from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The trees were tall and triangular. They were quiet.

Liesel pulled The Word Shaker from her bag and showed Rudy one of the pages. On it was a boy with three medals hanging around his throat.

"'Hair the color of lemons,'" Rudy read. His fingers touched the words. "You told him about me?"

At first, Liesel could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him? It's likely. Restricted as she was from speaking, she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to drag her hand across and pull her over. It didn't matter where. Her mouth, her neck, her cheek. He skin was empty for it, waiting.

Years ago, when they'd raced on a muddy field, Rudy was a hastily assembled set of bones, with a jagged, rocky smile. In the trees this afternoon, he was a giver of bread and teddy bears. He was a triple Hitler Youth athletics champion. He was her best friend. And he was a month from his death.

"Of course I told him about you," Liesel said. She was saying goodbye and she didn't even know it.

news items

-my hair has finally grown out enough to put into a ponytail

-i love it when the movements of the leaves in our big tree make it look like the wind is manipulating the electro-magnetic field itself

-endocrine therapy sucks

-jasmine tea does not

-i get paid today, which feels delicious

-tom-tom number 1 is about to be mailed

-i'm baking five-minute artisan bread

-the schedule is math

-i miss heather, laura, tim, sarah, oma, robyn, natalie, kait, eden, auntie janet

-beethoven sounds good this morning

gettin' published, do do do do do

in notebook magazine - a whole set of poems plus a short interview this time. hooray! this will be wonderful for my reputation. all the cool people in edmonton show up in notebook.

i'm given to wants of some desires

- to understand higher math and to be able to use it whenever i want to
- to write fantastically well
- to develop skills that will make me money that i will be proud to earn
- to be admired, and better liked
- to do everything as well as i possibly can
- to invent ways to do things better
- to be beautiful
- to stop pretending
- to create and maintain much better mind maps for myself
- to know a lot more about economics, literature, music, history, philosophy, physics, plant biology, and cooking
- to get a tattoo
- to try hard for anything
- to finally start pickpocketing
- to examine pus under my microscope
- to be published more
- to build my bookshelf
- to read Utopia
- to be thin
- to be around people i actually like

i am proud to have someone's secrets to keep.