you've been saying that since the day we met

Last night we were listening to In Rainbows by Radiohead as Nick was chopping avocados. Stesha and I were sitting on the stools eating pieces of cheese and bits of vegetables here and there, and I said passively, "I don't own this album, and I've only heard it through a couple times, but I feel like I know every single song and that I've been listening to it my entire life." And then Nick actually listened to an entire sentence I said, and responded to me.
"Hahner, I know this sounds weird, but it's your heart song. It's like your heart knows it, and was meant to understand it, and the beating of your heart is in sync with it."
I've never heard Nick say anything like that, and it gave me chills. And I've been mulling on it all day today as we played music for Sandy church and then hung out as a band at Dan's house.
I've stayed away from Radiohead because it hurts my soul.
But maybe I should pull out the old albums and let it be.

"This conversation is making me uncomfortable... or, actually I just need to go to the bathroom."
-Hannah B.

napping and other fine things

Yes. I took a nap. Didn't get to play in Fillmore with my band, but I guess I needed the rest and stuff. And at the moment I feel like everything is in good control (which is amazing; I never feel that way. Which, I know things will go careening the other direction by next week but they feel so balanced right now) I hung out with Tony and Shannon and Bryan last night, like we used to. It felt good like old times. We got the Pie and went back to T & S' house to play Clue. Kristyn L. and Celisse played several games with us.
Today I worked a long long long time, but Darrell and Courtney made it pretty dece and I feel like things are semi straightened out, as far as I left Jessie another really long note about maybe getting less hours.
Nap, strange dreams, church. I sat with Bryan's mom which for some reason just felt the most natural out of anything, and her whole family was pretty much in Fillmore except for Brandon who paced around the room the entire time.
Then Philip and I went to Nick's and he made some pretty great nachos and showed us his sweet amp and then disappeared to smoke a pipe and
my band is playing tomorrow so I'm going to bed.

Parting is all we know of Heaven,
And all we need of hell.
Emily Dickinson

give up and let me go

If I could somehow go through the last three days, and give you a photo montage it would be something like this, set to Cowboy Robot.
It starts with me in bed early on night up early Saturday, saying I'm okay, okay, okay. I drink 6-10 shots of espresso at work with Darrell...then suddenly I'm in the mountains, it is raining, and I am far far away. (Cowboy Robot comes in, I'm on the second go around with this album) My truck is fishtailing up this dirt gravel road and I think, "I'm really going to die alone. Like really, this time." But with a few more expletives than that.
I get to the Big Canyon music fest in the middle of nowhere, right as I can hear Revolution Medicine starting I slam my car door shut, wave at Paul and run through the trees, Kelsea's voice coming through the rain. (Yes, so dramatic and romantic, and my lungs giving out). I sit in Kaylene's arms for a moment and pull myself together. Kels and Collin and Caleb play an amazing set in the pouring rain, Kaylene and I huddled under an umbrella.
I go back down those mountains alone.
We graduate to I'm at church nervously drinking water, then at Olive Garden part 2 with Celisse, Alex, and Hannah Porter. I've had 2 more cups of caffeine, and I'm eating dinner with 3 of probably the most cynical people I know, which is good. I can't think straight, I fall asleep in my hot tub by accident.
Sunday-- I spend the entire day in bed, besides one hour at the gym that doesn't help anything. I start to think I'm having a relapse of my first semester of college when I throw off the covers and go to Shannon's house, and my D'Amicos heal me.
Then I sleep in today, get my contacts (I can finally finally finally see). I get my dose of Vitamin Kayleigh and grab coffee at work before going to the U.
After Spanish class, one of my classmates starts talking to me at the TRAX station, and we become friends by accident when we both get on the wrong trains. He's a young music snob, so we both have something in common, and we keep each other safe from creepy transients.
And then hookah with my buddies and like a hundred episodes of How I met your Mother.

So everything fell apart and came back together. And I'm happy again. And I'm taking all of this one day at a time, because it will come together one day when I'm back in the Midwest and smiling and tan.


"Dave, you look tired... like you've been babysitting all day."
-J.J.

missing the d'amicos

I was sitting there, flipping through Tegan and Sara's (er, I mean Tony and Shannon's) wedding photos when all the sudden I came across a picture of 3-year-old Shannon stuck in the box.
"Awwww. Shannon, look at you. You're so cute!" and she just laughs, and Tony is sitting quietly next to me studying the picture.
After a long pause, he says, "Our kids are going to be so ugly."
And I can't remember how we ever stopped hanging out.


"And he texts me and says, "How do you fix a broken jack-o-lantern" and I thought he was using a metaphor for his broken heart, so I told him to drive across town and throw it at a mailbox. But it turned out that it was a joke, and the answer was "Take it to a pumpkin patch".
-Tony

A note to the girl whose photo is on the cover of my Spanish book:
you look so creepy. why are you making that face?

A message to that creepy guy who came and sat next to me on TRAX when there were plenty of seats all over the place (not next to me):
Get a life and quit creeping people. It's the 90's bro.

An apology to a girl I didn't used to think was cool, but was there for me today at Starbucks when I was literally falling apart:
I am really sorry about not thinking you were cool til today. I should give people more chances than I do.

And a silent thought I'm transmitting to the Teacher's Assistant who was looking at my notes while she sat next to me:
Just because I'm an English major doesn't mean I can always spell. Specially when I've been hungry for twelve hours.

tonight the trains were less creepy and more friendly.
the people on them, I mean.

my little mechanical engineer friend who I sit next to in film class (she might be Korean? she's awful cute for someone who makes rocket boosters for ATK) brought popcorn and I brought some candy and we watched Central Station (a pretty darn good Brazilian film).

We discussed Pablo Naruda's poetry in spanish class, in spanish. It is much harder to dissect a poem, written in another language, while speaking in another language.

it was a good long hard day. and I'm getting used to this life. Even liking it.


"I long for my father. I long for everything."
-Dora, Central Station

It was good to hang out at Nick's last night. I didn't feel so much like the stranger I've become. I chatted with Stesha, enjoying the smell of pumpkin candles, and her fall decorations.
It is home.
She and Nick, the ocean books on the coffee tables...it can melt my bones sometimes.

Time is going by so quickly. And I don't want to lose it to anything but Jesus.
My memories hurt, and my future hurts, but there is constantly Jesus, ready to hold me.

"I was born secular and inconsolable. I heard that He walked the earth.
And God goes, where He wants.
And who knows where He is not
in me."
-Jenny Lewis

head.ache.

ouch. I'm so over having a headache every day.
Give me back my life.

"If both of these horses is to lay up and die," he thinks to himself as he stares into the sun.
His companion's been bleedin' and he's weeping to himself thinking, "Oh my sweet Sue, I won't be coming home now."
-the snake the cross the crown

I think the irritation started somewhere in English 3701 when my asshole teacher said something about myths of a world flood. Add to that a headache from a lazy contact prescription, my body trying to fall asleep in my classes, and my neck craned over Geoffrey Chaucer's General Prologue for several hours on Trax....and I'm cranky.

I've gotten to the part of life again where I can't just walk away. And I hate that.
Being tied down.

But I think God just wants me to stay here.
We had a good band practice, and ended early and just spent time praying for a while. It was refreshing, and I guess unifying.
I can live with tomorrow.

vidas secas = totally boring
No ripped Brazilians. The movie was slow and painstaking. The hard part about taking a foreign film class, is when it's boring, you can't shut your eyes because then you can't read the subtitles. What to do. What to do?

And then I ran into Jess Braiker at college. I saw her sometime during my first year at SLCC when when we were playing a show as "Normandy" at the Union at the U. (This during the RockU days, when music was fun but everything else was really going horribly wrong wrong wrong.) So that was pretty much two years ago. She is thin, and very, very chill. Like, she really is a hippie.
I pretended to be a hippie when we were best friends. And I mean, I did a pretty good job what with the recycling, the tie-dye, glasses...so on and so fourth. But she has really carried this thing full-term. She's legit. And I grew up to be a....German. A regular one. Becoming more and more conservative, probably. But she kept saying, 4 years ago this, and 4 years ago that. And it's really been 4 years? I am starting to feel old. Dang it. I still feel 16 almost everyday.
To be continued.

I just finished a little hot tub therapy with "expired" Naked Orange-Mango Juice from the Bucks and I am in repose. Til 5am.

Gute Nacht.

Me: I totally want to come to the movie tonight. I think I have my homework in the bag.
Jason: This is stupid to ask, but do you mean, "homework in the bag" like the figure of speech, or do you literally have homework in your bag that needs to be done?"
Me: Both.
Jason ( 4 minutes later) : I feel retarded for asking, but its like, the first way implied that you got it taken care of and out of the way, whereas the literal way means the opposite. So I racked my brain, and did what anyone in my place would do- Chacha'd it. They didn't give me a good answer, so I am forced to ask you again.