Ann Arbor is painfully beautiful when it is empty. There’s something about the empty streets that makes it seem like a better place—not because the world is better without people, because that is a lie and lies are not good, but just because the streets themselves are so beautiful, maybe? People are a distraction—without people to look at, or worry about—you can look at the lines of the buildings that are just the right size. Not too big, not too small. Sometimes, they’re a bit too crowded together, but they’re exquisite in their own right as well.

If you ask me, I’d say that the only times the law quad is really, no question about it, downright breath taking is during the night when it is snowing, or the very early morning in any season. This is because:

1. At night, there is no one in the law quad, so there is no one to ruin the snow. When there are large snowflakes falling, I think someone could easily confuse their present location and heaven. Just maybe.

2. The early morning leaves it untouched as well. The world normally seems more enchanting than usual when it’s the early hours and the sun hasn’t been around for very long. That’s just how it is and we all know it.


This morning I found myself walking along North University at 5:45am. This is a disgustingly early hour, I know. I did make it to work on time and had the pleasure of standing outside with a Puerto Rican man who works there, waiting for a manager to come and open the door. He has this thick accent, so thick that I sometimes cannot understand him. But it’s not thick like that one professor, the father of one of my elementary school classmates and the one who I almost did research with my sophomore year of college, where it’s so thick and melodic that sometimes you forget which language they’re speaking and it tricks you into thinking it’s Spanish, but only in English [you dig?].

So I found myself walking along the street and found myself surprised whenever I saw another human being. The lights on Washtenaw and Geddes were still flashing. There’s something scary about the morning, moreso than the late night. Five am is more daunting when I’m beginning my day than five am is when I’m ending it. This is probably because going home at five am means you’re fucking ready to sleep and not much in the world will get in the way of your head making its way to your pillow. At five am in the morning, on the other hand, you’re not quite awake and your mind is still in that day/dreaming state where your [my] imagination seems a bit too real. This is my main problem in life, I’ll admit (okay, not main, but wouldn’t that be phatty if that was the worst problem I had? Shiiiiit).

I thought I would die until I had my first cup of coffee. One of these days, I will begin sleeping and eating like a normal human being.


Yesterday, we were stickering calendars (they’re now 50% off, if you were wondering) and I was speaking to a coworker. He said something stupid about not missing television, not missing watching the news, because what does it really matter anyway? Why would he need to know about the elections in the Ukraine? How does it affect him?

I couldn’t believe I was hearing such stupid things coming out of his mouth, but I had the damnedest time articulating why it does matter. Partially, I know that he was just kidding me, but at the same time that’s… you know, it’s everything.

I’m not going out there to protest, why should I watch and why should I care? It didn’t change/influence/affect my life at all to stop watching them, to not know what is going on in the world—how does it touch my life here? What can I do about it?

Mostly, I wanted to throw calendars at him. You can say everything you want. That’s what I did. I verbalized every thought in my head, beside the ones that would disturb the sweet old ladies drinking coffee in the café behind us.

Overall, it was—I’m not sure, interesting?





I did two things in the last two or three days that have left me disturbed:

1. Watched House of Sand and Fog. What the fuck? That’s all I really want to comment on that. Well, also that my love for Jennifer Connelly will burn forever. It began with Labyrinth and even a crappy movie can’t make it stop. [last comment is that Andres Dubus III's father is infinitely a better writer than his son--sad, but true. The man was a genius--his words carry a weight that they normally don't and are not usually meant to. Simply stunning]

2. Finished reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. It’s not like you don’t know that Christopher McCandless dies in the end—it tells you that right on the cover of the book, but, for some odd reason, the last few chapters of the book left me so sad. Ridiculously sad. But not sad in the same way that Douglas Coupland’s Hey, Nostradamus! left me sad [yesterday, Tank and I were discussing why and how in the hell this book could be so depressing—and we concluded that it’s just because it’s a book we can relate to. The major school shootings began when we were finishing up high school, so maybe it’s not that far off a thing to imagine?]



I suppose I should eat something before I go and finish up work. Perhaps.