Below are the most recent 4 friends' journal entries.

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
lunali	7:58p	a clean dance floor gives the best room to explore Bags are a really important aspect of life, I don't have many but I'm sentimental about the ones I use. That totebag carried my school books in Australia and smuggled my liquor in Yellowstone, I had to stitch it up numerous times. That purse was a gift after a long trip and has carried all my notebooks. This backpack has been a constant companion since high-school, taking me through dozens of sleepovers, weekends home, and road-trips. My new thrift-store messenger bag did not budge as I biked this fall, and carries my new school books, my shoes, my thermos. Most bags we throw away almost instantly, but we carry ourselves inside them. Do you have physical reactions to bad news? My face and chest blush when I feel it coming, my heart thuds a distant panic. I don't think I quite believe it, because I am driven to comprehend, to react appropriately, to hide my emotions. Even when I can be honest, ask the right questions, its an odd sensation to feel that up-swell inside my body. No, we can't kiss anymore. No, we should not dig holes in the prairie. I am sad for having lost something, but I feel jittery with newness. Sometimes bad news is good news because through it we become free. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 21st, 2009
lunali	3:56p	thanks for poignancy, nature Often I scoff at writing that describes characters with lightning flashing from their eyes, who tremble upon meeting, who shiver at one anothers words or glances. That's not for real! Have you ever met someone who has produced such an effect on you? Last night I was standing in front of a person, rather close, and when they spoke I felt a feeling spread over my back and neck, as if the voice was physically touching my skin. It felt like a blush or a sudden bloom of goosebumps, and also a cellular movement, as of plants toward light. What to think about that? What, or how often. Anyway, the morning’s musings. Ginger cake is baking, the smell of coffee lingers. The cutting board has traces of beet juice, scraps of white onion and yellow ginger peel. Candied walnuts and clementines loll sweetly on the kitchen table. Outside, on this shortest day, the sun does not shine through a pearl haze, as it did yesterday. The snow has settled like peeling lead paint, footprints and bike tracks and the hop-skip tracks of squirrels lie ever so slightly scuffed. I too lie here, barefoot, tender as dawnlight. Watching the thin sky as winter slouches past. Waiting for the mail. Enjoying slow waking – becoming aware of one’s own body first, the collection of limbs, clothes bunched up on sleep-squashy skin, drying films of fluid around eyes and mouth, the full bladder, the filling lungs. Then the sensation of mattress and blankets, of warmth, comfort. Then, in ever increasing rings of awareness, feeling the presence of others in the room, or house. The walls and rooms of the house. The upstairs neighbors, the next-door neighbors, the city. Only then do the affairs of the rest of the world tiptoe onto my pillowcase, and by then they cannot bother me. Every other morning of the week, the world tromps in through the door of consciousness, shaking its coat, demanding its papers be put in order and a hundred other things, and I am working immediately upon waking. Current Music: Roy Orbison, then Patti Smith (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
lunali	3:41p	hung in lazy underhand manner Living in a continual state of change makes me feel most like myself. It puts me in touch with the part of me that is continual wonder, gladness, openness, and the necessary calmness. I take my commutes with open eyes, my walks with open strides. This year I have ranged far and been all over, I have been down and out, been down, been lucky, been closed off and exhausted. Something is always changing, always tugging on my sleeve and giving me a gentle shove. The thrill of the chill of winter has, strangely, put me on an even keel. Blizzards mean camaraderie. Busses come without any regard for schedules, meaning they simply come "eventually" if at all. The bus stops are crowded with regulars anticipating their missed connections and others, choosing not to drive. Everyone crowds in and tries to shuffle off the cold, watching as cars slide past and bikes plow through the streets loud with the crunch of snow. The first snowfall is always soundless, a hush nearly deafening. The next day is a sloppy hum of a hundred late commuters, alone in their cars, clenching their jaws. Today steam rose from the choppy top of Lake Calhoun. Chimneys breathed pink smoke, steam silhoutted in rose and violet as it spiralled up against the December sunrise. Frost and dry snow flashed in the below-zero light. A few nights ago, upon the first snow-fall, I announced my intentions to take a nighttime snow walk. "Careful!" Ryan cautioned, "People might think you like it here!" Current Music: Fleet Foxes (Comment on this)
Monday, December 14th, 2009
limey	7:40a	Radio Stereo Radio Radio Strange dreams again. It was a dream about traveling on a train through foreign lands, but at the stops I would meet various people. Sometimes I really believe that we meet people in dreams. That is, when I dream about you, you're dreaming about me, and we actually meet in a mutual dreaming overlap. Amazing, right? Why not. Phew. Definite head trip though. Oh, the heater in my room now makes warm air instead of cold. Bravo! (Comment on this)