"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." -- On The Road ~ Kerouac

Hello Again, Old Friend

Hopefully I've neglected blogging here for long enough that most will have forgotten it even survives. Why have an online blog if you're not wanting an audience? Why not a journal or a diary? Something with a gold lock and tiny, shiny key? For me, those things easily devolve into my own griping and self-pity. At least with the illusion of a readership, I feel it necessary to not write entire garbage.

So yes. Hello again.

e e cummings introduction

"A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feeling through words.

This may sound easy. It isn't.

A lot of people think or believe or know they feel-but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling-not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.

To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn't a poet can possibly imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time-and whenever we do it, we're not poets.

If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you've written one line of one poem, you'll be very lucky indeed.

And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world-unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.


Does this sound dismal? It isn't.
It's the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so I feel."

"Joyful Girl"

i do it for the joy it brings
because i'm a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world
i do it because it's the least i can do
i do it because i learned it from you
i do it just because i want to
because I want to

everything i do is judged
and they mostly get it wrong
but oh well
'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way?
no, well o.k. then
don't cry

and i wonder if everything i do
i do instead
of something i want to do more
the question fills my head
i know that there's no grand plan here
this is just the way it goes
and when everything else seems unclear
i guess at least i know

i do it for the joy it brings...

Bethel-- Discipline or Passion

The exact sermon I needed at the exact moment of need:

Discipline or Passion

Peregrinatio est tacere: "To be on pilgrimage is to be silent"

"When the door of the steambath is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise, the soul, in its desire to say many things, dissipates its remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says may be good. Thereafter the intellect, though lacking appropriate ideas, pours out a welter of confused thoughts to anyone it meets, as it no longer has the Holy Spirit to keep its understanding free from fantasy. Ideas of value always shun verbosity, being foreign to confusion and fantasy. Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts." ~Diadochus of Photiki

"The mouth is not a door though which any evil enters. The ears are such doors, as are the eyes. The mouth is a door only for exit. What was it that [the Desert Fathers] feared to let go out? What was it which someone might steal out of their hearts, as a thief takes the steed from the stable when the door is left open? It can have been nothing else than the force of religious emotion." ~James Hannay

"There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passersby only see a wisp of smoke coming through the chimney, and go along their way. Look here, now what must be done? Must one tend the inner fire, have salt in oneself, wait patiently yet with how much impatience for the hour when somebody will come and sit down--maybe to stay? Let him who believes in God wait for the hour that will come sooner or later." ~Vincent van Gogh

Two for the Road

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

- 1 Corinthians 13:13

and

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Haunted

"Believers are not those who dabble in an idea to see if it's interesting. Believers are those whose soul is so aglow with the idea that they live it into life. We call them 'obsessed,' but, as a matter of fact, they're not obsessed; they're haunted by possibilities the rest of us cannot yet see--except through them." ~Joan Chittister, Becoming Fully Human

"To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that God moulds us according to God's love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things thar are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance in a world preoccupied with control."

-Henri J. Nouwen

And It Will Be Good

In a few minutes, I'll shut off this computer. I'll fold up the blankets twisted around me, throw on some sneakers, and begin dragging my belongings to my car.

The last few days have been interesting. No, more to the point, the last year has been interesting. I moved to Washington exactly six months ago yesterday. Now I'll move to Washington again. Sometimes I'm not entirely sure why I do the things I do.

Beau pointed me to a passage in Psalms, Psalms 37:4:Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Oftentimes people cannot elucidate the deepest desires of their heart, Beau explained. The verse starts with loving a God that knows us inside and out. And, in doing so, God, because of who He is, gives us an unearnable gift, that loving God will confirm our deepest desires because God is the one who put those longings there in the first place.

But it begins with loving God.

Relax

This morning I left my house at 10:20, which would put me exactly ten minutes late for church. But the grass held green orbs of dew and the trees shed red, pointy tears all over the highway, and I didn't much feel like going to church anymore.

So I drove past old rusty barns and scraggly dwarf horses.

Along patient evergreens and down to the sleepy harbor.

Went to the Farmer's Market and substituted the bread and wine for a marionberry danish and a bag of Concord grapes. Yet the morning was sacred.

The more I wandered, the more apparent it became that I needed to calm myself. To breathe. That these questions do not require great tragedy, and truth is found everywhere.

Worlds Beyond Your Own

If I could carry you, you could come..

Such Great Heights

Today's message from the guru: "The beat of your heart is the rhythm of your soul." Start off the morning with a jazzy feel as your arhythmic soul gets down and boogies. My heart beats ta-ta-TUM-tum, TUM-ta-ta-TUM-tum. Every so often it skips like a record, throwing the tas for tums and the TUMS for tums...

This is a good morning.

Last night was a good night. Talked to Hunter, Morgann, and Beau.

Hunter can sit on the porch of his new house and hear church bells on Sunday mornings. And relax on his cookie monster carpeting near his fireplace. Hopefully, I'll get to crash out on that carpeting sometime soon--I'd like to see that kid.

Morgann is coming up to Washington next week to spend some quality time with me and my new roommates.

Beau's making bold moves and even bigger strides. He's been swooping wildly with a dry paint brush, but it sounds like he's bending down to take up paint.

I've made some good friends over the years, friends of whom I'm completely undeserving.

Thank you, my friends. You help me float.

Responsibilities of Transition

Finally told Scott I'm moving out. And he did it, what I feared.

He looked really somber and asked straight-out: "Am I uninviting?"

And so I sat there, stammering about how I think it'd be a good opportunity and it's something I feel I should do.

How Donald Miller Changed My Life

Belleylaugh [1:02 AM]: Would you like to hear a strange bedtime story?
M2lee [1:02 AM]: hey. uh,.. sure
Belleylaugh [1:04 AM]: It's more like a strange coincidence, but you can't ask if people want to hear a strange bedtime coincidence 'cause that implies all sorts of things...
M2lee [1:05 AM]: gotcha
Belleylaugh [1:06 AM]: A bit of history you remember: Last year I was in Bookman's and found a book called Blue Like Jazz, which struck me at the right time 'cause it was when I was just beginning to seriously consider Christianity again.

[From another thread:] Now, that book affected me very powerfully. Not necessarily because of how it was written, but just some of the points he makes... This idea that there were other people, "thinking Christians", out there, which, for a small time, was the only bond confronting a tidal wave of alienation.

M2lee [1:06 AM]: check
Belleylaugh [1:07 AM]: Okay, so fast forward through a lot of life--being a Christian again, BS (Bible Study), you and dann, quitting school, no idea, moving to Washington, living in cabin, roommate moving in and looking for a place, no idea what I'm doing, go to Arizona, return to Washington, go to church last Sunday...
M2lee [1:07 AM]: check
Belleylaugh [1:08 AM]: Okay, at church last Sunday, this girl named Joy approached me, basically asking if I wanted to move in with her and her roommate, Justin. Their roommate, Shawn, is moving to New York in the middle of the month. Joel and I went to lunch that day, and afterwards I visited the house...
M2lee [1:08 AM]: [was Joy's question] out of the blue? or do you know them?
Belleylaugh [1:09 AM]: I vaguely know them. She had invited me to a bible study at their house that they have on Thursday nights, but other than that and "how was your week" conversation on Sundays, we didn't know each other.
Belleylaugh [1:10 AM]: Anyway, I knew after I visited the house that if I moved there, I would be challenged to grow and lose a lot of my assumptions... But that's what I wanted--to grow, to continue try to, anyway...
Belleylaugh [1:10 AM]: So I hesitated, but yesterday I really felt that I should move into this house, and so I called them up and told them I'd do it.
M2lee [1:10 AM]: nice
Belleylaugh [1:11 AM]: And we played phone tag all day, and finally they invited me to the bible study tonight. So I get off work just in time to run down there. I race over and get there. Don, my pastor, is there, and Justin, the roommate I met for five minutes...
Belleylaugh [1:12 AM]: Anyway, we have Bible Study and I'm feeling a bit awkward, but getting more and more comfortable...
Belleylaugh [1:13 AM]: And the whole time I'm thinking, this is the community I want to live in... Sorta like when Don Miller describes it in Blue Like Jazz...
M2lee [1:13 AM]: cool beans!
Belleylaugh [1:14 AM]: And then Joy mentions her best friend, Penny, whose real name was "Plenty" 'cause she was born in a commune, and I put two-and-two together... It felt like the sort of community because it's the exact same community. My roommate, Joy, is friends with Donald Miller and her best friend, Penny, is in the book....
[In a different thread... I'm all excited, people, so please excuse the fact that I'm telling all my friends about this:] Lindsay says:
Yes... But what's crazy is that I was sitting there with this feeling excited because I was part of an answer to Joy's prayers--the grant she had was pulled, so she doesn't have a job and desperately needs a roommate to take over after Shaun moves out... But when I realized all this, the connection, I realized they were just as much an answer to mine...

How It Feels

God said we'd fly kites. Early on Sunday, we assembly-lined peanut butter and jelly, loaded a cooler with sugary drinks, and sang along with the radio a little too loudly...

So we stand in this field, and God's holding the kite, and, because I know what's next, I take off running with my little string end. But nothing happens. There's no lift-off, no drowning in a sea of sky blue.

"What happened? I did it just like they do on TV," I wonder.

And I don't get a response, just a little smile that tells me I should be patient and wait for wind.

A Bird In Hand...

Forfeiting imaginary birds for imaginary birds. Clenched my fist around a bright reflection because I believed it to be real. Slowly, I relax my grip because your hand must be empty and open before you hold anything (unless you want to hit something, which is a common when it comes to birds). And I remember holding a bird, tracing the down outlines of its little neck. Real birds are better than illusions.

Today's theme: relationships.

Amy told me my bright spot doesn't exist. Morgann told me I shouldn't have bothered with bright spots in the first place. Farren, in disconnected conversation, tells me she's eating ice cream over birds and bright spots. The theme is the same: let go. Reminds me of that poem by e e cummings:

let it go-the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise-let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go-the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers-you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go-the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things-let all go
dear
so comes love

_______

Colin's been IMing me. After five years, he broke it off with his fiancee; now he wants to call and check up on her. Morgann wants to check on Charlie. And now I'm worried because I don't think I'm going to find anyone who fits me better than Will. Maybe I should check up on him, just to see...

No, I need to get some sleep. It's late, and none of these questions will be answered. And often things are clearer during the day. Or I'm not as susceptible to these emotional torrents...

This Manic Moment is Brought To You By the #8

One of the pretty rocks I pocketed during short walks with Buddha: Be aware of the consequences you put forth. Another: enjoy the pretty rocks.

Late-night advice swaps always seem like a good idea. But I gave Morgann shoddy advice. She helped me, I wanted to help back. Profundity plugged my tiny ears, and her silent mouthing became opportunity for me to talk. We played ventriloquist for a while, but I am the dummy.

Words haven't meant anything for years. The corresponding emotions aren't corresponding--they are generally absent. And while I write this, I see the implications this statement has--writer's block, misunderstandings... I talk a lot but mean very little. Not that I intend to be a blow-hard or deceive people. I've simply learned to think out loud, to react without intention. For as deliberate as I am, I squeeze fifteen thousand hours of conversation for every ounce of action. "Meaning" is the lesson du jour.

This moment I'm straying from my planned path. I had intended to write you guys about Chris and how she threw away my favorite rock. And how I think Morgann and Charlie should be together, but last night I should have only pointed her back to herself in that exact moment...

Everything, all these windy side-streets and fast thoroughfares, seems to be pointing toward this endpoint of intention. Being fully aware of the impact of your actions. Being even more deliberate, not in the sense of "deliberation" but more in the sense that you approach the world from a position of choice. When you're able to understand better how your day will ripple, you also have a heightened capacity for play. Play is important and completely undervalued. It is the creative approach to any situation. When necessity takes over, when survival fights for top-billing, we lose something vastly important. And I don't understand all of what I'm saying. My brain is flying at fifty miles per minute. Like Don said, we can understand (think/hear) 640 wpm. But I can only type, like, 50. So you're missing out on at least 550. Fill in the blanks, people. Keep up.

Somehow, in my tiny brain, I'm seeing how these things fit together. I'm seeing how my atheistic, angry past and my agnostic tendencies despite being pretty firmly Christian all seem to be working together. Because you can be more intentional about things. I've been very ignorant, and sometimes by choice because it hurts to remember all these big questions and the corresponding pain of void. When there's nothing and no hope of anything bigger, you must focus in closely to the task at hand. Like ants thrown off-course by the juicy winds sadistic children blow, you sort of wander around in circles until you pick up your old scent. And then you file back in line. But that's where the idea of God picks up, and God in a personal, daily sense. A lot of what I find people attribute to God or put on God could be taken care of if they'd simply move their ass. (Yes, I'm speaking to myself in the third person. It's much easier to detach from this... But then detachment is another issue, wholly intertwined, like everything...) This whole idea of relationships and relations and nothing is every cut-and-dry one thing. They're all connected.

God, I hate divisions. And yet I maintain them in my daily life, by either acting purely from reaction or whatever...

I've taken my precious rocks, found over years of searching, and thrown them into the air. Obviously, some hit me in the head this morning, but now I have this fun scavenger hunt to play the rest of the day...

Ticker Tape

You know what it is? This cabin is the reason I moved out here. It was the deciding "pro" over Minneapolis and Milwaukee. No cabin almost feels like no reason for staying. But that's not exactly true... I've yet to find someone who smells like monsoon afternoons or orange blossom sunsets or Milky Way midnights, but I keep a bit of faith stored away to uncork when I'm feeling lonely. Because I must hold out--there are so many lessons to learn up here...

Oh, and Morgann voted "pro."

Life Decisions By Committee

While the final count has yet to be made, the verdict looks pretty firm:

Onward to new community and the horizon as seen from Washington Ave.

Voting went as follows:

Pro: Beau, Dann, Me
Con: Mom, Me
Not present: Morgann, Farren

While I got two votes, I cancelled myself out.

Take It or Bake It

And thus, with a smattering of confusion and a thick shower of fall leaves, I break into religious contemplation. Sorta.

This God thing is too big for my little brain. That is my conclusion. I won't attempt to supplement this conclusion with an explanation, I'll just leave it at that. Thus ends my religious contemplation. (And there was much rejoicing.)

I came back knowing the Brian thing wouldn't work. Actually, I knew it from the beginning, but I, Lindsay, the girl who will dissociate from absolutely anyone without reason or forewarning, wasn't the first to say goodbye. Not that I wasn't right there with him. My dress rehearsals of "this isn't working out" and "it's not you, it's me" all went well. But the curtain lifts over Clubside and two coffees, and a trapdoor malfunctions. And so prayers were answered in a weird, roundabout way: with his "You should know that I'm seeing someone else." Which achieved the same result but hit me straight in the ego. For good measure, I could hear God jokingly say. That pinch to grow an inch served with each birthday cake. Brian and I hugged on the street corner, he said he hoped it wouldn't be weird, and I drove home, belting out an impromptu opera about irony and the silly complexity of human emotions. [Helpful hint: when making up an opera, use big German words like "der Zebrastreifen" ("crosswalk") and "die Geschirrspuelmachine" ("dishwasher") to make it sound more passionate.]

But the funny thing? I don't much care. Telling all you guys about this seems to disprove my last statement, but I'll implicate myself further if I tell you why I don't care. And so I quietly evade all your questions. (Hey, something new!) And I try to avoid thinking about why I don't care because I've thought about that long enough already.

Yesterday morning, Joy stopped me at church. Not in the CS Lewis sense, but in the "I know a girl named Joy, and she is looking for a roommate" literal sense. She and her roommate, Justin, envisioned starting a ministry for the street kids in Olympia. But things have shifted for them. The ministry isn't thriving like they thought, and new challenges have arisen. This is where my new challenges come in. I now have the opportunity to live in a Christian community, one that seems devoid of the usual "Christian" nonsense. This would force me to give up a lot of my present assumptions and ideas--Justin kindly offered me some "rescued" tortillas from, if I understood correctly, a local grocery store dumpster. This is where my lifestyle would shift drastically. Not only because of the new things I'd be exposed to, but also for the simple reason that I'd be forced to scrounge for a new job, or some source of supplemental income to pay rent because, while Fox's supplies me with enough money to break even with car insurance, health insurance, and the bi-monthly trip to the grocery store, there is no way I'd be able to add a $400/month rent bill on top of that without draining my savings... Joy was telling me that she's been learning from Justin how to rest in faith, and made a passing comment that my impulsive move to the Pacific Northwest is equally inspiring to her. But for some reason, this job situation seems to be really stepping out in faith. I am a commitment-phobe, and I'm a luxury-glutton. If something's working alright, I'm hesitant to risk it for something that may possibly reap amazing benefits. Gambling is not my forte.

As my last entry hints, I've been praying a lot differently in the last two weeks. Especially in this last week. Not that I think there are shortcuts or anything like that. I just started praying about the parts I've been deliberately avoiding, thinking I could strong-arm my way to the conclusion I want. And while my brief experiences with really listening and seeking God ended up radically changing my life for the better, I'm still uncomfortable with this... And the weird developments that have been happening recently make me even more uncomfortable because that means what I've been saying is true, and what I've actually practiced is crap. When God fortifies my empty words with meaning, I always feel this way.

A Hot-House Tomato Asks for More

Safe prayer is not effective.

The themes of security and self-preservation justify my own laziness and fear. Laziness and fear. Two slugs endlessly devouring each other.

The Hammer of Brutal Honesty

Before I bade the saguaro adios, a friend of mine introduced me to the concept of brutal honesty. She used it on other people. I will turn the method against myself:

I'm quite deliberate. Fall madly in love with people who will never love me properly; get bored of the ones who would. Unfocused and wandering. Immature with mature leanings. A lost soul. Undisciplined and unfocused. The questions I've been avoiding because I didn't want to be hurt again--well, they're back. Pretty introverted. Petty. Inhibit my own potential. Superficial (not in the customary way, but simply keep people on my perimeter, on my surface). Overly-analytical. Blunt. Non-confrontational. Inarticulate when conversation forces me to expose parts of myself. Confused. Bad at following through with ideas. Too eager to explore other peoples' ideas, becoming a sort of chameleon that they feel is exactly like them, not realizing that I must become what they are (or more like them, anyway) to digest their opinions and experiences. Scared and fearful. Guarded and untrusting. Mercurial. Have emotional amnesia. Flaky. Do not get to the questions other people get to because I have enough trouble battling the fundamentals. Slow to understand concepts. Shallow understanding of a wide range of subjects; no real understanding of any one subject or moderate understand of a few. Territorial.

Most of the characteristics I put down seem negative. But sometimes the positive can be as hard to see as the negative:

I truly care. Curious and interested. Able to find the humor in most situations. Will go to great lengths to avoid killing insects. Generous. Unconsciously push people toward the absurd. Able to relate to many different people. Listen well (generally... we all have our days). Remember weird, random facts. Derive a lot of joy from sharing. Appreciate sunsets and whistling winds and rainy days and displays of natural beauty. Passionate. Known to give good advice. Hard-working. Headed in the right direction. Intelligent. Ask lots of questions. Write well. Capable.

This entry is an experiment. What I've called writing has been pretending to wade in the shallow part of the pool. No risk involved. This is different. This is me. Detached, slightly dark, but pretty balanced on the whole. I don't like a lot of bullshit, but I feel like I've been using it as a prized commodity lately. And yes, I realize this journal has become a sick descent into my own internal monologue. This too will be experimented with, no need to worry. There is only so much self to delve into before you find out you're an asshole. ;)

Rule of Three

A zombie flick, a frozen carrot, a 4-place setting of new blue-grey flatware. No Ben, no Scott, no clue where I am with a certain person. Going running, going to work, going home in three days. Fixing the bicycle, fixing bad habits, fixing my myspace profile. Listening to good advice, listening to zombie groans, listening to my instinct. Reading Worlds Apart, reading about German elections, reading the brand stamped on the lightbulb. Boring myself with this writing, boring predictability, boring holes in my readers' heads...

My Heart Hurts

Nothing serious, don't worry. Simply breaking the Velcro seals of old habits.

Made a passing comment to Brian about frustration and heartache happening when reality pokes fun of our expectations and assumptions. Still rings true. But I add a hilarious spin of expecting things from when I'll no longer expect them. Soap scum layers of habit solidifying.

I'm not sure where I am. Part of me holds firm to a post, pleading and imploring that to write off these desires as foolishness is doing myself a disservice. Most of me tells me I'm too old to believe in fairy tales.

Magic beans, Lindsay.

There are no guarantees. Marriage, children, good employment, meaning... None of it can be counted on. Perhaps it's not in your cards. Elaine wanted to get married. She'll be sixty soon, and she lives with her dogs and birds. This serves as a constant reminder--the things you want may not necessarily be what you have in store.

Yes, I Bought a Bike.

The modern rebellion is cost-effective. Make your meals at home, support your local library, and shun coche culture. But do these with your own flair.

Thus, I am now a Schwinner with an old, old, beautiful monstrosity. Parts will be swapped out for others. Bicycle forums emphasize how to "get the most for your vintage Schwinn." But one must live her own philosophy, and I am a bits-and-pieces gal. Call me Frankenstein.

Found it yesterday on the way to the Gig Harbor Folk Festival. After the clean-up, I'll give it a name.

Keep Up

Thus sayeth the Yogi. The Yogi knoweth all. The Yogi confuseth the hell out of me with ambiguous statements.

Keep up. Am I to keep pace with others, to start running with a pack?

Or is it encouragement to continue on the path I'm treading...

I'm tired and reading too much into a two-day old mantra.

Note to self: purchase more tea from the co-op.

Disturbing

Boys Smell Good

I sprayed myself with my roommate's cologne. Gotta tell ya: boys smell really, really good. I've kept my distance with my roommate, laying down some firm boundary lines, so no need to worry about hanky-panky on the homefront, but... damn. Damn. I smell weak-in-the-knees, head-spinningly, soul-crushingly good.

This may also be because my olfactory senses are trying to compensate for a lack of brain function. You see, my godmother (roommate's mother) and godmother's aunt plied me with martinis, then coerced me to eat my fill at Lee's Buffet, a local Asian-inspired restaurant with as much sushi, oysters, vegetable lo mein, and fried pineapple as I could possibly eat. I am three sheets to a gusty northern breeze, feeling fine but dreading tomorrow. I am to wake early and help a friend paint her living room. Something tells me I'm going to sleep through the alarm. I'll probably go to sleep, snuggling the shirt I have on and have good dreams of beautiful, intelligent boys who are madly, passionately, wholly infatuated with me, without being overbearing or needy...

A girl can dream.

Here is the Meat of our Enchilada

wombattacobar [8:41 AM]: some of [what we talked about] was how we subtly slip away, forgetting how right it is to be in tight with the HS, as well as how much works it entails to have a good relationship
wombattacobar [8:41 AM]: if you have a sucky relationship, it takes no work and isn't much of a loss. if you work hard in it, it takes more but it is far better, and it can slip away [kinda like fitness]
Belleylaugh [8:43 AM]: Everything worthwhile is a process.
Belleylaugh [8:44 AM]: Or so it seems... Anything good isn't stumbled upon, it's worked for and refined and made different..
wombattacobar [8:46 AM]: yeah, and once you've become an olympic swimmer, you have the skills to continue working and staying there but you still work to improve [as well as swim 8 hours a day]

More discipline. Maybe I should suck it up all at once, take up an instrument and some advanced-level mathematics, learn the value of persistence and dedication.

How does one develop discipline?

Ballad of the Self-Important

Wonder if I'll ever find something I love more than myself.

Yesterday, when I was talking to dann, I got the order wrong. I said I didn't know how to be loved. But first you must know how to love...

Back to the Plaid I Know

They ejected the remains of Hunter S. Thompson from a cannon. Made me think of launching oranges from second-story calculus classrooms. Or last summer, when I took an astronomy course, where we took turns measuring the best angles to hit frisbee players with water balloons. (So the frisbee players were casualties in the great knowledge wars. Sometimes blood must be shed. Some warriors' ballads will never be sung... Moment of silence for the doused, the impact-bruised, the fried ants of the world.)...

To be scattered in the air by an expansion of blue... The BBC caption says, "Thompson's widow Anita said the writer loved explosions." And W.H. Auden comments from his metal folding chair: "All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornados, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage."



This is beautiful. His friends listened... This moves me.

After experiencing the whole funeral process, I vowed I would never put my family through that--embalming, casket shopping, plot-seeking. No. Instead, my friends and family would gather under some blooming citrus trees covered in multi-colored lights. It'd be a great big Mexican/German feast complete with sauerkraut, bratwurst, tamales, enchiladas, and albondigas. And tons of guacamole. At the end of the evening, little bags of me will be doled out like morbid party favors, each person getting a bit to scatter in some exotic locale. And if I die a rich woman, I'll pay for the flights. If not, my friends and family... Well, they can do whatever they want to with me. I doubt I'll mind.

Years ago, I wanted mourners, dark skies, Irish cliffsides and sorrowful bagpipes heaving faltering sobs. I wanted people breaking down into tears, seeking shoulders for support. I've said it many times--I've always been silly.

Today would have been Colin's 25th birthday. It still makes me sad, but it goes unacknowledged. Except for this small paragraph. Every so often, when I'm driving by myself, I get the urge to talk to him. Apologize to him on behalf of the world. But it's hard to befriend the dead.

Dave, the postman at my work, used to go to the cemetery because it was quiet. He told me he learned the headstones, traced the names, gave them histories and affairs and triumphant moments. But he liked talking to one guy best. Can't remember his name, but it was something old and plain, like Mortimer or Harold.

I talk to people I know. Or knew.

In the afterword of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the author supposes people are patterns. There are some patterns so deeply ingrained in us, we're never without them. Dead or alive.

I bought my ticket to Tucson today. September isn't coming soon enough. Whether I know the pattern or not, I like the idea of another repetition.

Breaking News...

"Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors."

Another interesting fact:

"Horses cannot vomit. Nor can rabbits."

As you can already tell, I have nothing worthwhile to write about.

Been in "random fact mode" lately. I'm almost finished with that book on personality tests, and then it's on to a couple books about architecture. Two days ago I spied a "History of Salt" book down at Orca. Maybe I'll put a request in at the library...

I love the library. I go there twice a week. Done are my days of accumulating books I haven't yet read. (One day I'll eat these words.) La biblioteca is one of those remaining havens for me: I don't feel obligated to buy a hot drink while I sit and read; I don't feel pressured to "opt for the technology"; there's no smoking; they can't kick me out unless I'm doing something illegal... My kind of joint. And it's open almost as late as the coffee house.

Other things I love about Olympia:

The weather. This one may soon bite me in the ass, but it's absolutely beautiful here. Most mornings are foggy, a bit misty, but the grey dissipates to some amazing afternoons. The best place to watch the sunset is my neighbor's overgrown arbor. Just sit there and eat the blackberries on nearby bushes. Watch out for spiders.

The community. Olympia is one of those towns that truly believes. It's incredible to witness--people sharing common values of social responsibility, equality, freedom of expression, etc.

I would like to say more, but I'm so tired, I'm crying. Maybe tomorrow...

You are Forewarned

Am looking at flights to go home for Whitney's wedding.

Home.

Each of my friends must plan an entire day for hugging and kissing and exploring old haunts, mental or otherwise. Prepare yourselves, my friends.

Summary of Present Events

Enough elbows to the ribs bruises one's lack of writing discipline. I am now writing about not writing.

Just ran out of the coffee house after a runaway black lab, but I didn't catch the number on the collar of the repeat offender before he loped off down the hill toward IHOP. They're having a “dog days of summer” special.

Mmmmm... IHOP.

Above the trees a dark cloud line looms. Keep tilting my head and making it the dividing line between two halves: one full of conifers, silver sedans and big inflatable Serta sheep, and the other... Just grey.

This isn't telling anyone about my life. Let me see. I'm sitting in this coffee shop by default. This morning was supposed to be my first day as an ESL tutor, but the son of the tutee (not sure if that's a real word) had a doctor's appointment. Being unoriginal, I come here. I've come here too often in recent weeks. Need to find a haunt that's closer to my house.

My roommate is always home. Since the beginning of July, I have been alone in this house twice. Yes, two times…

Been reading about how various personality tests are conceived. Am interested in the idea of identity and how that relates to image. Nationally. Individually. Hypothetically. Thinking Evergreen may be ready for a contract outline. At the same time, I'm deliberately flip-flopping between subtleties of definition to cover all my interests.

Last night Cheryl came to visit me at work. (She’s the director of Refugee and Immigrant Services of Oly.) We talked about how ridiculous it is that the linebackers all want size four, brand-name wear. Talked about how people spend so much, hoping to get a discount on power, success, popularity, heightened sense of self. Talked about export processing zones and Nike and dollar-days at Goodwill.

Cheryl told me about why she chose to spend her life single, how she doesn’t know what’s out there, how everyone may be lying, you can’t truly trust anyone but yourself. How she has to be selective about what she exposes herself to because the ugliness of the world will bring her down. Being safe has a bigger payoff than risking yourself.

That is not my creed.

But I’m slow. I process things slowly. The pattern lay overtop the momentary--each move so entirely packed with meaning that to dissect it would take a lifetime and to actually live it takes three months of breathing exercises and daily affirmations.

Born at the Right Time

My knees are taut bowstrings. Later today I'll look for a muscular witness, flex my thigh until my kneecap raises and locks into place, and ask if they can smell what I've got cookin'.

Stayed out until four this morning. Elena and I sat and drank coffee for three hours, spit-taking emotions and past history directly into each other's face. She's completely exposed for as guarded as she'd like be. She will be devastated. Do not mingle with those who won't say good-bye, Elena.

Complex and fascinating, like anyone and everyone. Identity as personal mystery. I am a bumbling detective, profiling and unconsciously manipulating my targets with leading questions. Oftentimes intellectual curiosity is mistaken for emotional investment. An inveterate collector of people's lives trips over planes of other people's love.

This isn't making any sense. I almost wish it did. Almost.

Teeter-tottering

My roommate, Scott, is here from Nebraska. He is going to school me in all the ways of anime and manga. And I am... not sure what I'm going to do.