QQQQQuestion?

Are you able to tell when you have enough?

Kimber: Nope. If anyone has tips for developing this particular power of discernment, please do share.

Charity: Not to go all Confuciun on this answer, but the more I have, the more I think I need. The less I have, the more I realize I can live without.

Liberty: I'd like to say yes, but after a recent joyous conversation (partially motivated by 3 glasses of champagne), that concluded in a fit of public tears...the most accurate answer is probably closer to no.

Mercina: Probably not. This question makes me think of a diet Glorianna and I went on a few years ago. We attempted to eat only fruit. But after a few days we were feeling pretty woozy and indulged in some cookies. By indulged I mean we ate until we got sick. And we both felt awful for the rest of the day. Yeah, no.

Glorianna: Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean I stop.

Favorite Words

Con (kən : Latin) – with, together.
Sidereus, -a, -um (si- ˈder- ē- üs : Latin) – stars, starry, gleaming.
Consideration (kən-ˌsi-də-ˈrā-shən : English) – careful thought, meditation; 
the act of bringing together stars.

My mind is a universe, filled with asteroids and empty space and old satellite parts. It also has a few stars. Sometimes at night I’ll shut my eyes and stare up at the domed vault of my skull, admiring the lights shining in it like holes poked into black construction paper with a sharpened pencil tip. As I look, white points align and then realign, grooving iridescent ghosts into the dark matter through which they travel. I comprehend little red planets winking as their orbits shift with my mere thought of them. Every so often, a new star spins into existence out of free floating star stuff, adding a digit to the factorial number of constellations available for my creation. Once or twice, I’ve had to shield my eyes from the burning light of a supernova burst; the incredible bright death of a sure thing.

I am a sort of divine mover, a type of creator. The god of my own mind-sky. I collect celestial dust from books and long walks and conversations overheard on subway cars, until there is enough of it and heat and light to compact into something called knowing. Then, I can observe. I connect bright dots in the sky. I consider.

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What's your favorite word? Why?

QQQQQuestion?

Kimber: Willa joining me in the laundry room, WAY past her bedtime, and insisting on brushing my hair. When the midnight makeover was complete, she grabbed my cheeks between her tiny hands and whispered, "Mommy I make you so beautiful and happy."

Charity: Yoni and I went to a beautiful, magical party hosted by all of these wonderful women! It was so fun.

Liberty: Checking out Premal's cute bootie as we pedaled around Denver on our tandem bike.

Mercina: Seeing a mother duck and her SIXTEEN ducklings during a walk around the lake.

Glorianna: I was going through a lot of old pictures, so it's probably a tie between finding:

and

What about you? What was the best part of your day today?

Room

My time here at Yale has had its ups and downs. It has also had its neither-ups-nor-downs. Its many strings of slow dull moments. Those hours in between meals and after assignments have been turned in. Long afternoon walks alone. 1am sitting indian-style on the floor of Woolsey Rotunda, staring up counting light bulbs and listening to a lone organist practice through locked concert hall doors.

I've spent many of those spans of uncomplicated contentedness in my room. Reading. Listening. Watching. Strumming. Cleaning by shoving things into places I can't see. Dancing in front of the $5 Ikea wall mirror. Falling asleep on the couch instead of the bed for no good reason. I've organized and arranged and acquired this room. I like it in here. I think I've grown to love it a little.

Most underclassmen left campus a few days ago. During move-out, I caught glimpses of empty rooms hastily swept out of all the things which made them one person's and not another's. It's sad to think I'll be doing that same sweeping in a few days. My sacred little space will revert to four clean cream walls, a closet door, an empty bookshelf, and a cold-to-the-touch floor. Any indication that I ever ate or sang or slept or wrote here will be oversights -- careless residue leftovers where I neglected to scrub myself out of the whitewashed woodwork sufficiently. A cleaning crew will come in over the summer and wipe any old receipts or strands of hair I forgot to take with me into the irrecoverable yawn of a black plastic trash bag.

No, I don't want to stay in this one-room kitchenless fourth-floor walk-up with a bathroom shared by too many boys forever. Even I'm more ambitious than that (and also the university won't allow me to live in the college after I've graduated).  But I've appreciated all the space I've found in this minute number of square-feet. Next semester, another student will turn a key in the lock of A41. They'll see how awkwardly the unsentimental desk, chair, chest of drawers, and bed-frame sit in its center, a big mess of blonde wood elbows. I hope they're able to find room for themselves within these clean cream walls. I hope they're able to find home for a little while.

Remember?

Remember that time we went to an magic island in Canada and all of the people were polite and the food was delicious and it was generally pretty sweet? No? I don't blame you, because we never put up any pictures of it, even though I have literally thousands of them. Here. These are for you:

Remember how we were all upset that morning but not with each other so it was actually alright? Remember deciding to have an absolutely perfect day just out of spite? Remember how much better that made everything?

Remember when we saw lettuces and tiny baby radishes still in the ground and met the future King and Queen of England and then Prince William was all like -- "get your hand off of my wife's boob" and we were all like "no because actually you're a cardboard cutout and can't talk to us or tell us what to do" and his expression didn't even change even though that was a super rude thing for us to say?

Remember how we sat in all those places next to each other because we were wearing coordinating clothes and wanted everyone to see how cute we looked together but we never actually got a good picture of all five of us and I tried to hang my camera on a tree to use the self-timer but instead it fell off and almost broke? Remember how everybody's name was Will?

Remember when we drove into town and Charity asked to street-preform with that boy who was handsome but only because he could play the piano so well and wore plaid and was polite. Remember when he said yes because it would have been rude not to and was so happy and surprised when Charity actually opened her mouth and sang like she does? Remember when we all sang along?

Remember when we ordered oysters on the half-shell and I ate one even though I usually don't and you told me it would taste like a salty kiss from the sea? Remember when I told you you were right about the oyster, but I still didn't like it?

Remember when we found the hat with red braids and we all pretended to be Anne of Green Gables? Remember how Momo bought Hettie one and whenever she wore it she'd become courteous and kind but also a little fiery and only answered to the name Anne? Remember the deep-sea diving shack that also sold the best lobster rolls you've ever tasted and pretty excellent salads too? Remember getting annoyed at all sorts of things that may or may not have mattered but still having a beautiful time?

Remember saying we wanted to walk back to the house but only because we didn't want to go in the car and didn't understand how far it was? Remember trying not to squash the tiny frogs as they hopped across the sidewalk? Remember being scared when we heard sounds coming from the forest and it getting so dark none of us could see and using Liberty's phone as a flashlight and all thinking to ourselves if a kidnapper or a rapist or a wild animal came out from the trees I'd stay and fight it so the rest of you could run away and get help and be safe?

Remember getting back just fine and seeing them read to the babies in the main room? Remember knocking on the window and then hiding just to scare them and then almost deciding to go skinny-dipping? Remember all the stars?

Perverbs

Some would call Harry Matthews a writer. I prefer to think of him as a lyrical Dr. Frankenstein -- except instead of sewing together old body parts, he sews together old truisms. Yes, Mr. Matthews has pioneered a new and exciting form of prose: The Perverb.

No, a perverb is not a pervy proverb (i.e. lace curtains never stopped any Peeping Tom with character). Rather, it's the creative combination of two or so tired old phrases into one exciting new phrase (i.e. stop and smell the death and taxes). It's a lovely way to forge new bits of wisdom out of old ones which have lost their oomph to overuse.

I had to write a list of 15 these for a class, but I get the feeling I missed a bunch of really good ones. So I'm crowdsourcing to all y'all clever people to find the best perverbs capable of existence (for entertainment value only -- I already turned in the assignment). I'M DOING THIS BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN YOOOOOOOU!

Below, I've included a few more of my perverbs, accompanied by pictures of weirdly beautiful hybrid taxidermy jobs by the artist Enrique Gomez de Molina (because this is likely the only blogpost I'll ever write where those will be even tangentially relevant).

Honesty hurts

The Devil is in an apple a day.

Big brother has more fun

A little knowledge makes Jack a dull boy

A rolling stone turneth away anger

The road to hell is paved with pennies saved

Business by any other name wouldn’t smell as sweet

Diamonds are next to Godliness

Dead horses tell no tales

Damn! The torpedoes killed the cat!

So what's your best perverb? Share a couple in the comments so we can all chortle at them together alone at our personal computers!

Things impressed upon me from a young age, in no particular order:

Respect older people, those in positions of authority, and everyone else too.

Always say ‘please’, ‘thank you’, and ‘hello, you’ve reached the Tillemann-Dicks' residence. How may I help you?’

Cucumbers should be planted in small mounds.

You should not consider yourself superior to anybody else.

Appearances are important.

Appearances mean very little.

Read.

You are in no way obliged to do things how other people do them.

Privacy from family is not a right – some would prefer to abolish it all together.

The American flag should never touch the ground.

You are capable of hard work, and you have very few good reasons to avoid it.

Manners are an important thing for a young person to have.

Wash the dishes when a guest in someone’s home.

Screaming won’t kill you.

Most things won’t kill you.

Emotional trauma is largely avoidable.

You are capable of figuring out when to go to bed by yourself.

Water is delicious and good for you.

MEEEEEEMORIIIIIIEEEEES, ALL ALONE IN THE MOOOOOONLIGHT

               We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house.

We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

We're sitting on the steps of the Budapest Opera House, waiting for Charity to check whether there’s a matinee showing of Faust. She’s the only one who sort of speaks Hungarian.

We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house.

We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

I actually don’t know the song. Liberty and Mercina learnt it in Tour Choir – the most advanced group in the Colorado Children’s Chorale – but they only remember the first two lines. I was in Chorale too, but I was never promoted to Tour Choir. They know a lot of songs I don’t.

We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house.

We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

I’ve picked up the song by now – it’s only two lines, and most of the words are the same. I sing until I get dizzy and have to take a breath. Chary comes back. There’s no Faust. She sits on the steps and starts to sing too.

           

We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house.

We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

We sang a lot on that trip. Charity would sing O Mio Babbino Caro in public squares in Budapest and Vienna and make me walk around the resulting crowds carrying her sun hat. Pedestrians would throw 1€ and 2€ coins into it and I felt like a beggar, which was sort of the case but at least it’s a good story now. We’d use the money to buy lemonade at fancy cafes later on.

We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house.

We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

We’d sing along to My Hips Don’t Lie and Weekends & Bleakdays in our apartment when they played on MTV Europe, which still showed actual music videos most of the time back in 2006. We sang Hungarian folk songs when we went to tea with my grandfather and grandmother at Budapest’s New York Palace, which is still the most beautiful place I’ve ever had tea in my life. We would sing in English every Sunday at the international congregation and sometimes I’d look up from the hymnal to see if the bishop’s son was looking at me.

We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house.

We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

Now Mercina is upset. She thinks we’re making a scene. Mia’s always had the most dignity of all of us, unless you catch her at 9pm – then something funny happens to her blood glucose levels and she starts acting totally sloshed. But it’s only 2 or 3 in the afternoon right now, and she stalks off into the cobblestone sunshine of the Budapest afternoon to escape our uncouthness.

We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house.

We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

We can’t see Mercina anymore in the rush of city people running errands, so Charity makes us get up. When we find Mia, she promises us that we’ll go to a café for some lemonade.