priceless. very appropriate for the moment.

http://xkcd.com/513/

It's amazing how a relationship with one person can hurt in so many different ways. Maybe it's not always the people who hurt each other, but the situations they are in. I think I heard insanity defined once as doing the same action repeatedly while expecting a different result. If two individuals try to date each other repeatedly over the years and it never seems to work out, wouldn't it be unlikely that the situation would improve... unless the reasons why the relationship didn't work out were no longer factors. So what happens if these people try to be friends, instead of being romantically involved, but a romantic situation forms as a result of the friendship? It would still be insane and hurtful to try to date said individual again, right? And since I am not insane, I choose not to date the individual, but choosing not to date a guy that I love over and over again is not fun. So what does one do? Not see exes at all? Not become friends? But that's sad too. Why can't I have all the people I love in my life?

But why would I get involved with someone who always leaves me feeling like this?
When he's in my life I want to throw everything else away. How does that even happen to an intelligent, ambitious person?

Dark Patches

Friendships are not always easy. Sometimes it's hard to know which are worth keeping. Espcially when you reach a wall with somebody. When you reach a place where you'll never see eye to eye. The way I look at it, you can either chose to live in that place and never speak to each other with ease again, or let go of it, and live in all the other wonderful rooms and corridors and accept that the other is a place not worth visiting.

poetry, yes we can

Longfellow's poem reminded me of why I love poetry...
I've been studying creative non-fiction but I think a poetry writing class will be next in line for me to take.... or at least coming soon...


A Psalm of Life
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist



Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act to each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing
Learn to labor and to wait.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This poem perfectly expresses the need for patience, persistence and sustaining optimism when attempting to improve the world in some way. Pragmatic optimism. Hope. And hard work. It's also a reminder that in order to do anything important, powerful, or difficult, one has to persist despite other's claims that the odds are against successfully accomplishing a goal,a dream, victory. Statistics work for those who do not want to try. They are manipulated excuses. They can be useful, and honest, but they are also deceptive. Many battles worth fighting require us to overcome statistics. Lets make our own statistics.

I rather tackle a difficult task then assume it impossible. I refuse to accept my agency with apathy. to problems. I prefer to struggle and fight for my dreams and hopes, even if at times they're overwhelming. Art is overwhelming. And that makes it beautiful. The sky is overwhelming. The ocean. But they are there and they are beautiful. And sometimes I forget about them. But they are there.

Our universal mortality as human beings is not an excuse for inaction. Memento mori. Get over it.

Historical, societal and religious explanations for injustice are not good enough.
Just because some people benefit from situations, and some people will always benefit more than others, is also not good enough for inaction. For not caring. It is simply universalizing the problem. Empathy is always possible. As human beings, we exist and we feel.

Have confidence. Respect others. I think I can. Yes We Can.

kissing. the rules of attraction. safety.

I like to think of myself as the type of girl who doesn't worry about whether guys like her or not. I worry about whether I like them. But the truth is I'm not a girl anymore and I'm looking for something a little more real than in past.

And, to be honest with myself, of course I care what people think of me. So what happens when you feel that initial attraction, and then you actually act on it and it feels nice. We're not talking sex here, just a kiss; sex gets complicated. But how can you tell when sex is on the table. Okay, not literally. That would be pretty obvious. But if you don't want sex to be on the table, how do you act on those initial sparks? i suppose it helps to be honest, but how do you do that and play the tough guy? Okay, that's easy enough to do when you meet a stranger at a club and you're dancing. I reach my quota of songs or time dancing with one guy, and that moment comes where I tell him I'm going home with my friends and that if he's looking to get laid he should dance with someone else. Then I feel safe dancing with him. For a while at least. Then I go find my friends.

But what happens when it's actually someone you wouldn't mind dating, but don't know if you like. How do you distinguish a hook up from something with more potential. My general rule is to assume it's a hook up so as not to get hurt, but that seems to have stopped working when I stopped casually hooking up. It hurts too much. It either feels empty afterwards, or disappointing or...

I don't feel safe with most men. It's going to take a long time for me to feel safe again. And I'm ready to start trying to get to know the right people, but this whole learning to communicate thing is more work than a casual kiss should require.

What does a kiss mean? Yes, I might like you, but this is where it ends. Or, yes, I might like you and lets take this a step further. Maybe that's the right moment to say, that was nice, lets do it again. And then say, listen, I'm in a place in my life where I'm taking things really slow. I like you and I like this, but I'm not ready for it to go much further, at least not right now. I don't know how you feel, maybe this is where it ends. If you want to see each other again, I'd like that. If not, hey, it was a fun night and that's cool.

Writing: An impossible Task?

What is the difference between writing worth sharing with other people and writing that's private? What belongs in a personal journal or a blog, and what should be shared in a class or submitted for publication? It's a strange line. Granted I would like work presented to other people to be good, and what I keep for myself requires no qualification. Does writing for therapeutic reasons, sugest that none of the results are good writing? Does feeling the need to write mean that it's best for me to write and write and write and then focus on crafting the produced material? Can this process produce cohesive writing? Can it feel like a seamless finished product?

The danger of slow writing, of editing while initially writing instead of revising work after a draft is written, is that focusing on writing perfectly can cause paralysis. If I focus on wanting something perfect to be perfect, it can be hard to write anything, to start writing. If I settle for just writing something, it's endlessly frustrating to enjoy the feeling that of needing to present crap. Am I mature enough to write? Do I need to wait until I'm more collected? Will that ever happen? Or, do I need to work my craft- suck it up and turn in something, and slowly work at improving it...

Why am I so moody? And if it is established, accepted and inevitable for me to be moody, how can I manage my time to be able to make deadlines? On two different days for god knows what reason, I can write a polished A-worthy paper in two hours, and on another, I can spend 15 hours writing barely passable crap. I don't question the alternating moods and ability to concentrate any longer. I only look to manage it. But if writing is constant heartbreak, can I continue trying to do it? And if most of the things I care about are constantly heartbreaking, how can I afford to not do them? Even if I can't do everything I want to do when I want to do it, I should still try. I need take my chunk of the world, my chunk of skill, and try to do as much good as I can with it... without giving up.

Pererverence is hard to remember when I'm trying to pull a rainstorm from sunshine, or sunshine from a cloud, but weather changes, and so do my moods. I hope that somewhere down the line, I'll learn to manage my moods and concentration, and I'll float and fight through whatever comes my way with some kind of product to show for it. I hope to someday have a list of positive contributions next to my name. Or maybe I'm looking at it all wrong. Maybe only right now matters. But how can I really believe that?

This is the eve of my freedom.
I work knowing this may be the definition of freedom itself.
We're all strangers to ourselves until we discover why we were meant to learn the lessons and stand the trials that we do. And perhaps we only get to know ourselves writing fictional accounts that we tell and retell loved ones and ourselves.

We define ourselves with strength and remorse. We declare are own freedom. From others and ourselves.

We are the lucky, not dictated by injustice. Not alienated from ourselves.

Distant through drinking. Distant through strife. These are the drugs that shield us from our own minds.

Sit down and wonder, who I'm meant to be.

We're all just trying to make it, until something comes through.
Fake it 'till you make it, may have a morcel of truth.

limbo... missing people

So I'm absolutely, most definitely in limbo right now.

Nothing is wrong in particular,

sure, I'm behind on work, I have a big haul of studying ahead of me and then I get to graduate from college.



For the past two years I have stood by my friends, working deligently and celebrating their success.



This year it is my turn and I miss the celebrating. A party of one or a party of strangers aren't quite the same.



In the past six years I buried a grandfather, a great aunt, a best friend and a dog.



In absencia, I mourned two great uncles.

A year earlier, I lost my best friend's mum, cancer, she was adopted family.



My friend's doing well now. I love her.

I have two other friends who lost parents in their teens and a best friend who lost her brother when she was twelve.



My first encounter with death that I can remember was my great-grandmother and two dogs. I loved them all. I mourned my great-grandfather too although I was only a baby when he passed away. Maybe I know him through pictures and my family's love, but I do feel that I know and love him.



My dad lost his dad before he became a dad himself.

I love him too.

because I love my dad.



And then there are the people who disappear because they move, get into a relationship, marry, change.



A lot of people change. Everyone changes. Including myself. And we don't all change alike. And we don't all change together. And we don't always have access to each other via hug or speed dial. So the conundrum repeats when you feel lonely, and want love beside you and don't know where to turn.



But half the time the loneliness is in your head.

mid winter rant

Sometimes winter hurts. Even for those who have shelter, heat, warm clothing and food. Sometimes winter hurts because you skin, your mind, your body, your heart CRAVE sun.

I want to lie down on a beach and feel good. I want to feel the sun touch my skin and warm my core. I'm sitting here, recovering from the flu with a warm sweater, scarf, boots. On a couch in a relatively warm apartment. But I want real warmth.

I'm at that point in a flu where you're almost better. You're better than you were but you're still a little foggy and maybe depressed. Maybe I want people around me. Breathing, loving bodies. What do you do when you're in this state? It's hard to work, although I have a lot of work.

You can't really go out at all because what's the point you have to finish recovering and it's cold outside. I don't want to go outside. Even if I had someone to cuddle with, this may not be the moment. I don't want to spread the germs.

I'm listening to Patti Smith and her rebellious songs are somewhat comforting. Or maybe more cathartic than comforting.

If I were at a beach, I would like to have a perfect body. But maybe it would be okay to be at the beach even without being faultless. After all it's a bit tough to have a summer bod in the middle of winter when you don't to the fake tan thing and you've been working for eight weeks straight minus one week of sickness. And plus needing to be faultless is ridiculous.

Comforting images: lying on my stomach at the beach, taking a nap.

being a rock-star quality, cool looking performer, playing the guitar and singing, (and feeling healthy)

performing is definitely something I could be doing now- maybe not as a rockstar, but if I was feeling a bit better. So really it's the feeling better that has to be taken care of.

So lacking, a hot summer beach, or a rock star prowess, maybe a nap is really the right remedy before attempting to take on work.
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