• replace this text with your list
• begin each item with an asterisk

i was thinking about how christmas felt each year when i was younger. the feeling has definitely changed and some years i feel like I never quite reach that “christmas-time feeling”, but i am lucky enough to have experienced it. i remember how I’d feel when december started and all of the christmas decorations would start going up. everyone was talking about it and when i was younger in school we had projects and little crafts and whole days dedicated to celebrating it and getting excited for it. i remember how i would start being asked what I wanted for Christmas months before and how the question would light a spark of excitement in me as i thought about the toys or things that i really wanted, and hoped I would receive after putting them on a list and sending it to a relative. in south dakota, snow would mark when i started to get excited and feel the holiday coming. the gathering...

i was reading Scott pilgrim and suddenly had this thought come over me and had to write it down immediately. i’m thinking about the place I’d like to live when i move out. hopefully, this can be the place i move to with mau. I want to move into our first place, apartment, house, whatever. and i don’t want some pristine, perfect place. like sammy and grace’s house; absolutely gorgeous and beautiful and i love it and am impressed by it. but it’s not the way i want our place to be. I want eclectic, unmatched furniture that looks cute and that I like, and it won’t be like a set with other pieces, but it’ll look nice and it’ll work with everything else in the room to make a different kind of beauty, a unique one that is our own. and like, I’m not against some pieces matching but I just want it to be made up of stuff that Mau and I like. honestly, I keep thinking about the vibe...

• “we would take pleasure in the simple mending of the world” - Circe (Circe)
• “and I think that there are so many things just in one house that it would take years to think about all of them properly” - Christopher (the curious incident of the dog in the night-time)
• “megaphone to my chest, broadcast the boom boom boom boom and make ‘em all dance to it” - Lorde (The Louvre) and honestly like this entire beautiful song
• “if you love someone enough, you should be able to overcome anything” -Celia (7 husbands of Evelyn Hugo)
• “i’ve loved someone with all my heart and soul and for me that’s always been enough” - duke (notebook)

i went outside and stared at the moon for awhile tonight. i got to see it with and without some light clouds in front of it and i swear that i could see and feel the moon clearly getting brighter as they moved out of the way of it! it was incredible how bright and pretty it was. i loved the brilliant white of it and the little bit of light emanating from each side of it out into the darkness of the night sky. it was such a treat to see!

i want to strive to be unbothered; to be someone who lets things roll off of me instead of becoming annoyed or frustrated or anything about them. instead, just learning to deal with them and even embrace them.

also, when i have annoyed someone else or done something wrong, whether by accident or not, i want to apologize genuinely and move on to righting my wrong or making it better.

practices:

• own the morning: get up, walk, deep work

i was thinking about that really special feeling you get, especially when you’re younger, when it’s the last day of school and you have that feeling that comes with it, excitement for spending months doing what you want, for the most part. it’s this eagerness that’s in your chest and you can’t wait to get home from school and start doing what you want to do. or it comes when you’re excited for a trip, to travel somewhere where there is some experience waiting for you to arrive. or, it’s a person. I’m in this place where it feels like every time i’m about to leave to see mau, whether it’s a couple days, hours, or minutes before i’m leaving, or I’m on the way there, I get that feeling of excitement that builds up in my chest and it makes me feel like i’m starting summer break every time i leave to see her. i especially feel this way about moving in with her; even no...

i think when people think about the phrase "i love you", it's usually about expressing affection and letting someone know you care deeply about them and they're important to you. and that's 100% one of the things "i love you" means and i use it to express affection and care and, well, love every single day. whether it's telling my family i love them or expressing just how important mau is to me and how much i care for her. especially when i tell it to her, it encapsulates all these feelings i have and feel about her. how much i miss her, the way i wish i could be with her now and all the time, the way that thinking about her makes me happy and excited to see her again and for a whole life with her, the way that she is the one true love of my life that i feel more comfortable with than anyone, the way she's my favorite person. every time i say "i love you" to mau, those are just a few of th...

there are certain things everyone does that give them a look of pure content. i see it a lot when people are eating by themselves or walking around without anything specific on their minds. i noticed it today in kennesaw’s dining hall when this guy walked by with food on his plate looking for a table. it’s not just a food-related thing, though. it can be any activity that someone really enjoys indulging in. sometimes i see it in dad when he’s laying on the couch on his phone or watching sports or when we’re eating. i think it can happen whenever someone let’s their guard down and doesn’t feel like they need to protect themselves from being vulnerable, maybe that’s why i notice it when people are eating or food is involved so often. also, by content i don’t mean a huge smile on their face, i mean a relaxed look with maybe a slight grin. i think it brings out the innocence in...

prompted by the submarine that made headlines in June/July

I think it is so sick (bad sick) how people talk about other people dying. in the last few years I feel that it's pretty commonly rich people, which don't get me wrong some of them are awful, whose deaths aren't just shrugged off, but are actually actively celebrated by massive groups of people. I can pretty easily understand it for murderers or people whose actions had serious malice, and maybe even agree. And I think I can at least understand the mentality behind celebrating and wishing for the deaths of those who are rich and exploitative of others to amass their wealth, especially when it's known that their actions harmed others.

The thing is though, it feels so wrong and honestly dirty to hope for the death of another person. There is so much finality and so much that not only we don't know...

okay. you’re drunk. in a Waffle House. and it’s interesting how when you’re in a Waffle House, you could be on fucking mats and pretty much any Waffle House could be the same. I could imagine myself in any part of the universe inside one of these restaurants. it’s wild. what an american classic. I didn’t go to one until my sohouomore year of high school but honestly, they’re so good. fuck what mom says about it being a grease trap. I think Waffle House is so cool. Like if we ever colonize on the moon these are gonna be the first restaurant to go there idk. just cool

there is something so pure and delightful about working with a student that speaks english as a second language. helping them with parts of their paper or whatever they come in to work on, then watching them start to formulate their own sentences using what they've learned from you and create something really beautiful out of it brings such a warm, happy smile to my face! this came from a session i worked with someone on about their poetry discussion post. they came up with an alternate ending for a robert frost poem where the narrator meets the love of their life, and instead of leaving the woods and going back to their respective lives, they leave it together with the goal of making a beautiful future together and making each other's lives better. not just the wholesome, beautiful ending they came up with, but also some other sentences they came up with and their good attitude about chan...

sometimes i think about how people around me that i can and can't see are making memories that will stay with them for years, maybe the rest of their lives. while sitting on beth's dock with mau, i couldn't help but look at all the boats on the lake and all the beautiful homes around it and think: maybe there's a kid staying with their grandparents for part of the summer. they're sleeping in and having a yummy homemade breakfast and then going swimming or going out on the lake in a boat and having a nap in the late afternoon before dinner or taking lazy days while it's nice out or maybe while it's rainy, playing board games and video games. idk something like that, just something that they enjoy. that's the most recent example, but any time i'm at the beach or an amusement park or a park or, well really it could be anywhere. i sometimes stop to think about how someone around me that i can ...