Wednesday, March 25, 2009

twentyone//

Me You and Everyone We Know.

Today, as I avoided the dreaded New Atheism homework, I stumbled upon this clip and was reminded of why this movie is one of my all time favorites:




Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh, so good.

Monday, March 23, 2009

TWENTY// aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Lately my thoughts have been too scattered to blog about, and I start writing a million things with titles like

TWENTY// aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

and nothing seems appropriate. So I give up. But then I feel guilty for NOT writing, even if it would have been crap anyway, so I start searching for at least a good picture that I could post instead of writing something intelligent or interesting, but after about 3 minutes get sidetracked and end up on Facebook. Or reading certain other people's blogs that are effortlessly eloquent and smart and witty. And then I sink into a mire of hopelessness and pick at my fingernails until I have to cut them off, and then I go to bed.

Or usually I don't even go to bed, but spend the next 5 hours reading and re-reading those certain witty writers or watching Gilmore Girls and despairing at my utter lack of wit. By then I'm so tired that I've lost all sense of responsibility and/or desire to live, so I spend another hour whinging to Beth about how much I effing eff efff eff blah blah blah hate life and am stressed out about my senior show, to which she responds, I know, and we utter deep, heart wrenching sighs and fall into bed in a miserable dazed stupor.

What a life.

In short what I'm saying is, I am extremely irresponsible and actually complain more than I work, which is why I end up being so stressed out and agitated all the time.


Anyway, I wish this dress wasn't $40 or I would buy it for my show opening:



Maybe I'll buy it anyway (with my tax refund which I just got today (!!!!)), which is what I usually end up doing when I'm stressed out. (Only to feel extremely guilty about it the next day and probably return it.) Maybe not. I don't know.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

nineteen// colds

Apparently I have caught the dreaded cold that's going around. Yesterday I woke up with a raspy painful throat and snot-clogged nose that almost immediately transformed into a snot-dripping one. And oh, clarity, now I understand why my ears have been popping all week long.

Last time I had a cold I wrote this thing that I'll share if we all promise not to judge me too critically:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

She blew her nose clumsily into a napkin that already held her discarded gum and closed the seat-back tray with difficulty. Stuffed the sorry tissue into a crumpled cup that declared, in Styrofoam blue:

Our lowest fare guarantee, only at AA.com--
and in smaller letters: 
HOT! CALIENTE!

Lukewarm, she corrected the faulty warning, and fished the napkin out again for another damp blow. Cursed nose. She sniffed and stole a sidelong glance out the window, eyes darting, an imperceptible turn of the head. Descending, a dirty blanket hung like smoke over the low city, hazily concealing the concise housing blocks and well groomed trees. Was it smoke?

An inward shudder and she returned to her book, ignoring the chesty ache that was anticipation.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Anyway, that's all. The only other interesting thing to report on is that our toilet won't stop running. Like my nose, it's been at it for the past 4 hours. Well, OK, that's only partly true. After an hour I got fed up and turned it off, but just now we had to turn it back on again because some flushing needed to happen. But I can almost guarantee you that it would have been running nonstop if I hadn't taken action. Too bad you can't turn noses off with the simple twist of a knob.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

eighteeeeeeen//

My day at work has been highlighted by two things:

ONE//
Short, 30ish Asian man, wedding band, Tshirt printed with a glamor shot of his child wearing an animal ears headband. Walking by he smiled big and waved. After withdrawing money from his account he hesitates, then says quickly and thickly accented, "You are very beautiful!" I chuckle awkwardly and thank him, and we both wish each other good days.

Bizarre.

TWO//
There is this thing in my eye and it's irritating the hell out of me. Apparently there is nothing in there, as evidenced by peering into the mirror for a good five minutes and scrubbing my eyeball with my finger, but still it hurts. I CAN FEEL SOMETHING IN THERE gosh darn it.


In other news,

I need to make my graduation announcements. (!!!)

Monday, March 16, 2009

seventeen// scattered observations



"The length of a minute depends on which side

of the bathroom door you're on"

I saw that on a billboard last night and thought it was funny.




This week I'm going to work 30 hours, which is a little more than twice the amount I usually work
. I'm not looking forward to it, but it's necessary if I want to replenish the money that was just sucked out of my savings account by my school bill.

At the same time though, the semester is just galloping right along which means that May 18th, the dreaded show day, is approaching in leaps and bounds.

So the question is, do I use my free time this week to work, like I'd planned, so I can afford to buy a car, or do I work on my show, which is terrifying me more every day?





I want to get my hair cut like Scarlett Johansson's in Lost in Translation. Bangs. Hopefully the appeal of the movie isn't clouding my perception of the hair:












I do so love the movie.


I have a headache, woof woof. And I need to write my mother. And Eat Something Because I Am Hungry.

Friday, March 13, 2009

sixteen// deceitful sushi labels

Work.

Here I am. I'm on lunch but I'm really just sitting at the back digesting a so called "sushi cup." It's neither sushi, nor did it come in a cup. The delightful Talon was out of bagels today, entirely, so this is what I get for lunch. Cold and hard rice, mushy tuna. Yummmmmmm.

But it's Friday, so it'll take a lot more than deceiful Talon sushi to dampen my spirits.

Monday, March 9, 2009

fifteen// blessing

I keep coming back to this poem by John O'Donohue. If you go here, and you should, you can download a version of him reading it. (Third link down, "Beannacht." It means blessing.) He was Irish and it's wonderful.


Beannacht

On the day when

the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.



There is also a really long and excellent interview with him here that you should listen to. It's a big time inspiration for me lately in my work.

fourteen//

I dream every night, vividly about very strange things, but I almost never remember them when I wake up in the morning. Usually I'm left with the bizarre feelings that go along with my subconscious ramblings, and they stay with me for a good part of the day. But every once in a great while I'll remember a dream and then I can't get it out of my head; today happens to be one of those days.

In my dream I had some friends with two children: a toddler and an infant. I don't remember where the mother was, just absent I suppose. It didn't seem strange at the time. The father was a blithering idiot. He didn't take care of his kids or even seem to know what was going on, and it bothered me. So the toddler is holding her baby sister, and they're beautiful. Beth and I are talking with the dad, and all of the sudden they're out of sight, drowning in a kiddie pool, stuck in there. Like vacuumed in or something, it was bizarre. And I'm the only one that cares or tries to do anything about it. I somehow extract them from the pool, and they both look like they're dead. It's terrifying. I can only do CPR (which I know how to do in the dream) on one at a time, and each second is invaluable so I start pumping the toddler's chest and hand the infant to the father. And he just stands there, looking baffled and holding the baby in one hand, DOING NOTHING. It's breaking my heart but I can't do anything about it because the toddler is still not breathing. So I managed to save the little girl but the baby died because of her father's stupidity. And yet I still felt so guilty and devastated for the rest of the dream, like it was my fault or something.

It was terrible.

Friday, March 6, 2009

thirteen// some late and tired thoughts

It's so late that my brain hurts and I keep convincing myself, in a dumb mind fog, to do stupid things like read blogs for hours instead of going to sleep. Tonight I'm a little bit sad and all I want is some wine and to not have to go to work in the morning.



>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
How do you stop being sad?

I should know but I don't, still. Lately it passes through me with sleep or distraction or tasks. But not so long ago it was a constant gnawing ache in my chest that I could try to ignore but it would just keep festering. Sometimes I miss it.

And now it's gone, inexplicably and without effort. It just passed, slowly I think, maybe little bits at a time dissipated. And I realized that the festering has been replaced by a light sort of clarity that I've never felt before. I'm so grateful and it doesn't seem fair that I should be light and un-prevailed upon while others are still being chewed up by that perpetual ache. I can't even offer any help because I don't know how it changed, and beside that, the rest of the world probably resents me for my happiness. I just want to swallow down all the pain of everyone that I love. And I can't, so instead I end up silent or laughing, doing no good at all.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

twelve//

The weekend's rolling around again and I couldn't be happier. I'm sitting here munching on a very Lenten lunch of toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich, mentally preparing myself for the dreaded Small Group Communication class that I have in exactly 19 minutes. And physically preparing myself for the walk there. (Aerobics, sadly enough, still exhausts me.)

17 minutes.

I should leave.


But I don't want to.

I dread the endless icebreakers and pointless discussions.


I shall think of this as I begin my trek:
































(feathers)

Monday, March 2, 2009

eleven//

I have an embarrassing admission.

Regretfully, I cannot remember a time I wasn't watching the Bachelor. As in, tonight the sneaky show lasted for THREE AND A HALF HOURS. All I wanted was for my curiosity to be abated by finding out which girl he would choose, and I believe it took 27 commercial breaks for that to happen. Commercial breaks in which we were subjected to propaganda on terrible things like Vagisil. Yes, Vagisil. Come on, shudder with me about that frightful experience. And yes, it was undeniably one I could have avoided and terminated at any moment by standing up and turning off the TV. But I'm curious like a cat and stubborn like a mule:



















(Side note: this is not a picture of a catmule, but it does deserve some attention. Being a faithful fan of Google Image search, I just now searched "cat mule." This picture came up thirteen times on the first page with various captions that can be reduced to these four:
"... then the mule picked up the cat ...,"
"... the mule again picked up the cat ...,"
"The mule stomped the cat then pinned ..."
"Yes the Mule, killed the mountain ...,"
From these I deduced that the image pictures both a mule and a mountain lion, and that the mule picked up the cat two times before proceeding to stomp, pin and kill it. Astounding.)


Anyway. All that to say that I can be idiotic when it comes to television and it's a good thing our antenna barely works or I might be tempted to watch much more than I do. Or maybe the Vagisil commercial tonight saved me from a future of television watching, as I will ALWAYS live in fear of seeing it again.

ten//

"Ten," just now was SO CLOSE to being: yrn, then, or teen. It's been such a long day, and yet, I'm. still. awake. At 3:37. I actually started writing this at 3:33, which I consider to be a good sign. Those even or symmetrical numbers are always an amicable sign and have a cheering effect on my spirit.

For example, I usually set my alarm for 7:27. Not because I need those extra three minutes before seven thirty, but because it inevitably starts out the day better. Just trust me on this. Also, if you start paying attention you will catch these glorious numbers at almost every turn. Bare (bear?) with me on this.

OH LOOK:

(Pretend this is a picture of 3:43 on a digital clock. It took me 5 seconds and two Google image searches to determine that I wasn't going to find an appropriate picture before my bedtime.)


3:43! So symmetrical, and what a good time to go to bed.