leap days are fun. i kind of don't think february 29 should be a regular work day, but that it should be an extra day, squeezed in between tuesday and wednesday!, off from work for most people: just a day to look at the stars, learn about science, go to the planetarium, enjoy being alive, and do a lot of other stuff that 365 days a year don't leave enough time for.

but that's just me. i have weird views about these things. i'm also vehemently opposed to daylight saving time, and think we should just move time two hours backwards year-round. more late afternoon sun = daylight time we can actually enjoy in life and leisure. early morning sun = a complete waste of awesomeness, since there's absolutely nothing anyone does outside at 6, 7, 8 in the morning, but infinite possibilities at 6, 7, 8 at night. especially in a country where everyone seems to work in windowless offices. working in a coffin all day, and then coming out at 5pm to a world of darkness, and being in the dark until bedtime? no thanks.

I'm getting obsessed with every song I hear! This never happens, my world is usually all quiet and sssssssssssshhhhhttt so I can read more books!, so this is awesome. If you have any songs you've been liking lately, right now is a GREAT time to share them with me. (Also, I've been at home sick for five days and everything I've been reading is at least 300 years old. Put me back in this century on my breaks!)

this is a friends-only journal.

if you want to join in, say hallo maybe, or tell me a random story of your life, or a thought you had five minutes ago or last night before you fell asleep.

communication is good.

(Crab eating grapefruit leftovers at the beach)
(Taken with my point & shoot Nikon, I pretty much love that camera)

I'm back from Puerto Rico. That was one of the best vacations of my entire life. I'd never imagined myself going to the Caribbean, I was always so turned off by cruiseship culture and the marketing of that whole area as luxury beach destination.

That is because I never pictured the other kind of trip that's possible: One that's all couchsurfing and camping directly by beaches that only a handful people come to explore every day. One that is sharing breakfasts with the travel friends one has made along the way, chasing wild horses off one's campsite after they ate all of one's food, finding a tarantula 3 feet from the tent entrance, encountering lionfish and giant toads and sea turtles and wild cats and dogs and chickens, prehistoric birds and bats, iguanas everywhere. Sitting by the beach looking at stars and shooting stars and the moon rise every night, and going to bed early. Getting up with the sunrise. Going snorkeling and mountain biking on the cheap. Beach yoga in the moonlight. Sleeping heavily. No bad dreams. No insomnia. Just feeling flooded with happiness and fullness every moment.



I am happy and calm. I hope I can carry this warmth through the entire winter with me, and delay seasonal depression until spring is already starting. More pictures after I sleep. Let me hold on to this sunlight-led sleep schedule for a minute.

i'm really into numbers and i'm already kind of bummed that i have to spend 11:11 on 11/11/11 next week teaching.

we'll be reading the communist manifesto, so it'll probably be a fine day, but i'd rather have the day off, invite 11 friends, have a brunch party with 11 different foods, a count down, tell stories with exactly 11 sentences, play the 11th song on our favorite albums...

oh wait, there is an 11:11pm!
oh!
i should host a thing!

it just came and passed, but now, just a few days late i noticed.

it's 10! my lj is 10, it's been that long, 10 years of writing on here. over 3500 entries, about 350 a year, almost one a day.

here are some sentences i wrote 2001-2010, in may:

2001
looking through other people's journals...i think their lives are so real and in my life, in this small town with all these stupid und intolerant and capitalist people, i am maybe the loneliest person alive on this planet.

2002
neue intro gefunden, gelesen, beeindruckt, feminismusgedanken und hamburger schule, die ewige frage der politischen korrektness in norddeutschen worten versteckt,
es ist die bewegung in richtung intellektuell die mich fasziniert und abschreckt zu gleich, ich will nicht anders sein, ich will anders sein, niveau ist eine frage von stil,
visions abbestellt,
spex abonniert,
wurde ja auch zeit irgendwie

2003
in diesem kurs sitzen 45 leute und ich kenne niemanden davon. ich sitze alleine in einer ecke und halte mich an einer kühlen flasche apfelsaftschorle fest. vor mir unterhalten sich ein paar jungs über fußball.

2004
ich geh nach amerika! im sommer, für ein jahr.
ansonsten regnet es nun seit über 24 stunden ununterbrochen und sowas schlägt mir immer aufs gemüt, zudem ich ja fahrradfahrerin bin und regen beim fortgehen immer exzessives nasswerden bedeutet.

2005
sagen wir einfach ich habe in letzter zeit sehr sehr sehr viel nachgedacht ueber eifersucht, besitzansprueche, polygamie, vertrauen, bizarre love triangles, die vertrautheit zwischen freunden und liebhabern, und so weiter

2006
1. mai, eternal returns, alte leute in alten kontexten neu wiedertreffen, dann nach hause kommen, nach einem gespraech, so ein gespraech: wo man nach der demo noch was essen geht, zu zweit, und dann bestellt man sich was und hat riesengrossen hunger und dann sagt man etwas ehrliches und beiden bleibt der bissen im halse stecken und dann starrt man sich an und sagt eine halbe stunde nichts mehr und man kann auch fast nichts denken ausser 'oh scheisse' und 'huah, intensiv'

2007
vorhin lag ich im garten herum und hab feministische theorie und ein 70er jahre buch mit konversationen zwischen foucault und deleuze gelesen, und die katzen lagen eine links und eine rechts von mir, und ploetzlich landete ein paar meter vor uns ein riesengrosser reiher, der tolle toene macht, und dann kamen zwei winzig kleine voegel und haben den riesenreiher verjagt, und ich dachte,
mann, das landleben werde ich in den naechsten 6 jahren schwer vermissen.

2008
DA DRAUSSEN STERBEN LEUTE IN KELLERN, mann, und jeden Tag sterben hunderte Tierarten aus, wen interessiert's ob ich der kritischen Theorie gegenueber kritisch genug bin, ist doch egal, es ist ja nicht so, als koenne man mit all der Kritik spaeter mal Geld verdienen, oder gesund werden, oder was veraendern, oder was immer es sonst noch wert waere, den ganzen Tag nichts andres mehr zu tun, statt, wie ich, den ganzen Tag alles moegliche zu tun und zwischendurch mal gute Buecher zu lesen.

2009
things about love and words and making things work with wonderful people and growing together; and memories of yesterday, of cherries and berries by the lakefront, sharing food with friendly squirrels, of bikini kill songs and exploding penises in art, of sunshines and skirts and spring blossoming everywhere

2010
yesterday i spent all day biking, reading, biking, reading. the sun was shining and it was warm and gorgeous and the sky blue and i rode for a bit, had asian food with soy gluten on a green field by the lake, read a bit, rode a few miles and sat on the concrete by the water between fishermen and read, rode a few more miles, sat at a beach and read, rode a few more miles, sat in the grass and read. why would anyone voluntarily be inside on a day like yesterday? there are hundreds of thousands of people in this city who don't work on a tuesday afternoon, what were they all DOING? i can't believe i sometimes have an entire beach, an entire field, the entire lakefront path for myself. in front of me a lake as big as the sea, behind me a city of millions, and with me on the most beautiful strip in the city: but a handful of joggers.

...by making a collective mixtape together.

it's getting colder, music is starting to sound better, and i don't have any songs for this season yet. last year was bon iver, joanna newsom and fleet foxes for me. this week i'm listening to a little bit of junip and mates of state but i haven't found THAT SONG yet to tie my 2010 fall memories to -

quick, recommend a song! (or two, or five) - what have you been listening to?

"As in the political sphere, the child is taught that he is free, a democrat, with a free will and a free mind, lives in a free country, makes his own decisions. At the same time he is a prisoner of the assumptions and dogmas of his time, which he does not question, because he has never been told they exist. By the time a young person has reached the age when he has to choose (we still take it for granted that a choice is inevitable) between the arts and the sciences, he often chooses the arts because he feels that here is humanity, freedom, choice. He does not know that he is already moulded by a system: he does not know that the choice itself is the result of a false dichotomy rooted in the heart of our culture. Those who do sense this, and who don't wish to subject themselves to further moulding, tend to leave, in a half-unconscious, instinctive attempt to find work where they won't be divided against themselves. With all our institutions, from the police force to academia, from medicine to politics, we give little attention to the people who leave—that process of elimination that goes on all the time and which excludes, very early, those likely to be original and reforming, leaving those attracted to a thing because that is what they are already like. A young policeman leaves the Force saying he doesn't like what he has to do. A young teacher leaves teaching, here idealism snubbed. This social mechanism goes almost unnoticed—yet it is as powerful as any in keeping our institutions rigid and oppressive."

"There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag-and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you."
— Doris Lessing