sun's up, mmhmm, looks okay
the world survives into another day

I haven't really known what to do with myself since I heard the news yesterday. I can't focus.

Life goes on as usual — but with this strange emptiness, where there was never a presence to be missed.

I barely knew him. We were on a 'hey' and a smile basis. One of the most kind people I've ever met. But I didn't know him.

I can't bring myself to look at the memorial on the mall. I have to walk briskly by with my head down. I know it looks cold.

Life goes on as usual, but every so often his face pops into my head so vividly, and I recall that first violent, involuntary spasm when I read the first line of the Provost's email, nearly knocking me off my chair.

One time he noticed a Simone De Beauvoir book under my chair. He confessed himself a fan and smiled shyly. Once he told me he liked my haircut. I didn't know him...

It's so hard. I can't explain why. Of course I'm wracked with sorrow, for those who knew him, at the senselessness, the randomness (I'm not looking for reason). It is that, but also this: I can get through most days not believing in death. Not just not thinking about death, but actively disbelieving it. Not today.

I have no questions, no laments, just this terrible, wonderful certainty: Mike, you were an amazing and deeply loved person. That's obvious from afar.

So I slip back and forth from the everyday. Two graduate applications submitted and paid, absolutely out of my mind once I get my transcripts out. (Will have to battle over the lingering 'I' for my study abroad semester — I am so not up for Massive Bureaucratic Hassle right now.) It suddenly occurs to me how professional and final and lifelike this all is, and I wonder if I'm ready, if I want it. I'm baffled by the financial aid process, and my outstanding undergraduate loans are scaring the fuck out of me, and I'm frustrated. But I've accomplished something, and in the morning I'll feel good about everything again.

pointing a finger at eternity
i'm sitting in the middle of this ecstacy
and i'm wondering where the lions are...