- A man to bring me flowers, especially the kind that are real red, not painted red, especially an attractive man
- The raccoon to leave my apartment
- My weekends to be endlessly open and void of work calls
- Old friends to remember my name
- To feel like I make as much money as I deserve
- Zero calorie ice cream
- Friends to request my presence rather than vise versa
- A mustang GT convertible
- To be 15 pounds lighter
- Clarity
- Better internet reception in my bedroom
- Friendships to last forever
- More family near by
- To be really really good at something, anything, not just decent at a few things
- To have more energy
- Even hotter summers
- Time to go a little slower
- Recognition
- My chicken pox scar in between my eyebrows to go away
- Perscriptions to be waaaaay less money, for everyone, especially me
- To stop losing so much hair
- Companionship
- To learn something new everyday, without the aid of TV
- To swim with dolphins, as hippy as it sounds
- A bar where everyone knows my name
- Bitter East-Coasters who move to CA to stay in CA
- More people to use their hands to give directions and illustrate locations
- Hope to not be a delusion
- More Allisons and Amys and Andreas and Anilas...
- A pull from my gut
- To make another soundtrack for my life
- Flight of the Concords, season 2
- Raw passion
- A good cry
- Je voudrais la bonne vie boheme
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Je Voudrais...
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Random Thought of the Day
What a young man said whilst chatting with me on an online dating site, in full pursuit:
"i've extended more effort than i'm comfortable with already"
and that was just after 5 minutes! What is the world coming to?!!
"i've extended more effort than i'm comfortable with already"
and that was just after 5 minutes! What is the world coming to?!!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
What's Behind Door # 2
It was cloudy today. Pretty much all day. And I wore sunglasses. I guess there was just enough light on the highway that I felt more comfortable under shields rather than squinting and straining and stressing my tired and sleep deprived eyes. Behind the $15 tinted glass, I felt safer and a little more invincible than the normal Tuesday morning kick-off. But it made me think...
In 13th grade, in some generic and mandatory religion class where our narrow minded and single scoped professors tried to teach young minds the importance of perspective and the value of WWJD, my fellow pupils and I were given an assignment to present our world view. Since I had grown up in a Catholic home in a conservative middle class town where I only knew 3 black students, 1 Latina exchange student, and a modest handful of Asian hybrids, and was attending a private college made up entirely of tall blond and Christian Reformed Dutch kids from Holland, MI proper, I didn't completely understand the meaning of world-view. My professor made his request a second time, "tell the class about how you see the world." But how could I say anything different from what every other person in the class would say... we are all the same, and we see the same thing... and we always have seen this...
Then leaving the student union one day, as I began my exit out of 2 sets of doors made of tinted glass and as I reached for my sunglasses, the light of my world view dawned on me. It was an entirely new thought than I was accustomed to, and I had no idea how to express the intuitive idea in words let alone in a visual presentation. I remember drawing a squirrel three times in different shades of brown crayon to get my point across, but I'm pretty sure my mind was lost in translation. I remember saying I was an optimist, but I'm pretty sure I said it with a cynical smirk and a worry that my professor was grading me on my believability. 7 years later I'm trying to say it all again, because what I found to be true then is my concrete reality today. Well, as concrete as fog can be.
What I realized there in the quaint student union that Autumn day was not just my world perspective, but that I simply HAD perspective, and that I was aware of the lenses I had on to see reality. What's more, I was aware that my lens was not in and of itself reality.
From inside the building looking out through the 2 sets of doors, the outside appeared dark and muddled. It seemed uncertain, as if the doors were a kind of grace period and the world was not quite ready for viewing.
As I strut ever closer to uncertainty and opened the first set of doors, life beyond then and there became slightly more clear, more definite, more as I'd expect it to be. It was still a shade of gray, and still a little vague, but I could see the objects and life beyond the glass, so I knew "life" was more than tinted glass.
At last I pulled open the second set of doors and revealed the natural world - the bronze and orange painted trees and wilting flowers and a squirrel gathering it's wants and needs along the sidewalk. A quiet, breathless 'awe' escaped me. Life is beautiful. Smell that Earth! See this radiant light! Feel this warmth! But wait...
Though my reality felt good, it occurred to me - what if that was not all there was? What if all that amazing liveliness surrounding me was still just a vague belief in what "was"... what was real? What if I could remove yet another barrier of tinted glass in my mind to reveal something even more vibrant, more intense, more true? What would that be like?! What would it smell and feel like?
Suddenly I wanted this new reality with a kind of urgency that I had only known previously in long car rides after drinking a large beverage. I wanted to believe that even when things are good, they could be better. I conceived that even when things are as they are and life is at a stand-still stability, there could be more - much more - going on than what we mere mortals perceive. The goodness and immeasurable beauty that is beyond our usual grasp but still present and waiting patiently could maybe be called, for a lack of a better word, God. And all we have to do to see this joyous and happy thing that is everywhere is take off our personal shades.
On I-580 Eastbound, I kept my cobalt at a steady 70, my stereo pumping out Jack Johnson and banana pancakes, and my view of the world behind a comfortable pair of $15 sunglasses. I wondered what other drivers thought of me as I coasted along in the gray, being that it was just so unnecessary to shield my eyes from so bland a light.
But it was easier with my shades on. It was early, and I am young - too young for so much squinting and striving and struggling my way through the deep, bending questions of capital R - Reality. It was still too early to even poke at the metaphor, so I kept my glasses on the entire route.
What I'm grateful for, however, is the mind to know the difference between manipulated light and true enlightenment. I know that I'm in my comfort zone. I haven't been trying to see God very hard lately... I haven't put down my anxiety or baggage to let things simply be, or be brightly. I'm coasting along, trying to force life to look as good as it can look. Perhaps that's good enough for now. I know, at least, that there is a better Now waiting for me when I'm ready... when I'm ready to stop controlling the wheel, get out of my comfort bubble, lay down my heavy constructs of what "should" or "should not" be, and just get down to being.
Can you imagine? What would that be like?! What would it smell and feel like?
In time I'll take what's behind door #2, the mysterious prize package for life, and for asking questions of myself that are beyond me, because whatever life brings, as long as I'm toting my world view with me, in all it's brown squirrels and optimism, the view of the world will be great.
In 13th grade, in some generic and mandatory religion class where our narrow minded and single scoped professors tried to teach young minds the importance of perspective and the value of WWJD, my fellow pupils and I were given an assignment to present our world view. Since I had grown up in a Catholic home in a conservative middle class town where I only knew 3 black students, 1 Latina exchange student, and a modest handful of Asian hybrids, and was attending a private college made up entirely of tall blond and Christian Reformed Dutch kids from Holland, MI proper, I didn't completely understand the meaning of world-view. My professor made his request a second time, "tell the class about how you see the world." But how could I say anything different from what every other person in the class would say... we are all the same, and we see the same thing... and we always have seen this...
Then leaving the student union one day, as I began my exit out of 2 sets of doors made of tinted glass and as I reached for my sunglasses, the light of my world view dawned on me. It was an entirely new thought than I was accustomed to, and I had no idea how to express the intuitive idea in words let alone in a visual presentation. I remember drawing a squirrel three times in different shades of brown crayon to get my point across, but I'm pretty sure my mind was lost in translation. I remember saying I was an optimist, but I'm pretty sure I said it with a cynical smirk and a worry that my professor was grading me on my believability. 7 years later I'm trying to say it all again, because what I found to be true then is my concrete reality today. Well, as concrete as fog can be.
What I realized there in the quaint student union that Autumn day was not just my world perspective, but that I simply HAD perspective, and that I was aware of the lenses I had on to see reality. What's more, I was aware that my lens was not in and of itself reality.
From inside the building looking out through the 2 sets of doors, the outside appeared dark and muddled. It seemed uncertain, as if the doors were a kind of grace period and the world was not quite ready for viewing.
As I strut ever closer to uncertainty and opened the first set of doors, life beyond then and there became slightly more clear, more definite, more as I'd expect it to be. It was still a shade of gray, and still a little vague, but I could see the objects and life beyond the glass, so I knew "life" was more than tinted glass.
At last I pulled open the second set of doors and revealed the natural world - the bronze and orange painted trees and wilting flowers and a squirrel gathering it's wants and needs along the sidewalk. A quiet, breathless 'awe' escaped me. Life is beautiful. Smell that Earth! See this radiant light! Feel this warmth! But wait...
Though my reality felt good, it occurred to me - what if that was not all there was? What if all that amazing liveliness surrounding me was still just a vague belief in what "was"... what was real? What if I could remove yet another barrier of tinted glass in my mind to reveal something even more vibrant, more intense, more true? What would that be like?! What would it smell and feel like?
Suddenly I wanted this new reality with a kind of urgency that I had only known previously in long car rides after drinking a large beverage. I wanted to believe that even when things are good, they could be better. I conceived that even when things are as they are and life is at a stand-still stability, there could be more - much more - going on than what we mere mortals perceive. The goodness and immeasurable beauty that is beyond our usual grasp but still present and waiting patiently could maybe be called, for a lack of a better word, God. And all we have to do to see this joyous and happy thing that is everywhere is take off our personal shades.
On I-580 Eastbound, I kept my cobalt at a steady 70, my stereo pumping out Jack Johnson and banana pancakes, and my view of the world behind a comfortable pair of $15 sunglasses. I wondered what other drivers thought of me as I coasted along in the gray, being that it was just so unnecessary to shield my eyes from so bland a light.
But it was easier with my shades on. It was early, and I am young - too young for so much squinting and striving and struggling my way through the deep, bending questions of capital R - Reality. It was still too early to even poke at the metaphor, so I kept my glasses on the entire route.
What I'm grateful for, however, is the mind to know the difference between manipulated light and true enlightenment. I know that I'm in my comfort zone. I haven't been trying to see God very hard lately... I haven't put down my anxiety or baggage to let things simply be, or be brightly. I'm coasting along, trying to force life to look as good as it can look. Perhaps that's good enough for now. I know, at least, that there is a better Now waiting for me when I'm ready... when I'm ready to stop controlling the wheel, get out of my comfort bubble, lay down my heavy constructs of what "should" or "should not" be, and just get down to being.
Can you imagine? What would that be like?! What would it smell and feel like?
In time I'll take what's behind door #2, the mysterious prize package for life, and for asking questions of myself that are beyond me, because whatever life brings, as long as I'm toting my world view with me, in all it's brown squirrels and optimism, the view of the world will be great.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Random Thought of the Day
i forgot what it was... something about being tired? and holding a hundred responsibilities in my two bare hands? hmmm....
Oh yeah: I'm a superhero but it feels like death.
Oh yeah: I'm a superhero but it feels like death.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Random Thought of the Day
Things get better when you least expect it and you've already stopped caring and trying.
"If you get invited to your first orgy, don't just show up nude. That's a common mistake. You have to let nudity 'happen.'"
Jack Handey
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
All, Nothing, and Shades of Gray
I gasped for air and inhaled a deep dark corner of the ocean. One second I was bouncing, buoyant, as if I was on the moon and without gravity, and the next I was impaled by the sharp rush of water like my life had been hooked and was being reeled in, towards Davey Jones Locker, perhaps, but away from my body. One second - neon and technicolor. The next - a heavy black that sat on me, crushing my heart - heavier than the weight of an endearing man laying across my body, heavier than the stress and burdens of work, heavier than hearing the news of someone I love dying, heavier than all of it put together because the life dying was my own. I collapsed. And I sank even deeper within myself, incommunicado.
Screaming, I woke up.
I am not surprised in the least that I am dreaming of the fragility of deep sea diving. It is one of my favorite symbols in movies, like in the Graduate and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: trapped, isolated with thoughts, under the weight of the world and unbearable expectations, it's an image I've innately understood since I left my parents' house at 18. The only irony is that I've been waking up screaming my whole life.
My reality, made up of Hollywood symbolism, is literally overwhelming. And the other idioms that fit the bill... keep 'em coming:
- Hang in there
- Hanging by a thread
- Keep your head above water
- The light at the end of the tunnel
- Don't burst my bubble
- Between the devil and the deep blue sea
- Still waters run deep
- Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink
- With bated breath
- It's all or nothing
J'ai vingt-cinq ans. Pas beaucoup. C'est tot pour aller de tellement a rien.
But the siege of deep water happens more often than I'd like.
There are times, like this, that I stop and wonder if I have a seriously dysfunctional personality. Perhaps I'm borderline. Perhaps I'm rigid and chronically depressed. (But don't use this series of blog entries as a judge of this character.) Or maybe saying I'm seriously flawed is just another way to illustrate my dramatic, overly emotional perception of the norm. Now that that's said, the truth is kind of obvious, but still, I'm facing a problem, whether it's completely within me, completely in the cards I've been dealt, or a little of each...
left or right, right or wrong, black or white, high or low, good or bad, single or in love, popular or alone, starving or full, bored or overwhelmed, clean and spotless or dirty and dishevelled, with you or without you, it's always everything or nothing.
A close friend hasn't spoken to me in weeks and I believe it's with grave intention, and it's solely my own problem. She stopped speaking to me when I hung up on her. Take that as you will, but I was hurt, and it wasn't the first time feeling that way with her. Hurt me once, shame on you; but hurt me twice and you know the rest. I can't help but initiate my fight or flight response. I'm eager to survive after all, there's only that thin hose of life to suck on and it's hard to fight for everything under the circumstances. Then again, choosing flight is a double edged sword when you're already under water. I just sink some more.
Online dating has certainly not helped my condition. It's a cyber sea of faces and profiles and the only way to swim through it all is to be harsh, judgemental, and quick witted. Click a pic and it's a simple yes or no. Any man who's caught in that gray fuzzy area of attraction would have to blow my mind in the first two sentences of his puzzled together persona, but even then, I'll always know he was just a 'maybe.' I agree this approach to romance is obscene and unfair. I couldn't dare pretend otherwise. When it works, though, boy it works - I won't have to buy groceries for weeks because all my meals are eaten out on the town. When it doesn't work, it fails me miserably - it's $30 wasted on ugly pictures, and I know... I just know... they're all thinking the same of me. And even if it wasn't about the money or the fact I've resigned to dating internet profiles, it's still a game of picking the petals off flowers: He loves me; he loves me not. The gray area is faint and looks more like unfortunate white nothingness than vibrant, red hot love. Doom and gloom.
I am twenty five. Not old. It's too early to go from so much to nothing.
But I'm under siege. I'm trying to survive under an ocean of self-induced pressure. Gotta be somebody, and I mean, I've really got to BE somebody. I don't exactly know why, but I could blame my upbringing. I could blame society for deciding nonprofit work was not as significant or valuable as "engineer," "doctor," or "oceanographer." It's either all that, or it's just me. It's me thinking like a beatnik, trying to make a story of my life, trying to figure out all the answers to life on my own before due time. I decided to write a memoir at 22. All or nothing makes for epic tales, unless you get more nothing than everything, and that's how things seem to be. For now.
I don't want to sink in this life, and I don't always want to escape situations in this world I've just begun to create for myself. Rather than let the pressure of being a 20 something burst my bubble, I vow to keep my head above water... when I can... and I vow to add idioms ad nauseam. I vow, like the graduate, to just float along for a while and see how it goes. I'm putting on my rose colored glasses and seeing shades of gray. I still don't know what the deal is with my friend or dating or even my career, but I can take comfort in knowing that gray is my favorite color, and with it, I'm breathing easy.
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