Get Deluded

Invisible Man Review

2010-08-16T19:13:00.000-04:00

Having finished Invisible Man, I feel compelled to write some reactionary notes before moving on to my assignments. One thing about it really bothers me. For just as I began to near the long-awaited conclusion, a thought struck me: Honestly? The whole purpose in writing is selfish-- to fulfill your own needs-- speaking for pages and pages not for the reader, but for yourself? Could you not have spoken to an empty room instead? Could you not have written the thing for your own satisfaction, without sending it to a publisher? And so I read on with itchy indignation, thinking of the author's selfishness, and that I had read something that was never really intended for me; a diary disguised as a novel! How ridiculous! How could this Ellison dupe me so?! But I finished. I pushed through, even tried to taste the last lines thoroughly, as one might try to savor a final bite of fine chocolate. And yet as I savored it, it turned bitter and confused in my mouth. What! Another lie! Another boomerang! "Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" True! Who does know? So for whom do you speak, Ralph? Do you write for your own satisfaction, or for my enlightenment? And why must either be mixed with so much unholy confusion? Why the insanity? Why do I read the last quivering line, only to feel violated? Cheated? Betrayed? Do you do this only to convey IM's feelings for the brotherhood? I have read books, only to put them down and sit in profound confusion for days. But this is new. I felt nothing but distaste until the end--probably Chapter 25-- and just as I tell myself, "Maybe it's not so bad, after all," you plunge me into confusion once again? Well, Mr. Ellison, I tell you one thing for sure. You have not written for me, even if you think you have. You wrote and wrote and in so doing changed yourself again, just as you changed through the entire book ,and you will continue to change. There is no end. No top. No reality. Your disillusionment will never end. Life is nothing but illusion anyway. Is that your theme? Is it really? Do you even have a theme? Or it may be, "Trust no one. Whites are tyrants and blacks are fools." That's wonderful. Well, congratulations. The only time I've been racist in my entire life was while reading your book. And I've learned nothing, because you've learned nothing, and neither did your nameless invisible man. What do I know about your protagonist, anyway? He had, at once, no name and two names. He was a "ginger negro". He doesn't have the balls to stick to his ideals and he's easily fooled by redheads. He died many deaths and lives now, emerging belatedly from drunken hibernation. Who will he be when he comes out into the light? A saint? A white man? Dr. Bledsoe? Sybil?

cont'd

2010-08-12T17:51:00.002-04:00

I was going to write this morning, but my plate was rather full.
In any case, today's been wonderful. I woke up in a good mood. And I don't know what came over me last night. I suppose I was just tired. Plagued with a strange misery.
I don't remember now what my complaint was. Something with social issues, cultural differences. Something to do with having to face the fact that I'm a part of my culture more than I'll ever want to admit. Now today the sun hides behi9nd clouds and the air is filled with angry little water droplets, and yet to me the world shines with beauty.
Coffee rests playfully on my palate as I recall today's series of events, all filled with joy. Why am I in such a pleasant mood today? I don't know, and I don't care to. Somehow, I'm uplifted.

Perhaps there is a God.

Again . . .

2010-08-12T00:02:00.002-04:00

It seems to me that this is the best place to write when I really need to.
Even when I've neglected it for almost half a year.
Exhaustion, disappointment, and polyurethane fumes. Bad mix.
I hate the bitter taste of disappointment in my mouth.
Hate the ugly face of belligerence in my presence.
. . . and now I'm interrupted. Why must life scorn me to such an extent?
Ah, I guess my life is not so horrid; so unfair. Just now it feels that every drop of rain exists solely to fall upon my head. But this is attitude is foolish and I am well aware. To continue in such a mentality would lower me to nothing beyond a common teenager. Let me rest. Let me sleep. Let my dreams chase away all that is troublesome or frightening, and perhaps I will return in the morn to better outline my complaints. I am sorry to the Internet for my intermittent postings; my childish whines.
Maybe some good will spring forth.Maybe I will grow.

Failure feels delicious.

2010-02-20T12:45:00.001-05:00

I tried, and failed. I wanted to be the most docile person I could be. But Now I'm going to explode. I simply can't live the life I love without being extreme in the oddest of ways. Without being myself in a way that no one can deny or without chasing be dreams with all my strength. I will be calm. i will be loving and compassionate and soft. But I will be static energy, living in the corners of the universe tat no one ever dusts. I am life. I am love. I am everything I want and everything I need. I will breathe every breath like it is my first and my last. I will see every light like it welcomes me to Heaven. I will taste all food as if I am starving. Savor each scent as if it is new. I need people to understand that I am more than I seem. That I'm strong in a way that they don't see. That I am spectacular. And that all starts with me.

Failure feels delicious.

...

2010-01-20T18:45:00.003-05:00

I don't have anything in particular to say, I just feel like writing.
It's Wednesday, and I had Monday off. Yet somehow this has managed to be a hellish week. Too much work, too much pain, too much confusion.

My hand is healing nicely; on the surface it's little more than a pink line, and it only hurts now if I really strain my hand or put significant pressure on it. So, that's something good. I have to try to focus on the good... it seems that there are too many negative things competing for attention...

I suppose the primary cause of my stress is myself. Ultimately, I allow myself to be frustrated. I choose to wait too long and work too hard, hence my exhaustion. I let myself stress.

But life hasn't been doing me too many favors lately. My mother had surgery... again. I've been bitchy to my boyfriend, which I just feel awful about-- that's not life's fault, but it's a stress. I've had loads of work to do. It's strange how when I write down my stressors, they look so small and so few that I wonder why I bother being stressed about them. However, it's a lot less daunting to read loads of work than to read 4 Psychology Essays, 5 sketches, 2 Physics Labs, 4 Biology Reading Guides, 1 Biology Lab, 2 Faith Papers, US History Midterm Essay, Psychology Midterm, Advanced Pre-Calculus Midterm, Latin project (gigantic poster/sculpture), Roman Mythology Test, English Transcendentalism/Anti-Transcendentalism/Poetry Test, US History Objective Midterm, English Literature Midterm, Physics Midterm, Biology Midterm, Faith Midterm Project.
Hm... perhaps the stress is somewhat justified, then.

I feel as if I should now establish some important, controlling point and wrap this up with a simple, yet deep lesson about life.

Sorry.

Ouch

2010-01-08T16:54:00.002-05:00

So. it's been a tough week. A really tough week. And so, to cheer myself, when I came home today I began to work on a project I've been doing that I quite love. One part of this, which I started today, involves carving out part of a wood block to fit a rather large magnet. I carefully measured and scored the block, hoping to be as precise as I could. Several minutes into this, however, the scythe-shaped tool I was using slipped off of the block and plunged into the center of my left hand.
Sudden pain. Excruciating. Why did this hurt so bad? Had I severed nerves? I ran to the sink, turned on the cold water, and thrust my hand beneath. After a second or so, the icy fluid felt suddenly warm. Panic. Had I somehow injured myself beyond distinguishing warm from cold? I felt the water with my right hand, and found to my great relief that the warmth was no hallucination. Quickly grabbing a rag to dry my hand and staunch the bleeding, I sprinted upstairs to get a numbing/disinfecting spray and, after returning downstairs, covered my hand with it. Then, still in pain but slightly calmer, I filled my rag with ice and held it to my palm.
It was then that I commenced pacing. I always pace to calm myself down. But no-- I thought how, at such a generally good time of my life, I got constantly injured. There was a time I would have appreciated that. I thought of telling someone-- I knew I wouldn't be heard. I'm never heard. I thought how I was in pain, and no one else in the entire world knew or cared. I paced faster. I thought about my week, and as tears finally broke over my eyelids and rolled down my face, the phrase, "the straw that broke the camel's back" slipped deviously into my mind, haunting me. And I knew that somehow, despite all my growth, I was where I'd always been-- completely and utterly alone, even among loved ones. Through my quiet sobbing I flexed the fingers of my left hand slightly, looking to make sure they did as they were told. But even as relief flooded through me once again, I cried a little harder at the thought that I had to check at all. Pathetic, lonely and helpless. I've come so far.
Just as I was ready to begin calming myself down, the phone rang. I ran upstairs to it, picked it up. "Hello, Jacquie!" Betty. About 70 years old, she was a sweet woman with a big heart and a tendency to talk a lot. As she told me she had a cold/flu/bug/etc., I sighed to myself. My last tears had not yet fallen from my face and still I held my bleeding hand... and already I was listening to someone else's problems. It seemed ridiculous. It also characterized my life.

Now, as I was unable to find medical tape for use with gauze, I have two Band-Aids on my hand.

Life is fabulous.

2010

2010-01-03T18:32:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since I've posted.
Everything has changed... 2009 was more a year of change than I ever expected.
And now it's over. A new year full of potential awaits, and I plan to use it to the best of my ability.
I don't know what I'll do as far as writing. I haven't written much lately. I just have to figure out my life. My interests. My future. And run with it. Take it to the extreme.
2010 will be beautiful.

I don't know.

2009-12-20T11:49:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, stress feels like it follows the law of conservation of energy: It may be transferred from one thing to another, but the total amount always stays the same.

Too much?

2009-12-19T11:56:00.002-05:00

I don't know. I'm in a great relationship.
I'm comfortable with myself. I have motivation.
And hope. I have a bright future and great potential.
But.
There's always a but.
My mother is now in the middle of a fifth cancer scare.
And they're all different!
A lump in her breast. A cyst on her ovary. A spot on her leg. A nodule on her thyroid.
And now another failed mammogram! This time they injected her with radioactive dye and scheduled her for an MRI after Christmas. Except, after some research, I've found that non-radioactive dye is used in MRIs, that radioactive dye is used to test for thyroid disorders, and in the treatment (but not the screening) of breast cancer. So what does that mean? Did she think she booked an MRI when in fact she booked something else? Are they actually testing something else entirely? I don't know.I'm starting to think I should go to her appointments with her so that we can get this straight. Either they did something wrong, told her something wrong, or she got it messed up when they told her. I don't know. It's driving me insane that it doesn't make sense. I'm always okay with problems as long as I can understand them. But this....?

This kills.

December

2009-11-28T11:58:00.002-05:00

Some women get emotional around their, as they say, "time of the month."
I get emotional around my time of the year.
Early December, late November. Every year. It's just too much sometimes.

And this year is extra-super-special, because it seems like I've been doing cartwheels for everyone else...
And to no avail. I'm not the sort who needs a lot of attention. I'm not needy. I'm not clingy. I'm just about as far from a normal girl as you can get.
So why is it so much to ask for just a little attention? You know-- when I go above and beyond to come up with a fantastic idea for a present that I can barely afford and even forego the surprise element to it, which I love and half of my gift recipients seem to loathe, and then I get, "All right. I'll go." What the hell is that?
It's not a favor to me when people accept my present. And yet--- I don't know. It's so overwhelmingly frustrating.
And underwhelmingly exciting.
And never mind "thank you." I don't even expect it anymore.
I've dropped my expectations. Again. Why bother.....?

It just seems like I'm switching off between unbearable electric frustration and a crushing sense of defeat. This isn't life. And I know it's not. And I don't know how to change it.I can't change much more. And I don't want to, anyways. I love myself.

Fuck. This is just fabulous.

I think there's something wrong here...

2009-11-28T00:20:00.001-05:00

I'm just so tired of crying.

Dream

2009-11-27T10:07:00.004-05:00

Last night's dream was absolutely bizarre.
It started out in school. I had just come from something Harry Potter related, which had somehow caused me to believe that Voldemort might exist. He had a locker in our school, which was several down from mine (place where my 10th grade locker was). I attempted to open it several times, but finally ran off to Physics. Then it changed somewhat, and instead of going to Physics I went to a place where there were the four house tables. My friends and I were seated at Gryffindor. Nearby was the Ravenclaw table, which was sorely underpopulated due to the swine flu. I looked around my own table and saw that there might be space enough to fit the lonely Ravenclaws. I turned to ask how many people they had left, but already more people were arriving-- too many to fit at our table. However, I still felt bad for them and asked if there was anything I could do. They told me of some strange problem which I didn't fully understand, but with which I could help. It was very heavily sci-fi related. And so, when everybody left, I was on the Ravenclaw's something-- it was sort of like a space ship-- and remove things from what seemed like a giant circuit board, in order to.. I'm not sure, actually. I think to keep their ship from crashing. So then I was done. But I had to get out as quickly as possible afterward; I don't know why. I stepped out of the door, into what then was a jet plane. For awhile I was just in the plane; I didn't really know what I was doing. Then, Sam was their with me and it was descending. But i had planned all along to jump. I knew we had to. He, on the other hand, seemed surprised. Unprepared. So, as we began to get within jumping height, I shouted, "Get the parachutes!" Sam ran into something like a closet and grabbed a small box full of something more like plastic bags, which we were supposed to hold onto. I told him to go first, because I didn't want him to die and I could trust myself in an emergency. He went. I saw the- a- monorail out of the plane's window and so stuck my "parachute" out the door in an attempt to slow the plane enough to save my life. It worked, and I landed in Syracuse. I met up with Sam, and some kids that were, in the dream, our friends but whom I have never met in real life. We were walking along the edges of bridges and riding in buses and cars, giving the effect that we hung around the area quite a lot. At one point Sam and I were in a bus and his friend called down to him. I knew that Sam did not hear and yet I didn't alert him, because I didn't feel like dealing with the two of them for the rest of the day. I felt guilty about that for the rest of the dream. There was something about a sister... she had blond hair... that I don't remember clearly now. The friends must have been really well developed in the dream. And for some reason, perhaps just because he could, Sam jumped off of a bridge and into heavy traffic. He was fine, as he'd known he would be, but I was exceptionally pissed off at him for pulling such a stunt. Our friends were caught between humor at him and agreement with me. Somehow, though, that eventually faded into just us two in the city, me following him so as not to get lost. We got on a Centro bus, where people ushered us on, scanned our faces, and told us to get off. After I got off, i felt lost. I didn't know where Sam was. I thought for a moment that perhaps I'd have to go back and find his friend who had beckoned him. I thought that maybe that was the most just punishment for my ignoring him before. Then I happened to look in the front window of the bus, where I could see Sam, alone and asleep. I started shouting that he had to get off the bus.He woke up and did so, but then ended up on another bus that was in reality a car. I was livid at him for leaving me alone in a city where I couldn't navigate myself. I'm not sure why, but I became increasingly upset thinking, pull the line! Just pull the line and stop! And realized that there was no line to pull. I woke up furious and confused.

Just a thought for the day...

2009-11-23T16:24:00.001-05:00

Life's greatest beauties are hidden within its intricacies. Sometimes those searching for wisdom ponder the big questions while the wise ponder the little ones.

Bitter

2009-11-14T10:25:00.004-05:00

Disappointment. It's bitter.
Worse for me is a sort of disappointment that occurs in retrospect, with new information, when it affects someone else as well, andtthough I can't be blamed it's all my fault.

For instance-- Once when I was little, my mother picked me up from school, and on the way homeI realized I'd forgotten my Spelling workbook, which I needed that night. After turning around, getting the book, and ehading back to my mother's work as we had been before, my mother informed me that her friend had brought her toddler (I've always loved young children) whom I hadn't seen in a long time and wanted dearly to see.She told me that her friend had brought her child so that I could see him again, and that she would probably be gone by the time I got there-- all because I'd forgotten my book.
Now, it wasn't, strictly speaking, my fault that I'd forgotten in the first place. I could've been more conscientious in packing my bookbag, but other than that there was no real fault. I didn't know until it was too late that I had ruined the surprise for both myself and my mother's friend. I could do nothing to fix it.

There are other, more recent examples I could cite, but in all truth I don't feel like it. It's just that crushing sense of disappointment that comes not from losing or not getting something you were looking forward to, but realizing that your actions caused you not to get something that you would have loved and, further still, that you disappointed the person who was trying to facilitate you getting whatever it was. And you didn't even know you were ruining something. You had no way of knowing.

I drive myself a little closer to the edge each day, I suppose. Insanity is a staple item in my mental pantry. As basic as flour in a baker's cupboard. Now, I'm not quite sure what's going on with me. I don't know if I like it. I know I'm tired of changing, and I'm ready to be happy.

Personality Quizzes

2009-11-08T08:56:00.002-05:00

Why do we so love personalty quizzes and indicators?
We know in our minds that the results could be applied in some way to almost anyone, and yet we love to take them, and then revel in how accurate they apparently are.
I think it's because they focus generally on positives. Because, let's face it: most of us aren't told often enough about just how good we are. So we take quizzes-- we figure, if we answer each question honestly, and it spits out something about our intelligence, or our kindness, or our creativity, it must be true!

I like them because they make me think. I go through my result and figure out which parts actually apply to me. Then, I think about those aspects of my personality. I'm the sort who loves thinking about people, both myself and others. I would love to study social psychology, but as a hobby. I suppose we're all a little strange.

And I'm sure there's a test to verify that.

Hope

2009-11-07T10:37:00.004-05:00

So much has happened this week. I'm glad it's over.
Sure, there's plenty to do, plenty more stressors to come. But here I breathe a mighty sigh of relief as I think, Well, I got through that.
It's strange how all at once everything can change.
One good conversation, one good fight, one good cry in combination can make you feel reborn.

Sometimes, it seems as if every time I think, things are going to get better now, it turns out that the "getting better" part was only a phase, with the path of life lapsing exhaustedly back into its same depressed routine.
Two days in a row I've awoken feeling new. It seems almost ridiculous. Yet, who am I to push the feeling away? I know that if My life, my mind, my flying lark falls again to the ground, I will feel as if naivety gave birth to my hope before. Yet now it remains suspended in grateful relief, and I have no right to deny myself a taste of happiness.

I feel that perhaps all is distorted... but for now I am happy. So long as I am happy at once with being clear-minded, it may indeed last.

One can hope.

Triumph

2009-11-02T17:41:00.002-05:00

What is does it mean to succeed, truly?
Is success the reaching of one's goals, or perhaps the exceeding of them? Is success accomplishing- or surpassing- other peoples' expectations for you? Or are others even relevant?
Maybe... maybe success is actually happiness. In such an event, one cannot chase one in lieu of the other.

Maybe it's all a waste of time.

Sigh

2009-10-27T13:02:00.002-04:00

Been sick since Friday; out of school yesterday and today. Today I finally had enough energy to get out of bed. I even showered. Tired again, as expected, but oh well. I can't stay in bed forever. I think I'm on the tail end of H1N1. Yay me.

Thinking a little about expectations, and love. How well do the two go together? Can you love someone without having expectations of them? And can you love only your expectations. Sometimes I think it's all a bit much for me. Already I miss my fantasies a little bit. Sure-- ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power. And I'd rather be strong than ignorantly happy, but... not all knowledge brings power. Some just brings frustration.

Can you love someone and still want that person to change for you? And if one person cannot love you because he wants you to change for him, can you really love him when you want him to change that one thing-- and love you for who you are?

I say that to love truly is to love for both assets and faults; not despite faults. But certainly not having the capability to love you for who you are is a fault... is it possible to love that? Perhaps I was wrong all along, and perhaps I am a hypocrite. I try not to be...

I think of days past where all was a dream. I don't understand.

A thought for the day

2009-10-23T18:32:00.002-04:00

One day.
A week's stress.
Over, finally.
I don't know what the future will bring, but somehow I have to live with the present whilst letting it go. For clinging like a child to the present is of no more use than clinging desperately to the past.
Why must we hold on at all? Time is what life is made of, and for some reason we don't want to let it come as it will. Instead, werush, we stall, we reach back. Life will come and it will go, and all the while we may be looking the other way.
Why?
I focus on goals, but do not focus too intently to see what is along the way. I live life as it comes, I try to find something positive in every day.

When it comes down to it, you may as well enjoy yourself-- who are you hurting by being unhappy?

2009-10-19T17:23:00.002-04:00

Given the nature of my most recent post, I'm not sure that I'll be able to continue this blog. Most certainly not with my original intent.

Wrote this in school

2009-10-19T17:07:00.007-04:00

Contemplation of a state of mind sprung from nothing...

This person I have become is my greatest triumph, and

yet here I feel so defeated, knowing that in all my

connectedness, I am utterly alone.

Before, I lived witth my daydreams, happy with my creations.

Suddenly I was disillusioned; all my fantasies fell away

at once. As yesterday I wrote, "Here I stand, naked

and shivering in the harsh light of reality."

My escape is gone. I have nothing left but to face

absolute truth. In this truth, I see that only I love me

sheerly for what I am-- without expectations, without

a view of potential, without seeing only a mask.

Perhaps, if my situation had changed to this result,

I wouldn't mind so much. But to see that you were alone

from the beginning... this realization is almost devastating.

And so nothing has changed,

...................................except that I see reality.

...And with this loneliness comes the selfishness I never had.

......Though I work to make others happy, as always,

.........My decisions are made only for myself,

whom I love.

Disillusioned

2009-10-18T12:59:00.003-04:00

Fantasies stripped away, I stand naked and shivering in the cold light of reality.
No one else stands with me, and so I stand tall without shame.
I see myself in my nakedness, appreciate the beauty that is me.
Here there are no fallacies, no makeup and jewels to cover all the

imperfections.

But with no comparison, how can imperfections be imperfect?
I am the only one, and therefore the pinnacle of humanity in this strange place.

Below me there is soft, dewy grass.
I blink stupidly at it, feel it gently give way to each new step I take.
The breath is that of an early autumn morning, as darkness ebbs away but before the sun has risen.

There is no fear here.

All my comforts, all my lies, and all the beauty that I saw is gone; I am a child without a security blanket. But I know that it was I who gave these things to myself, and I also who took them away. One cannot mourn what one purposefully left behind. Somehow I am stronger here, naked and alone. Shock waves move gently through me, pushing me to sway as a piece of seaweed in the tide. I know that I will allow myself to depend on others, and help them as always. After all, nothing has changed. I have simply

opened my eyes.

There is only one difference with this new reality. I will live for myself. Only I can love me for this person who I am here. Only I love me without a goal; without expectations. Others love masques and potential. But here I am nothing but myself, and here is the person who I love in me.

So now for this person I live; I work to my own expectations. I cannot live trying to be perfect for everyone else and still be happy with myself; surely I will be smothered under so many masques.

In this new place I lay upon the ground feeling the purity of the dew upon my back. I love everything, even without it loving me back. By living for myself I learn altruism.

Here without my illusions I still reel from the shock. Here in my nakedness I try to understand just what I was hiding from, and just what was here... my illusions sheltered me, but with them I felt warm. Here I am utterly alone, and though I know with all of me that I have strength to carry on, I am not sure I want to know that no one was by my side

in the first place.

Internal Conflict

2009-10-18T09:41:00.001-04:00

I want to be perfect, and I want to be perfect for myself; no one else.

Yet somehow I'm still wondering, what if I'm never good enough for you?

I am my own best friend.

2009-10-16T16:26:00.008-04:00

"..And what a surprise it was to me, when I saw that no one else could ever love me the way I loved myself..."

Last night, half awake and quite upset, I wrote these words upon my leg for lack of paper. However, despite any of the various afflictions to my mental state during that time, it is true. By love I don't mean the simple, universal love; I mean "love" as we use it to mean caring about another person. It came first from the idea that I need a friend like myself. Upset, I knew that no one could have comforted me, even if someone had been there. I wouldn't have allowed them to. I would have frozen up. Alone, though, I cried to myself and comforted myself, explained each thing that made no sense and told me that everything was going to be okay. For just a moment, I filled all the roles a life could ever need. It was then that I realized that no one else could ever love me as "well" as I love myself. This is because I understand myself far better than anyone else ever could; after all, I live with myself all the time. In addition to understanding myself, I accept myself. With all my faults, with all my problems, with everything I do wrong, screw up, fail at, don't try or give up, I can still tell myself that I'm worth it. Truthfully, I'm not sure that anyone else could fully accept me like that. I don't blame people for it; it simply isn't within the human capacity to accept every characteristic available to man, and the likelihood that they'd accept the exact grouping of my characteristics is rather slim.
For awhile I cried with myself over the fact that no one could ever love us to such a degree as we loved ourself. I knew that the things I had done to myself; to my mind were signs of a bad relationship. But that was before I loved myself at all... how strange it all is. I worried for several minutes whether such an outlook would be viewed as some sort of a mental disorder, after all, I was thinking of myself as two people, one comforting the other, a further one comforting a more central one, loving her for the person she is. When I calmed down, my identity merged into one, as it should remain...
Still, I can't be sure whether I should be comforted or disturbed by that idea. The comfort is that I can trust myself completely, knowing that I won't ever betray myself, stop loving myself, or leave myself in any way. I am my own best friend. However, there is a certain... arrogance to thinking that no person could compare to you in a relationship with yourself. True, this idea would never lead me to reject my friends; I love my friends. But is it wrong to favor yourself (in a third person view) above your [other] friends? This is not self-importance, I am favoring myself. Perhaps I am more odd than I previously thought. Fortunately for me, though, I know that I'm dependable.

My Mind

2009-10-14T17:23:00.007-04:00

I feel sleepy today, drifting in and out of consciousness.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm stable. I tend to think that I am; that I have control of what I do and say. Yet, there's always that "What if?" Always the questions. I wonder if, in the event that I'm not as stable as I think, what it would take to make me snap. I wonder what my best coping mechanisms are.
For the first time in a long time, I feel quite lost about where I stand, relative to others. For the first time ever, I'm lost in this way and completely comfortable with it. Perhaps the biggest conundrum that rises into my mind lately is the issue of my aptitude as a partner in a relationship. I'm not the type who prefers to "fly solo" just for the heck of it, or so they don't have to commit. Rather, my problem is that I don't want to bring anyone else down. Sure, the freedom of being single is an okay idea, but it's more... I don't know that there's a word. Not responsibility, because I have no problem taking on responsibility for others. But I'm just to extreme. I don't want to take others down with me, and so I put their interests before my own in almost all instances. I lose myself into a vat of interaction, and then find myself blinking stupidly into the harsh light of reality when I realize that the other person has sacrificed very little in comparison. I don't mean only romantic relationships; in fact, this applies more directly to friendships for me.
I have some fantastic friends, but all of my friendships lie upon the condition that I will, at some point in time, be taken advantage of. People don't try to do it; I just offer to help when they need help. what are they going to do, refuse? No, only people like me do that.
How is it that I am so unlike so many other people, and yet so mundane? Am I really mundane? Am I really unique? And if I am... what can I do to maximize my usage of my uniquity? It seems to me a certain obligation to use anything unique about oneself for the good of others. Do for others what they cannot do for themselves.

I don't know... and why should I? I am only human, after all...

But enough of this nonsense. It hurts my mind. I much prefer the kind of nonsense that soothes me. Like moss on a log, bright green and soft and moist, delightful to the senses. The log beneath is rotting, and the smell that emits from it is that of most fertile soil; it is exquisite and warm. A brown caterpillar works his way of the side of the log, perhaps looking for food. In my minds eye I watch the caterpillar, knowing that his search is futile. Carefully, by its midsection, I pull the caterpillar from the log. His head moves first away and then towards my skin, as he realizes that he cannot free himself. The coarse fur plays along my finger as I walk, feeling the damp grass give under my feet. On a nearby tree I release my caterpillar friend, allowing him to crawl up towards the foliage above. I imagine that in a soft voice he says, "thank you." I walk away from the tree, through my imaginary forest. The light is bright green, reflected off of so many leaves. In the corner of my vision I see a small white moth moving effortlessly through the air, and as I ponder the moth's past two squirrels appear a ways away from me, chasing one another playfully through the trees. I crouch down and watch for a long time, careful not to disturb them. As the squirrels disappear from view, my green light becomes a deep blue cast over the walls of my house and the sun begins to fall towards its resting place.

Reality isn't always so bad.

Talk to Strangers

2009-10-13T20:02:00.004-04:00

I don't know exactly why I'm posting this here, except that I can.
I'm thinking of starting a mini project of my own, entitled, "Talk to Strangers." The premise is that we live in an overly individualized world. Even though we're always connected, we manage to make it all about ourselves. No one writes letters anymore. Why? Because that would entail actually reading and replying to the response. It seems that we don't care about other people; that we're all detached.
Personally, I think that our society's lack of intimacy is a disease. I had that disease. Fear of being close to others, as if you could get contaminated by their thoughts, emotions; by their lives. Now, though, I want that. I want to know what so-and-so is thinking. Not to be nosy; just because I care about that person and want to understand them. What does it matter whether or not I know them? I care about them already.
So my project, my Movement for a Common Intimacy (I think this name would scarea lot of people...), is Talk to Strangers. If all goes according to plan, I'll go onto common email websites and type in some usernames, writing down those that are taken. Then, I'll send an email, which will give them the option of replying to or ignoring me, and those that reply will [hopefully] become my virtual anonymous penpals.
I'll probably suggest that they use a pseudonym, as I myself do. Because it doesn't really matter if they tell me the truth; it's a persona they'll be building, and it's the persona that I'll get to know.

...Yet more proof that I am a very odd person.

Control Freak

2009-10-12T12:24:00.008-04:00

Something's not quite right in my mind. Like the feeling when you need to crack your back. After a long time and many diversions, it occurred to me that writing is my mental chiropractor.
I seem to have a lot of frustration, and it seems to bubble up at odd moments. My mind roves over dreams and tries to ignore the monster in my veins.

First, the distraction: today I have a twin. An identical twin, except that it's a boy. This occurred because we were both born as hermaphrodites, and the "fixed" us into different sexes. This, of course, provided an amazing opportunity for studies. Our parents were separated, and so our father got the boy and our mother got me. We met when they told us what they'd done, trying to study whether genetics or environment had a greater effect on "male" and "female" characteristics. Genetics played the major role, because he and I were very similar. we talked for hours. Just what I needed. A friend exactly like me.

Second, the problem. Four nights ago, I felt practically possessed. There was an angry monster running through my veins like fire and static, biting me as he went along. I wanted to let him out, but I couldn't. Can't. It's wrong. I can't. And so I lay there with the monster, arms pinned under a pillow and thrashing whilst restraining myself. Sobbing in perfect silence. And again last night. And as much as I love my insanity, I think... what if I were normal? What if I didn't have crazy spells? And how much can rationality do to bury a true problem?

Today I am trapped in between all the forces of my mind, floating in infinity. The monster is reduced to perhaps an ant, angry but with little force. With music, with words, I block my mind. Fill myself with a happiness that is neither real nor artificial. When I allow myself to lapse I tend towards sleep, which I do not have time to do. I work on schoolwork, but wonder idly just how much I can do before my mind is overcome with boredom. I write, I write, I write. It makes me feel better, but can it always be enough? Or what if it becomes a catalyst in a lethal reaction? I think too much. How often I do ponder gruesome outcomes to improbable events... and for what? Nothing. Or perhaps I am simply afraid of losing control. Little by little I discover the ugly aspect of myself, when I never before knew that I cared so much for control. True, I do not want to control others; only myself. Still, though. Why must I obsess over it so? If I am strong I will have control over myself. If I am weak another will hold control, and it will be my and only my fault. Maybe I'm trying to make up for an inherent weakness through obsessive planning. Is it really possible, though, that so many of my problems could stem essentially from a lack of self confidence? and why should simple belief hold so much weight? I am a very odd creature indeed, and it seems to me that I had better do something to benefit myself.

I think perhaps that I could try to write a book. However, it seems of late that I am far too scatterbrained for such a project. Indeed, I can barely concentrate enough to write my foolish pieces here. If only, if only... If only I could focus. If only I believed in myself. If only I were better. Stronger. Smarter. Once upon a time I was like so many others who pushed my problems off upon others. Now I take the World's problems upon myself. Why can I not find a happy medium, and stay there?

I wonder sometimes if there is not happy medium for me. If I will spend all of life living on opposite extremes, the reaches of my mind battling for attention on ground that is not theirs, but mine; destroying none but me in the process. Why is there no end? Books have ending, happy or sad. But at least they end. Long ago one book in the series of my life should have ended. But it seems a character whose death ended that book has returned now in the next as a ghost. I am the author of this series, but there is a petulant character who I am unable to write out.

..................and how can I fear a loss of control, when it seems I have none at present?

Ordinary

2009-09-29T17:36:00.014-04:00

Today's been one of those days where I realize once again a basic truth: I am quite ordinary.
I am not the protagonist of any great story, nor am I an outstanding student. My personality is unique, to be sure. However, I am still, in basis, very mundane.
The greatest likelihood is that no biography will ever be written about me. My name will never fall into common usage in our society. I may not even be enough to get into my selected colleges.
I have no extracurricular activities, no major awards, no outstanding public service nor even outstanding grades. I suppose it disturbs me to think of such things.
For this reason I often write myself into fantastic situations, events that somehow render my personality particularly useful...
Aye, I am no Cinderella. But is it possible that I am not even the Fairy Godmother? Nor even a witch or a parent? Maybe I am of such a breed that I have no place even in fairy tales. But if this is truly the case, for what do I work? If nothing comes naturally to me, how should I expect labor to catch me up? And if I will always be behind, what is my purpose?
Here, now a spiral of negative thought draws me in and hypnotizes me. Over and over again thoughts repeat in their gloomy cycles, telling me how to feel.
I hope for a career of medicine, but what will become of me if this dream cannot be actualized? Am I to fall to the wayside, some confused being who is moderately educated, over-motivated and without resources? Why is it that I allow myself to think like this?
Because I enjoy it. Somewhere, some sick part of me feeds of the feeling of despair that dwells here, in this place where I have locked myself. I know I can escape, but I will not leave. It's repulsive. I torture myself with a sense of hopelessness, and angry beasts of the past rise to great me, to suck my blood and to feed of my pain.

There is something sensuous about insanity, and I cannot quite put my finger on why. It is not good, not proper and not enjoyable. But it is intriguing. The darker side of every psyche is drawn to the depths of insanity just as the eyes of a human are drawn to a crash on the side of the road. Periodically I enter brief episodes of what is probably the closest thing to true insanity that allows one to keeps control of themself. And in my mind, something dark and beautiful and gory and sexual and disgusting and entrancing rises out of dust like a snake, dripping with something deeper than blood; a special kind of gore reserved for the mind. I change. I imagine that if someone were to watch me, my pupils would dilate and my muscles would relax, my mouth opening ever so slightly and perhaps my nostrils flaring. My consciousness ebbs. I float away on a silver cloud of angry nothingness and watch the storm brewing below, in the underworld of myself. In Hades. The devil is neither man nor woman, just a creature with distinct characteristics of both sexes. I call it a "he" arbitrarily. He works among the reanimated bodies of human torture victims, walking slowly, confidently, in a way that makes you somehow hate and admire him, loathe and envy him. Your skin puckers and blisters, turning a bright angry read and scabbing over. The burns cover you entirely, but you pay them no attention, you can only watch the devil. Your breath comes out slow and green, and the devil smiles. The teeth are pointed and yellow, the breath putrid, the tongue forked. And yet in that smile there is some hidden characteristic which draws you in, spinning deeper into oblivion. You move closer-- how close are you? His eyes are bright and black, sparkling. You don't know his intent, but you do not care, either. You look deep into his eyes, puzzling the mystery of his existence. The attraction you feel to him is not natural; not like a man and a women or even like a parent with their child, or friends. It is instead like the need of a housepet to leave its domain before dying; like the unsummoned desire to attack when one is angry. Quick as lightning, his hand is around your throat, with long, thick nails digging into your neck. He laughs a cold, mirthless laugh that stirs your mind into confusion and passion. As everything goes black, you smile.

I know that if I was smart, I would erase the paragraph I just wrote. But it felt incredibly good to write it. There is no way to fully express the depths of insanity. That was, perhaps, a little piece. I tend to think I might be committed if I tried much harder. So, perhaps I am not quite as ordinary as I thought. Perhaps I am ordinary in every outward manner but hold some twisted element within. Perhaps I am simply better at expressing things which everyone thinks than other people. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to hide it thoroughly.

Here, perhaps I redeem myself. Because I want to write about the thought I had on the way home, as I sat looking out the window into the rain. I imagined myself from behind, the picture that would be created. Plain dirty blond hair, drawn back into a low ponytail behind the neck. Chin resting in the palm of my hand as I stared listlessly into the rain. Very ordinary. Somehow a little profound. I think that maybe we underestimate the beauty in a certain kind of ordinary.

Because ordinary doesn't have to mean stereotypical.

So Much

2009-09-19T08:52:00.007-04:00

This one I am writing today. From a computer at my mother's work. My mind wanders freely over many of the million things weighing on my mind.
Last night I was swarmed by odd dreams. Climbing bridges, sneaking onto boats. A small black boy who thought of me as his grandmother and who wanted to return to a better time. A time neither he nor I had ever seen. A basic confrontation with right and wrong left me thinking. There's something hovering just below the surface of my consciousness. Almost ready to come into the light. Almost ready to end this period of The Crazy. It has lasted a short time- less than two months- undoubtedly because I have recognized it in myself and because of the support I have received from others. Even yesterday I was overwhelmed, frustrated, sad. Today I feel somehow brighter, perhaps a simple testament to the fact that during sleep both our minds and out bodies are healed. I knew this time would come again. I imagine it will continue in cycles, over and over for all my life. But I don't mind. These cycles are periods of growth and adjustment. I do not develop slowly, evenly, like most. Rather, my mind is shredded into a million frustrated pieces, and as I struggle through the confusion, new strength-- maturity-- ideas-- enter me. Overnight my mind seems to have healed, new scar tissue fortifying it. It's very much the same concept as exercising.
You work out. You destroy the muscle of your own will. You heal, with scar tissue and new muscle growth. And you are stronger the next day.

I still have a lot of work. I might even be in over my head a little bit. But I'll make it through. I'll be perfectly fine. Right now I'm just happy to have gotten through my second period of the great sadness; the crazy; depression without some of the things I resorted to the first time. I'm alive. And happy, albeit tired. I think that maybe everything will be okay. I think that maybe that's what was hovering below the surface.

Release

2009-09-19T08:51:00.001-04:00

I’m not posting this directly; by the time it makes it to the blog it will have been saved to my flash drive and posted from a computer whose Internet is currently functioning, unlike mine. But I’m having a moment of misery and finally realized that the only thing that would make me feel better would be to do what comes naturally to me: to write. So today is actually September 17, 2009, at 10:28 PM. God knows what time it will be when I finish.

Several minutes ago, trying in small, distorted ways to make sense of my life, I realized- or perhaps simply imagined- something. The reason that I hold not one, but many personas; the reason pretend and bury my emotions is because I know that if I expose myself fully to the bleak, cold light of reality I won’t be able to stand it, emotionally. I thought, “I may not be strong enough to cope with reality, but I’m smart enough to protect myself from it.” Though this statement is, at the very least, interesting, there’s a devastating undertone ringing in my ears. I have always- always- valued strength. Strength of body, mind and heart. I have strength of body (though it’s something I enjoy improving upon…), and I have strength of mind. I have motivation and resolve. I have the strength to take four advanced, accelerated or AP classes and still come home and make dinner. I have the strength to be persistent when necessary and to stand up for what I believe in. Yet somehow I don’t seem to be strong enough to fully accept what is true; what is real. Instead, I appear happy in the day and break down alone.

Lately something ominous has begun. Or re-begun. At times during my days I will part with someone or end a conversation and, as soon as I am detached from the other person, tears spring into my eyes as if they’d been waiting until no one was looking. Once today during a conversation I turned away from the person to walk in front of them in a stairwell and feel my face crumple into an image of despondency.

This has happened before, and what ensued was something that I will neither forget nor relive. Instead of suppressing my emotions I’m trying to let them be. However, this has very nearly resulted in crying in public—over nothing. I try instead to cheer myself, a technique that has worked spectacularly for me in the past. Nothing. I find that in me there is something that doesn’t even want to feel happy. That scares me. Nothing is so dangerous as the disorder which is accompanied by complacency; the disease which brings to the victim a loathing for health.

So I turn my mind to optimism. I think, “I work now for the future.” Somehow that’s not enough at the moment. Somehow the opposition from so many places is pulling me down. And were it not for my few allies, those who care enough to listen and understand, I may fight tooth and nail. But at present I simply cling onto others for life support while ceaseless fire reigns down upon us. Being an outcast is something I don’t mind. Something I even enjoy. But it is somehow disturbing when the adults—so-called role models—discourage and practically punish an adolescent for being willing to work hard and to pull more than their weight.

Perhaps the most tiring thing of all is that my personality is such that people sometimes cannot help but take advantage of me. I offer myself up as a doormat, unquestioningly accepting work and responsibilities that others simply don’t want, or lending out my patience to people with long and ultimately mundane problems or a desire to waste my time. Even those people I am closest to can’t help it. I want not to trust them; to be callous or rude and deny them my effort and my patience and use it for my own means. Yet I cannot and do not want to. If any strength remaining in me is admirable, it is that patience which enables me to be taken advantage of over and over and continue to give unconditionally. It is both disgustingly unrespectable and deserving of great respect.

Once again I feel as if I owe some gratitude to the wonder of technology or to the art of writing, for in a short time my frustrations have been wholly cleared. Oddly, even though I am very much inclined towards visual art, nothing allows me peace of mind like writing. Whether I write about my difficulty or about something completely irrelevant, I invariable feel new afterwards. Now, to my great displeasure, I must return to the objective, boring work of everyday life. Perhaps if I am at a library soon I will have time to write some fiction—I’m in the mood to write myself into a vessel of space and time and explore the bounds of reality.

Another Wait

2009-09-04T12:36:00.003-04:00

It's been- once again- too long since I've written. This time, though, I'm at a public library. I'm thoroughly convinced that our home computer is in the process of dying.
I haven't had much time to daydream lately, as I managed to let some of my Summer school work to slip until the last possible minute. As things stand, I have to complete a timeline and a book, answer questions which correspond to said book, create a poster, write a summary and a reaction paper. I also have to make sure I know the meanings of each of a list of Biology vocabulary words, can sketch a world map, locate the Galapagos Islands and trace Darwin's route. School *technically* starts in 6 days. Surprisingly, though, I'm not all that worried.

Right now, I'm taking a break. I just finished looking up the information for the timeline and the maps for memorization. I have twenty minutes left on this computer, and then I plan on making a reservation with a "workstation" computer so as to do the time line.

Apart from the work I have yet to complete, I'm actually quite excited for school to start. It's now been two months since I've had a daily structured routine, and I'm quite ready for it to restart. I think the biggest thing I'll miss is riding my bike everywhere. In theory, I could ride on weekend, but the snow here makes it hazardous and nearly impossible on public roads. But-- can't complain. I won't allow myself to.

I very nearly forgot until just now. The moon was full last night. I react in a very extreme way to the full moon on a clear night. Better if it's a late summer's night.
So in the midst of my reading a bright light caught my eye, like an old friend waving from the back yard. As I turned a page in the book, the soft paper shifting between my fingers, I looked absently out the back door. There hung a bright silvery orb, low in the sky. The light was exquisite, blanketing the grass and the trees in something so soft and so magical that it almost seems to whisper as it is reflected from object to eye. Without thinking, I pulled the smooth string of my bookmark to take the place of my waiting thumb, and the book settled onto the table as I rose to my feet.
Face pressed to the glass, I saw the cold crisp light of the moon dance through the air, come to a rest in the clean dew which had itself just landed upon the grass. Worried by my strange behavior, my dog walked close to my feet, snatching away my attention with the soft caress of his fur. Startled, I brightly said, "Wanna go out?" He reacted by prancing in a circle and running towards where we let him out on a long leash by the back of the house. I followed him in a trance, gently taking in collar in between my fingers and coaxing the door open. The refreshing unfiltered light fell across my arms and face, slipping in through my pores and making me into a new being. As I allowed the cold metal clasp to close around the dog's collar, I stood up and spread my arms wide, embracing the moon and feeling the light like liquid static flowing in through my pupils, bathing ever cell of my being in magic.
The dog trotted further out into the yard, glowing with the light of the Great Luna. Slowly then I lowered my arms, placing my hands in front of me, palms up, so that I could see the light reflecting off my hand. I inhaled deeply, almost convinced that if I tried hard enough, I could become part of Luna herself, a walking creature of moonlight and magic, purifying the Earth with clean, cool white light. I felt the moonlight on my tongue, playing over my nerves like a snake charmer softly convincing the creature to trust, to obey. I myself was unsure whether I was charmer or snake, predator or prey, or perhaps the charm itself, a vehicle through which all might be made right, a tool for purification of life by Luna. Bringing my hands together, I realized something beautiful. Moonlight can never touch itself. Even if one were to place his hand to the moon, his hand would cast a shadow onto its surface. Because the moon itself is no more than a mirror. I revelled in the simplicity of the idea that had never before occurred to me as I turned my back on my beautiful friend and walked indoors. Though Luna is in my mind a force which deserves the utmost praise, I know in reality that She is no more than a product of physics and that to spend time giving undue worship would be the greatest of fool's errands.

Heart in the Sky

2009-08-29T11:42:00.002-04:00

I like this picture. ;)

This message was sent using the Picture and Video Messaging service from Verizon Wireless!

School

2009-08-28T20:23:00.005-04:00

It seems to me that it's been far too long since I've posted; since I've allowed the flow of language and imagery carry me away.

Several days ago I was a student at an all girls' boarding school about 70 miles away. My mother had placed me there because- oddly- it cost much less than the school I currently attend. Everything was much stricter there, and our uniform consisted of navy blue, knee-length skirts, light blue blouses and matching navy blazers. Even the shoes (black, plain) were uniform. All the other girls were quite content with the setup, and acted like stereotypical children of high-income families. I happily acted as the outcast, but earned outstanding grades in every class. One class I enrolled in was Irish Step. I tried to convince the administration to create horseback riding, fencing and/or archery classes, but to no avail.
I visited my "real" school something of a changed person. The conditions of the new school had forced me to be somewhat more outgoing, and I was ecstatic to be with people of my own "type." I still had to wear the uniform, but I certainly couldn't complain when all of my friends were wearing their uniforms, as well...
There were also some moments where I created a secret door in my closet wall in which I kept everything I wasn't supposed to have at the school: jeans, tee shirts, a blender... an interesting mix, overall. As for my classmates, they never knew a thing.

Warfare

2009-08-19T16:54:00.007-04:00

Another weird dream. We were invaded by foreign troops, who came in with their new political ideas and a promise of pain and death to any opposition. Not only because of my mother's political views but also, separately, because of my own, I heavily opposed the new ideas. Therefore, when the troops came into my school and told us to separate ourselves into those who agreed with the ideas and those who did not, I talked quickly and as quietly as possible to those I knew held the same views as me. However it appeared that they were not so passionate about the future of the country or of society as I was myself. Therefore I alone pretended to agree while they submitted in actuality. Frustrated, I finally told one of my close friends that I didn't care what views she held, but asked that she make sure she could defend herself, no matter which side was attacking her.

Then I was hiding. There was a large building with many militant guards throughout, and I was running through it and hiding. There were also two girl of about my age who were running and hiding but seemed to have more idea of what they were doing. They helped prisoners to escape. Still, we hid. At one point I locked myself in where the prisoners were supposed to stay to see what happened to them. A soldier came and took me to where the prisoners were kept. there were small, open sided areas where they were forced to sleep, and they could go to receive food at what looked like a pine tree but was only the greens attached to each other in such a way that they made a massive tree-shaped shell. I knew we'd have to work there and that we would suffer. I thought of the Jewish Holocaust and the concentration camps there. It was very much the same. I don't remember any more.

It's the End of the World As We Know It...

2009-08-16T11:32:00.004-04:00

Two nights ago I dreamt that the world was ending. At first, we simply all knew of it; heard it on the news. A plague was spreading across the globe and there was no way to sop it. It would kill all humans, and only humans. The symptoms began several weeks before death and involved various types of suffering. In this, it was similar to Nevil Shute's "On the Beach", though these symptoms were very strange and took much longer. Talking to Sam while walking towards a Centro bus, I told him all about "On the Beach" and marked various points of ironic similarity. I told I regretted never having asked him to read it. Later (or perhaps before... who knows?) Mom and I visited Sam's apartment and I noticed a man who was undergoing chemotherapy, and at first wondered if he had the plague. I also wondered if my mother might let me go to Sam's house so that I could die with him. I think it was then that I awoke, wondering at the strangeness of my dreams, and then dropped back into sleep. Into the same dream. now, though, we were in a convenience (or similar) store. Mom and I and Sam and his mom and several ambiguous classmates were there. There they distributed poison to end the suffering of those for whom the pain was too much, and there we learned more about the plague. We had a month to live. I told Sam that since (in my dream) it was August 8th, that meant that we'd all die before the start of the school year. I then asked the girl at the counter for pen and paper so as to record what was happening. I knew no one would be there to read them, but as I explained to the others, the writing made me feel better. Then I held Sam close to me and for the first time I was afraid to die. I whispered in his ear, "I hope there's nothing after this," though I don't know why.
Shortly after that I awoke again.

Storms

2009-08-10T16:00:00.005-04:00

Since last night, it has stormed in various degrees. Perhaps around 9 or 10, truly astonishing lightning and thunder began.
By 11, it was both very exciting and rather scary. I stood by the upstairs windows, watching as lightning filled the sky, so bright that it created many minute days. The thunder was unceasing, a low roar steadily filling all, with an overlay of cackling beasts followed by whip cracks that shook the very soul.
Again, and again, the cacophony of light and sound stunned my brain, creating new worlds from ripples in the very fabric of space and time. Winds whistled, rain pounded. The whole thing was some great exciting show and it seemed that I was a lone spectator, awake and keenly aware of every breath that the storm took.
In the morning, many hours after stunning lights and angry crashes had somehow lulled me into sleep, the feeling of calm-after-the-storm was very nearly tangible. The morning light was a tired yellow, touching on millions of raindrops that the storm had left behind.

Now, another storm is brewing above, undoubtedly coming within the next few hours. Outside it is as if even the deities of Mount Olympus wait with baited breath, unsure what havoc the mighty storm might wreak. Birds and small animals are nowhere to be seen; they wait cautiously for the shaking, flashing, booming, pounding of the storm. The sky is gray but alive with invisible energy, and several times a minute one can hear a thunder creature run its circuit around the sky.

The moody blue winds breathe through the living, whispering the most sensuous and the most sinister of secrets into the hearts of all. The ground, despite last night's downpour, is pleasantly firm, awaiting even more moisture as a kitten awaits milk. Oppressive clouds shed the Earth with a fluorescent light, and each color shines with unspeakable intensity against the ominous backdrop of anticipation.

Yet a third storm, quiet and subtle, has outlived both of the previous and roils now beneath both. The storm is in my mind, and keeps me shut into myself just as a physical storm keeps so many in their homes. I feel at one with so many things beaten down by the rain; the trees and grass speak to me and help to remember what is true of all storms: Despite how much damage created, every storm has an end; Harder storms are eased by brevity; And within a storm all is washed clean and made to be new. This storm is not like that long and deathly depression which I once knew. It will leave quickly, I am sure. and it will leave me better than I was. But I cannot help but be exhausted by the groaning of my mind at unexpected points in the day. Just an hour ago I lay down without cause or need and found myself curled into the mattress as if it were my one and only friend. Now I feel relatively content. I only hope that within a week this storm will be over, and perhaps two suns can emerge as one.

Sigh...

2009-08-05T09:35:00.002-04:00

In a rare moment of allowable sadness I lay there, feeling broken and despondent and allowing the cold gray of my own speculation to wash over me. I whispered into the pillow, "I just wish you were here." I wrapped my arms around myself and slowly sat up; heaved a great sigh in preparation to leave my words and my thoughts behind. Just then, my phone rang. It was him, just calling to check up on me. He was there with me, after all.

Dual escape

2009-08-03T10:17:00.004-04:00

Today I long for reprieve, though I am not sure why. It seems to me a deserving day. I have to work, but not until later...
I'll be babysitting. It will be good for me to spend a couple of hours around children. Their energy and their laughter renews me. Until then, though. I must use my crazy mind to fight off this boredom.
As usual, two thoughts enter my mind in the very same instance. One was purposeful, and was something to do with living life dangerously, being outgoing. The other was awaterfall that I have never seen, not even in my imagination before now. I'll describe the waterfall first, as I do not know how long the image will last.
Mentally I see that I am not facing the waterfall. Rather, I am faced towards the downward slope of a large hill. On my left are several trees, some of which seem to be willows. There's a gab in the trees, large enough for seven people to walk side-by-side. Through the gap I can see the waterfall, sparkling and beautiful. It ends in a tidy little pool before continuing as a stream down the hill. Behind the waterfall is a backdrop of leafy green trees, and there's no sign of human life for at least 10 miles in all directions. The place where I'm standing is a small clearing of sorts, and if I walk towards the waterfall I see that the water in the pool is clear and calm. I walk closer to it, but its surface is a couple of feet below the rock edge here, and so I lay on my stomach and in order to reach my hand into the water. I feel the pressure on my abdomen from hanging over the edge, and I feel the blades from a nearby tuft of grass tickling my toes. The water is crisp and cold and reminds me of walking barefoot outside in the winter. Carefully, I move to site with my feet over the edge of the rock, and lower myself until I am up to my knees in water. I cannot stay this way long, though, without either dropping into the pool completely or pulling myself back up. I choose, therefore, to pul my body back onto the rock. I move back into the clearing, looking down the hill towardsmore trees and a field beyond that. I walk through the trees, careful to avoid injury. Then, I see a field of grass and wildflowers, where I lay in the bright warm sunlight with stems and leaves all around me.
Now to living outrageously. My thought was of skydiving, or parachuting, of white water rafting. Of living on adrenaline and luck. I imagine feeling my heart in my throat while standing by the open door of an airplane, with the strong secure feeling of the parachute strapped to my back. I imagine something- insanity or joy or god knows what else- pushing me to to jump gladly out of the plane and freefall happily. Air pushing against me while I drop through the sky, finally pulling the string and sailing at a more reasonable pace to the ground, filled with the thrill of height. As I descend, knowing that I'll want to do it again as soon as I'm sturdy on the ground, I see everything- trees, cars, houses, getting larger. Finally I manage to land on the ground safely, my body feeling strangely light and my head lighter.
...off to work with me now.

Beauty

2009-08-02T20:58:00.002-04:00

So today's trip was nice. There was a detour which led us through some beautiful scenery, including a lot of woods and a farm. I was lost in thought, imagined buying a large plot of land and farming part of it.... the abundance of willow trees led the mind to much whimsy.
I love willow trees... there was one which I loved dearly and is now gone. When I walked by and saw the pile of woodchips, I was struck with the sort of sadness one feels at a funeral, and I took a large chip home with me. There's another, too, which I like to climb. I have seen it twice.
At the moment I dream silently of a future of warmth, perhaps in my thirties. Presumably, by this time I will have earned the job I want and moved out of the city... One can hope. Out of daydreams for now. Perhaps I will expound later.

Quickly..

2009-08-02T12:11:00.001-04:00

Very full day. Don't know why I'm bothering to post. Have to go to calling hours later on. Had another weird dream last night during which I searched my entire house for adevice by which my mother was recording my conversations. It's shocking how much detail I mentally described my house to myself in. It's also shocking how creative some of the potential hiding places were. But I am crazy, after all... right. Things still weird mentally. Maybe I'll just get used to it. Going to start asking people their ideas on intuition. Bye.

The Crazy

2009-08-01T09:18:00.005-04:00

So... I say it all the time: I'm crazy. I'm insane. I'm a lunatic. I'm mad.
But, while I'm definitely out of the norm, I do like to think I have full control of all my faculties. Still.. I have sort of "crazy phases" in my life. I'm not so sure I'd say it's me who goes crazy, but crazy things happen. All at once. It may not be this way in reality; it may be me submitting to confirmation bias, or it may just be a little bit of coincidence.
Regardless, though, it's all very odd to me. I sensed it the day with the circus music. A different brand of crazy in my mind. Then the weird dream with the cubbies. Last night I had another weird dream...
I was walking to my father's house- or my grandfather's house- which is actually my grandmother's house, because my grandfather is deceased. I got a ways there, perhaps a couple of miles, but realized that I wouldn't be able to walk there and back before nightfall. I decided that I'd need my bike, but I didn't have it with me. There was a man, however, who stopped me and who said he had a bike to lend me. So I was there for several uncomfortable hours while the man showed me different things about the bike, and towards the end I began to wonder if he'd want some sick sort of repayment. I tried to think of escape routes, and eventually my mother came to pick me up in her car, and by then it was nightfall. The creepy man tried to kiss me goodbye, which bothered me very greatly. I consented to a family- like kiss on the cheek. He tried to kiss me again, and I turned and twisted away, wanting desperately to leave. That was the end of that dream. Now if this dream wasn't weird enough by itself, my mother told me this morning of a very disturbed looking man walking into her work yesterday, looking for the police. They redirected him to the police department and called the woman there to forewarn her. She, being simply a secretary, called a sheriff to come and wait with her. The man said he was turning himself in for rape.
I also had another dream where it was my first day of school and everything got messed up. Classes misplaced, people disappearing. I talked to one of my friends and she said something that surprised me greatly, though I don't remember what...
Oh- and that family friend that passed away? My mother had been thinking of him all day, and on the way home from the restaurant, before we found out about his death, she deliberately took a route that passed his house...

So perhaps the crazy is returning. I don't know. I sort of hope not, because I tend to think that it's almost entirely some cycle of psychological disturbances within myself. And last time I got that way, I was a very different person,with a great many more issues that I have now. and I refuse to go back there. I strongly believe that that which does not kill you makes you stronger, but it was a special mix of numbness and luck that it didn't kill me. And I know full well that if I allowed myself to regress, I most likely would not survive the second run.

Join!

2009-07-31T15:13:00.000-04:00

missalice.webs.com
It's a brand new art site. :)

Rainy Day

2009-07-31T11:47:00.004-04:00

Normally I love the rain. But today it is drizzly and gray as ever and still I am left feeling sad. Perhaps it is the learning of a family friend's death yesterday, but I rather think not. It's something deeper still.
Last night I had an odd dream that was both very familiar and entirely new. In the dream, I was at what- in my mind- was my childhood home. It did not look like that in reality, but I have dreamt of it looking that way before. In part of the dream, the home was larger and seemed to be more of a boarding school. There was a lot of flitting about the yard, running, hiding, sneaking. I'm not sure why. I spoke to people that I don't speak to often. There was something about flying... I think. The peculiar part was some cubbies along the side of the property. They were muddy crevices in the side of the building, with stones and bugs all in them. There were four in a row, I think. Once when I went over to them, there were three younger kids joking and pretending to hide in them. I hid in one for real, though I don't remember what it was I was hiding from or what I had done that necessitated hiding. It seemed to me that it was something very bad. Later, an old man in an adjacent house- who it seems that I knew- needed glue, and so I went back to this crevice to retrieve two things that I had left in there most recently- toothpaste and glue. And there were also a couple of other things of mine which I left in there. A slide rule, a sparker, and something else that seemed somehow similar. There was something sinister about the cubbies, though. Something deep and secret. I'm still not sure what. I think it pertains to the Hallway Dreams, though, and this worries me. I have accepted that I may never know the root of the Hallway Dreams and simply want to push the whole thing into the past, as it won't benefit me to know more. And now a cubby, and I keep remembering past dreams such as one where I visited an underground prison where live many monstrous creatures. I want it to just go away. Maybe I'm just not sure if I want to know the origin. Either way, it's a big waste and it keeps me wondering when I have many, many more important things to do... and there was something in the end of my dreams. I was pushing on a wall or something, at a bus station I think. And a Centro bus pulled up, and 2 people got on. The second was Sam, and I said something like, "Oh- hi!" And I'd been thinking "Some things..." and he smiled impishly and waved, and I thought "Some people..." and then I woke up. The cause- an incoming call. From Sam. Irony?

The Circus

2009-07-29T13:12:00.002-04:00

I'm at work with my mother at the moment. Submitting this via cell phone. I'm hearing circus music in the background of my thoughts, and somewhere there's a great masqued elephant whose rider is dressed as the ring master. Clowns hover at the edges of the crowd, too real and barely there all at once. The crowd is mesmerized, laughing a clapping but each aware that under their cheerful guise there lies a certain dormant fear, waiting with baited breath to turn into tumultuous panic. The whole thing is thrilling as can be...

Fearie III

2009-07-27T08:35:00.003-04:00

Niamh rides a long way in the underbelly of the great infant-holding creature. After what seems like the most perilous of journeys, the creature stops, as does the child's mother. Drawing a deep breath, Niamh looks around. They're stopped outside of a cottage, similar to one she's seen once before near her home. This, however, is not abandoned as the one Niamh knows. In fact, it seems that the child and its mother may live in it themselves.
The mother walks around to the front of the creature. Niamh sits tense, sure that the monster will fight. but to her surprise, after just a few seconds the great creature relinquishes the child, and walks, holding the infant, into the little house.
Quickly, trying to avoid any humans, Niamh jumps off of the beast and runs into the shrubbery in front of the house. Waiting there, she sees the human mother and an even larger human- a male- walking towards the strange animal.
"Honey, could you get the stroller?"
"Sure."
The second voice, the male, is deep and fills Niamh with much more fear than the gentle voice of the mother-human. However, she continues to watch from behind a hydrangea as he walks towards the animal and fidgets about its legs. suddenly, the belly of it has collapsed, and it lays sideways upon the ground. He has killed this thing called "stroller!" Curiously, though, he picks it up under one arm and bears it into the house. Perhaps it will be their meal...
Despite the apparent danger of the situation, Niamh slips into the house just before the mother, following the man- apparently the father-human, slams it shut.
In the house there are many more strange creatures, and Niamh wonders if each of them has been killed in the same manner of the stroller, as none moves. She sees something with a large, square body held on four straight legs, and something else which seems not to have been dead long, as it is soft and warm, and even larger than a dog.
Beyond the soft animal is the child, now trapped in a small fence of some sort. Surely they don't plan to use it as food? But Niamh's parents had told her long ago of humans keeping large animals inside fences and stealing their milk until they slaughtered the animals and use them to eat. The child, however, did not seem to think it would be used as food. In fact, it giggled merrily to itself, flailing its arms and legs.
Carefully, Niamh moves towards the laughing human, thinking that perhaps it's youth may render it safer than its full-grown counterparts. Standing on the other side of the wooden bars, Niamh begins to whisper.
"Hello! Can you understand, or are you yet too young?"
The child, turning to hear the whispering sound better lets out a cheerful "AHH!"
Niamh moves back several inches but does not run as it looks through the bars and continues to coo. The child, whether mesmerized by Niamh's almost ethereal glow or her size or simply her movement, tries to roll to better see her, but only manages to see her by turning its head so that its cheek is parallel with the floor.
Several minutes later, the parents come back into the room just as Niamh slips under the large creature, still warm and soft. Atop this creature the parents sit, and for several hours Niamh listens to pleasant conversation and watches the child. Niamh learns, by listening, that the creature here is a "couch" and that the child is called Emily. Then, after the only light comes from atop the square bodied creatures and from a small sun which hangs from the ceiling, the mother says "You ready for bed, Emily?"
The child does not seem to understand the question, but is delighted nonetheless when the mother picks her up out of the fence.
"I'll go pour some wine." It is the deep voice of the father, and causes Niamh to jump in her place under the couch. The father leaves the room and enters some other part of the home, as do the mother and child. Niamh follows the pair of females carefully, and finds herself in Emily's bedroom. After new clothes are put onto her, her mother says, "Into your crib, now." and lowers Emily into another fence, this time raised off the ground like the stroller. "Nighty-night."
After she is sure the mother is gone, Emily climbs up the leg of the crib and through the bars to see Emily. In the darkness of the room, Niamh's glow is startling, and Emily watches her ans she moves about the little crib and whispers. After a long while, Emily falls asleep and Niamh finds a warm place to rest in the corner behind the crib. Perhaps I will make a friend of this Emily, and perhaps her parent-humans will not kill me.

It was the very first time that Emily slept through the night.

Pets

2009-07-27T08:05:00.003-04:00

This morning I awoke at 5, and was unable to get back to sleep. Therefore, I allowed myself to drift off into daydream.

I had a pet tiger. I love tigers, you see, and so I had one as a pet. A white tiger. I'd been helping at the zoo and this particular cub's mother had recently died, and there was no one to take care of it. Unable to resist the little fur ball, I brought him home and nursed him. I named him Bach, short for Bacchus- the Roman god of wine. So, he grew and I had a large fenced in yard where he roamed and hunted what small prey he could. Eventually, I added a pond to my home, where resided two turtles and some fish.

In the quiet of the night I could feel the turtles' hard shells and the thick fur of my tiger, hear its quiet roar.

Having been brought up as something like both dog and cat, Bach liked to sit on my lap. However, once fully grown, this could only work if I was sitting on the floor or on a large couch, where he could be partially on my lap and partially on something else.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for animals, especially young ones.

My dog (left) thinks he's a cat, though, so perhaps I'm just extraordinarily good with bizarre pets... In fact, he's currently playing with a blueberry, pawing at it and chasing it.

...Anyhow, I love most animals, which is why they pop up periodically in my daydreams. Dogs, cats, small animals (guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, rats, ferrets, rabbits), reptiles, amphibians, some spiders, even some fish and some birds... and tigers, and horses. :)

Yesterday

2009-07-25T22:11:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was a date that it seems I should remember. A day that left me not daydreaming, but reminiscing. I hope I'll never forget. . .

I have some interesting stories. Haha, I just thought, "I should start a blog." I'm a genius. I'm not really with it at the moment.

Got some art supplies earlier today. I want to daydream. And reminisce. And mix the future with the past, the former with the latter in my mind.

In my mind, I'm in a beach house while the same storm that currently pounds on my windows rages over the ocean. With thunder and lightning. And maybe a little covered porch where I can sit with a big blanket over me, watching the water dropping out of the sky. And that's just how I feel. And it's beautiful.

June 24, 2009. Who would've guessed?

Roses & Thorns

2009-07-22T21:48:00.006-04:00

Books! My other delusions.

2009-07-21T18:00:00.004-04:00

I just finished "On the Beach" by Neville Shute. It was fantastic, though in my personal opinion Mary, one of the characters, was quite aggravating.
But besides he, I absolutely loved it. The topic was intriguing, the plot well developed, the ending inevitable and heartbreaking simultaneously. Overall, I'd say it was beautifully written and that it would do some well to read it.

After finding a dead squirrel on the road on the way back from a cheerful little jaunt to the village today, my delusion was that I'd found it when it was still alive and been able to get him fixed up and healthy again. The overly fanciful part of me continued it from there, decorating the story by making the healthy little squirrel live in my yard and come to visit me at my window after I gave him stitches. The part of me that is relatively rational but still functions within my little daydreams,though, was quite content to have the squirrel in good health.
In reality, the best I could do was to move him off of the road so that the damage that happened to the body was only that of nature.

I was thinking earlier that perhaps I should keep Post-Its an a pen with me at all times so that I can leave notes for people with positive feedback on the maintenance of their homes, the kindness of their employees, etc. I would not sign them and not tell anyone in "real" life about it; it would just be my way of anonymously trying to brighten people's days.

Party

2009-07-19T21:31:00.003-04:00

Today was one that didn't require a mental escape. This is odd, because today was the day of my birthday party. Generally, parties are a great source of stress for me. However, today turned out to be fun. There were a lot of people, but it was all quite nice. There was a healthy dose of insanity. Even with the work involved, it was the sort of day that left me smiling. So I guess no weird tales for today. Weird. I have an idea brewing in my mind, though...

Waking Dead.

2009-07-17T16:27:00.002-04:00

Yup. Today I died. Of course, I was just sweeping the floors. But in my mind, I got into a horrible wreck that left me dead... for over an hour. During that time the medical doctors had no way of expecting me to come back. But I was moving through the world happily. Of course, I couldn't experience anything with "normal" senses, without a brain to organize input or a body to collect it. Rather, everything was like pure uninhibited truth, impossible to doubt, and I experienced everything the way we feel when we have intuition. I wasn't a part of physical space, and socouldn't really travel through it. However, there were current of emotion which I could sense (almost like the human sense of taste, I decided) and then follow to "where" I needed to go. Though I wasn't physical matter I could affect it, being pure energy. Therefore, after "examining" several different living peoples' brains, I figured out how to make my lifeless brain fluent in every language that I couldthink of. Then I learned other things, followed the emotional paths to visit those that I loved, and finally relatched myself to my body. All in all, I had fun with this. Of course they were calling me a medical miracle afterward, but people were quit disappointed with my explanation that I couldn't really have died, because if what I experienced was the after life, there would have been a lot of other dead souls floating around, too. And a lot less people would stay dead.
As for the fluency thing, that was just because I felt like poking around a little in my imagination to make the idea make sense to me.
:)

The List

2009-07-16T17:06:00.020-04:00

So many times, I've found myself giving a sort of mental declaration of what I love and who I am. You know; all those things you want your loved ones to know but never come into your mind when you're speaking with them. Or maybe that's just me. Regardless, I can't help but feel that it would be good to record these things, just... because. And I may as well have that list here, with the rest of my mental calamity. No one project or book or picture or song or anything could ever encompass me, especially seeing as my interests and loves range so far and wide. These are the things that, if I died tomorrow, I'd want in my obituary. Which is funny, really, because no one in the "real" world knows about this blog. Least, not yet. I'll continue to add to this list as new things come to me; it may go on forever. The never ending post... and if it does ever finish, the beginning parts probably won't even apply to me anymore.

I like horror books and movies. When I was younger I'd sometimes think of how one might make the perfect murder possible. I listen to a lot of rock music, but I've also been passionately fond of classical music since I was very young; this is probably because my mother used to play theme music from Mickey Mouse on the radio during my naps when I was 4-ish. I talk conversationally to my pets when I'm home (otherwise) alone. I enjoy hand washing dishes. I like to daydream, to read, and to see movies for one common reason: they provide distraction from reality. For as long as I can remember, I've had a feeling that I was(am) truly unique. I like swimming at night. Once when I was 10 I took what I'd read from a book- that a person dies every 5 seconds and a person is born every 7 seconds- and figured out mentally how many people the world loses per year-- during a shower. I plan on going into a medical career, but was I not so passionate about helping people in that way I would likely go into a career involving literature; it's another one of my passions. Sometimes I like to read laid back, overly feminine books because they make me feel as if I'm on vacation. My favorite musical instrument is the violin. I love sunlight and books that make me cry because when I was depressed, I couldn't cry and I felt as if the sunlight was cold and gray... I couldn't stand that. I like to sew by hand. I enjoy baking. I love to sing, despite the fact that I'm only so/so. I love gardening, and the smell of fresh fertile soil. I love the full moon, almost to the point of being creepy. Oftentimes when I'm bored I work myself into an inspirational frenzy where all I want to do is create: write, draw, sculpt, etc. I think I'd prefer living in a small cottage to living in a large modern house. I love the idea behind patio homes, but when I'm there in the development I'm sickened by how suburban they are. I love waking up to bird songs in the summer. Similarly, what bothers me most about winter is the dead silence throughout the house. I work best, and hardest, in the middle of the night. With as little light as possible while still seeing what I'm doing. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the first non-realistic book I read. I prefer silver to gold. I like spicy food; spicy like chili peppers, though- not like wasabi (usually) or like curry (usually). I love trying foods from many different cultures. The reason I like making and embellishing my clothes is having the knowledge that mine is the only piece quite like it. I want to change the world in little ways; I am not the hero but the wise person who leads them along the way, not Cinderella but the Fairy Godmother, not the warrior but the seer. Despite the fact that I am not religious, I have a favorite Christmas song: "The Gift" by Aselin Debison. I don't like to go to the doctors, for unknown reasons. I have difficulty letting people into my life. Every aspect of my personality is either absurdly extreme or perfectly neutral. My favorite part of babysitting is rocking and singing to toddlers (and infants) until they fall asleep. Though not protective of myself, I become fierce when someone I love is threatened. Despite what I say, I'm still uncomfortable with my body. When I retire I'd like to move either into the country or into one of those very small, self contained towns. Sometimes I'm intimidated by how much of my future is already planned. I fully, genuinely enjoy my own company, and in that way I have more ego than anyone I know, even though I tend to be quite humble. I love the scent of new, freshly sharpened pencils. Sometimes it's hard for me to admit when I'm wrong. I hate, hate, hate to be appeased. When I'm sad about something, I imagine other peoples' lives in the future without me. Sometimes I like to manipulate my own emotions. Sometimes I see myself as utterly pathetic. I fear weakness. Even more, I fear that I'll hurt others around me-- emotionally, that is. I don't like birthday parties; my own or others'. Sometimes I want badly to let loose and be crazy; to go over the edge. When I'm tired (sometimes even just emotionally tired) I rock rhythmically back and forth, usually until I fall asleep. One of my cousins also does this, so I wonder if it's genetic. I love all the seasons equally. I love winter for the beauty of snow and the dark mornings. I love spring for the way color seems so vibrant at the close of winter and the rebirth all around. I love summer for long lazy-warm days and inky black nights with warm breezes. I love autumn for the crispness of the air and the variation in tree color and the smell of fallen leaves. When I was about 9 I thought I was a witch. I'd like to go skydiving sometime in my life. I like conspiracy theories. I almost never leave my house without my cell phone, money, photo ID, my insurance card, and usually a book. I hate being lectured, because for awhile when I was young I'd get almost daily lectures on what I'd done wrong that day... but I firmly believe that these lectures led me to be the introspective, rather cautious person I am today. However, if I do get lectured, it's usually unnecessary. I only need to be told once in order to make a decision about whether or not to follow the advice, and lecturing fills me with desire to rebel. Though I need to keep my mind almost perpetually occupied, I love the way I feel after a long day of hard manual labor. When trying to keep from crying, I focus on specific details of tangible things around me, so as to engage the detached, technical part of me. I'm terrified of becoming depressed again. I like to write with quill and ink. I miss taking Irish Step Dance. It makes me uncomfortable to know that I would flourish in politics. Sometimes I like to think about (almost plan) my wedding, just because. If I ever have the time and/or the money, I'd like to travel the world. I don't see anything wrong with dressing simply and wearing the same outfits often; my friends occasionally complain about that logic. Though I almost never get angry, I'm vicious when I do. I like to think that if people have "souls" in the sense of a metaphysical identity that survives after the body has died, that all living things do. I love to ponder the hypothetical. I play songs in my mind when I'm bored or need background music. I don't mind being someone else's doormat if it's all I can do to take care of them. Sometimes I wish I could just be-- human; allowed to show the range of emotions that others show. I don't have a "best friend", rather, I value all my friends differently. I like brightly colored plaid. I love the sound of bagpipes. I sigh at the beauty of nature. I like to think about the end of world. Sometimes when I'm alone I make myself cry and then I can't stop. I like to cook for the kids I babysit. I call people who I know won't listen to a word I say. I don't tell people about things that bother or sadden me because I don't want them to treat me differently because of it; don't want them to feel the need to choose their words carefully around me. I consider it self indulgent to act depressed or even sad, and therefore only do so when I'm alone. I talk to myself when I'm upset, and say the things that I know I'd regret if I said to the people for whom they are intended. I'm so used to acting as the man of the house that I often forget to let people take care of me. Some days- just when I'm feeling weepy, I miss the days when I was an island unto myself, completely emotionally detached. I used to have spells where I'd get frustrated and want to throw, break, punch, and/or bite things. These spells started when I was very young-- perhaps 3ish. I like to fish. I don't hate anybody. I don't like gambling; perhaps this is related to the feeling of loss of control, leaving things to luck. While I don't believe in any great being or religion or even necessarily an afterlife of any sort, I can't help but feel that there's a sort of path of least resistance through life, a certain current that we can put ourselves into, so that we're not fighting against life... and this doesn't really fit into any of my other (non) beliefs. I love animals. I love thunderstorms, and if they occur at night I'll often sit on the floor by a door or window to watch the lightning. Both the thought of eternity and the thought of ceasing to exist scare me a little bit. I am never fully confident in anything I do, not even the simplest of tasks. I love big tests such as midterms and finals, and standardized tests. Sometimes I think I'm prettiest when I first wake up. It scares me how sometimes couples that have been together for years break up seemingly overnight. When I was younger I used to think I had precognition. I love the way the sun looks overwhelmingly bright and liquid if you first wake up with it shining in your face. I sometimes enjoy the feeling of being hungry. I've learned how to distinguish the natural male human scent from the natural female human scent. I don't mind the thought of the apocalypse happening in 2012 as much as one might think. However, I'm not the sort who'll go out and spend their life savings on living the time until then like a mad person, either. I love the scent of a wood fire. I love old glass bottles. There are currently two people outside of myself in the whole world that possess the ability to make me cry. I like walking barefoot outside... except of course in the winter. Every so often I come to the realization that I seem to be the only one I know who's really almost fully reliable... which equates to almost everyone I know taking advantage of me in some way, or at the very least taking me for granted. I am not great at anything, but am good or at least decent at a great many things. Sometimes when I'm alone I have conversations with myself aloud. I love the smell of Play-Doh. When I can't sleep at night I make up scenarios that require many decisions or mundane details to occupy my mind until I drift off. Sometimes I try to imagine what I would do if certain loved ones died; I'm not sure why. I love cemeteries and have for as long as I can remember. When I was quite young (5ish?) I would always be sure to have something hard and something large and soft before I went to sleep, so that in the event of a fire I could break my bedroom window and then cover the shards with blanket, pillow etc while I slipped out. A little before that time I thought that all my toys came alive when I was asleep. My favorite color is blue but my two favorite colors are purple and green. I wonder, if I could meet myself as a 4-6 year old, what my younger self would think of the person I have become. Once when I was young I kept wishing I could go back in time in order to keep myself from breaking something, and suddenly I had the thought that perhaps I actually had gone back in time each time I'd wished to, but without being aware of what was about to happen or having gone back- according to this theory I simply kept making the same mistake over and over, never knowing that it had occurred before. I get frustrated with myself when I can't maintain my optimism. I love when people confide in me, not because I want to know their secrets but because I love knowing that they trust me. About three years ago I had an idea that the reason people are crippled by pain is that they fight the sensation... I figured that instead, I could welcome the sensation and therefore draw strength from it. Scarily enough, it kind of worked. I hate the thought of always being busy but I hate the thought of being bored more. Occasionally I am able to "play" large chunks of books in my mind for my entertainment. My memories of the night my grandmother first went to the hospital before dying are muddled in such a way that premonition seems the only answer. I enjoy camping. I also enjoy swimming. When I was young I could be entertained for hours with things such as a large cardboard box. I have inside jokes with myself. I never say most of what I intend to say to people, because I determine that it's not important enough to bother. I don't like chocolate ice cream. Walking is my favorite mode of transportation. I like going outside in the rain until I'm soaked to the skin... it makes me feel new. Sometimes I'll sit in front of the mirror for almost an hour, squeezing my pores. I love the feeling of a big yawn. I love clocks. I love buying presents. I fear addiction. I believe in working for everything I get. I love the smell of fresh mint. I hate constantly changing my mind. I think that only three types of bugs bother me: flies, ants and cockroaches. I cry more at night than I do during the day. I have only had two real "break downs" this year (as of September 4, 09)... this means I'm getting better. I don't try to understand myself. I feel relatively sure that I've repeated myself at leas once here, and don't really care. I love the rain but don't particularly like the cold it brings. I make myself cry. I hate to tell people if I'm sick. I'm always unsure of myself. I fight with people when I'm home alone, so I can say what I need to get out without having to regret anything. Ever since I was 11, I've gotten an odd feeling of pressure in my head when I'm very overstressed or thinking of too many things at once (like being smothered with a pillow). I have more confidence in myself when I'm alone. I get paranoid if I'm alone in a building. I love fixing things manually. I'm comfortable with holding the "male" position in my household. Sometimes eating in public makes me feel self-conscious. I use puns to get out of answering questions I don't want to answer. I need a best friend like me. I like to watch people at stoplights (they have their guard down). I think in the third person and write in the first.

Escape

2009-07-16T10:19:00.005-04:00

Well, my birthday turned out to be something that rendered the need for creative escape. Granted, the evening was a whole lot better than the morning. But I'm happy it's over... So here goes. It's all straight from my mind so it may be a little crazy.

I feel a streak of lavender and blue arching up through my forehead, and it sounds like a chime and feels like singing all out. I don't know how to explain it properly, but that-- thing, streak, sensation, thought-- is my current state of mind. Maybe even state of being. There is a wild thing in my heart, serpentine and lost and tragic but also innocent and joyful. All at once. It moves with the rhythm of these things and slowly its twisting turns into a dance for all that's wrong in the world to be made right. At this moment I am greatly lacking in rational thought, which is unlike me. I am emotion, energy, wishing dearly for a canvas to splash myself upon but fearing the consequences of attaching myself to the tangible world. So alone in a psychic vacuum I sit, writhing and dancing and singing with colour. What's that I feel? It's a scream. It's in the back of my mind, but also in my chest. I can almost hear it, the whistling of icy wind as I scream as loud as I possibly can and collapse into the snow. I move now into a place that exists in the real world, but that I will probably never see again. It's so well hidden; I doubt many people have seen it. I can hear the waterfall, feel the icy autumn water run over my feet, into my sneakers, drenching my jeans. I can feel as my palms wrap around tree roots, trying hard to keep from falling towards injury or death. Once safe, I feel the soft ground under my feet as I walk along the edge of the stream. I see the familiar rocks where I can hop across so as to find higher ground. Then the next waterfall. So much shorter; probably less that 12 feet in height. I can't remember the height as clearly; I only saw this part a couple of times. I remember walking carelessly through the stream here, for it's shallow here, though slippery. I remember the rocks on the side, How slippery they were, almost falling. I still wish I'd found a way further. For about a year that waterfall was my lifeline. I re experience the rushing water, remember bringing the dogs with me. They would've found help if anything had happened to me.
Now I go to a beach. I need its warmth. Hot, soft sand, molding under my bare feet as I walk, the sun bathing me in molten heat. I can see the ocean a bit, but right now I smell it more than anything, salt water slipping through the air into my nostrils and pasting itself into the background of memory.
There's another happy place I had when I was young, that I loved. It started one year on the Fourth of July when family friends, my mother and I were on vacation and went to see fireworks. We were seated on a big cement slab that stuck out into the ocean. I remember closing my eyes for awhile and just listening to the fireworks and the water, feeling the breeze. And then I was on my Rock. In the middle of the ocean, completely separate from other humans. The rock is big and dark and the ocean is always stormy. Overhead is booming thunder, the sort that shakes your very core. Rough waves throw mist onto me as I lay on my stomach, listening to the beauty of the storm. And that is the whole magic of the rock. For awhile I added a cave which led down into a magical world where the greenery itself emitted bright light, and faeries and small animals- my only sources of conversation- lived and danced merrily about, always joyful simply to be in that magical world. But somehow even with that cave I always took time to step out onto the exterior of the rock and enjoy the full moon, the sound of thunder rolling in the distance, the feeling of sea spray on my skin.

2009-07-15T00:01:00.001-04:00

Happy Birthday to Me!

What I love about sunsets...

2009-07-11T21:13:00.002-04:00

...and sunrises, of course. After all, I prefer sunrises to sunsets, though I love both.

Looking at the sky tonight (a lovely and ominous looking thing, with pink icing on storm clouds, a clear yellow-orange chunk of sky and lightning in the dusty West), I realized yet again the very same thing I realize each time I see a beautiful sky: that there is no medium that can accurately portray it; not paint or pastels nor even photographs. The sky- most notably at sunrise at sunset, is constantly and swiftly changing, and oftentimes the colors and shapes are simply indescribable. Because we haveno way to capture the beauty and save it for later, or share it with everyone we know, it forces us to simply live- at least a little bit- in the moment, and enjoy the view before it disappears.

Two things I love are watching daylight shoot out across the morning sky and watching the sun set until the very instant it is swallowed by the horizon. I'm lucky for the fact that when I really take the time to fully experience something-- such as I do with those two things-- I can replay it in my mind over and over.
I do this with sounds as well, but it takes much less conscious effort to do so with sounds than with images for me.

Soo Famous

2009-07-10T15:59:00.001-04:00

Singing into a can of butane. :)

Happy Place

2009-07-10T12:07:00.004-04:00

Haha loading 10 more CDs on my computer.
But anyhow--

Right now I'm mentally living in a happy place that switched between a pleasant secluded field and a pleasant secluded beach. Currently it's the field, but the two occupy the same "place" in my mind. Can't quite explain how it works.
The field is beautiful, accessed by walking a ways into beautiful woods behind an imaginary house. It's also oddly shaped, allowing for a certain amount of exploration. The bright green dewy grass is often treaded by all sorts of wildlife, including deer, squirrels, and the occasional adventurous child. I can watch the clouds pass overhead in my mental eye, and make friends with a variety of animals.
As a beach, It's bright and golden with a wild ocean and soft sand. Even better at night, calm with a full moon and warm tide pools and a blanket of stars on an inky black sky.

Now I'm on that beach at night, laying on my back in the sand. I feel the residual warmth of the sun press into my skin as the soft grains mold around my body. The moon looks as if it might fall gloriously into the ocean, pushing the black water onto my feet. I slowly inhale the warm, salty scent and exhale any tension I might have held as a warm breeze begins to play over my face, pulling with it a few strands of my hair along.

A Note on Songs

2009-07-09T21:00:00.004-04:00

I'd like to tell anyone who happens to find this blog about some songs that I find to be a bit unique and quite like.

"Don't Haunt This Place" by the Rural Alberta Advantage is a little more folk-ey than I normally go for, but it has something comfortable about it that makes me smile.

I'm quite fond of Korn, but I think that "Freak on a Leash" by Korn WITH Amy Lee is much, much more impressive; more dynamic with the use of violins and with the addition of her fantastic Soprano range.

Also, I absolutely love U2. However, the Vitamin String Quartet's version of "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" kind of blows me away.

In slightly more "normal" songs, I love Jimmy Eat World's "The Middle", Puddle of Mudd's "Psycho", Live's "All Over You", "I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor" by the Arctic Monkeys, and "Two of Us" as done by Aimee Mann and Michael Penn.

Also I'd like to say that there are some extremely impressive singing parts in the musical "Into the Woods"...

Maybe I'll be obnoxious and post my whole music library.... who knows?

Faerie II

2009-07-07T21:40:00.008-04:00

This poor little faerie has to have a name before I let her go any further. The name?

Niamh. Goddess of he queens of the land of eternal youth... meaning radiance; brightness. I like.

Unsure where to go, Niamh slips into the shadow along the edge of the building nearest to her. After waiting frozen for several minutes, she sees an animal unlike anything she's ever been exposed to. It has four legs whose feet look like flat stones rolling along their edges, a big female human pushes it along by what could be ears or maybe tails, and in the beast's open belly sits a young human, too young even to communicate with the others. Intrigued, Niamh grabs hold of a narrow tendril between two of the feet and feels the speed of travel.
A long way- perhaps 200 hundred feet- down the path, the human child begins to stir, and suddenly lets out a noise unlike any Niamh has ever heard. A cross, she thinks, between the bird's cries and the human voice. She wonders why the beast she is riding does not protest this angry squawk or the desperate flailing of the child's limbs. Only now does she notice that the beast has narrow, scaly looking arms which wrap around the small human's body, binding it into the beast's abdomen. It seems odd to her that the child's mother only moves with the creature, and makes no attempt to fight it for her child. Then Niamh lets out a sigh too quiet to be heard by any but the most attentive of humans in the most serene of places. Humans act so differently that the other animals I know...

While Waiting

2009-07-07T14:58:00.003-04:00

Earlier today I found a map from one evening when I was young and angry and had drawn out an escape route entirely on backroads to Canada... talk about deluded.

I can't resist.... maybe Faerie Part I?

2009-07-06T20:57:00.001-04:00

Yeah, I just posted a little while ago. But I'm like an excited child when it comes to new writing opportunities. Blogs, profiles, websites, you name it.
What follows here is going straight from my head onto the page, so I apologize for the extreme lack of organization its likely to hold...

A faerie. I prefer it spelled that way. I don't know why. She has no name. I can't see her, but I don't need to to know what she looks like. No more than 2 cm high and dressed not as fairies are normally pictured but in denim shorts that go nearly to her knee and a little fitted tee shirt. It might be green, but I don't know for sure. Her body looks delicate but her demeanor is strong. Her hair doesn't seem to have any specific color or cut, but it's switching between auburn and chocolate in my thoughts. I think it's pulled back in a low pony tail. That or its cropped short. She glows with an ethereal light that signifies her very life force. Perhaps this is because her body is so small that her soul shines through, whereas the human soul gets lost in our big bodies. Her shoes are like ballet slippers; with no sole and laced on. However they are made instead of brown leather, making them reminiscent of Irish Step gillies. I'd like to note that this particular faerie wears no makeup.
She likes to navigate the dense forest of tiger lilies that grows wild near her home (an abandoned beaver dam, by the way. It has a lovely view of the perilous river and the humans don't bother her family there.) . She is mature in age, about the human equivalent of 25 years old, and she loves to adventure. Yesterday she met a cat who, after unsuccessfully batting at her with its paw, allowed her to ride upon its mighty back for several yards.
Today, though, she's out on an even bigger journey. She wishes to find the end of the river. She watched one of the boats that the humans ride upon, and is reasonably sure there's a way she could make the same thing. Being the resourceful little thing she is, she manages to find a pea pod, whose outer edge she sews up with grass, all except for the very end, where she can slip in and out. She pushes her creation to the edge of the river and, leaving a note attached to a twig as a monument to stand in the event that she perishes, she scrambles into the pea pod and pushes off the shore with her hands before pulling herself all the way in.
The journey seems perilous right from the very beginning. Waves and miniature waterfalls assault her vessel as she struggles to keep from rolling around its interior. The pod nearly fills with water on several occasions before our little faerie is able to release the water to the river. Just as she's sure that it can't possibly get any worse, and that she will probably never see her home again, she discovers that it can, in fact, become much more unpleasant. A seagull dips down and snatches up the traveling pea pod, and in an attempt to avoid being crushed by monstrous beaks, the faerie falls out of the pod and into the churning water below. Only by the sheerest of luck, she finds a maple leaf floating near the place where she struggles for her very life. Only seconds after this discovery, she pulls herself onto nature's thin raft and holds onto both the edge of the leaf and a hope so strong it could only be born of a hopeless situation.
As it turns out, either hope is a friend worth keeping or the faerie stumbled upon a very fortunate coincidence, for no more than two hundred feet further the waters, though swift, lack any significant obstacles and the faerie finds the phrase "smooth sailing" resounding in her mind. Soon after that, the waters calm even more and the faerie's rate of travel diminishes until her leaf is floating still as stone on what could be either a pond or a lake, as far as she can tell. Beginning to panic, she tries desperately to paddle her way forward, but her small hands lack the surface area necessary to move the leaf. Finally, sighing, she leaps off and begins to swim, hoping that she's nearing some sort of a shore.
"What's that?" The voice is of the high pitch unique to young children, and this particular boy is pulling impatiently at his mother's hand and pointing at the tiny body struggling through the still water near the edge of the dock.
Humans! The faeries all know that human presence mean death. Terrified, the little faerie ducks below the water's surface, struggling to get low enough to be invisible. And how far can humans see into the water? No one has ever told her. She suspects that no one knows.
The child's mother, glancing sidelong towards the patch of water that had so excited her toddler, sees nothing but circular ripples. "It's just a fish, Dearie. Come on, let's go get lunch ready so we can go on Daddy's new boat."
When the faerie is quite sure the humans have left, she breaks the surface, gasping for air. As she pulls herself into thick mud of the bank, her eyes widen practically to the size of peppercorns. For there in front of her, where she'd expected to see grass or trees or perhaps even a cottage, are buildings higher than the tallest trees she's ever seen, very nearly beyond her comprehension. And scarier yet, there are humans. Not a family, which is quite scary enough to begin with, but enough to be many families; many big terrifying lethal families. And somewhere beyond the numbing shock and paralytic terror, the little faerie feels the smallest spark of excitement, the thrill of her biggest challenge yet.

Lol..... I've had too much fun with this. It was originally intended to be a quick paragraph. But I'm growing rather fond of this little faerie; perhaps I'll turn her into a series. Maybe even name her. We'll see.

Let's get the intoductions out of the way.

2009-07-06T16:58:00.001-04:00

So... yeah. I'm Jacquie.
Whether it's a defense mechanism or something bordering on schizophrenia or just the result of my whimsical mind, I've always had this interesting habit...

Occasionally when I'm bored or generally doing something that doesn't need to hold my attention, I come up with a story, put myself in a situation. Sometimes- usually- I end up acting some of it out. When I was young it was almost constant. I was talking to God, watching my life. I was an astronaut. I was a doctor curing a crippling illness. I was a news anchor. I was being interviewed. I was a singer. I was an actress (and they were still called actresses then!). I never felt unfulfilled because I was everything I wanted to be with a touch of imagination.

Of course, I have to live in reality a *little* bit more now, But it sure doesn't stop me from living out imaginary lives, assuming imaginary identities... I may not write daily, and I may not always write about such vivid fantasies. But I'll try to keep my real life out of it...

Today

Today I was acting in a play. Or a movie. I switched off. My character was a girl in her early twenties trying to earn a living by housecleaning. Secretly, though, she wanted to sing and dance. It was her dream, but she wasn't brave enough to pursue it.
Every day she'd go to clean house and she'd bring music with her, a great and varied play list dominated by energetic songs. She'd then sing and dance while cleaning, occasionally getting a few hard-to-explain injuries, such as when she smashed both kneecaps on the counter top. When the homeowners came home, the wife- a high society type woman- scoffed at the music she heard. The man, however, was more laid back and down to Earth. He mentioned to his wife that they knew someone in the musical industry and they could help the girl out with her dream. After a slightly heated conversation between the couple, they helped her.

So today ended happily. Believe it or not, it doesn't always. And sometimes I think I don't even have control over the ending. But she story entertained me for several hours of dialogue and singing.