the wakefulness of living things

I got contacts today. No one ever said how hard it was to try to get them in the first time. I sat there for almost 40 minutes trying to get those stupid, plastic discs to cling to my eyeball. But once I did, I felt like a rockstar. My life might be a little bit better because of them. I still love my glasses, though. It's just nice to be able to watch TV, read street signs and recognize faces without having to use those black frames.

I had breakfast for nearly two hours on Saturday morning with Tara and Emily S. I love the fact that even though we are all at such different stations in life (one of us is married and pregnant; one lives in a townhome and works at Caribou while going to school; one is going to Denver for the summer and then who knows what) we can still talk forever, like we used to. It was a good morning, good to be reminded that I love and appreciate them.

I read this last night and remembered that I liked it. Emily gave me this book last year, I think.

"Happiness," Robert Hass

Because yesterday morning from the steamy window
we saw a pair of red foxes across the creek
eating the last windfall apples in the rain--
they looked up at us with their green eyes
long enough to symbolize the wakefulness of living things
and then went back to eating--

and because this morning
when she went into the gazebo with her black pen and yellow pad
to coax an inquisitive soul
from what she thinks of as the reluctance of matter,
I drove into town to drink tea in the cafe
and write notes in a journal--mist rose from the bay
like the luminous and indefinite aspect of intention,
and a small flock of tundra swans
for the second winter in a row was feeding on new grass
in the soaked fields; they symbolize mystery, I suppose,
they are also called whistling swans, are very white,
and their eyes are black--

and because the tea steamed in front of me,
and the notebook, turned to a new page,
was blank except for a faint blue idea of order,
I wrote: happiness! it is December, very cold,
we worke early this morning,
and lay in bed kissing,
our eyes squinched up like bats.

I read this poem and think, How sweet; Robert Hass and Brenda Hillman must be so peacefully pretentious.

Watching probably the GREATEST episode of "Gilmore Girls" right now with K & G: the one where Jess comes back and he's changed and he really loves her and wants the best for her now. That lopsided smile. Gets me every time.

Guion comes tomorrow! We are going hiking with the siblings in South Mountain State Park. Win was going to come, but he chose Prague over us. I guess I really don't blame him.