what's new?

• ✓ jul. 1: one year since auguries.... i love it here
• ✓ jul. 4: independence day
• ✓ jul. 11: bumby day !!!!!!!!!! :0)
• ✓ jul. 12: grandma's birthday!
• ✓ jul. 12: leave for research trip!
• ✓ jul. 16: come home!
• ✓ jul. 17: 102 years since homecoming
• ✓ jul. 24: templeton's birthday!!!!!

goals

• ✓ bake a cake for bumby's birthday!

obsessions

• Free Shark Week Themed Donut I Got With My Reward Points My Beloved
• pictures of ivy league civil engineering societies from the 1910s.... absolutely obsessed. they're so obviously in it for the love of the game like they have chosen THE least sexy of all the engineering disciplines and they've chosen it with their CHEST..... no less than five theodolites in every group shot. the absolute mad lads

moments

• reading in the waiting room before my weekly eye appointments, each week a new book, sinking into another world entire as the bright edges of 8 in the morning slowly soften and turn pink,,,
• becoming so wholly absorbed in my pocket ts eliot book whilst waiting at dunkin that i literally felt dizzy walking up to grab my drink.... such spellbinding, transportive verse !!!! who's doing it like him!
• i was looking through pictures from when i was in new orleans visiting the wwii museum and i'm litchrally obsessed with the fact that i apparently took half a dozen pictures of the kurt vonnegut display... i have absolutely no memory of doing this and yet it's like i had some vague intimation at the time that i would become wholly enthralled by his wartime experience + the years shortly afterward + especially that portrait of him in uniform, you know the one, my favorite above all.... like. that's my baby! truly no words for how much i love him, he's uhhh the world entire <3
  • how on earth did i forget he went to cornell. bumby + kurt the most ambitious crossover event in cinematic history
• last day of work for the summer!! sweet gifts from katie and joey, an afternoon spent giggling with squid, my beloved of all clerks... already i can't wait to be back again!!
• did i leave my not even halfway finished iced latte sitting on the shelf in the first world war section of the library bc i was so giddy over the books i was flipping through. yes. was it the most on-brand thing i've done all week. yes. did i go out and get another entire iced latte from a completely different coffee shop immediately afterward. y-

good things about the month

• fireworks in all directions on the fourth of july; those sweet, sweet $2 lattes; invitation from my favorite customer + his granddaughter to come visit their used bookstore; eliot's effervescent verse; last days of work for the summer; afternoons with squid; the sudden, swift lightness that accompanies any newly-won freedom; bumby day! three cheers for our favorite civil engineer; research trip! research trip! research trip!! most beloved sojourns in my home away from home; flowers for the boys; endless macchiatos to cool the brow; wandering familiar streets with new knowledge and an old, expansive love, seeing a world you knew well with fresh eyes; robins and catbirds, in the grass and balanced on fences; the most brilliantly blue hydrangeas i've ever seen, and everywhere; admiring grand old houses on main street; ice cold watermelon juice; a visit to the used bookstore in town (but of course!), snagging a penguin black-spine edition of my darling wasteland & other poems, reading as i walk down the busy sidewalk; sitting in the grass, loving the heat in all its enormity; tilting my head always toward the next breeze; sunglasses and an old baseball cap; visits with elaine, literally bouncing out of my chair whilst poring over the microfilm, what luck! what luck! always breathless at the wonders of archives, big and small; wending my way through town, my findings clasped in a notebook against my chest, trying so, so hard not to smile, and always failing; the beauty of summer sunsets; long walks in the evening; cooling off on my favorite bench with a bottle of cold water, admiring the birds; life, and all of its unexpected convolutions, cycling me through moments i never thought i would live again, so happy to have the chance to repeat them, me, the girl who loves her circles, her omegas and thetas and omicrons; the deep ache of nostalgia one feels for a place before one even leaves it; coming home and returning to all things good and familiar; finally working in the garden again, cool under overcast skies; bi-weekly trips to my favorite coffee shop; getting good reading + thinking done with the help of an iced oat milk latte; books about birding; slowly learning the craft, learning to see behaviors and delicate silhouettes in a new & astounding light; joyful red blooms on my petunias; kate's brilliant new book;