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My poem “The Collector” was selected for inclusion in MSUM’s Red Weather Journal!

I am a happy lady.

I’m going home this coming Sunday, and have been trying to prolong my food supply for the time being. The goal is to never have to buy groceries again until I get back in May, and maybe not even then (permitting I reside at home this summer).

It’s kind of hilarious/scary right now. I’ve got a combined 3/4 box of cereal, three slices of bread, five pitas, a tomato, one heart of romaine lettuce, and numerous cans of varied beans (black, great northern, pinto, refried, etc.). There is a box of oatmeal that I am avoiding, and numerous shapes of pastas that I don’t have the patience to cook (though they’d taste delightful with the cup of Velveeta I’ve got left). I’m almost out of milk. After that — it’s water on the cereal. Yikes.

I made a pineapple smoothie last night, with natural yogurt and the one can of pineapple that I’d saved for the winter. It didn’t taste like pineapple at all, in fact, more like sour yogurt. Delicious nonetheless, and I poured it into the margarita glass that my roommate gave me for my 21st birthday. This was probably the most eventful thing to happen yesterday, during an entire day indoors.

Classes were canceled, and I, unfortunately, could not comprehend others’ bliss because I have no classes. It was more of a ‘HOORAY I can sit around all day…AGAIN!’ type of feeling, except with the underlying doom that I was stranded in my apartment. I don’t know what I would have done yesterday without my bed, my meager food supply, and court TV.

And I’m off in eight (8) days! Can you believe it? I can’t sleep in the mornings, I’m so excited. Last night I fell asleep thinking about carry-on luggage. Curious.

I am awaiting big news within the next few days. I can share it, hopefully, in the next week. I am crossing my fingers that it is good…

Ahh. Life’s a’changin’…

“Remember to keep your feet on the ground, your hopes up high, pray for rain, keep the humor dry, and eat those powder milk biscuits.”
—Garrison Keillor

This is a photo I took from my window when I woke up at two o’ clock this afternoon.

And I didn’t do a darn thing…all day.

for the next couple of days.

I am going to try my hardest — !

Suddenly I feel ready to write about this day.

I don’t recall a single care
Just greenery and humid air

I paused on the side of the dirt road. The sun was going down over green crops and the air was in passage from the waves of a hot July day to the coolness of a summer night.

Home was still several hours away, but I had a camera and the moment in my midst. I felt liberated, freedom and revival from the summer I’d endured, and was ready to put past my mind.

The wind was perfect and the boisterous air caught the fabric of my red dress. I wore no makeup and pulled back my stringy curls into a haphazard bunch, a dozen strands falling into the breeze. The day was so glorious to me, so impeccable that even in the midst of my slatternly being, I felt beautiful.

I set the camera on the hood of my car, pressed down the shutter and ran. Take two, and take three, take twenty-seven, the dust picked up as my sandals pummeled the gravel. I moved into tall fields where grains brushed against my bare legs. The sun continued its ebb to the horizon line as it saturated the sweeping grass in a gradient of light.

The moment was detained a half hour later, as I turned the vehicle off the grit to rejoin a thoroughfare spanning toward home. The sun was going down over green crops boundless in existence, forward-looking stems swaying restful in a July sundown. Everything was going to be just fine.

Body, earth, mind; all was calm.

I couldn’t sleep last night, and I never can. I despise the wicked cycle I’ve succumbed to. My sleep bank is years in debt, and I owe my body hours and hours. It will never be paid off.

It was four a.m. when I crashed. Sometimes I feel as though I am shackled to my sheets, because they are not always where I want to be. I’ll twist for hours, the cloth grabbing at my legs and tangling between my calves. That’s how I felt last night, and the night before last, and nearly every night that I’d rather be awake. I stared at the clock until five-thirty, I looked to the wall, I looked to the ceiling. But all I could think of was England, and Italy, and cereal.

There was only one of the three that I could satisfy at the moment, so I got up and poured myself a bowl of Golden Grahams, then proceeded to stuff my face with anything I could get a hand on: bread, peanut butter, toast and milk. At six I quietly set my dishes in the sink and drug my weary, restless body back to my sheets once again.

Each night I wonder, why sleep has forsaken me. Why I am this creature of the night.

Why.

I RETURNED HOME AT AN EARLY HOUR, and by early I actually mean late. It was nearly five a.m. and I had an incessant hankering for pancakes, eggs, and toast.

I pondered trekking to IHOP or Perkins, both of which would have provided me with the most excellent “empty” breakfasts. I say empty because they taste delicious in all of their butter and carbohydrate glory, and satisfy a hungry stomach for a good hour until you’re hungry all over again. Then you’re ticked off, because you just dropped $9 for your Eggs Over My Hammy or Grand Slammy or Pancake Party or whatever.

I ditched the restaurant idea and resorted to some home cooking. There was a dozen eggs waiting in my refrigerator, Large, Grade AA and “farm fresh,” and a loaf of twelve grain bread still sealed for freshness. I had talked my cravings down to settle for the eggs and toast, on account that I am incapable of making pancakes. I was excited.

But as I tossed open my apartment door, the light from the hallway cast shadows on two figures curled up in the nearby living room. My mind went berserk. Of all nights to have visitors, which number about a handful since August — of all nights — this one came when I was practically in pain for a good breakfast, a good breakfast that I now couldn’t cook!

Not to say that I couldn’t have fried up some foodstuffs on the spot — I could have! There thought of making it in silence, and eating it before shifty eyes was the buzzkill. If I was going to make it, I was going to make it good, and loud.

I opened the refrigerator to a sad gallon of skim milk with a scanty three cups remaining. I remembered the family-sized box of Fruit Loops in the pantry. I knew what I had to do.

Gathering up my resources, I went to the only place in my apartment where a lady could find some peace at the time. I sat down with my gallon jug, with my Fruit Loops, my bowl and my spoon, on the floor of my walk-in closet. I sat down and I poured, bowl after bowl. The three cups of milk ran dry and I wasn’t satisfied. I pounded my hand into the family-sized box, and fistful by fistful I ate dry cereal until I felt myself come to a slow.

I tucked the empty gallon jug into a corner of my closet, and placed the box of cereal nearby. I brushed my teeth, then I passed out.

I woke up this afternoon and made eggs.

suzie hunter + justin quinn.