What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why (Sonnet XLIII)
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
I have seen more sunrises in the past two months than I have in my entire life. It's impressive, I guess, but for the fact that... potentially... I will be seeing sunrises like this every weekday morning 9 months out of a year. Thinking about life in terms of waking up at 6 am 5 days a week... it's depressing. And daunting. Without a doubt.
I miss milestones. I think I've passed most of them in my life, with a few notable exceptions. But I remember! The days of thinking... oh, life is going to be so different. I can't wait til I ____________. Get to college. Turn 21. Move out and live on my own. Life is really really exciting for the first 25 years, and then what do you have to look forward to? Gray hair? First wrinkles? Turning 50? Dying?
Oh wow, I am super depressed now. I will cheer myself up by looking at pictures of Daniel Henney.
The video (above, it's right ^ there, can you see it?) is one of the new bands I'm obsessing over. I actually bought the CD! It was amazing, I haven't bought any new music in years, it feels like. But they're so happy, even when they're not, and the lead singer's voice resonates with me and.. come on, they have an accordion and a trumpet player. How can that not be awesome?
So I guess the dance wasn't so bad. It was interesting to see some of my students in a less-structured environment... the kids who, in class, were quiet or shy suddenly felt comfortable running around, dancing like mad, or twirling in circles. Is that how I was when I was 17? I want to say "no", but deep down, the answer is probably "yes".
As a teacher, I do a lot of time reflecting on my own youth. This is actually new to me, when I was teaching overseas, I never compared myself to my students. I'm not sure why that is... people are people no matter where you go, right? But maybe it was the new surroundings, maybe it was that the environment differed so drastically from the one that I was brought up in, maybe it was that they were 5 and learning (and communicating functionally) in a new language, as opposed to when I was five, and playing in ponds.
Here, though, the things these kids do... some of them I relate to. Some of them I rail against. It's strange. I thought I could honestly say that I, in my own young semi-adulthood, was nothing like the students of today. But maybe that's because I was focusing on the wrong students. From the behavior I saw last night, which was hyper, ridiculously enthused, slightly attention-starved, awkward and then not awkward... well, some of it reminded me a lot of me. It's kind of a blow to my ego, and now I have to either be less secure in my own moral superiority at seventeen, or just get over it. Or just pretend like I never had these thoughts and remain secure in my standing that, at that age, I was a prodigy who always behaved with the proper decorum for each situation.
Anyway, I ran over a frog last night. 80% sure. It was hopping across the road, but I only saw it too late because a) it was a little old frog, and b) it was dark. I wanted to slam on the brakes to let it pass, but there was a car right behind me, and they would probably have crashed into me, and what was I going to tell them? Sorry about the car accident, but I had to stop on the road for a hopping frog? I feel a disporportionate sense of guilt over the whole matter. I mean, yeah, it was a frog, but then again, it was a happy little hopping frog and I killed it. Like a monster.
I'm not actually sure how it happened, but I agreed to chaperone a school dance tonight. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I mean, on the one hand, it's good for me to show the school that I'm willing to help out, and I get appreciation points from the students who were having a hard time finding someone willing to chaperone... but on the other hand. It's a school dance. I have to watch it. I had originally planned on taking a book to read, but decided that that behavior would be terribly un-supervisory. But, it's three hours long. On a Saturday night. It's not like I was going to do anything tonight anyway, most likely, but still. Those are three hours in my weekend that I wouldn't have to be working.
Yeah I think I'm just whining for the sake of whining. And of killing time because I gotta leave in the next twenty minutes or so, and don't have much else to do. Maybe I'll go by the coffee shop.
So a few weeks ago, I took to the streets of Dallas in a fruitful search for kimchi. The overall trip went really well, except for the presence of some rather ubiquitous toll road signs the further in I got. Not actual toll booths, just signs. So, not really knowing what the heck was going on, and since there were no people there frantically waving their arms or otherwise trying to stop me, I just kept driving.
Visiting my parents this weekend allowed me to collect the mail still being sent to their address. One envelope was from the Dallas Tollway transit group, and held the bill for my use of those (now understandably) empty stretches of highway. $5.64.
And okay, fine, I will pay my six dollars. I am probably even going to actually buy one of those scanner card thingies so that I don't receive pictures of my car license plate in the mail anymore. But it got me to thinking... who up and decided that I have to pay $6 for the ability to drive down the street? In the name of one of my least favorite presidents, no less? I mean, I wouldn't mind if it was the President Taft Tollway. Who wouldn't want to ride down the highway in the name of the guy who got stuck in the White House bathroom. Or if I knew that the payment of the toll was to purchase some rolls...
So I may or may not listen to NPR podcasts at work.
Well, actually, there is no "may not", I definitely listen to NPR podcasts at work, before class starts or during lunch. Lately I've been going through their tiny desk concert series, and really liked this band. Here they are for your listening enjoyment.
Well, I have survived my first six weeks. It really wasn't so bad. I think I've got a routine down. I haven't cried. Well, at least not since that one time. But that was a pretty legitimate cry, if you ask me.
I spent today searching for a Korean Market in Dallas to buy kimchi. And I was successful! I found Super H Mart, in Carrollton. It was amazing--the place was huge, clean, and seemed pretty modern. AND it had a Tous Les Jours inside.
After I got home, I decided it was finally time to put my platform bed together. Until a few weeks ago, I was sleeping on the floor on a blanket, and after then, I was sleeping on the floor on a mattress, but now? Now, I am going to sleep on a mattress on a 90% constructed platform bed, and it will be awesome. The piece is only 90% done because it's apparently a 2-person assembling job... which I shrugged aside until it came to the part where you had to LIFT the bed up and TURN IT upside down and that thing is heavy! You have to do that so you can attach the final pieces of trim, and of course, I couldn't really manage to turn it over so I lifted it up and turned it on it's side and then it fell on me and then I decided that it was done enough and that no one is going to see it anyway.
Then I tried to put up a curtain rod and that was just a dismal failure so I decided to watch tv on the internet for awhile. And post in here. Which I am doing.
