i’ve packed a change of clothes and it’s time to move on.

upwardly mobile. moving to seattle in mid-june for the internship i could never have even thought to ask for.

so come visit me in bellingham now.

because it’s really lovely in the spring.

oregon-bound for memorial day weekend/my birthday/loads of explaining of what an NPR member station is.

indi and i are pretty excited.

when your rooster crows at the break of dawn, look out your window and i’ll be gone

well, hmm.

i suppose i have a bachelor’s degree now.

how about that.

i suppose it’s not such a big deal, as no one seems to care about it quite as much as i do. and maybe i’m taking it too far, but i don’t care, really.

indiana seems pretty happy.

so does this chest cold i’ve got. it’s pretty contended.

i pretty much could type out any dylan lyric right about now, and it would be appropriate for how i feel.

alone, sick, in bed with the dog. it’s hailing and warm-ish.

getting antsy in the city and thinking about leaving.

patting myself on the back for what? working and paying money and staying awake (sometimes) and writing and bullshitting and planning?

for being too proud to ever give it up until i was done?

for making “moving home” never an option?

for being stubborn and unable/unwilling to take anyone’s hand?

but i guess i did do it.

and i did it myself.

now there’s nothing keeping me in bellingham.

or washington.

or anywhere.
don’t think twice, it’s alright.

xoxo me.

the liking did me better than i ever thought it would.

i want to sleep until graduation.

and then keep sleeping.

it’s very cold in my house. thanks for trying to help, but as usual, it’s beyond any of our control.

inundated with thoughts of the media. steeping in paper topics that require a linguistic tango that exhausts me mentally, but really, doesn’t take that much effort.

i got a package today in the mail that brought me to the carpet beside the dog and in front of the space heater and kept me there for a very long time. and it hurt very much. because i hurt someone very much and i didn’t mean to. and i miss it, too, but i know it’s not like that anymore.

remember how many other things were at play? the hormones and the drugs and the depression and the loneliness and the heat and the distance and the helplessness and the poverty and the angst and the newness and the youth?

some of those factors are still present. what is no longer present is us, as eighteen and nineteen, respectively. and unfortunately, i think that that is perhaps the crux of feeling like we did when we said all of those things, and were stupid enough to put them into print.

it hurts a lot to think about how i used to feel. that summer is excruciating to remember.

i had to close the book.

and she’ll say “oh, yeah, well, i feel pretty happy, too.”

i ran out of chemicals to keep my mood in check.
it is now, i suppose, “destabilized.”

but it’s great.

the return to humanity from the mechanization of my own body was worth any difficult, sweating, jaw clenched-and-locked re-entry.

things make me deeply happy again, instead of just “less ambivalent.”

i find my face uncomfortable from unbridled smiling, especially when i’m face-to-face with certain others.

i find myself forced to relate this to the person/people whom i am face-to-face with.

fingerpicked guitars, barren tree branches, blond hair and crystalline lawns are all more stunning, more worthwhile, and cause for stopping and listening or touching.

i’m twelve again, journaling and pondering and thinking everything is so much deeper and realer than anyone else could ever even notice.

even indiana is more precious and alive and soft and the savior than ever.
you are now free to move about the cabin.

and the raincoat that you wore when it rained today, i think it only made it rain more.

knee-deep in procrastination.

here in, what appears to be
the-condiment-and mustache nation.

ski caps, cigarettes, and the taste of
fermentation.

in the backlit windows up ahead
a girl folds laundry, takes breaks to text.
boo to college.
i’ll write poems instead.

“What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them.”

even as a cynic (yes i am), today i’m moved to admit that yes, we can.

yes, we did.

and yes, we will.

because even cynics need something, i suppose, to hope for.

buckets of rain

i’ve finally achieved the american dream-

my quaint shabby-chic letter ghetto home has a leaky roof, thus leaving me with pots all over the floor and the constant melody of raindrops on metal and gathered water.

i’ve adopted a runaway from work and am now harboring him on the cold and stormy bellingham nights until he finally agrees to turn himself in and face the next three years in juvenile hall. i told him that the years between fifteen and eighteen aren’t all that special, anyway, and that the real fun (read: borderline alcoholism) doesn’t start until you grow up and get legal.

phone tag with the opportunity council for a check to help me heat the shack has gotten tiresome. i can’t wait to get the check in the mail and spend it on beer and records.

tomorrow is the first day of winter quarter.

it is also, in theory, my last ever “back to school.” tonight is my last school night after a break within the foreseeable future.

indiana is my life and my love.

i thank my lucky stars and plastic rosaries for every piece of it, and raise the entire bottle of wine to the prospect of the future and the current state of living (mostly) alone.

and in a couple years they’ve grown into a perfect family.

my new apartment is nice, but strange. when i got home at 3:30 AM after work, it was unbearably lonesome and quiet. usually, the outside world, the place between work and home, is that way, but then it’s all better when i come home and someone else is there.

which once again supports my belief that indiana is amazing. he’s really good company, for the most part.

so are ceiling fans.

and comic books!

and pirated internet.

unfortunately, i’m so spoilt, that i actually groaned when my thieved connection to a non-existent web of communication was too slow to support the viewing of any media on netflix instant. boo.

i had a really good weekend playing house with zach again. the novelty never wears off, especially when rollerblading in the house and eating ice cream for breakfast are on the agenda.

i love you! move to bellingham. jobs are stupid.

xoxo hanna

give us those nice, bright colors; give us the greens of summers; makes you think all the world’s a sunny day.

a peek for everyone, because i’m trying to be positive.

and because everything you fill a new house with has lived somewhere else before.

and because you can’t spell “cartography” without “art.”

and because i’m not the only one moving.

and because everything, even beds with ladders, come full-circle.

still moving. last night was really strange. we stayed in my new yellow studio.

all of our furniture is in a storage unit fifty miles away.

and our old apartment empty, except for the all the little debris that’s left after a storm blows through.

we’ve spent the day sorting through the damage, drinking beer and wondering where the rest of our life went.

but tonight we both have to go back to work so i guess life will be the same there as it always was.

wish us luck.

xoxo hanna

(and zach and indi)

out with the old, in with the new….

…but i’ll be damned if i’m not taking some of the old with me….

ummmm....yes.

very own bathroom, very own second-hand sign.

thanks, baldings. always in my heart.