For Zaira

Hey, so check out the first comment on my last post, from some girl named Zaira. I don't know who she is, but from the look of her picture she's probably making a lot of money on the internet.

I wonder how many people that I don't know are reading my blog, or have read it at one point. Actually, I don't really wonder that very often. I don't think Zaira actually exists, either. I guess she's trying to get me to visit some website. Oh, and I added a picture on my last post, just to test out adding pitcures.

So last night was Mark, Adam, and Michelle's joint birthday party. I had helped organize it, sent out emails and everything, so people kept wishing me happy birthday. Eventually I just stopped correcting them. It was kind of nice, actually. The party was on top of this frat house where Michelle lives, over by BU. The frat was actually called Theta Chi. They had some weird rule where you couldn't have hard alcohol in the house, which I flouted with extreme prejudice by bringing in a handle of vodka and a nip of Jim Beam. It was really nice being on the roof. It was a perfect night, and to the north you could see the river and Cambridge across the Harvard Bridge, and to the southeast you could see the Prudential building and downtown Boston. We had bought these little pretzel nubs that were basically one-inch cube pretzels, and I kept looking out at the Charles and wondering whether I could throw one into the river from up there. I had no sense of the distance, though. It didn't look too far, but it might have been half a mile, I don't know. It's like how every time I'm in the T station at Park Street I want to try and jump across the track to the opposite platform, because it doesn't look too far. But who knows, it could be impossible.

Here are a few pictures from last night:



Adam, Michelle, and I at some bar. This was after we left the roof. We went there with these two friends of Michelle's from MIT. One of the kids was from Mountain View (California) and is either kind of awkward or just thought I was an idiot, because it was really hard to talk to him. The other kid reminded me dead-on of Jon Ma. Adam and I told them all the story of when we took the GREs in Madison and then got way too drunk and high at Steve's house. It was me, Zacher, Adam, and Steve, and we all ended up puking in Steve's bathroom. Except for Steve, he was fine.



Grilling my iPod.



Yeah, I don't know what I'm looking at.

It was a lot of fun, until this morning when I woke up with a splitting headache. And it's so fucking bright in my room in the morning. I was supposed to go to church with Mark and Natalia and some other people--there was a special mass at the Old South church in Boston for the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki--or I was supposed to go to normal mass with Emily, but I was in no shape to be in a House of God this morning. I was in bed until about 2, and then I went into Adam's room, we talked for a little bit and he made me cut my toenails. It was fun. It was a completely insignificant moment, but our conversation was so silly and relaxed, the kind that reminds me why I love Adam. Oh, and speaking of which, Happy Birthday to Adam. I didn't get him anything, which I feel kind of bad about, but I think I'll get him something cool from D.C. when I'm there.

Adam had to go meet with his content cluster for T210A, so I had the apartment to myself this afternoon. I still didn't feel so great, so I made some Annie's shells and cheddar and read this article in the New Yorker about Theodore Roethke and James Wright. Both poets saw sincerity and honesty as the crucial ingredients in poetry. While working on poems for "The Lost Son," Roethke would walk around his house naked. I don't know about Wright, but Roethke is a damn good poet. I can't believe I never read him more. I remember one of the last conversations I had with John Wheaton, he talked about how he was really getting into Roethke. After reading John's poems so carefully, it now seems like a no-brainer that he'd like Roethke. I went and read "The Lost Son," which I'd never read all the way through. It's pretty fucking amazing. I love the beginning:

At Woodlawn I heard the dead cry:
I was lulled by the slamming of iron,
A slow dripping over stones,
Toads brooding wells.
All the leaves stuck out their tongues;
I shook the softening chalk of my bones,
Saying,
Snail, snail, glister me forward,
Bird, soft-sigh me home,
Worm, be with me.
This is my hard time.

Fished in an old wound,
The soft pond of repose;
Nothing nibbled my line,
Not even the minnows came.

Sat in an empty house
Watching shadows crawl,
Scratching.
There was one fly.

"I shook the softening chalk of my bones" is beautiful. I also love:

Fear was my father, Father Fear.
His look drained the stones.

Anyway, I basically wasted time until now, when I'm also wasting time. For my Harvard class tomorrow I have to teach this pretend English lesson on point of view that my group (me, Susie, and Priscilla) have been preparing for the last four weeks. Whatever, I just can't wait until it's over. I can't wait until this week's over, all the papers and everything. Although I really am going to miss my kids. But after this week, I've got a guitar lesson on Sunday and then I'm in Virginia with Stef.

I should get some sleep now. I honestly don't know if I'm teaching anything tomorrow morning at CRLS. Honestly, that's not cool, but by the end of last week everything was coming apart, so I don't think any of us are sure what's going on right now.