After a summer of wearing Rainbow flip flops (very comfortable; not at all squishy) almost exclusively, taking an evening walk in athletic shoes feels like heaven.
(What are these things on my feet? Springs? Maybe I can complete today's burpee challenge after all!)
Life, by the way, is rolling steadily along. Had quite a bit of drama in the family/close friends group over the past six months: a long hospital stay, a twice-broken ankle, a cancer scare (that is to say, it was indeed cancer, but it's been removed), a bipolar relapse...but things have been leveling out, and there are also several weddings coming up, and there's been a good amount of playing in waves and sand, and a couple of friendships restored and others renewed, and a new camping hammock, and more reading than I've done in quite a while. Things are good.
Sara and I (and Brian, but he doesn't come into this story) have lived by the river for nearly two months now, but until this evening we hadn't gone. So today after everyone was awake and fed and had sat around watching the cat and wasting time on the internet for a while, Sara and I changed into swimsuits and headed off down the hill. It's a very short walk--maybe half a mile--and well worth it, because the parking down there is horrendous. We walked past lines and rows of waiting and parked cars, right down to the water's edge, and then upstream along the bank until the people thinned, and we found a spot to leave our towels. The water was deliciously warm, and the rapids relatively soft, and we waded and stumbled and half-swam, laughing, halfway across through the current until suddenly deciding to make camp on a half-submerged boulder. We sat in the sun, half-in the water, and talked and people-watched and drank in this gloriously beautiful setting-sun landscape in our backyard, and after an hour or so we collected ourselves and walked back up the hill toward home.
I hung my wet skirt and sarong on the back deck to dry, and was bombarded by a wave of childhood memories and nostalgia for all the countless days I walked to the pool and walked back, or walked to the creek and walked back, and hung my wet things to dry.
I smell like the river. It is the most perfect smell there is.
Sometimes I live my life in a swirl of smiles and affection--the sometimes-dreary trudge of days is highlighted for a time with shining memories or glimpses of my cousin's beautiful red hair, my best friend's smile, my best guy friend's hugs, gorgeous slanting rays of sunlight and the earth warm beneath my feet--and those are the things that matter. Those are the things I hold onto.
But other times, other days, other moments, it doesn't matter how much time I've spent with the people I love. It doesn't matter how much they love me. It doesn't matter how great I felt or didn't feel earlier in the day. The beauty of the sunset slides right off my temporal lobe and disappears into the cold river, and all I feel is bleak and alone.
By the way, I was planning a surprise party for my mother. But she reads this blog sometimes. And it stressed me out to no end--I really do need to keep working on managing stress better--but it went well. Everyone who said anything to me about it (and that seemed like a good number of people) was very complimentary. And they said I looked very festive. There were a lot of compliments on that outfit, but a lot of weird looks and such too. Whatever. My mood had been hellish not too long before and I needed colors and craziness. I don't know if there are any pictures. Sara might have some.
I'm still recovering. I'm not as wrecked as I thought I would be, but I have been really dragging. A woman I work for gave me some really nice vitamins (a week's worth!) this morning though, and I think that the ones I have taken are helping (!), so that's nice.
Tonight: Breaking Dawn with the high school crew. I don't even care what you think.
Last week when I was tutoring Layla out on the dock, I saw something white bobbing in the water under the walkway. It looked like one of those soft, white, round mushrooms (which don't grow in the water, of course), but turned out to be a goose egg. Despite my best efforts, I failed to effectively convey to her that the watery sound from inside the egg meant that it was dead, that it was rotten, and so on. Anticipating the smell and fearing the view I didn't want to crack it, but I allowed myself to be convinced. I carried it away and downwind from the house, stood back, and cracked the shell with a stick. I would have let Layla, but she lost her nerve at the last moment. It seemed that somehow water had seeped into the shell, so what came out was a terrible smell, a piece of embryonic sac, and half a shell's worth of grey liquid. Layla spent the next ten or fifteen minutes telling me that I should have cracked it more gently, though I tried to explain that "baby goose eggs" need to be kept warm in their mother's nest; that all of the goslings had already hatched and didn't she remember them?; that floating in the water for weeks will never let an egg live. She said that she had hoped that if I cracked the shell gently enough, it would turn back into a baby goose.
I and my father went to pick my sister up from the Greyhound station the other night, and from the parking lot I looked up into the night sky and saw dozens of bats swooping and gliding through the air above the baseball diamond. In my experience, bats don't usually soar and glide, actually--they flutter around and frequently change direction to go after insects. It's also rare to have such a clear view of their motions, though, so perhaps I just haven't been as observant as I might. The lights from the stadium shone straight up into the air, and I can only assume that the air was filled with enough light-loving nocturnal insects that the bats could just soar straight through the beams and get a mouthful on each pass. Good on ye, bats! I love 'em.
Friday, just before the goose egg incident, Sara and Brian and I went to see the VMFA Picasso exhibit in its dying days. I don't love Picasso particularly, but as ours was the only museum on the East Coast to get the exhibit, and as Mr P is super duper famous and influential and all, I felt that I should go. It was good. I mean, he's talented, you know. Also, he really likes boobs. A lot. Just a heads-up, there.
Saturday S and B and I went to an herb farm and took in a talk about beekeeping and met up with Anna and her friend Amy, who seemed pretty cool. Anna and Amy and I accompanied the beekeeper back to his hives and watched him replace the queen and the observation frame and essentially got another lecture lesson about beekeeping, which was really cool. We ate some lavender iced cream and some honey iced cream and some chocolate iced cream, and I (and possibly Brian, but not while I was looking, not that I was looking often) helped Sara pick out a bunch of herbs and tomato plants and suchness for a hopeful new garden for her family. We got variegated basil, among other things. Not elfin thyme, though, despite my rabid support. Sara and I also bought fricking adorable beeswax candles in the shape of a little bear with his arms around a beehive (the stereotypical old beehive shape, rather than the more practical but significantly less cute boxy hives of today) and with a relatively large bee perched on the outside of the hive. They smell like honey of course, thus making me want to consume honey, and they are unreasonably cute, and I can't understand how Sara plans to actually use hers as a candle. I'm pretty sure I could never set that thing on fire.
Also on Saturday with S and B: impromptu (for us) fish fry; Strawberry Fields Festival where were sold unsprayed strawberries, spinach, kale, and no free kittens. Lovely. And buying cookie dough and cooking cookies not-as-long as the wrapping says, thus producing perfect soft, gooey cookies. And Kelly and Junior happening to be near my house, and being convinced to come over, and Sara and Brian leaving to dinner.
Saturday sans Sara and Brian: Hanging out with Kelly and Junior, and retrieving Chloe from the bus stop whilst they take in Picasso in all his slightly obscene glory.
Sunday: church with Chloe and Junior (who opted to stay, possibly partially because he seems to really, really love the couch in our basement. It really is excellent for sleeping), and an afternoon spent with my excellent cousin Sara (not to be confused with the Sara of Saturday), talking and reading magazines and rifling through items destined for the Goodwill.
All in all, quite a nice weekend.
I think there may have been other stuff, but I am not sure. I may have forgotten still.
Song I've been playing on repeat for a couple of days now (I haven't watched all the way through this video, so I apologize if there is any unforeseen weirdness):
You know what's utterly delicious? Leftover Chinese food: beef with broccoli from that takeout place down the street. You know what's really not that delicious? Salad with no chicken in. Just saying.
ALSO COMPLETELY DELICIOUS AND WITH WHICH I AM UNREASONABLY OBSESSED:
Also omg fried rice is the best thing ever, ever, ever invented. Ever.
On another note, it totally sucks when people seem really awesome and then you realize that they don't actually, you know, like, understand the concept of boundaries. Or, for example, the idea that the world doesn't revolve around what they want. Or that their problems are not my problems. It's not the most endearing thing in the world.
On yet another note, Sunday was largely really awesome. Jack and our parents and I had 8:30 am "brunch" for mother's day, after which Jack and I each crashed for several hours. Generally I try to get to church on Sunday mornings, but we had been to the funeral for Kelly's grandmother on Saturday, which included a mass. It was (of course) very sad, but the service was beautiful. Being around so many people that I loved was beautiful. So anyway, no church on Sunday. When I woke up there was a distant* cousin stopping in at our house on his way out of town, so we talked and had lunch, and he's an interesting fellow. Possibly an electrical engineer? Or trained as such. I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning my room (relative success!), and at one point took a break to walk Miley. There were several separate points of awesomeness on said walk:
I smelled honeysuckle!
I also smelled cut grass!
I also smelled cigarette smoke, which would normally be not-awesome, except that it was coming from Gina, whom I have not seen in probably eight years. She lives in the Norfolk area, and her mother is a friend of my mom's and her maternal aunt--River's mom--lives behind us. She and her mom and grandmother AND HER DAUGHTER were in town for mother's day. Her daughter is six now! I had never seen her before, but she is so beautiful. It made my day to see them.
*I actually have no idea how we are related, but "Armistead" is a family name, and I'm pretty sure someone referred to him as a cousin at some point. Actually, there are rather a lot of people to whom I am related, but related in some completely obscure (to me) way. So "distant" here really only means that he isn't a first cousin, or (as far as I know) a second.
I guess it's been a few days. Seems like forever. But yes, it's Aprilagain.
For days I've been meaning to write about the fabulous sunset I saw on the way to Kelly's house the other evening, but I have felt neither the inclination nor the obligation to put anything down, aside from the initial notes on my cell phone notepad:
The most delicate peach-pink on the softest baby blue, and the whisping clouds in front a dark, pastel lavender. The sky is the only thing that can get away with pastels, if you ask me. A spring sky, post-rain, at gloaming time. Is anything more lovely? And the moon, hanging round and full just above the colored clouds.
I've been taking a WSI class, and I've been trying to coexist with my allergies, and it's just exhausting. The class was Saturday and today, and will run tomorrow and through Wednesday, 7-8 hours each time. I still haven't found the time and motivation to read through the materials, but I'd better before Wednesday, when we're sure to have a test. Red Cross rules rightly state that a person has to score an 80% or above to receive certification, and with the money Camp is paying for this class, I really think I'd better get a certification. So.
I'm enjoying the class though. Just not the fatigue, as much.
Regarding the allergies: I woke up sometime last week with a sinus infection, which has transmuted itself into some sort of dry-and-itchy throated, sleepy, sometimes headachy cough. And my eyes itch and burn.
Sunday, Lorraine and Jr and I responded (for once) to Anna's invitation to join her in dancing at Capital Ale House downtown. It was nice. And I had thought that Lorraine and Anna would hit it off, and they did. Lovely.
I seem to have been practicing self-sabotage on POF. That's probably okay. I've managed to end most email conversations that were going on, some more intentionally than others, and none gracefully. I thought I'd made a friend, back there at the beginning, and maybe I have--but we've hardly spoken in a week or so. It annoys me a bit that a week here is an "omg what's going on" issue, when going a week or more without contacting the vast majority of my friends is barely an issue, if it even rates mention at all. But anyway, I made boundaries and let him cross them, and it dampened my enthusiasm for the relationship. And then today a person I'd thought I might meet asked (or I assume that he'd have termed "send me a picture" as "asking") for a cell phone picture of myself, and I got annoyed and refused, and he got frustrated and hasn't texted since. (This is probably for the best, as I had nearly accidentally double-booked myself for Thursday evening.) It seems to be par for the course for that place to exchange cell phone pictures, but I think it's a stupid game. I don't really have a slew of pictures of myself on my phone, for one thing, but then also, who's to say we'll ever speak again? This is barely even an acquaintance-ship. You do not need to have a picture of me on your phone. And if you're asking because you don't "trust" the pictures I've got posted already, then you're kind of an idiot. One is faked as easily as the other.
That's the second rant I've written on the subject today.
Friday morning, quite early, I fly to Saratoga Springs to see Adrienne and Ian on their birthday. I'll be back Sunday, and Wednesday I'll be leaving for Lafayette, and will return Monday. Friday, or possibly Saturday morning, I'll be driving (or riding along) to Knoxville, to return Sunday. The following Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I'll be participating in a lifeguard training session taught by my friend Art, husband of Camp's director (friend Beth). The weekend after that I'll be house sitting for Sara's family, and do you want to know what's going on the weekend after that?
Beloved, let us love one another--for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love.
Be ye kind, one to another; tenderhearted, forgiving one another--even as Christ has forgiven you.
I love Sara. I love Anna. I love organizing bookshelves. I don't love holding a boundary and getting bitched out for it. I do love Sara for taking my phone and deleting hurtful text messages and the phone number from whence they came. She's awesome. I do love the fact that I'll be at Camp soon. I do, I do, I do.
I need to write, I think. I have not been writing.
Sara's home. She and Brian came over tonight to provide moral support while I did my taxes. It was great. It was so great.
Earlier today Kelly came over to talk, and I ended up providing moral support while she talked to her boss and ended up almost certainly quitting her job. She'd planned to do that in person, but it didn't work out that way. It was so great. We went to Carytown to celebrate, had frozen yogurt, walked around. I saw some shoes I've been wanting in a shop window and ran in to try them on--they're so new that there aren't any reviews anywhere online--and they fit pretty well. I may go back for them.
It was great.
Sunday Jack and I came home from Camp, I jumped in the shower, and I ran over to Sara's parents' house so we could all take the "limo" to meet Sara and Brian at the airport. The limo turned out to be more of a party bus, and Ami and I got tipsy on pink sparkling sake on the way to the airport (I essentially never drink, so this took...one soda-sized bottle of the stuff). We hid in the bus to surprise Sara, and when she saw us, she screamed. Group hug. Utterly unflattering pictures. Slightly drunken shopping at Whole Foods. Dinner of sushi and burgers and grilled zucchini back at the house. It was great.
And Camp...Camp was wonderful. It almost always is, when I let it be so. I had a hard time with that "let it be" issue over the weekend--I had a really weird, initially extremely unsettling and upsetting experience with some crazy guy from POF last week, and when I got to Camp it still had me in a heavy, black mood. I had to remind myself a lot to just drop it, but though I needed a lot of reminding, that reminding helped. I had had plans to corner Victoria and vent about this guy, and she was interested in the story, but she'd brought friends with her and felt the need to play hostess, and I didn't know what to say anyway. I was exhausted on several levels, and I guess I sulked for a while, but eventually I let go of my plans (always a good option) and hung out with Liz in the kitchen, talked to Jim on the swings, took a nap and saved this note to myself in my phone:
Here is where I am. Drop everything else. Here is where I am: alone and peaceful in a warm, dry bed in a safe place surrounded by friends and love listening to the soft rain and distant thunder retreating for a nap before supper. Alone and warm and beautifully sleepy, in a wholly beautiful place. That is all that matters.
That morning a group of us had gone caving. I had nearly backed out, but went anyway because another driver was needed. Jack went. The new people loved it. It was a very short trip, but it was good. That night we had a staff meeting to talk about programmatic changes, mainly to the patch and CiT voting systems. It was a really good meeting. And afterward, Charity and I talked to Beth about our roles as lead counselors. We talked about tithing to Camp and using the money to create a lead counselor slush fund. I'm really looking forward to it.
A game of pictionary was pulled together, using prompter cards from the 80's. A game of double Jenga was loudly taking place a few tables away, and later, an even louder game of mangy cat, which I and a few other pictionary players joined after our game wrapped up. It was really, really great.
VCU lost. I am disappointed, but it happens. I feel bad for them.
Today I woke up late (again) and took a shower and went shopping with Kelly and Maggie. This was all Kelly's idea ("Kelly, wasn't this your idea? Why are we shopping?" "There are sales."), but I'm pretty sure she didn't buy a thing. Maggie and I did the talk-through-the-dressing-room-wall thing--who designs this stuff? Why in the world would there be a zipper there? God, I love this shirt. Who would pay $25 for this? I hate money. This is the best dress ever--while Kelly wandered. I spent too much money today, but that was partially because I had to fill my tank, and that cost right about $70. Great.
An aside: this cat has been trying to muscle her way into my lap for about 45 minutes. I mean she really has been trying hard. She left a few minutes ago, I let my guard down, and BAM. Here she is smearing cat hair all over my new clothes. Thanks, Faith. Thanks. I love you too.
Eventually I kept my promise to my friend Joe to visit him and bring iced cream. I assumed he'd want the iced cream because he's just gotten his wisdom teeth out, but he's actually feeling pretty okay. So that's good. He lives about 40 minutes away, which was a little intimidating (aka "which sounded like a lot of work"), but it was a nice drive. I was evidently feeling a little pensive on the way home, and I made up a song. I have never, ever, ever done this before. It's not like there are a lot of lyrics, but I made up a song. I sang it into my camera so I wouldn't forget it, and I thought about posting it here, but what with my fatigue, and my focusing on driving more than singing, and the road noise and so on, the sound isn't all that great. Maybe another time. This type of thing embarrasses me. And I'm aware that it isn't particularly awesome or original, but I was just driving home and suddenly decided to sing it. And that felt sort of cool. So it goes,
You
You are there.
You are always there when I call your name,
You are always there when I call.
You are always there when I call your name
You are always there when I fall.
And when I run,
and when I'm run down,
and when I run around,
you are there.
The night that I met Ok Go and didn't even realize how GDMFing awesome they were will forever live on in my memory in awesomeness and infamy. I had only heard one song, and only because Zach had put it on a mix cd for me, and I harassed him until he answered my "who the hell are these guys? So awesome!" questions. It was this one:
And then they came to play at our school. For free. And after some deliberation, and some assurance from my music source that they were good, I went. And they were awesome, I'm sure, but concerts are always better when you know more than one song. And at the end, when we cheered them back onstage for an encore, they said, "You know, bands always sound much better on cd than they do live, so we're just going to play a song from our new cd for you." And we thought,
Surely, they must be joking. Then a cd was placed into a boom box on the stage.
A joke, right?
They all lined up, pushed play, and stood still. We're almost on the verge of booing at this point. But then!
The A Million Ways dance. No one had seen this before. The video hadn't been released yet, as far as I know. And it was awesome.
And they came and hung out for a while afterward, and they were great. And so patient with an obnoxious freshman (sophomore?) like me who obviously knew nothing about them, didn't even know that they had a new member, bought the old cd and asked the new guy to sign it. Several of us took a picture with Damien Kulash with Megs' camera. I never even saw the picture. I could die. I spoke to Tim Norwind and had no idea that he was hilarious. I spoke to Dan Konopka and didn't know he was great. I made Andy Ross sign his name on Andy Duncan's album page. I'm an idiot. I guess these things happen, but it's a little painful to think about.
But anyway, I love them now, and that's the best I can do. Not in an "I know everything about every one of them and I dream about them at night" sort of way (actually, I had to get most of their names from Wikipedia just now), but in an "I think you guys are great. Your videos are great. Your music is great. I love the way you left your label so you could do what you wanted. If you ever decide to stop making music I am going to be quite sad" sort of way. And do you know what else I love about them? I love that they don't play into the "we're famous and sexy" BS that goes on in the world of music. I love that you get to see all of their faces in their videos. It's not "Damien and band"--it's Ok Go. And they're not demigods--they're guys from Chicago who make great songs and great videos.
For reference, the first video above, "Get Over It," is great in a pop rock, "our lead singer is hot" kind of way, and it does have a little bit of OkGo flair in the insertion of things like a random bale of hay and a few seconds of ping pong, but it's bland. I still like it, but it's really bland. By contrast, here is one of their more recent music videos:
Thoughts? They're so odd and so awesome, and I'm more in love with the music from "The Blue Color Of The Sky" all the time. It's in the mail right now, on its way into my very own loving hands and cd player. (And it's all because of you and your Best Buy Rewards Certificate, Sara. What would I do without you? I don't deserve your friendship, I'm pretty sure...)
I hung out with David for a short amount of time and didn't even get upset or anything. Win.
Volunteer work never sounds good to me at all, but I love helping out at the RBA, often even if I'm helping with things I don't even like to do. Today I spent several hours trying to get in touch with campers who came last year but haven't sent in their registration forms this year. Some had moved. A lot had disconnected numbers. A lot of the numbers I called had answering machines that didn't give their name. It was pretty awesome though, every time I could get somebody on the phone. And I had a good time.
I tutored Jacob tonight, probably for the last time, and afterward taught him to make origami frogs (and taught his mom and sister to make 3D paper stars) as a going-away gift. He's a good kid. They're a nice family.
I went to Kelly's after work and we watched Wipeout, which is along the same lines as, or is sort of a cross between, MXC and that one gladiator (?) show with the super hardcore obstacle courses. What's it called again? Anyway, Wipeout was awesome. All those shows are awesome.
Rock music: I love it. And I need to fix my OkGo cd. I've tried to be nice to it, but six years is a long lifespan for a disc. I sometimes have a hard time understanding why everyone doesn't love OkGo, or Everclear, or Ambulance LTD. I just don't get it.
Thanks to my friend Zach Bowman for accidentally introducing me to Ambulance LTD by raising the idea of going to see The Killers at the NorVa in...2006? There are quite a few things I owe to Zach Bowman, actually: for one, he introduced me to OkGo as well. THANK YOU ZACH.
I'm having a "this is me! This is what I love!" sort of moment. I have these periodically--where I want to be around people who are great, where I feel like I am pretty great and I want people to know who I am. Not in an "I want to be famous" sort of way, but more that I want the people I meet to know what makes me "me," and what unique gifts I have to offer. Everyone has their own gifts. I want mine to be known to you. And I want yours to be known to me. Possibly this has to do with the fact that I spent a lot of time with my good and wonderful friend Anna yesterday evening, and possibly it also has to do with the fact that I have been watching the "Jessica's Daily Affirmations" video today.
My whole house is great. I can do anything good. I like my school, I like anything, I like my dad, I like my cousins, I like my aunts, I like my Allisons, I like my mom, I like my sister, I like my dads, I like my hair, I like my haircuts, I like my pajamas, I like my stuff! I like my room! I LIKE MY WHOLE HOUSE! My whole house is great, I can do anything good, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, *dance, dance* I can do anything good, better than anyone..."
It's pretty much the best. It's the best. It's the best ever. I'm going to go watch it again now.
The things I have evidently not been allowing myself to remember to talk about are building. I'm in such a terrible mood today. I'm so disappointed in myself--in my actions, in my thoughts, in who I am.
Don't worry, I'll probably stop being so emo soon.
But I miss David today, which, to be frank, is awful. Off and on I've been missing being-in-a-relationship, obviously, but today my brain jumped to him without permission, and I started yelling profanities in the car.
I am considering the idea of listing things with which I am running out of patience.
Written in the early evening:
As I had hoped, the bad mood has lessened with the progression of the day, with work, with the eating of thin mints and the enjoyment of NPR. The level of deliciousness present in the common thin mint cookie simply defies reason. It doesn't even make sense how tasty they are.
It occurred to me as I walked down those exterior stairs into the basement where I've been painting that, although an argument could be made that this was just a "bad day," such an argument should not be made. Yes, Augie threw up some small pieces of plastic this morning. Yes, I was late to church for no reason. Yes, my brain jumped to David and yes I've been sinking energy into this one obnoxious-as-hell Godforsaken website (not blogger, of course) for a week or two and I'm getting sick of it, but those things should not be allowed to dictate my mood. And they don't. I dictate it. I am in charge. It's a good thing to remember.
Currently I'm waiting for Augie to digest his dinner for a little while before taking him for a walk, then I'll be heading to Kelly's. I've been unintentionally flaky and obnoxious toward her this weekend, and she is so forgiving. I don't deserve it. Why does she like me, again?
Also, please, for the love of God, do not ever let me get a dog. I do not want a dog. Ever. Ever, ever, ever, ever, f-ing ever. They're sweet and everything, but for me, the walking and the feeding and the poop-scooping and vomit-cleaning and the inability to leave them for any length of time and the vet's bills and the training and so on are so not worth it. Not even close to worth it. Also, I loathe puppy eyes. The dominance of this part of me varies depending on my mood and level of fatigue and so on, but it is always there.
Lastly, and unrelatedly, I love poetry. Some of you people who are theoretically reading this probably already know that. Apparently April is National Poetry Month here in the states, which I've probably realized before but never bothered to try to remember. It's awesome though. Awesome. This information courtesy of nateshorb.
In honor of all this and also because I just now remembered, here's a poem that this morning I was thinking of posting. It is by John Donne. You may recognize it. It's been my anthem off and on for a long time now.
Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for, you
as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
that I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
labor to admit you, but oh, to no end,
reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
but is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly "I love you," and would be loved fain,
but am betrothed unto your enemy:
divorce me, untie, or break that knot again;
take me to you, imprison me, for I
except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
(Sonnets FTW. Traditional paragraph breaks inserted by me for ease of reading/decoding.)
Okay and lastly for real this time, whilst typing the above and deciding on a case-by-case basis whether to preserve or update archaic spelling and punctuation, I was reminded of this most excellent song by a band known as Vampire Weekend:
Aside from the excellence of the music, I would like you to note the fact that this entire video is one continuous shot.
Junior came to the movies too, which was awesome, but did not see Red Riding Hood with us. He said that it would be just like Twilight. We said it would not. He was correct, which was kind of a shame.
None of us (except Kelly and Jr, anyway) had seen each other in what felt like ages, so we hung out in the theater parking lot for a while before going home. I missed them. I missed seeing them and being with them. Taylor makes me so happy, especially. And I missed Junior's hugs. He gives the best hugs of pretty much anybody ever.
Of course, there was that time while Jr and I were playing foot-stomp that a car full of teenage morons drove away and then yelled racial slurs back at Junior. He shrugged it off, because that's how he does things, but I really wished I had a javelin to throw into their car. Or, you know, a grenade. What the F is wrong with people? Seriously? I can't even express how angry and upset this makes me. He's one of my best friends and he's so much fun and he's a truly great guy--but you're going to say the most insulting thing you can think of to him--not even say it to him, but yell it from your car window as you drive away--just because he's black? Fuck you. You're a fucking moron.
Um, but other than the remembering of that, it's been a pretty good weekend. Seeing everybody really was great. And Chloe's home from school for a little while. And I finally caught up on my sleep. And the weather today is wonderful, even if I didn't go enjoy it properly at the river or in the woods or at a park. I'll have time later in the spring, and later this summer. AND IN LAFAYETTE. (I finally bought my tickets. Did I mention that? I'm going, suckas. Going alone again, but it'll still be good. I feel like it would be difficult for Festival International to not be good. I'll just have to be more careful this time about removing my contacts after a crawfish boil. For reals. I'll bring my glasses this time, just in case.
I keep just sort of not feeling like eating this week, and then not noticing until the end of the day that I've hardly consumed anything besides water. Probably I should cut that out. For example, today: 3 slices of pizza at Chuck E Cheese; the end of the bottle of V8. I am considering some ramen. Or a sandwich. One, of course, requires more steps than the other. HMMM.
EDIT:
I would like it to be known that, despite the number of steps involved, I make a really killer ham and turkey and cheddar and lettuce and onion and tomato and sliced pickle sub sandwich. It probably could have used a little more pickle though. Every sandwich needs some crunch.
And now: on to see Red Riding Hood with Taylor and Kelly and Maggie. I am into conjunctions today, okay?
I just saw someone's blog entry entitled "Falling In Love?" and when I saw it I had the feeling of reading a piece of a fairy tale. I wondered, "do people do that in real life?" Then realized what I was thinking. Interesting..
Forgive the following change in font. I copy/pasted from another post-in-progress. Here were my notes, and I'll be explaining each as a bullet point in lieu of actual paragraphs, because it's late and I'm tired and lazy and need to be taking a shower instead of mucking about online.
tuneless whistling/humming/singing/marching
I never understood how a person could do this until I found myself whistling tunelessly while walking the other day. And the whistling and the walking fell into time with one another, and I ended up marching to my endless unrepeating made-up song. It was like marching to pi... cairn o'mohr
The wine made by these people is so good. I mean, it is unbelievably good. I don't even like wine very much. I will admit to my sweet tooth, so you'll have to take what I say with a grain of salt (yes, ha-ha), but seriously. So good. Unfortunately they only ship on the UK mainland. CRUELTY TO HUMANS. 3d printing > food synthesizer
There's a link about this, but apparently I didn't copy it. There's a link about 3d printing. You can probably google that yourself, though. They get an inkjet-type machine to print successive layers of something, only with plastic or metal or whatever instead of ink. Someone made a working clock this way. Someone made a serviceable violin. Anyway the food synthesizer bit is a reference to Larry Niven, but I couldn't find a L.N. food synth link that I like. My point here is that they want to make the 3D printers into food synthesizers. I heard this on NPR, so it must be true. (Yes, ha-ha.) This is obviously a PopSci-type idea, and we're obviously nowhere near that level of sophistication, but still--intriguing. wind = dance with trees
I was thinking about this the other day during the wind storm that blew through. I was driving to work and saw the leaves whirling across the road, and suddenly I felt like the wind and the trees were dance partners. Or best friends. Or lovers. Or all. The trees are so still so much of the time, and when the wind passes through them it's like a smile. (Yes. I know. Don't judge me. I do what I want.) But it feels that way. And when the wind whips them up into a frenzy they sway and snap and bend and rustle, and all the old dead parts drop off and blow away. There's so much energy in a wind storm. I love to watch it. River? <3
I've known her forever. Almost since she was born. She lives behind me (or vice versa). We hung out the other day. She is awesome. The end. http://bookshelfporn.com/tagged/favorites
In the genre of "stories told by the losers." There's probably another name for this. The Wide Sargasso Sea and Wicked are others I've read. Apparently this one is downloadable for free! FREE BOOKS FTW.
Lastly, there was a note on the first "jumble sale" entry the other day, and I addressed it in a return note, and I'll copy the text of that here in case anyone else had the same "you need help" thoughts: No, I'm not in therapy, though I have been before. I've never really found a therapist with whom I have/had good chemistry, though I've found some friends who are sometimes as effective as therapists. Upon reflection I guess I did sound really sad, and I guess I was a little sad, but it was more a writing of reflection (there I go again with the late-night redundancy, but I choose to ignore this) than of raw emotion. I have often felt, this past year, that I am emotionally healthier than I have ever been, or than I have been since I was very small. It can be hard to tell, though, as (as I said) my depression has a history of hiding itself from me. Sometimes other people notice before I do. Even so, I have made enormous progress--and without therapists. I guess that's a point of maybe-slightly-masochistic pride, but also I'm cheap/relatively poor, and don't want to spend what money I have on arguably-ineffective therapy. (That isn't to say that there aren't effective therapists--only that those are few and far between, and hard to find, and often expensive.) Lastly, about the loneliness: generally, I think I'm not. I'm just alone a lot of the time, and sometimes I think that maybe this is a symptom of an issue I haven't noticed or fully worked out, or sometimes I just feel guilty for not seeing or speaking to people often or whatever. But dammit, I am an introvert. I came this way, and I am this way, and I like it. SO THERE, WORLD.
PostScripts:
1. Anna posted a facebook status: "I want you to tell me how we met. And I want you to lie." I posted it too, with some modifications. Just thought I'd post it here in case anyone felt like telling stories about strangers.
2. I got the Blue Screen Of Death midway through this post, and I have two things to say about this. a) Thank God for blogger's autosave feature. b) EFF.
Stop participating in this pattern: stay up till 3 (or 2 or 4) am; sleep till 9; be awakened for some unforeseen thing at 9 or 10; lie angrily or dejectedly in bed, trying in vain to lose consciousness, for a couple of hours; get up and do stuff.
I'm pretty sure I forgot something, but I think it'll be ok.
I have been interested to mull over the idea that when I make these grand (or perhaps not so grand) proclamations about myself or the way I feel about things, they are actually just snapshots of moments. I feel this way in this moment, and this moment may last for ten seconds or for a year, or two, or more. That my life is (I began to type "just," but thought better of it) a continuous, interlinked strand of moments. That I am a collection of moments. That all of my relationships, and all of yours, are built of them.
I also had a conversation with Sara earlier about things I am afraid of doing, and how I should probably allow for the possibility of them happening anyway, even though almost everything in me rebels against the idea. (I'm not good at opening up to people. It doesn't feel safe to me.) And after I came home from tutoring tonight*, I was suddenly having trouble remembering why I shouldn't just stay closed off and keep myself safe that way. Why should I try to connect with people, again? Then I remembered.
Look. I tried living out of fear. I tried shaping my life around the avoidance of things I was afraid of. It was no kind of life. That's why.
*It's finals week, and I missed four sessions over the holiday and Scotland, so I tutored Suzanne for two hours last night and two hours, fifteen minutes tonight. English yesterday and social studies today. It was great. I should maybe ditch this swim thing and find more people to tutor. Does anybody need tutoring in anything?
We took a van up to the airport, and we checked in for our Air France flight by an angel or something. We were upgraded to business class. I had never had much of an idea of what traveling business class would entail, but to give a basic description, it entails unbelievable awesomeness. It is, in my opinion, basically what long-distance air travel should be. Our seats were of a comfortable width, with ample leg room. Each seat reclined within its own space, so as not to affect those seated before and behind it. The food was, for the most part, rather excellent.* We were offered orange juice or champagne (or, in the case of those who couldn't make up their minds, both) after we were seated. There was a selection of complimentary wines. There were hot towels. There were extremely attractive male flight attendants. (Honestly, I suspected that they put the most attractive attendants closest to the front.) There were pillows and (sadly, quite scratchy) wool blankets, and little toiletry packets with eye masks and socks and lotion and travel toothbrushes. There were water bottles and little storage spaces for stuff. There were also individual movie screens with a selection of tv shows and movies and music and so on, but I suspect that that is fairly standard on international red-eye flights. I watched The Karate Kid remake and Inception, not in that order. The first was quite enjoyable, but I'm not going to try to argue that it was extremely high quality. I thought Inception (which I also hadn't seen) was fantastic, but after discussing it with Sara, I will admit that a lack of depth was covered up with interesting ideas like multi-level dreams. Still, I loved it, with the one exception of the stupid "oh, is it still spinning? Will it stop?" top totem shot at the end. I thought that part was a little bit stupid and unnecessary.
Anyway, I'll probably never get to travel business class again, but trust me: I savored every single moment of it.
I managed to stay perky and upbeat through our cab ride to the hotel and a bit of our tea with Sara and Ami and Brian, and then I started to crash. And then I started to get a bit irritable. And then I started to get downright angry. (This tends to happen when I don't sleep enough before leaving for a trip, and then I don't sleep on the trip, and then people tell me that I'm not even allowed to nap until nightfall.) I quietly and rather passive-agressivly ditched the giving-Sara-and-Brian-Christmas-gifts party and went and, dammit, took a nap in my room anyway. What was evidently only fifteen minutes later I felt about 60% more human, and barely conscious enough to talk myself into accompanying everyone on a stroll around the city and the Royal Mile, on the bases that 1. you only get a first day in Scotland once, and 2. Ami's visit only overlapped ours by about 24 hours. I wandered around, 15 feet behind the group, in a near-stupor with an utterly dazed expression on my face for what seemed like days. I watched the hours slide glacially past with mounting horror and a vague sense of panic. Eventually, miraculously, evening came, and I slept. I was late for breakfast (possibly I didn't sleep well? Can't remember), and sat down about five minutes before Ami left to catch her cab. We (Ami, Sara, Brian, and myself) had all spent some time together the previous night in the bar**, though, so it wasn't a total loss. We spent most of our time in Edinburgh wandering the Royal Mile, which is the mile-long (or so I gather) stretch of road connecting Edinburgh castle with the Scottish Parliament and the Queen's castle. It's pretty touristy, but it's nice. We met a schoolteacher who evidently uses his free time to dress up as William Wallace, take pictures with tourists, and flash unsuspecting bystanders with a view of the royal lion tattoo on his right buttcheek. We toured the castle, explored some shops, ate a lot of truly excellent food, and went to the Keilidh (pronounced kay-lee) at Hogmanay, which was excellent. These people know how to do fireworks, and even if the main band conspicuously lacked a fiddler, I loved the dancing.
After Edinburgh (which, I admit, was better and more eventful than I am letting on, but you're getting shafted because I'm tired and lazy) we went to Dundee to visit Sara and Brian's apartment and stomping grounds for a night. Their flat is enormous, and quite nice, even if the alley outside is loud. Very loud. I was struck with a strong urge to stay and live with them. I miss Sara a lot. :o/ All of their favorite restaurants were closed (as we should have forseen, as we were visiting on bank holidays), but we made out alright. The next morning, that being yesterday morning, we took off for a brief visit to St. Andrews and a very sleepy drive to Gullane, which is where I now sit typing.
Key points:
Scotland is beautiful.
The dollar seems far less awesome when visiting the EU, as the euro (not used here) and the GBP rather effectively cut my purchasing power nearly in half.
AMERICAN SCONES WTF. Don't eat that crap. Come to Scotland and try these.
If you aren't careful, random Indian men may or may not try to make out with you at Hogmanay.
Australians, forever underscoring the excellent rating they already have in my head, carry breath mints at Hogmanay.
Get upgraded to business class if at all possible.
Scots like thistles.
I am going to bed.
*In all fairness, I should probably note here that I almost never have problems with airline food.
**And when I say "bar," I mean a beautifully furnished and well-spaced set of rooms with an open floor plan, couches, and rather attractive*** bartenders.
But on Monday David and I went to the pageant, and it was okay. That is, he said the pageant was awesome, and he didn't stay for dinner. I thought the pageant was not-that-awesome, but ok. I get self-conscious when I take people to things that I have seen before; also it was strange for me to watch the thing without knowing any of the students who were in it.
Buying a gilt-framed mirror off craigslist tomorrow for $10. I know I need to stop buying myself things, but it's $10! And I have a thing about pretty mirrors. It's an issue.
I have an interview for an $11/hr swim teaching job tomorrow, either for adults or for kids--not sure which they'll want me to do if I'm hired. I'd have to work through at least part of the summer, but I feel like I can live with that. Let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we?
I am reading Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. Have I ever mentioned that he is a genius amazing writer? Because he is. I love him. Pity he's too old for me.
Tonight Kelly and Maggie and Junior are coming over to make chocolate things. Truffles, thin mints maybe, perhaps some chocolate-dipped citrus peels. Who knows. Should be a good time, especially if we get anything done.
