when i was a freshman at carleton, i had a little blue notebook that i wrote in almost every night. i was usually either high or exhausted or both, but i wrote anyway. i took it with me when i went to visit my friend daniel in st. paul in march, and when the sun came out and the snow started melting, we walked around in tshirts and scarves and drank wine out of coffee mugs and wrote together.
i lost that book a few months later, and as it's the only one i've ever lost, out of the dozens of notebooks i've kept since i was very small, i'm convinced that everything in it was the best thing i ever wrote. very convenient. all i can remember, really, is a few lines from that poem i wrote with daniel. something about a red-headed woman, something about how "we can smile with our teeth again, and mean it", and something about march being the month that will save me, over and over again.


it's a good thing that in portland, march comes in february.