Spring Tree (w/o leaves)

my arching branches haven't seen their leaves just yet

the wind blows, weaving through my slender limbs

the smallest of my youngest branches scrawl through the sky

fractal claws

life nurturing knives

I am dark and cold - the sun has not kissed me much today

beneath clouds prepared to burst, I am still moist from their rain

I crave their water - I will hold the ground together - feed me

I will feed you

I will shelter you come summer

and let you watch me melt away in fall

I have seen more of you than you can dream

generations that come and go

but without disease I will outlast stone

still standing

until you cut me down

How much is too much?

I pushed myself super hard this week, and if the deadlines that I thought were true were real, I would have failed in my tasks anyway.

Feature Writing: 2,000 words ("How-To") due last tuesday, 2,000 words ("Participation") due on tuesday.

Peace and Conflict in Lit.: start and finish Unbowed, write the next installment of my story (usually between seven and ten pages).

Arabic: Memorize another ridiculously unusable monologue.

Micro Economics: online homework (easy but time consuming)

On monday I missed my bus three times. I know! Right!?! So I didn't go to Lit or Arabic, instead I knuckled down and I wrote a how-to for my writing class. I hated it. I thought it was piss poor, and it didn't have an audience, or anything interesting. For about two weeks I've been excited about Dalia Mogahed coming to town, and how I'd been blessed with not just being able to attend her evening lecture/presentation on her work with Gallup Polls and the book she co-authored, "Who Speaks for Islam?" but also to attend a round-table discussion with her, quite a few experienced Madison journalists and some Christian religious leaders in the community. I think there were 15 of us. I was by far the least "experienced." That was tuesday afternoon after Econ.

I then pounded out a how-to that was not what it was supposed to be, but was full of informative facts and quotes from Mogahed, her book and the panel. I wrote about how Islam is being misrepresented in the American media (a how not to), and then I ended with a little about how to improve that (a how to? not really). This class is so frustrating, but it really does give the feel of what I think "reporting" might be like. I just wish the articles didn't have to be so long.

So except for the reading, monday was a wash, tuesday was too full for anything to slip in, and wednesday was coming fast. I ended tuesday dehydrated and full of Glass Nickel Artichoke heart pizza and apprehension.

Wednesday: Lit and Arabic (and taxes!) I waited for an hour at H&R block for my appointment, I read the whole time without complaint. I Still haven't finished the book, I haven't written my paper, I haven't memorized the dialogue. Turns out he book isn't due until next wednesday (apparently we are deviating from the syllabus again...), the paper isn't due until monday. We're watching a movie. Really?

Arabic went smoothly, we focused on learning and grammar instead of the memorization. There's a quiz on monday. الحمد الله

guess I'll be ok. Another whole weekend to pound through this.

Gotta Write something

So Today I hurriedly threw together a video to enter in a musical challenge. On friday I found out about it, and decided that I didn't want to do it. Then someone I know submitted a video, and it made me realize how upset my mom, and Maddy's mom might be if they found out that I didn't.

So I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UrQr_Zvsts

Easter Sunrise

I will never forget the childhood drives to Lake Matthews. So many failed attempts to see the sunrise on easter morning. The weather was not always kind. I think it rained all of ten times in my southern California childhood, but that didn't stop the weather from regularly clouding up the Easter sunrise. I can recall two successful ventures over the course of about five memorable years. This is a low estimate. I know that it was twice, but I'm pretty sure there were more than five attempts.

I remember making easter gardens. Baking tins filled with dirt and the roll of TP along with various dying shrubbery and a smooth stone. Representing the tomb in which the body of Jesus laid from good Friday until easter morning or as I called it, "the shortest three days." Sure Friday to Sunday is three days, but Friday night to sunday morning can be as short as 26 hours, and is regularly less than 40. Neither of those numbers are 72, the amount of time that I, even to this day, attribute to the "proper" length of time described by the phrase, "three days." On Easter morning I'd move the stone, to show that "He has risen!"

I think that the first year I made the tomb garden one of my parents moved the stone before waking me to "go chase the sun" -- as we called our overcast, early-morning, easter adventures. I never believed in an easter bunny. I was smart enough to know that miniature Jesus didn't rise out of my easter garden, not even metaphorically. Though looking back, the making of the garden meant a lot to me.

Easter meant one-use clothes when I was a child (judging from the pictures, this consisted primarily of pastel short suits), and it meant wearing clothes that I didn't want to as an adolescent (anything my mom thought looked "nice"). Easter meant family and specifically dad's family. I don't recall ever seeing my mom's family on Easter. This was because dad's family was religious, and mom's wasn't. Dad's family went to chuch, mom's family smoked cigarettes and drank beer. So did dad's family, but I wouldn't know for years about all the undercover vice.

As a young adult living in the aftermath of his parents divorce, I only remember losing all touch with ceremony. I couldn't tell you what I did for Easter from the late nineties until just a few years ago. I know it didn't have anything to do with church or religion though. There were a few years in the drunken slumber where I think I stayed up all night to watch the sunrise. I recall at least two of these attempts failing as bad as my childhood memories. Though I recall a few sunrises, I couldn't tell you if any of them were Easter.

As an adult in the age of SMS, I dread many "holidays" for the stream of text messages wishing me a happy easter. The majority of which read: "Happy Easter!" (and the vibration comes again, "Happy Easter!" and again) with some occasional wit. I try to call my life's important people on holidays. I regularly fail at this. I'm a bad friend, and I'm not good at being family. I'm not good at being in touch, but I'd like to think that it doesn't mean I don't love.

It's been a long time since I've spent Easter with family and I wonder if that is why I feel like I'm coming off so jaded about the whole affair. No, I don't want to cry. I'm fine, and I actually enjoy having friends. I cherish (even if only in my heart and in my memories) the close friends I've made and lost. These people are in my thoughts today as I harbor dreams of resurrecting some lost connections. Though, I don't know where to start.

Living the Montage

Man, what a rapid cycling weekend. Seems like I've been all over the place since my last post. What started high, went real low, and in the end it seems to have worked itself out. Now? School work, test and a paper, read a book (a whole book), vary my sentence length. Talk about boring.

الحمد الله

السلام عليكم

What an amazing day today! الحمد الله I found this [read a book] on my morning web-hunt, shared my experiences in school with some close friends, and spent the evening dining with some pious muslim brothers. Humor, mental stimulation, و صلاة

I'm finally getting an idea of how to best use my time. Goals, and dreams are making a comeback, I feel a montage coming on.

This summer...

I have got to write a book. It's time. I've got too many different ideas, choosing one is going to be difficult, and I might just start writing all of them; Lord knows I've got to switch gears often enough for school, I'm starting to get used to it.

time to find time to write.