I had a bowl of Cheerios in one hand and a glass of water in the other, and to commemorate Summer, I convinced myself to do one thing at a time - "Wait, sit down," don't go upstairs and watch Grey's Anatomy while you're eating your breakfast.

I sat down at the kitchen table and was struck by how alone I was. By the sun flooding in through the bay window and the French-style porch doors filled with light. By all of the space I had to think. And I thought of my grandfather. So many summers he visited us and sat in the chair to my right, the head of the table, eating his breakfast in silence. Oh, not for lack of things to say. I'd developed a habit of minimizing the overlap time of our breakfasts so that as he sat down I was just finishing. He felt it was necessary - I felt it was boring and constraining - to dispense no-doubt hard-earned pearls of wisdom whenever he could, whenever it was just him and me, his flighty, dreaming, American granddaughter. True to form, I nodded obediently and then slipped away at any convenient interim in that day's life lesson.

Every summer I used to wonder vaguely whether that would be the last time I'd see my maternal grandparents, then feel no remorse as school started and life filled in the empty guest room, the two chairs at the kitchen table, the spaces my grandpa and grandma occupied. The first two weeks without them would be strange, and I would miss them, and then gradually I would get caught up in other thiings and think about them less. Because they were my relatives, but a seasonal part of my life. I might have counted on seeing them again, the two were so intertwined - Summer and Grandparents visiting. And later on I knew I would see them: They were trying to get their citizenship and had to come to the States every year. I wonder if I saw them for the last time eight years ago, the last time I went back to Taiwan. My family went back last summer, but I stayed home and went to my Differential Equations class.

If I could sit at a kitchen table with my grandfather again, I wouldn't run away. I would ask him to tell me stories. That's something that's changed in me - I hesitate less before I ask questions. One thing I've learned as I've gotten older is that no one expects you to know everything (people expect you to be curious). So questions are okay. I'd squirm a little less if he decided to share grandfatherly wisdom with me. And I would ask him to tell me about of the funniest things that happened to him as a boy.


- - -
My grandfather drinks a lot of water. He's kind of a fitness nut, and he's really in shape. He goes walking every morning, complete with warm-up and cool-down stretches. This is what I thought about as I filled up the Brita pitcher this morning.

Yesterday, my mom was telling me about a book she'd browsed through at Barnes and Noble, something in the self-care/medicine section. "Haha, yeah, that's what my RA said his mom would always tell him!" For all minor ailments, colds, etc., "Drink some water and get sleep!" Oh, the curative powers of water . . .

Oh Schmap!

Random. Haha.

From: "Emma Williams"
Subject: [Flickr] Schmap: Germany Photo Short-list
Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:24:46 AM

I am writing to let you know that one of your photos has been short-listed for inclusion in the second edition ofour Schmap Germany Guide, to be published
mid-June 2008.

While we offer no payment for publication, many photographers are pleased to submit their photos, as Schmap Guides give their work recognition and wide exposure, and are free of charge to readers. Photos are published at a maximum width of 150 pixels, are clearly attributed, andlink to high-resolution originals at Flickr.

Why not.

From: "Emma Williams"
Subject: [Flickr] Schmap Germany Second Edition: Photo Inclusion
Date: Friday, May 30, 2008 1:08:03 PM

You've been sent a Flickr Mail from Emma J. Williams:
------------------------------------------------------------
:: Schmap Germany Second Edition: Photo Inclusion


I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly released second edition of our Schmap
Germany Guide:

Wittelsbacher fountain
http://www.schmap.com/germany/attractions/p=22068/i=22068.jpg

Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please enjoy the guide!

Best regards,

Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides

Once you lose the bad distaste of idleness

Summer is simple, gorgeous

stifling, humid

summer storms

ceiling fans

rocking out to summer jams

driving in the scorching heat

cruising to a tough bass beat

summer twighlight at 8:30

waking up at midday:30


the summer storms . . . "has sharon closed the windows yet?" of your car, she means, which is parked outside and at the mercy of the clouds. don't you wish you could tap dance like those raindrops do? but really, who doesn't find a bath refreshing? if you're lucky, it might last twenty minutes or more, and from your bedroom windowside, to lounge and watch the white rain cut across the torpid air is most invigorating.

one of the best things about summer: driving. windows down, music loud, no AC, just driving in the heat with a call-in requests radio station in the background playing the same fifteen top 40 songs every two hours

the best thing about summer

is that anything is possible

if you can get your mind around the fact that you aren't expected to do anything at all

Okay, yes, I'm going to bed, but - haha - this article:

"The torch en route" - IHT.com
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/08/opinion/edcollins.php

"Has anyone else noticed how much the presidential campaign and the Olympics are starting to resemble one another?"

aaaah

P.S.
So maybe I will sleep inside my coat and / wait on your porch til you come back home / oh, right. i can't find a flight / so i check the weather wherever you are, cause i want to know if you can see the stars tonight / might be my only right / we share the sadness, split-screen sadness

crises with my packing tape

oh my gosh. so nostalgic about so much right now.

listening to chopin's etude in e. trying to write thank-you notes to my bosses at work. looking at old MS Word files instead . . . ! aaah gosh i will have to post some of these later. letters i've written, poetry, short stories, essays, journals. my writing style's changed a lot (thank goodness - i think i liked it best in middle school before the vocab assignments became overintensive and i thesaurus'd like every other word for a more erudite-sounding synonym), but i've kind of been thinking about the same things for the past seven years. that's not so great! but i'm getting back into writing (evidenced here), so i've got some original stuff coming, i just need to copy some of it over into Word (to be read again in another seven years! eeek).

something else i have saved - the itinerary from my choir trip to europe two summers ago, the summer before college. gosh. GOSH that was two years ago, i

no, not "i barely remember it," i remember it, i look at the pictures and can still sing the songs, i loved the cities and the food, but this itinerary brings it back in a whole other way - it has everything we did, every planned event and hotel where we stayed, restaurant where we ate, every dish we ate (dinners were planned and pre-ordered), all our concert events and the times, oh my gosh, i don't think i ever read this through back on . . . Date Modified: Friday, July 20, 2007, 10:44 P.M. So that was after we got back, about three weeks. I must have saved it off of my email before I deleted all of those "Eurotrip emails." I'm not going to read it through now, either (goodness! travel plans down to the minute! and how far away things were from one another). It's just comforting to know it's here. Even though I forgot about it.

Why'd I just switch into capitalization? Okay.

"Cherish truth, pardon error." VOLTAIRE

I re-read a letter i sent to elaine and at the time i wrote it, i was simultaneously watching "tadpole," which has periodic quotes, just quotes on a black background, because the main character likes to read and is a bit of a scholar.

i like that quote. sums up my year.

gosh. i've changed. i can finally say it! i've . . . learned and grown and so much more this year than last year and i'm willing to admit it. and i've done disreputable, questionable things; found fault in others; lamented faults in myself; but at the end of the day (year), ugh . . . you have to let it go. stupid boys and petty fights and bad communication (lack of communication!), you can't overlook it, but after a certain amount of time, there's nothing to do but drop it and laugh and love and hope for better. and know that tomorrow is another day, and if it was something worthwhile to begin with, you will get another chance. to fix it, to leave it, to make something new . . . and though your views may change and you may abandon some precepts for others, at the heart of things there should be a real heart (uhh redundant? a real . . . effort) to seek out truth and to be true to yourself, your values, God, however uncertain all that may be.

paraphrased, but another quote on truth i discovered while reading "please, mr. einstein" last summer:
"I was asked whether I thought the opposite of truth was a mistake or a lie." "Which did you say?" "If my colleagues are to be believed," Einstein says, "I said, 'The opposite of truth is truth."