dancing, dancing, barefoot on hardwood floor, bass and drum and moaning voices pouring through me, guilt and fear and anger dripping from my fingertips like sweat, rushing down my legs and out my pounding feet, hard fierce joy thrumming through me, i am laughing, i am weeping: i am dancing. we expected drums and a didj, but instead there was a boy with his computer and a keyboard, but he was good. he played tibeten chants over hiphop beats, just drumsounds, something halfway techno but with a sitar singing through. sweet rhythm, sweet sound. and we danced and danced and danced, bit by bit losing our selfconscious worry, limbs flailing and feet near to bleeding. not sexy, not stylish, not graceful, just moving. just music.



today my degree plan is due, and i have two signatures left to gather. we did an electrophoresis lab in bio, in natural history we had a former student tell us about herpetology and later attended a symposium on drought and pinyon pine death. turns out we're several years into the worst drought in at least 1400 years, and predictions suggest that there's another 30 to go. they called it "global-scale climate shift"-related drought, said there's no precedence whatsoever in any record we've got. hundred percent death in some stands.


when anything bad happens, since tuesday night, my response has been: not only is the end of the world coming, but... and it was a joke, at first, sort of, but i'm beginning to feel it's true. not only is the end of the world coming, but all the trees are dying, too.


i just take what comfort i can from my csa veggies, the sunlight, music. make dinner with friends, ace my bio exam, hold on to hope.