I like.

I like rainy days--sometimes--because they make me feel cozy-warm-happy.
I like using dashes--hello!--because they are bolder than commas and because Emily Dickinson liked them too.
I like candles--but who doesn't?--lit on a rainy night because they're romantic and because they're warm and because they look like they'll protect you when electricity looks so cold and might disappear with a flash of lightning--BOOM!
I like things that people like and things that people don't like and things that people don't like because other people and too many people do like: example of the first being chocolate; example of the second being Damien Rice and grammar; example of the third being country music and Twilight.
I like being myself and liking it and sometimes being other people because that can be fun too, and why should you be always just yourself when yourself is probably three or four selves?
I like being girly.
I like being romantic.
I like being bookish.
I like being the femme fatale.
I like being cutting.
I like being caring.
I like cooking.
Looking.
Seeing.
Being seen.
Hiding.
Sleeping.
Buying and making.
I like liking what I like.
Don't you?
What makes you like who you are--what you do?

Tell me.

Babies.

This is the year of babies! Last year--or was it the year before?--was the year of weddings for me, and this is the year of babies. The problem is that the year of weddings could not make me want to get married because I already am. The year of babies, however, is making me want to have a baby. Peer pressure! I must withstand, however, unless I want to be juggling a baby and English classes. Not happening! Plus, juggling might not be good for the baby.

I must wait. But still! Now all my future child's friends are going to be older than him/her because I didn't jump on the bandwagon fast enough! Stupid school. Oh well.

On a different note, I am going to try baking again today, as a reward for cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping. But I suppose that means I should start the cleaning/laundry/grocery shopping.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers and moms-to-be! Please wait to have some children, though, dear friends, until I do. Or else, who will my baby be best friends with and eventually marry? See?

Dear everyone,

I wish I were a baking goddess who always wore floral-print sun dresses and high heels. I would wear frilly aprons whenever I cooked, and somehow never have to do dishes. Dirty dishes simply don't exist. Basically I wish I were a slightly younger version of June Cleaver. Oh no, Donna Reed is who I want to be. Beautiful and capably domestic.

Our moving date is coming up so soon, and I feel terrified of it, more often than not. It's not that I don't want change, or that I'm not looking forward to some of things that are coming. I am. But I am so comfortable with how things are now, and our next step is, I feel, another transitioning step. We are not completely done with school, and we are not moving into our house with a yard. We can't yet get a dog or start a family. If things must change, I wish that that were the change. I wish we were at the part of our lives where we could settle down.

But I must be thankful. I have so many things to be thankful for, and this will be an exciting part of our lives, and one that I will fondly look back upon, I am sure, when I am holding crying babies in the middle of the night, wishing for sleep.

I must muster my wits, to paraphrase Shakespeare, and also muster some enthusiasm! And perhaps try baking in heels. Maybe that would invoke the calm domesticity of Mrs. Cleaver.

Autumn

My dearest readers, I must confess something most shocking to you: as much as I have been enjoying--really, delighting in--this past spring, I have just had a longing for autumn. The feeling came about this way: I was reading a recipe which involved baking pumpkins, and all of a sudden the sights and scents of autumn flooded my memory. As every lover of fall knows, it's somehow more than the spicy scent of cinnamon, nutmeg, and burning leaves. It's also the first bite of chill wind, the mustiness of fallen leaves, the peculiar blue of autumn skies. It's the thrill of Hallow'een, children swathed in spectral apparel.

Whereas spring gently urges contentment, autumn demands courage and action. Perhaps that explains my sudden longing for fall: a desire for courage.

I have many changes rapidly approaching, regardless of my readiness to meet them. And they will come amidst the torpor of summer, though I may wish for the brisk brilliance of fall.