an actual conversation this morning:

katie: "you look professional today!"

karyn: "i'm... wearing converse."

katie: "but they match your sweatervest!"

i don't want to grow up.

in the midst of our study of comparative writing, i asked my students to write about two different versions of the famous work by edward munch, the scream. i showed them both the painting and the lithograph and solicited specifics differences, asking how those differences affect their "reading" of the art.

one of my favorite (yes, we all have favorites) students described the man's expression quite eloquently: he has just been reminded of something he had forgotten a long time ago. as he explained, the version he was describing (the lithograph) was black and white because everything in the scenery disappears. nothing around us matters when we suddenly remember something important.

i enjoy bearing witness to my students' moments of clarity.

i spent spring break in fort collins, co, and i am more resolved to move there than ever. katie's decided to go a different route, so i'll be getting an apartment with one solitary bedroom, just enough room for my cat and me.

all in all, the prospect of living alone is exciting. i've never done it before, and i'll be allowed a sort of selfishness that, as far as i see it, is forbidden in a marriage. everything will be decorated exactly how i'd like, and the kitchen will be as clean as keep it.

it's sort of blowing my mind.

on the drive to the denver airport, i wrote the first genuine and achy love poem of my life. my friends in the on-campus writing group helped me workshop it.

drain

how pregnant,
how heavy the
world becomes when
we are parted.
a bird does not fly
through a cloud--
no, the tail of
your plane has caught
the zipper of a bird pouch.
they clog the
clouds like
tufts of hair.

i continue to be amazed that i have lived the vast majority of my life not knowing that he exists, and all of the sudden i do not want to live a single day apart from him.

i guess i'd been in love before, but man. sheesh. boy am i now!

here's our engagement photo*:



* no, i'm kidding--it's just another picture of us looking weird.