was going to quit The Washington Post after their owner demanded that the paper’s opinion editor essentially stop giving his opinion on certain matters. But the publication has a column I love called The Optimist. I’d share links to some of my favorite columns, but you’d have to be a subscriber to open them. The most recent was about this local convenience store in a small town that carried a random array of items including VHS tapes which his best customer loved the most, especially the Disney movies. She has Down Syndrome and would come in every other day with her mom to pick out a film, most of which she had seen dozens of times. But then the store’s lease expired, rent got raised very high, and so he had to relocate. He’d been planning to scale down his assortment to increase profitability. But instead of eliminating archaic VHS tapes, he actually created a special spot that featured only Disney movies and above the shelves he put up a sign reading Christine’s Corner, named after his best (and favorite) customer. Christine and her mother had feared the store’s move, and so when they entered the new place on opening day and saw what the owner had done, well, there were a lot of joyful tears. Some were mine. The photograph is priceless.

 

…Some things are easy to disbelieve, but then there are others that, while they’re still hard to fathom, make you want them to be true. For instance, the notion that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the earth—that’s something I hope is real.

 

…Yesterday was the first day of Spring and it rained. Boy was it pretty.   

 

…What’s scary is watching how fast the second hand can hustle.

 

…This is bliss, this is hell, forever is a feeling, and I know it well.

 

…It’s true—I’ve never met a hoodie I didn’t like.

 

…I’ve tried, but I still can’t describe to you what the word masculine means.

 

…It’s pretty hard to dislike a song with a ukulele in it. Most all of them are happy little ditties.

 

…I’m not a fan of dressing up pets. Every dog in a costume looks traumatized and defeated while their owner stands by with a dopey grin or a thumbs up.

 

…Don’t the majority of people watch films for the same reason they read, to escape into a different world for a while? Then why have they stopped reading? My theory is that they look at reading the same way they do a film with subtitles: it seems like it’ll be too much work, even though once you start watching, you almost forget you’re following along by subtitles.

 

…The problem with being overly superstitious is it doesn’t work most of the time.

 

…A writer I love a posted a short little video on social media entitled Hello my book is real and I cried showing her opening a box of her latest book and, yes, I got a little weepy right along with her. I can’t believe how adorable she was, crying and laughing and tossing the book up in the air, saying, “It’s a bit heavy, so even if you don’t read it, you can use all the pages to fan yourself when you’re too warm.” And it went on, even more adorable. It’s really rare to see something that authentic and vulnerable in my little corner of the world. 

 

…The full moon’s reflection rippling in the water—now there’s a sight.

 

…I saw a lone goose floating on the lake, which is also pretty rare because they always swim in groups, plus at this time of year, most of them are down south. Poor guy, I thought.

 

…As you know, I tend to be too superstitious. For a long time, I thought seeing a crow was bad luck. But then I found out how smart they are (crows, like elephants, are one of the few animals that can feel deep sadness, and grieve at the death of one of their own.) Now I feel lucky, like it’s a good sign, whenever a crow flies by. Yesterday I saw a whole flock. 

 

…“There’s something about creating that brings nurturing back into your life, where it reminds you that we are put on this earth to do more than just survive. In a world where we have so little control, I feel like being able to write a song is the one thing that I still have control over.” Brontez Purnell 

 

…I haven’t been super anxious in a spell, thank God. I wouldn’t wish anxiety on (almost) anybody.

 

…Maybe you know, but I had to look up what “bupkis” means.

 

…In checking out this year’s lineup for Lollapalooza I saw about 100 bands I’ve never heard of, one with the name People R Ugly.

 

…Sometimes it’s hard to remember things, yet it seems like it’s so easy to remember the things you’d like to forget. 

 

…“I can’t believe this is the job. Just plumb the depths and give it away!” Lucy Dacus

 

…Did you know that a lack of social connection has been shown to be as detrimental to one’s health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day?

 

…Whenever people say, “It’s not too late,” I always want to ask, “Are you sure?”

 

…Asking for a favor after being insulted is usually not a good idea. 

 

…Hey, is this all real? I say that to myself way too much anymore.

 

…When I asked ChatGPT: “Who is Len Kuntz?” it said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone by that name.” 

 

…Somehow I’m staying off the floor. Yay.

 

…Posted on social media:

Pardon my crudity. Sorry not sorry.

Fun Fact: A blue whale's anus can stretch to about 3.5 feet in diameter—making it the second biggest asshole on the planet.

 

… “You write poems because you need a place where what isn’t may be.”  Alejandra Pizarnik

 

…People can hate on Amazon all they want, but you have to give them props for having a good thing going. It’s almost like all I have to do is just think about something I want, and it shows up at my door three hours later.

 

…I might be wrong, but it seems to me that you can usually tell how much someone cares about you by how many questions they ask.

 

… “When you start thinking about what people like, you start thinking about what people expect. Then you start pandering to people's expectations. Then you start talking about yourself in the third person. And then you end up overdosed in a hotel room. I learned very early on not to think about that. You go out there and do the best you can, and you do things that are interesting to you. Hopefully it will be interesting to other people. I don't want to be adequate. I'd rather fail gloriously making something strange, awesome but ultimately a failure.” --Anthony Bourdain

 

…I feel so bad for people who don’t have a personality, because I seem to have so many.

 

…I wonder if cancelling plans on someone is as painful for other people as it is for me. Something tells me it’s not.

 

…I’m intrigued with tattoos for all sorts of reasons, but someone has to explain the allure of a back tattoo to me.

 

… "I saw a crow building a nest, I was watching him very carefully, I was kind of stalking him and he was aware of it. And you know what they do when they become aware of someone stalking them when they build a nest, which is a very vulnerable place to be? They build a decoy nest. It’s just for you," Tom Waits

 

…I remember standing in the coffee line at my very first writer’s conference. Two people in front of me was this mantis of a woman, so frail that a strong wind might break a few of her bones. When she turned slightly, I realized it was Joyce Carol Oates. No one else even knew.

 

…“My painting is dead. I am not in the right place. I am not a painter.” Michelangelo, while painting the Sistine Chapel

 

…Who knew there were so many writers? But where are all the readers?

 

…A social media post yesterday:

PSA: If you don’t want your child to be gay, trans, etc., then just don’t have kids. This isn’t fucking build-a-bear. You don’t get to pick and choose these things about your child. You aren’t ready to be a parent if you aren’t ready to love them unconditionally.

 

…People who don’t care if they’re liked or not are people I’ve never met.

 

…How strange, to be a country without friends.

 

…I love Dylan, but I don’t think there is a single answer blowing in the wind.

 

…“Who is it that can tell me who I am?” Shakespeare, King Lear

 

…We only live once, if at all.

 

…I’m envious of people who can deal with conflict and not let it bother them afterwards.

 

…I’m one of the lone few who isn’t a Beatles fan. Nope. But I think Paul McCartney is the real deal. Anyone at his age and stage of acclaim (is there even a comparable person?) who still admits that’s he’s needy and looking for approval all the time is somebody I’d trust with just about anything. 

 

…“You blows who you is.” Louis Armstrong

 

…Good listening is more than just listening.

 

…When you start your day, do you expect something good to happen? Or do you just go about it not really expecting anything one way or the other?

 

…Where do you find your heroes, not someone perfect, but someone to emulate or at least look to when you need an example?  

 

…It’s important to remember how lucky you are. No matter what, you are lucky.  

 

…“There are notes between notes, you know.” Sarah Vaughan

 

…I used to be really good under pressure. When I think about those days, I don’t even believe it. Like maybe that wasn’t me. Now I’ve got to write a story by Monday, and I have the opening line, but every time I write further it’s just blob after blob of word salad.

 

…I guess no one can tell you you’re trying too hard except yourself.

 

…Respect is a heavy word, but really, isn’t it just prioritizing your actions according to how much you care about someone? 

 

…There are some stories you just don’t want to end, and then there are those you don’t want to know how they end.

 

…“I’m not sick, but I’m not well.” I’ve always loved that lyric by Harvey Danger. It’s clever and has a lot of legs. A lot of days I could wear a necklace with those words printed on it.

 

…"The worst? Easy. The man who comes in and as soon as you see or hear him you know he's saying, 'I am determined, no matter what happens, to have a miserable time tonight. Whether the food is great or not, and no matter what the wine and service are like, I will show off in front of my companions and make life hell for the waiter, because my life is all about power and I am a seriously unhappy jerk.' There are plenty of them. Everywhere. Them and the psycho food nerds. They take notes while eating, for Christ's sake. They're not the very worst but they're worrisome, demanding for the chef. Chefs and regular restaurant-goers are the best, and leave the best tips. I love other chefs." Anthony Bourdain

 

…I hope your Spring is off to a stellar start and that your weekend brings you all kinds of joy. Life has some hard knuckles, but there’s lots of joy, too. Let’s both look for some today.

—I’M ONLY INCHES FROM THE FLOOR

 

 A capella

 

The new children sing 

in their chains, 

the strength of their small voices 

ricocheting off the sides of 

root cellars, 

showers of dirt 

falling into their hair, 

speckling their teeth.

Each week another progeny

is rounded up and set down 

to keep the upper world free 

from menace and hazards.

So be it, Amen, Amen.

Two holes over, Momma Gee,

the oldest surviving child, 

takes up her own note, 

part cackle, part soul scream, 

a chord that covers them all 

like the wide-open arms of sundown.

They’ll be no prayers before sleep,

no more wishing on false hope 

or the charity of masked marauders.

Tonight, in dreams,

even the blind kids 

will rattle their steel. 

Maybe yours will, too. 

Have you seen them lately?

 

—I DON’T WEAR THE SHOES I USED TO WALK IN

 

 

Friends and Enemies

 

     At the VA my brother is a kind of king everyone calling Charlie! when we arrive and hearing his name on others’ lips always reminds me of how the US soldiers nicknamed the Viet Cong Charlie and though I’ve never asked my brother about it I wonder how often it hits him the similarity and difference of friends and enemies.

     The bartender has his drinks ready Jack and beer-chaser while I’ve learned to keep up by being as stupid as possible which is why nothing burns anymore not the shame of being book smart rich and the only brother who skipped military service.

     He will die four years from now though I don’t know it yet which is why when he tells me Trump is going to stop “them” from poisoning the country’s blood I’ve had enough slam a bill on the counter and wander out piping hot.

     I don’t know his town so I walk like a wayward wind past blocks and blocks of stores stuffed inside strip malls each one hawking wares with loud garish signage as if they’re selling heart pills or giving away salvation two things I will desperately need three years from now one I will accept from a man with a swastika wrist tattoo.

     When his truck saddles up to the curb my brother looks as shit-faced as me but he’s grinning like a goof and I know it’s dangerous to get in the vehicle but isn’t there danger everywhere you want to see it and besides what choice do I have he’s my brother the one wounded while all those other boys got boxed and shipped home without a chance to bitch about the enemy how they hid under brush like filthy rodents shooting out the legs of good American kids how they did it all wrong and never once fought fair.

 

—I’M NOT PREACHING, I’M JUST TALKING

 

 

…When you think you’re good at something, don’t you just want to do it all the time?

 

…I’m not sure how much a good cry solves, but it feels important to do it every so often nonetheless.

 

…I wonder if Letterman’s jackets are still a thing in high school.

 

…I wonder how some people can change the commentary running through their head. What a gift that would be.

 

…“What are you so afraid of?” is something I’ve been asking myself for nearly a year now, and I still don’t know.

 

…It’s always best if I don’t read these back.

 

…“I don’t have to put up with this,” is true of most things, and yet we do it anyway most times. Especially after we’ve said it.

 

…“Muse” is a contrived artist term that I’d be embarrassed to use in a sentence out loud. Yet, I hear it all time.

 

…Having more books around than you’ll ever be able to read is like having something sacred stored in a Hope Chest. 

 

…I much prefer when they don’t write “President” before his name in news articles. I’d much prefer if …..

 

…“I write poetry for the same reason I live life—to see what unfolds.” Chrys Tobey

 

…Yes, Ted Bundy and Charles Manson were fascinating characters, but do we really need more films about either one?

 

…“What’s not to like?” becomes a humorous question when asked from someone you’d least expect.

 

…Someone in a position of power, with influence, should try tackling the subject of bullying. Oh, wait…

 

…There’s so much rain in the backyard that ducks were floating around the blueberry bushes. Really, they were. Kinda cute.  

 

…Even now I’d love to have washboard abs, but the truth is I’m too lazy.

 

…As long as it’s said authentically, no one gets tired of hearing nice things about themselves.

 

…All my friends have books out now, and that makes me happy.

 

…This’ll be my first AWP sober with the young bucks. Should be interesting.

 

…I have to remember that it’s not my place to tell anyone what to think or feel.

 

…I wonder when it’ll stop stinging.

 

…I’m still learning new tricks, though I’m not sure how valuable they are.

 

…“It’s a pity, but we will fight on. If we run out of American bullets, we will use a different gun.” Oleksiy, Ukrainian soldier

 

…“Check your activity” is just a euphemism for “Get off your ass and move.” It’s annoying, but helpful nonetheless.

 

…I guess “Roll over and play dead” is an actually strategy, according to Carville.

 

…Keanu Reeves’ acting is spotty, depending on if he gets the right role, but from everything I’ve read, he’s an exceptional person.

 

…It’s actually nice to have the ball in someone else’s court.

 

…What’s a good day look like for you? For me, it’s seeing any kind of animal going about its business, and writing something that makes me twitch.

 

…The other morning, I was walking down the road when a stampede of two deer and a fawn flew by. It seemed like magic, but it was real.

 

…The man who read the world: Something not well known about David Bowie: he was an avid reader, sometimes finishing a book in a single day. He was “a beast of a reader,” according to his son, Duncan Jones.

Three years before he died, David Bowie made a list of the one hundred books that had transformed his life – a list that formed something akin to an autobiography. It’s telling that among Bowie’s final public statements was that this list of his Top 100 books was offered as part of the David Bowie museum exhibit. As Bowie has apparently left no memoir behind, the closest that he ventured to autobiography is this list of books. Some he chose because he wanted his fans to read them, but many selections have a deeper resonance in his work, in that they fueled his creativity and shaped who he was.

 

…Let’s go into the woods and scream. Later we can have coffee.

 

…Sometimes it’s not good to be stuck in your own head too long.

 

…Sorry if I seem weird, but most of the time I really am.

 

…To be deceived by your own thinking is a little like plagiarizing yourself. 

 

…Printers and pressure washers—two things that never work as well as they should, or last long enough before breaking down.

 

…“I became the old man telling tales & I told it all.” Gary Snyder

 

…I remember reading an interview where Elton was asked to name his favorite song and he said, “It’s always the last one I’ve written.” I get that. I sort of feel the same way.

 

…There’s always someone who needs you more.

 

…It’s easy to be nice when it’s easy.

 

…“Don’t talk about one long list of sorry.” Victoria Redel

 

…Sometimes it’d odd to think that we are all former children.

 

…When you find yourself talking back to the TV it may be time to turn it off for a while.

 

…I’m not the stalker type, but sometimes you discover a writer and…

 

…Everything’s always my fault in my head.

 

…“You’re basically a ball balancing on a stick.”

 

…Not many things feel better than making someone else’s day.

 

…Every step you take is a controlled fall.

 

…“What had bitten me was that I finally found something that I knew I was good at, and I knew I understood in a way that the other children around me did not. I remember when somebody came in from the local newspaper when I was in second grade to photograph kids for flag day. All the kids were smiling and cheesing it up, and I knew to just pretend I was doing my schoolwork and to pose as though I didn’t see the camera. I don’t know how I knew to do that, but I just did. And so I ended up on the front page of the paper.” Christina Ricci

 

…I know it sounds sexist, but I like when a woman swears, provided it’s not constantly, and provided it’s not aimed at me. 

 

…I think I need to ask more questions.

 

…I’m not a morning person and the truth is I don’t really want to be one.

 

…I have to remind myself how proud my parents were of me toward the end.

 

…Alcohol was one thing, but it seems impossible to cut sugar out of your diet.

 

…What’s really funny is the fact that I used to wrestle in junior high. Yep. And play drums in the high school band.

 

…I guess most of us have had a few bad haircuts in our time, but some of mine were What-the-fuck-were-you-thinking? types. 

 

…“Love’s losses continue, even if love doesn’t.” Padraig O Tuama

 

…Even if it was possible, I don’t think I’d want to know how things are in the future. Nope.

 

…“The worst that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.” De Daumier-Smith

 

…Colin Jost has the best smile ever.

 

…What’s also really funny is that I had my own column in the high school newspaper. I called it “Word for the Wise.” It was as if my alter-ego wrote it, someone popular with a lot of confidence and insight. At the end of the evening of my first prom, my date (who would become a really great friend) told me how nervous she was to be out with me and when I asked why, she said, “Have you ever read your own column? You sound like you’ve been with a stable of girls.” Now that’s funny, right? “Stable.” Me. Ha. We didn't even kiss. 

 

…“we have all seen the darkness now give us the dawn tell me about the joy you keep in the hollow spaces between your bones tell me again how you laughed.” 

--Kai Cheng Thom

 

…Everyone’s life is a little full of “next time,” but I usually end up regretting saying that, for one reason or another.

 

…If the elephant in the room takes up the whole room, how do you get around that? (Asking for a friend.)

 

…My friends are playing and I wish I was, too.

 

…Sometimes making people forget about their worries, or what comes next, is the best thing you can do for another person.

 

…Here’s what I mean about my least favorite word:

--“Are we still having lunch tomorrow?”

--“Sure.”

 

…Where’s the movie about Louis Armstrong? I’d go.

 

…“Love is letting people see the worst part of you without being scared.” Madison Kuntz 

 

…Thanks for asking!