Smile

I did it. I had an adventure. By myself, with no one else's prodding. As adventures go, it was fairly tame, but it was a step, hopefully the first of many. And for now, the events of my evening are my very own little secret. I haven't had a good one in awhile. I don't have to tell anyone about it, and that feels amazing, like I've got an ace in the hole. Better, even, because I don't have to reveal it to use its power. I went out and did something just for me, just because I wanted to. I broke down one more wall. I have the strangest smile all over my face, every time I think about it. I laugh out loud. I'm not all the way free yet, but I've taken a big step in that direction.
I have another secret too, but that's only kept from the one person. It's got some power to it too. I mirror her insecurities. I didn't realize how many of her there were. I should have known. We're doing this less for ourselves than each other. This idea that women are always so mean to one another is complete bullshit. The best defense seems to be a good offense. And a shared secret, after so many kept from us.
Sweet Dreams

Summer Sunshine

And the scary thing is, I think I'm okay. My usual gnawing worries have been drastically reduced, and most of the temporary concerns are alleviated. It could just be the drugs, but I'm feeling pretty good right now. My most concerning worries are behind me, and now I can focus on what's ahead of me.

Still working on that whole "no more beige" thing, but making progress. Still working on going after what I want, which is so much easier knowing I can have it. Maybe. On that note, I have to work on suppressing that ugly green thing that likes to rear its head at any and all mention of her name. It doesn't have to be him, it might be, but could easily be someone else.

I finally have so much that I want. Freedom, opportunity. And I'm happy this way. I finally feel like I can.

I'm pretty sure it was a Red Hot Chili Peppers song, and I don't remember the exact lyrics, but they were something like I could take you away and then everything would be great. Everything seems profound and memorable at 4 am.

Heavily drugged and very mellow,
Daydream Believer

Walking On Broken Glass

Home is an interesting concept. Some hold that home is defined as where you went to high school, where you lived while growing up, wherever you hang your hat. I'm not sure it counts as home after I've been bumped for a sewing machine. So here I am, in a place that once was home, but is no longer, having left behind what may well be the best thing that ever happened to me, possibly forever, only to try to unpack my life into a space and a world that doesn't fit anymore. Doesn't fit here. All those things that drove me so crazy, with distance suddenly seem endearing. It really is human nature to want what you can't have. The greener grass and all that. Well, as is usually the case, this grass that seemed so green is exactly the same early-spring, half-dead brown as everywhere else. I don't know what's lying in wait for me over the next couple of months, what kind of traps there'll be to trigger the waterworks. I might even be through the worst. It could well be that the first 24 hours were the hardest. Maybe, maybe not.

So here I am where I hoped to be. Now I just need to make happen what I hoped would happen.

Daydream Believer

Beige

I have spent a lot of time being beige. Nondescript, goes with everything, nothing really flashy to it, you can't have too much or you'll die of ennui. I'm not a lot less beige now than I was then, I can name three different people in the last two years who have had to be introduced to me anywhere from four to nine times before it stuck. Not randoms, people I interacted with anywhere from once to five or six times a week for three months at a time, and it wasn't like they were drunk the first few times either.

The thing is, I'm not all that beige on the inside. Unfortunately on the outside, at first glance, I am. Even more unfortunately, our kindergarten teachers were lying to us, because it does matter what we look like, what we sound like, our appearances, the impressions we give. I suppose I should say me, since it is conceivable that nobody else got this crock from their kindergarten teachers, or that they simply didn't believe them. My disillusionment aside, I'm really not all that beige. There's all kinds of interesting stuff going on, but it's not on the surface, you have to be looking for it.

This is what I get for walking the lines. The line between extraversion and introspection. I take my energy from people, but I love to hide out somewhere inside myself and just think. The line between selling out and buying in. The line between being what and who I want to be and what and who I have to be. Instead of keeping to the razor-sharp edges of liminality, the boundaries all went blurry.

The problem with education is that it's about answers, even though learning is about questions.

I'm not as beige as I once was. Maybe I'm turning a little dusty rose, a touch of periwinkle. Maybe a lovely cafe latte shade.

I hope to get less beige in the future. Rather, I hope to appear less beige. To act less beige, to speak less beige.

Still Dreaming
Daydream Believer

Visitation

I refuse to get my hopes up. I'll believe he's coming when he shows up on my doorstep. Probably just as well, my hopes are so bloody high about everything else lately, and here I am pretending they're not. Well, not really pretending, just highlighting the part that's not so hopeful. Aggravating and emphasizing the parts of me that are sad, stressed, scared, and hurt. Maybe that's the reason for all the tears, the longing looks at those little pill bottles in the drug stores. Suppression isn't really so healthy. Which is why I'm not so sure that not getting my hopes up about this is a good thing. I don't even know what to expect, really. If he shows up (he'll show up, when it's important, he's a good guy). I don't know what will happen (and will I want it to? Am I really as important to him as he says I am?). Maybe (hopefully?) he'll be as out of place here as he wasn't there. Two different worlds I live in, shouting across the divide. This is my world, and this one isn't his. Maybe he'll have no control here, it'll be my turn with some power. A shit disturber, what'll he pull this time? And what will it mean in a month's time? And was this maybe the worst idea yet?


I don't want him to arrive, but once he's here, I don't want him to leave. Be careful what you wish for much? He's upset, I'm upset, and I feel like I'm in a holding pattern, like I'm waiting to land, to actually get on with my journey. Sometimes I wish it didn't hurt so much to hurt him. I could've made this like ripping a band-aid off, but I didn't. I thought I did it for him, but maybe I really did it for me. Is this easier? I don't even know. I probably couldn't have done it anyways, I'm a terrible liar. Yesterday was so fantastic, but maybe that kind of thing is just making the whole thing worse. He wishes, I wish. We all scream for ice cream.

Keep Dreaming
Daydream Believer

Ad Astra Per Aspera

I was talking to Ace the other day and without really meaning to, I kinda crystallized what I'm trying to do here. Here as in this particular blog, and here as in during my life and work. Kinda trippy stuff. All because I was defending myself from an in all likelihood imagined verbal assault on my value and worth. Because I blog... yeah... I'm still sorting it out myself. Anyhow, Ace said that he wouldn't want to have his thoughts on the internet, because someone might read them. I kinda see this kind of thing as a microcosm* of The Golden Record. In August and September 1977 respectively, NASA launched Voyager 2 and Voyager 1 (Yes, Voyager 2 was launched before Voyager 1). Each one has a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk with a greeting intended for any life form either Voyager might encounter. This (1977) state-of-the-art technology contains a number of sounds and images meant to portray earth and give anyone or anything that might find it an idea of where the machine containing it came from. Similarly purposed plaques were placed inside Pioneer 10 and 11, which were the first two human artifacts to escape the solar system. Each of these spacecraft had a scientific purpose, which throws off the allegory slightly. The idea behind the plaques and later The Golden Record, was to throw something of ourselves out as far as we can just in case maybe, someday, someone will find it and find something they can understand in it. Is it a little bit out there? Absolutely. But there isn't much that makes more sense to me than the drive to connect, to communicate, to reach out. Even if in forty thousand years by some strange turn of fate or physics, one of the Voyagers comes hurtling back to Earth in a twisted mass of flaming metal, there's still a time capsule in there that maybe someone will understand.

This is a present from a small, distant world,
a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music,
our thoughts and our feelings.
We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter

*for some reason, my favourite word lately

Sondheim, Uta, and Kurosawa
Sondheim- Stephen Sondheim, American composer and lyricist. Born March 22, 1930. Known for the lyrics to Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, and composing the music for A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. Also Sweeney Todd, Into The Woods, and A Little Night Music.
Uta- Uta Hagen, German-born American actor and acting teacher. June 12, 1919-January 14, 2004. Author of Respect for Acting and A Challenge for the Actor. Notable for training, among others: Matthew Broderick, Al Pacino, Whoopi Goldberg, Sigourney Weaver and Liza Minelli.
Kurosawa- Akira Kurosawa, Japanese filmmaker. March 23, 1910- September 6, 1998. Best-known works: Seven Samurai (七人の侍, Shichinin no samurai), Yojimbo (用心棒) aka The Bodyguard.

Keep Dreaming
Daydream Believer

Baby Write This Down

This post is completely unabridged and uncensored. Kanpai is Japanese for cheers.

So here I am, writing it down. Because somebody said I should. A parable? Maybe.

I once knew this woman, a university professor, who had all sorts of things to say, about all kinds of things. Art, theatre, liminality, juxtaposition, the importance of the live event. Every word out of her mouth was profound, a revelation, brilliance. She knew so much about these topics, and had so much to say about them, that she began to sound like a broken record. The repetition of themes, words, and phrases grew so distinct that someone made a bingo card out of them. All of a sudden, rather than quotable, she was mockable. Did she get less brilliant? Did we get more jaded? Does why it happened matter? Maybe if she hadn't had to get us through a set of exams and projects, she could have branched out a little more, brought in more new ideas, given us more profundity. Or maybe that's all there was, she was so specialized that she'd said her profound piece, and that's all there was to it.

It was profound to you, but I got it out of an Amanda Marshall song. I said everybody wants to believe that they're special, God's chosen people. She said "every soldier in the war's got God on his side, and that's why we can't stop the slaughter".

It's entirely possible that in every relationship, romantic, friendly, platonic, adversarial, you run out of things to talk about. Eventually you know what they think about religion, politics, themself, you, the future, the way the world works and whatever else is important to the both of you. And unless something drastic changes with one of you, there's no more to say. Maybe that's simply a symptom of growing apart, or maybe it just happens to everyone.

Somewhere there's a line between wanting to see them every day and seeing them every day out of habit. Usually just this side of that line there's another one, the line between seeing someone because you have something to do with them and seeing someone because you have nothing to do with anyone else. The line where the default option changes from "alone" to "with them". The line where you become their appendage, or they become yours. Where the world is small and insular, and every decision has them as a factor. You enjoy that for awhile, and then you hit another line, the one where you begin to resent all of the above.

A flutter somewhere around the solar plexus, a flock of thousand-pound butterflies, a flush, a slight sheen of sweat, a stammer, and standing there saying to yourself "Did I seriously just say that?" That place where a "Hi" can have you on a high all day, where anything is possible and it's absolutely brilliant and you swear they'll hear your heart thudding in your chest if you don't faint from the blood rushing to your head first.

Maybe I'm crazy to miss that. I know a lot of people who have said "Yeah, all that stuff is great, but I'd never in a million years trade it for what I've got." Maybe when I'm sitting here thinking that maybe I would, that's the beginning of the end. At the very least, it's probably the way I know that the decision I've already made is the right one. Not the only way, I guess, but at least one. Someone once told me that there's no such thing as a wrong choice, it's just the ones we make, and the ones we don't. That has made all the difference, according to Frost.

Sometimes I think I'm asking for too much. Maybe it is too much to ask for a job that doesn't make me cry before or after nearly every shift I work. Maybe it's too much to ask for freedom. Maybe the truth is too much to ask for in Kindergarten, when they tell you it doesn't matter what you look like, only what you do. Maybe a dual-axis spectrum is too much to ask for. Maybe a spectrum at all is too much to ask for, a middle ground. Maybe there can be no compromise. Maybe a secret is too much to ask for. Maybe being alone is too much to ask for.

Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.

A List Update:
Know/understand all the references in the musical Rent, particularly those in the song La Vie Boheme.
Sontag, Sondheim, Maya Angelou, Ginsberg, Dylan, Cunningham, Cage, Lenny Bruce, Langston Hughes, Uta, Buddha, Pablo Neruda, Pee Wee Herman, Gertrude Stein, Antonioni, Burtolucci, Kurosawa, Carmina Burana, Vaclav Havel, The Sex Pistols, 8BC, Musetta's Waltz, Heidegger.

Stay tuned for my discoveries.

Dream On.
Daydream Believer

On Bread Alone

Considering my utter lack of aspirations in that direction, I'm a fucking domestic goddess. I probably got it from my mom, kitchen maven and PTA parent extraordinaire. I clean when I'm freaked out, I find washing dishes oddly soothing, I love to cook, even if I'm usually not motivated to do it for myself, and today I baked bread. That's right, bread, not brownies, cookies, cake, pie, or any other sugary confection. Bread, sustaining, simple, wholesome bread. At least it has cheese on it.

Some people say that a person can't live on bread alone. I'm kind of banking on it, in fact, considering my prospective career choices. But sometimes you need bread too. And it's even better when you bake it yourself.

Daydream Believer

'Festo

There are a lot of little things that make it up. It's nowhere near complete, but then again, neither am I. There'll be some additions along the way, and probably some subtractions as well.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to prove John Cougar Mellencamp wrong. The first time I remember hearing that song and noticing the lyrics, I think I was twelve or thirteen. I was singing along with the abandon of childhood, then I realized what words my mouth was unthinkingly forming, and I couldn't help but think:

If it's true that "life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone", then what's the point?

Since then, that's been the cornerstone of my many varied answers to the inevitable, often aggravating question of "So what are you planning to do with your life?" I figure it's less important to try to set the answers in stone than the reasons for them. This is one reason I doubt will change anytime soon. I never want to sit there looking back at my life and say, "Well, those were the best days, and there's nothing that good coming my way ever again." I never want the feeling of just waiting for the clock to run out, for the last grain to drop through the hourglass. I don't want to run out of adventures, things to look forward to, experiences I want to have. Which is why I keep the lovely list on your right, to help me remember the whims, the crazy ideas, help me have something to shoot for.

It's funny, I always had a hard time coming up with goals on those annoying sheets they gave me after every report card in high school. I always insisted that I didn't have goals. What I really meant was that I didn't have goals that had to do with high school, beyond "get the hell out". Once I was, I was suddenly full to bursting with goals, missions, aspirations, dreams.

Especially dreams.
Keep Dreaming.
Daydream Believer

Friends With Complications

Her: "So, uh, are you two, uh...?"
Me: Nervous laughter
Him: Nervous laughter
Me: "No, we're, uh, friends..."
Her: Raised eyebrows "With benefits?"
Him: "Um..."
Me: "More like complications."

An old conversation. Out of date by several months. but leave it to me to remember the random things, some good memories, some bad, a few regrets wrapped up in the scent of Old Spice and Irish Spring, flowers, swamp goo, and the not-quite-clean of a boy/man's apartment. We had our share of complications, mostly my fault, but I asked the questions and he answered honestly. It wasn't really his fault, although I blame him for it sometimes. A lot of the time. I wished for him to do things, say things, and now I wish I could remember them, so I could do them or say them, to make this better. But I can't. "Why do you have to be so attractive?" If I only had a nickel for every time I said that to someone. Right along with "What does she have that I don't?" and the inevitable answer of "tits". But in all seriousness, powerlessness just sucks, in all its forms, no matter which side of the equation you're on. Which kinda makes me wonder where the power in these situations is. I was so sure he had it, but now in a different position, maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe I was wrong about a lot. I guess it's complicated.

I'm surprised I'm not grinning like an idiot. I love hearing that people think well of me. No surprise, who doesn't? But it's best when it's completely brutally honest, and still favourable. I like to hear the brutally honest, no-holds-barred, I-swear-I-didn't-know-you-were-listening opinions people have of me. It's probably narcissistic, and it's probably not very good for me, especially because it's not always a glowing review. But I can't help it, something in me wants to know how I appear to the outside world, because everything looks different depending on the eyes you're using. And every now and then, what people think of you has an effect. Sometimes you can teach yourself to see what they see.
I love the sound of the words she wrote as they roll around in my skull, staving off, at least for a couple of hours, that irritating voice full of derision and foul mood. Lit from within, all red lipstick and dark eyes, young and powerful, something dark, delicious, and alive.

I can't shake the guilt though. I'm not mad, not at her, though I don't think she believes it. It's the guilt that was bound to come back ever since I said "I wish I was a little more like him". Well, now I am a little bit, and I wish I wasn't. He revels in this, having the means to manipulate, to hurt. I just want to make all the hurt go away, and I don't know how.

The older I get, the shakier the foundations of my friendships seem, the old as well as the new. My closest oldest friend I didn't meet all that long ago. Next on the list is the one who I can barely quantify any more, all magnetism, memories, and Irish Spring. Most of the rest don't even seem like my friends, more like friends once removed, I wonder how many of them would still be around if I wasn't around him. I've never had good luck with making friends, I'm a little on the beige side, people don't tend to remember me. At least as far as I know. Every now and then the tables turn, the tide shifts, and I get to deal with the fallout. Sometimes it's more fun than others. Sometimes complications are my only real friends.

Maybe I can widen that circle a little bit.
Dream On
Daydream Believer

Live and Alive

Odd that I can only do this while I'm alone. I guess because in some sense it's still my dirty little secret. I publish my own thoughts on the internet. Even now it's a little taboo. Really though, anyone could find these words and thoughts, which is terrifying and exciting at the same time. Maybe someone I've never met will find a connection, maybe that's why people write books. Unfortunately I don't have the attention span for writing a book. Maybe one day I will. But anyone finding them doesn't know who I am, couldn't know who I am. General things, yes, and some very personal things, but they wouldn't be able to pick me out of a lineup, recognize me walking past on the street, and that's a kind of protection.

Which brings me to why I haven't done this in awhile. Despite the very public nature of the finished product, the process of writing is very personal for me, and very private, and I haven't had much in the way of alone time in the last little while. Not that I haven't been alone at times, but never for a very long stretch and usually alone in the sense of being surrounded by strangers. At the risk of sounding like the temperamental artist I try so hard not to be, I can't work like that. I also prefer to write when I'm fairly certain I won't be disturbed before I can finish at least the thread I'm working on at the time.

I've always been intrigued by intrigue. Oddly enough. But the drama of people interacting with one another and the system fascinates me. In another life, with another personality, I'm convinced I would have loved to be a spy or anarchist, knee deep in all the shit surrounding people, power, love, and money. Why not this life? Well, to start with, I'm a terrible liar. I tend to giggle in the most unseemly and unsubtle way when I try to misdirect people. That's not to say that I can't keep a secret, I can, and like to think I do a pretty damn good job of it. But my favourite tactic for doing so, changing the subject, really wouldn't hold up against someone who knew I was keeping something from them. For another thing, I don't like to hurt people. Even collaterally... usually, in fact, the collateral damage of any situation in which I'm involved is me. I'm resilient, the joke I've made is that I'm actually a superball in human form. Y'know, those ridiculously bouncy things that you can throw against a concrete wall, but then you better duck because it's coming back, and hard. Most of the time I figure that I'm better equipped to deal with any pain I've caused than anyone else. But I let things get to me, usually more than I should, occasionally more than is healthy. But in the real world, I'm not good at the games people play with each other. I don't know if it's possible to be when you don't like to hurt people. I'm getting quite good at getting kicked around though. I've been wondering why I'm not bitter... y'know, that bite the hand that feeds thing... the part they don't tell you is that before that hand fed, it slapped. I've been wondering why I'm not more cynical, more broken, more prone to anger, less trusting. I mean I am all those things, I'm probably more bitter and cynical that I've got any right to be, but not all the time. I have my moments where it all just piles up on me, usually late at night when I'm by myself, but I'll cry, go to sleep, and in the morning it's not so bad.

I don't have too many illusions left. I know that the odds of my making a decent living doing something I truly love are slim, and it's far more likely that I'm going to end up doing something soul-crushing and only being paid minimum wage in exchange for it. I know that the way I'd like to live my life isn't realistic, despite my conviction that it's a good way to live. But I know that none of that is going to stop me from trying. I once read a quote that said "Courage is loving without expecting anything in return" and maybe that's true. Maybe I'm not more bitter because that's not my role. Maybe it's my job to be the one who refuses to stay down. Not necessarily an optimist, but a boomerang at the very least. Perhaps I have an overactive second chance gland or my blood is too high in forgiveness humour. Maybe have too many bad ideas or I'm just too damn trusting, but I really don't care.

Still Dreaming
Daydream Believer

Resolve

Is the title the first or last thing you think up when you write something? A poem, an essay, a blog post, a story, a novel, an encyclopedia, whatever you write. I'm torn. Usually, it's the last thing I think up, because I tend to try to relate it somehow to everything I've written, and I don't plan writing the same way that Loud evidently does. (Where's that post now, huh?) So I don't know what a good title will be, normally, until whatever I've written is done. Every now and then I go the opposite way though, I take a word or a phrase that means something, even if only to me, and make sure whatever I write has some sort of connection. Occasionally the connection is totally organic, like today. It's New Years, a time when people make resolutions, the noun form of the verb to resolve. Resolve has a couple of meanings as a verb, lots actually. But this isn't really a vocabulary lesson, I promise. There are lots of ways the word resolve is used, but it mostly boils down to two overarching definitions, either decide or fix. As a noun it can mean strength or determination. All in all not bad thoughts to start the New Year on, if I may say so.

My own resolve is going to be tested. This coming year as well as in the years ahead. Everybody has a "they", something outside themself that has a hold on them, an effect on their decisions. Everybody occasionally at least does something for "them" instead of for themself. For some, it's God (Goddess, Gods, Goddesses, etc. God as a concept not an entity), for some, it's family, friends, strangers, society, various belief systems with varying degrees of arbitrariness and practicality. Assuming things don't change drastically in the ol' noggin in the near future, I'm going to have to tread lightly around "them" for a variety of reasons involving how I intend to defy convention. I grew up in a different world than my mother did, or her mother. Then again, maybe the apple doesn't fall so far from the tree after all. In my grandmother's generation, it was simply expected that she would get married and raise a gaggle of children. True to form, she didn't finish high school, got married at 16, and hauled the gaggle of kids all over the world following her Air Force husband. I usually forget that my grandmother recieved less formal education than I had by the time I was halfway through high school. I sometimes wonder what she might have done if things had worked out differently. Nobody's ever told me what the circumstances of her marriage were, but since her first child was born within the year, I can only assume that due to social convention she had to get married. It's entirely possible that that life was really and truly what she wanted for herself. I know someone who looks no further. Which makes me wonder if that particular dream is the "natural" one. Some would argue that it is "natural" or "normal" for people to want to fill their convential social roles. Wife, mother, grandmother, homemaker, caretaker. Of course, those are usually the people who also believe that homosexuality is "unnatural" but that's an issue for another day. I cannot fathom never wanting something else. Something more. I can't fathom being content in that life.
Part of it is power, and dependence. A huge part of that dream is the idea not necessarily of being rescued, but of being provided for. Maybe it's pragmatism that drives me away from that dream, the sheer impracticality of depending on someone else to take care of me for the rest of my, or their life. Even assuming there would be someone willing, what would happen to me if something happened to them? Besides, if someone has the power to give you something, they have the power to withold it. I sense there's more to it than practicality though. I want to do more. Social roles are changing. It is now more or less expected that a woman has a career in addition to her family. Or, like my mother, as a predecessor. Maybe it is natural to want a family, carreer or no.

I suppose I'm a touch unnatural then. My theory is that I'm wired a little differently. I expect to be mostly alone because of it. Which doesn't distress me much as soon as I let go of a particular heap of social conditioning surrounding family and relationships. That said, it isn't that I expect to be truly, stranded-on-a-desert-island alone, nor do I expect to be celibate or unfulfilled in any way. I just don't expect to have "that someone" that people tend to talk about. The reason for this (going back to those crossed wires) is that I seem to be a little different. As much as I can't fathom being a housewife and being happy with it, I can't really even see myself married in the future with any clarity. Ironically, the rationale behind that one is very much grounded in social conditioning and convention. I don't ever want to get divorced, and can't see myself ever being truly content with one individual and never wanting anyone else. Therefore I can't get married. Bear was aghast at this revelation. I'm pretty sure Loud was intrigued, particularly with the conversation that ensued. And in answer to the comment he made, navigating the future alone is both my intention and prediction. Assuming nothing major changes, I expect to navigate the future alone based on the reasoning above. Although the assumption is less that I'll be alone and more that there will always be people, just not a "special someone". But I think that I will enjoy doing so. You play the hand you're dealt, and I don't see any reason not to enjoy the game.

It seems odd to me that so many of the songs I've been listening to lately have themes of moving on. Because I can't seem to. Perhaps because it feels like unfinished business, curiosity, or just becuase I'm reluctant, as always, to say goodbye. I'm the same way with knicknacks. I'm a horrible packrat, both physically and emotionally. It takes a lot of strength to say goodbye, to walk away, but I figure it also takes strength to fight the battle you know you're going to lose. It takes guts to keep trusting someone, keep believing them, even when they give you no reason to. It takes guts to love knowing you won't be loved back, or won't be loved back the way you want. Years ago I was strong enough to walk away and never look back, and I'm proud of myself for that. This time it's different. Different situation, different people, even different me. I've recieved advice to walk two different ways, a prediction of the future, and lots of heartaches. As I've said so many times, I'm fine now, and I know I'll be fine, I'm just not sure what's going to happen between now and then. Hopefully all that will be fine too.

Maybe the decision will be made for me, but soon I'll have to decide stay or go. Who am I kidding? It's not the decision I'm dreading, it's breaking the news of it. The decision's as good as made. There, I said it, what he's been saying all along. Will seeing it coming make it hurt less? Doubtful.

Once again, I rung in the New Year with Loud, Gold, and Sphinx. It's becoming something of a tradition, I suppose. Not one I mind in the least.

Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking
Can't we give ourselves one more chance
Why can't we give love that one more chance
Why can't we give love give love give love give love
give love give love give love give love give love
'Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And loves dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves

Under pressure

Can we play that game your way?
Can I really lose control?

Shouldn't let you torture me so sweetly.
Now I can't let go of this dream.
I can't breathe but I feel...
Good enough,
I feel good enough for you.
Drink up sweet decadence.
I can't say no to you,
And I've completely lost myself, and I don't mind.
I can't say no to you.
Shouldn't let you conquer me completely.
Now I can't let go of this dream.
Can't believe that I feel...
Good enough,
I feel good enough.
It's been such a long time coming, but I feel good.
And I'm still waiting for the rain to fall.
Pour real life down on me.
'Cause I can't hold on to anything this good enough.
Am I good enough for you to love me too?
So take care what you ask of me,
'cause I can't say no.


My resolve has not yet been tested. I have never faced a real question. I haven't had to make that decision, and I don't know what I'll do if/when I do. Everyone has boundaries, right now it's not mine that are protecting me. I don't know where mine are. But I'll find out.

Keep Dreaming,
Daydream Believer

The List

So I've started The List. You can see it on the right-hand panel just under my profile. The List of Things I Really Really Really Want To Do At Least Once Before I Die is a little cumbersome, and I'm pretty sure that The Bucket List is copyrighted... so I'll just call it The List. 11 p.m. last night seemed like a good time to start thinking about it.

I've been incredibly lucky so far, in that I've already done some things that are on a lot of people's lists. I've had plenty of opportunities. But I've always wondered: how many once-in-a-lifetime experiences can you fit into one lifetime? I don't know the answer to that question. Like so many other questions. But I intend to find out how many I can fit into mine. And I'm pretty sure that's the important part anyways. The practical rather than the theoretical. I have lots of theories, about lots of things, but this is about experiences. This is about where I'm going, and what I'm doing along the way. The difference between the destination and the journey. It's going to be a long road, I think, and I expect I'm going to be navigating it alone, at least mostly. It seems like a good time to start figuring out what I want. Yeah, yeah, like that wasn't what I was doing before. Oh well, the future just seems a little bit more immediate all of a sudden.

Keep Dreaming
Daydream Believer

Merry Merry

I keep going to bed with too much on my mind. That or it's too early, and I don't have the effective sedative of sheer exhaustion to knock me out before my what ifs can keep me awake. Having been exiled from the tree-room while the final preparations are made, I sit up here, cramped, in one of the few places in the house I can have any privacy, and believe me, there were points today where I considered announcing I was going to have a bath just so I could have half an hour's peace.

My wish list gets less material every year. And this year it's full of things no one can give me. Lately I've been the kind of person who'd be thrilled to get a coupon book full of coupons like "one hour of free kvetching without even having to buy me a coffee to do it" and "one get out of dishes free card". This year they're a little less optimistic, a little more cynical.

I want to not be ditched. Maybe it doesn't really count if there were no definite plans, so maybe you don't think you ditched me, but I feel ditched, and it's starting to piss me off because it's a recurring event.

I want to be important to those who are important to me. This is me being selfish again, but I think it neither unreasonable nor entirely unexpected.

I want to be powerful. I want to understand why people do things. The definition of leadership is getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it. I want to be a leader, rather than be manipulated by them.

If I don't get any of the above, I want to be able to let them go so that one or a combination don't make me cry anymore. I don't really care why. Desensitization, greater strength, or just no longer caring, any of them would do the trick.

Thanks for listening Santa... hope you've got a computer on that sleigh... since I'm pretty sure you're scheduled to be on the roof at the moment. But then, it's pretty windy out there, maybe you're a little delayed.

Merry Christmachannukwanzikas/Non-denominational, non-exclusive, non-offensive, politically correct consumerist materialist gift-giving day
Daydream Believer

What Tastes Like Blue?

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. I took this quiz over 2 years ago, and posted the result here. This is a more recent version of the same quiz. If they're at all accurate, and they sure sound it, yikes. I guess it was an eventful two years.

DDB took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Her need to feel more causative and to have a wide..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

Looking forward to hitting the trails with Loud in the not too distant future. As long as we don't have to sing "Happy Trails".

Daydream Believer

Blinded By the Light At the End of the Tunnel

I'm not a real big TV watcher, really. Y'know how nearly everyone has their show? The one (or ten) they watch religiously to the detriment of homework, housework, and the other demands of being a contributing member of society? I don't. I couldn't tell you what channel most of my shows are on, to be honest, since I usually watch them long after the fact on DVD. Case in point: Dexter, The Tudors, Bones, Criminal Minds, Charmed, Veronica Mars. Don't get me wrong, there are shows I enjoy, shows I'll occasionally go out of my way to watch. The last show I watched with any regularity on purpose was Charmed, which had its last season, what, 3 years ago? But I only recently acquired regular access to one of those little talking boxes they call a TV, and I've never had one to call my own. As such, even in this time of papers, projects, and take-home exam questions, I find myself sucked into the tube.

Most of the TV I watch is either a) on a disc or b) something that somebody else in the room was watching already/wants to watch. Fortunately my tastes generally run parallel to those of the people I tend to regularly share living room space with, and if they don't, they've all got TV's in their rooms so this one's mine nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.

Ahem. So long story short, in the combination of the end of class and the good corporal's only occasionally aggravating habit of watching TV while studying/writing papers, I've watched more TV in the last week than I did in the previous month combined. (Sidenote: And somehow wound up watching reruns in that time? What gives, man!) I can almost feel my brain cells melting/dying/combusting.

But now that I have a screen larger than 11 inches or whatever my laptop screen is, attached to a player that is all but guaranteed to play north american DVDs (don't even get me started, my lappy is a retired financial workhorse, so it's a powerhouse, but it's getting on in years, hence the non-compatible DVD player) I'm even more excited about my TV on DVD that I'm looking to catch up on. Or maybe will be looking to catch up on after the holidays, if Santa manages to overlook my missteps. Not to mention the movies on the ever-growing list. Yes, I know I'm the worst Film student in the world. I'm also the worst English student in the world and the worst Theatre student in the world. Seriously folks, if I endeavored to watch half the movies someone has told me are "hands-down the best movie ever made" I would have 16-hour days for a month full of just that. Add that to reading "hands-down the best book ever written" and seeing "hands-down the best play ever written" or "ever performed", and you'll see why I don't watch too much TV. That said, I can say with confidence that I'm a fan of the cinematography in The Tudors. I've been told it's because Showtime gives their shows a film-calibre budget, which would certainly explain the beautiful lighting.

Anyways, somehow I've managed to make it a good two-thirds of the way through the woods. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now if only it wasn't blinding me. Four down, one to go.

Daydream Believer

Mr. Polish Streetcar

I didn't go far enough. I couldn't, and now I'm sorry about it. Now I realize what he meant about not revisiting traumatic events. And I thought I didn't have any trauma in my life. Apparently it makes no difference that the trauma was more or less my own creation. I didn't get the sense of release that I was hoping for. Hm, there's an interesting parallel. At least I pulled up before I broke down. That could have gotten pretty ugly.

It's not my fault. This isn't about him, or her, or them, or me, it's about you. It's your fault and you do this because you want to see me suffer, you want me to break down, you fucking sadist. I hate you.
That's as far as I could go. I wish now that I'd gone farther, or taken a different route. It made everyone else feel better, but it just made me feel worse.

I've been remarkably lucky. Maybe I'm a little more masochistic than I thought I was, and a little more sadistic. I wonder which is worse for me.

It's the same key. A duality, because the same key opens two doors, the same words bring down two masks.
It's like the political spectrum, which is an odd but fitting analogy. There are two axis, not just "good" and "bad" emotions, but the strength of them figures in as well. Love and hate are like authoritarianism and communism. Not mutually exclusive in any sense. Anybody ever heard of Stalin or Robert Mugabe?

Duality and balance. Scales of justice, yin and yang, there's a lot of symbols I could reference here.

I said I hate you already. And I do, to a point. But the love's there too.

Keep Dreaming,
Daydream Believer

Page 11 Ingenue

So I'm NaNoing. It's harder than I thought it would be, but also easier, if that makes any sense. The words are coming, all right, but they're not the kind of words I thought they'd be. I had one character, strong, smart, savvy, with all these interesting things to do, but I could not for the life of me make her do them. I mean she did them, I just couldn't pull off a play-by-play, I had to resort to some expository bullshit after the fact. At first I thought that it was because I'd let myself get to attached to her, that there was too much me in her to let her do things I wouldn't or couldn't. Then I realized that this all comes from the write what you know thing. I've never done those things, or anything really like them. The one event I got closest to getting right on paper is the one that was closest to my own experiences. It's because she wasn't enough like me for me to get in her head on those things, because if I did, she'd act like me, and she doesn't. And then I realized that this other character I'm writing about is a lot more accessible to me. And damn it I swore I wouldn't write about my own love life. I'm not, completely at least. It's not me, and it's not him on the paper. Sure, they're people a little like us, but it's not what happened, or the way it happened. But it's close enough. Having met and spoken with a hedonistic don juan of a man, I can more easily imagine his tricks. Which is a lot like where Devin came from. Aha! An epiphany, she can't fall under his spell because she is him. He can't bewitch her because she already knows his games, and can play them against him. Maybe win. Enter the ingenue. Of course, that's why she couldn't be a sideline character. The story is really about her. Funny, isn't it? She didn't show up until page 11.

Keep Dreaming
Daydream Believer

P.S. 18809

Yorick

Should I have been upset? I did know him, or know of him, I suppose. We didn't get along. I didn't like him much. I suppose I'm not upset because I didn't plan or expect ever to see him again anyways. That sounds harsh. Its still a shame. Thank God for seat belts.


Daydream Believer

Ramen

I once fancied myself a rebel. Then I decided that I really didn't have the drive to defy convention, and at that point I found that that was exactly how I defied convention, and continue to. I don't align, or identify. I tried, goodness knows. But nothing quite fit. I tried to be unusual as a woman in a male-dominated field, athletics or science, but realized that I can't stand math and would take writing over running any day of the week. I change too much, too frequently to qualify or quantify myself as any certain type. Indeed one of the things that I felt set me apart from many is something that's about to change. I suppose I could look at it as gaining a skill. A dubious one, I'll admit, but this doesn't have to be any more character-altering than learning how to fire a gun was. I know how to fire a gun, but I'm not about to go on a shooting spree. It's not about who I am, it's about what I can do. Power and ability. I liked the ride, time to try it without training wheels. I'll probably fall, but I'll probably get up and do it again.

Keep Dreaming
Daydream Believer