Blogstizzle
For some reason, Blogstudio has eaten my blog, no word from the webmaster, no nothing, just a blank white page which never fully loads, Siberia.
Anyway, there's some amount of revolution going on here and [now.]
Good revolution.
Let's be good to each other...
no pretention
no blame,
two advocates for each other.
In a years' time we'll look back on the us of today and shed tears of happiness for the strength that we had for ourselves.
Anyway, there's some amount of revolution going on here and [now.]
Good revolution.
Let's be good to each other...
no pretention
no blame,
two advocates for each other.
In a years' time we'll look back on the us of today and shed tears of happiness for the strength that we had for ourselves.
3 Comments:
At 12:08 PM,
bava said…
I found you! And I couldn't agree more. :)
Hai!
At 10:49 AM,
Eve L said…
The first paragraph is almost like a poem:
Blogstudio has eaten my blog,
no word from the webmaster,
nothing,
a blank white page which never fully loads,
Siberia.
At 10:14 PM,
bava said…
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Tired of so many words in my head, really, too many thoughts, too much of everything, full up like a landfill. Shhhhhh. There isn't anything to do, everything is fine fine fine. Sadness is a chosen reaction to a given stimulus. We can't revel in what we don't have [future.]
DIY
That means do it yourself, don't sit around waiting for someone's help [millions of lyrics running through my head]
And it all comes down to this one second. [I've never been more ready to do this right now. It's all been leading up to this moment. My whole life.]
I can only give a nod to convulsive beauty anymore, it takes up too much of my memory, slows down the other processes. Life is actually nice. There isn't entropy everywhere, it only seems like that depending on your vantage point. I am the half-life of despondency.
euc 2:49 PM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
I don't always know
The right from the wrong
I do my best to pick it up
And work it out in the long...
Consistency. The thoughts in my head: is this just a midlife crisis at 24/am I somehow prone to drama/some kind of manifestation of a commitment phobia/I'm so ready and willing to lash out against myself. I don't want to be the one with the answers. Too many questions. Too little experience in figuring anything like this out. Just try to do my best, and work it out in the long...
Stop blaming myself, stop blaming anyone. We have to be strong for each other. We have to not let anger or ill will color the flow of communication. Anne and I were talking about understanding relationships last night and I thought about platforms of understanding that are simply too large for human beings to grasp. Like... the processors in our bodies don't have enough memory available to condense the information into bite size chunks that we can handle. So we're left to muck about in the confusion.
Maybe there's not always an overt reason screaming, kicking, flailing, looking to be recognized. Turmoil. I am in pain, and I'm not entirely sure why, why don't I just end the thing that causes the suffering? [sleeping like spoons, secure in your embrace] I'm not doing this because I want to hurt you, or because I need drama in my life, or because I'm capricious and need to chase after someone new. I'm doing this because I want these fight-or-flight reactions to stop. How does that happen? Things can't keep going the way they had been, because eventually we'd both shrivel up, dead on the inside, octopus monster carrying off the shiny green parts that are interesting. The parts that are intrinsically us. Maybe we can delve through it together, excoriate ourselves, but the track record's not so hot. If I'm stubborn, or distant, it's because I want The Interesting Versions of Ourselves to have a fighting chance to take back control of the operation.
I don't have any answers. I'm basically fumbling around in the dark. I just want what's best for both of us, as individuals. Stagnant no more! Fuck, there are a million tears right behind my eyeballs, waiting for the slightest provocation to come rushing out, my head is a hole in the road that cell-phone talking, SUV-driving suburban moms keep careering over, my stomach is a pit of lava. Through the partition in Ty's office there is a sign tacked to the cork board that says "do the right thing." It's not so easy as all that.
euc 9:17 AM - [Link]
...
Monday, June 14, 2004
Your life slips away from you every second -- live and do now, while you are able. Don't yearn for the past or want for the future -- neither of those places exist; all you have is this one, solitary second. It is ridiculous to be disturbed or excited by that which doesn't exist.
I need to be vigilant. I need to remember how to be selfish. Born the youngest, growing through life via all of the bias that entails. I am not a rock right now, but I'm learning. Slowly. I am not the one to run to for shelter; my own covering leaks when it rains, and I revel in it. Water to quench the thirst of a thousand years' journey -- me to myself. I am not the person that I was one week ago. A new me, every second. I am trying to find something that's buried under some undetermined amount of rubble, stuff. This is a task that I must do alone -- don't watch me now.
euc 9:06 AM - [Link]
...
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Another day and already my brain bounces everywhere, like the pong ball, ricocheting off of anything that provides an impetus to make it change direction.
I am your last ditch effort.
Humans behave strangely when backed into corners. I've remembered so much; just two days and I've remembered so much. A single tear falls for the version of myself who allowed the darkness to overcome her; the forgetting. She would be strong, she has no idea that she even needs to be strong. What route is this, that has so easily fooled my feet into following blindly, willingly? I'm tired of so much. Playing a part that I'm not meant to play. The mind's constant humming, whirrrr. I can't think straight, I can't think straight. Later perhaps.
Proof
Of your existence?
There is nothing but.
euc 8:26 AM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
I can't think straight. Fog encases my brain and I understand how LA feels on the worst of days. I only see one thing, all day today, pervading any type of cohesive thought strain, and it's the wrong thing. Wrong as in I'm holding Pandora's Box and giving a nod to my former calm life as I open it up, knowing full well what will come shrieking out. There is an urgent need for action that transcends this wrongness, which is why I continue. It's more than just the face, the waving, the smiles, casual conversation with that "am I reading something into this that isn't there or is there really something more to this" undercurrent; it's that any of this is even possible. There is a breech in the hull or something, is it a drill... is it a drill? Or have I become accustomed to the siren and simply needed some catalyst to jump start my cognition? The problem, I'm realizing, is that I have no high water mark from which to make a judgment. Black and white are out really, I live in a world of grey, and it's not even grades of the color, everything is gun metal.
by the way thank You for
keeping Your face hidden, I
can hardly bear the beauty of this world.
-franz wright
euc 1:59 PM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Calliope has orchestrated this whole thing, it's her oblique way to tell me that I should be making my first million by cranking out pulp romantic fiction. I can only acquiese.
.....
He knocked on the door sheepishly, and when their eyes met after she looked up from her desk, there was a spark more apparent than any Mentos commercial producer could fathom.
"Hi, uh, Mrs. Ardnij. Could you sign for this?"
He placed the package down on the ground next to her desk almost strategically, as though he intended to flex each and every muscle individually, poetically. She was transfixed.
"It's Miss Ardnij, but you can call me Mesmerized. I mean... Zoe."
She stared at his physique; she couldn't put her finger on his ethnicity, he was olive-skinned, his bone structure was almost roman in its fineness, green eyes, course hair. He was stunning, and more importantly, he looked nice.
.....
Yeah, screw calliope. I suck at this. Make that god damn truck stop driving past me, because one of these days I'm going to pull my hair out. !!
euc 9:18 PM - [Link]
...
Monday, June 07, 2004
He sits down with a sigh, clears his throat, and begins to speak.
"I just want you to understand," his expression is pained, as though while he speaks he envisions -- one by one -- the myriad obstacles he has to overcome in order to get from here to there, "I haven't come to this decision without weighing all the pros and cons. I don't think you realize how difficult this is for me."
The rumbling of a delivery truck outside steals my mind's engagement, though my gaze stays focused on the orator, a middle-aged man, pale and puffy, like bread dough that has been allowed to rise for too long. I'm not sure whether I feel sorry for him for being so weak, or whether I feel a kinship at this effort to communicate his concerns so openly with me. Honest communication is so rarely the option of choice in offices like this one. News is generally received via the grapevine, after the filters of personal bias and catiness have had their effect. He continues.
"What we have to keep in mind is that this is a team effort. Equilibrium within the team must be preserved, at all costs." He continues along this vein, and I think about a poster I saw in a catalog once. It was just like the cheesy corporate ones you see in office buildings, with some grandiose picture and a platitude about teamwork. Instead, this one had a picture of McDonald's French fries, and the caption said, "Hey. Not everyone can be a rocket scientist."
.....
To be continued, maybe. Ron Bier, the senior class advisor came in to see me today. He handed me a thank-you card containing a gift certificate to Lorenzo's. He said, "you rock! You're always so willing to help me think out loud!"
It's nice to be appreciated! He's crazy, and he rambles, and he teaches science... so I imagine him in front of the class like a mad scientist, scratching his head, looking for just the right words to explain the half-life of some obscure isotope. Exactly the kind of teacher I'd want to be.
Pavlov's Dog: a model for human behavior, as well? Stand near me the next time a large white truck with green and blue lettering goes by, and observe. Admission: free, for a limited time.
euc 12:05 PM - [Link]
...
Saturday, June 05, 2004
All of our little insecurities. Ego defense mechanisms. Transparent weaknesses, cover them up, cover them up, lest someone find a flaw in the archetype.
Breathing in I calm my body.
Breathing out I smile.
There is no role for you to fill, you must simply be who you are. There is no quid pro quo to be had, especially if all your body aches for it. People are who they are, and no one can change that. If you are feeling slighted, trod upon, as though you are the world's largest victim of injustice, ask yourself what you are looking for from the world. The world itself has nothing to offer you. Any meaning/happiness/pain/suffering is derived entirely by you. No one can help you until you first decide to help yourself.
euc 9:29 AM - [Link]
...
Friday, June 04, 2004
FedEx Guy Haiku.
Fedex guy, you are
intriguing beyond logic.
Your shirt is so tight.
euc 10:56 AM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Brewing coffee in the kitchen at work this morning smells like Betty Wilbond's house. A family has moved in there now, flowery hanging baskets adorn the porch, the sounds of small children arch out from some hidden spot. Betty, I think, would be happy. As far as I could tell she loved children, and the instant community that a large family engenders. She had pictures of friends and family adorning every square inch of the wall space in her entryway. Doppelgangers festooned in World War II era clothing, preserved in sepia; reminders of other times. What is human life, other than the quest for immortality? My species is so obsessed with self-preservation, more so than the most barbaric of cave dwellers. We pretend that death is not taboo, but it is. Someday, I am going to die. Someday, I will exsanguinate in a final sense, my life-force will flicker, my neurotransmitters will stop firing. All of us know that this is true for every existent thing, yet somehow death still catches us off guard, horrifies us, makes us prostrate. I don't want to recoil at death. None of this stuff and nonsense we fill our lives with has any importance. What we do for work, whether or not we get enough sleep, what people think of us; inconsequential, diversions, all gone in the flicker of an eye. Transitory. Someday, we'll all be dust; what will it matter then whether we wore a size 6, how the fondue turned out, if we drove this type of car? Human minds are filled with so much pettiness, so much filler, so much cosmic dust. Quiet it all down. Enjoy the present moment. The present moment is all that exists; it's all that ever has.
euc 3:48 PM - [Link]
...
Monday, May 24, 2004
People are needy today, teachers asking, asking, asking, "can I get my final expenditures?" "how much is left in my grant fund?" Deadlines coming due, everyone waiting to the last minute, effusive to the point of being fulsome in order to expedite their requests. Grease the wheels, keep things moving.
Though I am not particularly motivated out of my lethargy by this rush of activity, there is good news; my scabies, or leprosy, or scurvy, or whateverthehellitis that has so voraciously marred my pulchritude during this past week, seems to be abating. I suspect it's actually poison oak that was unknowingly acquired during one of my weed annihilation missions. To all the frat boys I so grievously blamed for my itchy red bumps when I thought it was ring worm or some other fungal malady: I apologize. But only temporarily, until you belch your name in public, or inexplicably carry those paddle-looking things in your backpacks, or crowd the weight room so completely with your ego that it's hard for others to enter. If such a thing as a Pyhrric Apology were to exist, I think I may have just illustrated it quintessentially.
euc 3:00 PM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
What percentage of attraction is simply the ego seeking validation? "Am I interesting/pretty/pleasing....?" Ahniwa and I were talking last night about a common topic of concern in advice columns (er, not that either of us ever reads these trite and often garrulous sections of the paper...); that dilemma of finding oneself attracted to a friend, and not pursuing the attraction out of fear that the friendship will eventually be hindered. The more I think about it, the more I think that this delineation speaks to the problem of perception in relationships. Why must a "romantic" relationship necessarily be considered in a different light that a friendship? How is a romantic relationship expected to last if it's grounded in something other than friendship?
How do two people continue to connect, if not as friends, first and foremost?
Perhaps my unusual childhood has led to an anachronistic status in adult life. I don't understand most people; actually, this is a gross understatement. To be perfectly honest, I await the day that my true family jumps out from behind a bush somewhere, laughs at my attempts to interact with these perplexing creatures (humans), and takes Anne, myself, and those I feel close to back to some... nacreous section of the galaxy. Well, some days, at any rate.
euc 11:42 AM - [Link]
...
Monday, May 17, 2004
I have heard the language of the apocalypse, and now I shall embrace the silence.
euc 3:53 PM - [Link]
...
Friday, May 14, 2004
Just feeling so much pressure at times, what am I going to do with my life?
Stagnation.
The superintendent today talking about a woman who had majored in English and philosophy at some expensive liberal arts college, how she's now living at home (with parents) because she has no marketable skills. The platitudinous remark made with that residue of belittlement that humans use when pointing out the faults of others. "See, I made it. Not everyone can make it. But I did."
Your task is to be a good human being. Compassion, integrity, and fortitude are the most essential tools at your disposal.
euc 4:04 PM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Thinking about Nicholas Berg this morning, and Rachel Corrie, some degree of misanthropy causes me to simultaneously think of the admonition espoused by the vox populi that "9/11 changed the country."
And I ponder, "How, exactly?"
The country as a whole has had a harrowing event emblazoned into its sphere of experience; two towers being struck, then falling in on themselves, like a heart breaking -- buried underneath the layers and layers of rubble somewhere was, for a time, our Superman Costume -- the belief that America is invulnerable, untouchable. This costume was retrieved and reinstated so quickly that most people didn't notice until we were already at war. What is the image of the towers now other than a mnemonic device invoked when the desired course of action involves more killing, more mayhem, more wrongs made in the name of one day making a right -- more suffering? How have we changed?
Patriotism looks more and more like acquiescing to the acceptance of violence and horror. The captives at the Abu Ghraib prison would say that the USA is a terrorist state, and they would have a compelling argument. How does the average American who supports the war justify their position? Especially if they consume gas, plastics, and other oil based products? How does the average American who gets frothy at the mouth when talking about democracy, and the greatness of the Bush Administration, address the increasingly obsequious relationship between the government and corporate interests?
I am less and less convinced that a change in administration will begin to fill the gaping hole produced by the dichotomy present in America. Kill the killer lest you become him. Individual people need to think more, be more compassionate towards each other, less skeptical of human accomplishment, give up the undying search for a quid pro quo. Change won't come on a large scale until it begins on a small scale. To that end, I vow to refrain from killing, to refrain from the support of those who kill or aid in the killing of others, to refrain from letting my ego control my course of action. I vow to be considerate of those who have different views than my own, and to try to understand academically how they have formulated their point of view, to be directed in this understanding by honesty and not by the desire to be right. With the resources that this country has at its disposal, we could become a bastion for enlightenment, progressiveness; a model for the human capacity to end suffering. It is my inextinguishable hope that this potential will one day be realized.
euc 10:17 AM - [Link]
...
Monday, May 10, 2004
The song that Dave Pier wrote for his senior recital, the song that enclosed each and every single emotion, all at once, a moment encased in amber; the hope that comes from the undying belief that there is more to life than this, and that eventually we'll get there; the languid summer afternoons, stretching on forever, carelessly, wantonly. There is no description suitable for the inner emotion -- the words only fall flat, and prostrate.
There is so much satisfaction in being partnered with someone whom you feel makes you a better person.
...
As if dealing with people weren't difficult enough in general whilst on allergy medication, it certainly only becomes more difficult when they sit down in your office and say, "are you ok? You look tired or out of it or something." Some propriety is in order, Tony Marshall. Else I keel j00.
I'm convinced that in twenty years or so, people will be abhorred that Benadryl and the like were available over-the-counter, and that people would take these medications while expected to behave themselves with any semblance of decorum. Benadryl, today's laudanum! Now, if you could just pass me that section of the news, yes, the comi... Dammit!! This pesky rabbit fellow has jumped into the phone booth in the back of the coat closet with my paper again. Wait, what were you saying? Why did you call me? La de da~
euc 2:21 PM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Before everything, strength; before strength, honor.
Exercise restraint in your daily living; do not be party to gossip, or hasty decision making. Do not entertain arguments from people who are quick to judge, harsh in dealings with other people, reactionary. Treat those around you with caring and respect not because you wish to be treated so in return, but because it is the right way to act. Be skeptical, but not given to conspiracy theories; be academic in the refining of your beliefs.
There is no life but that which we make.
euc 3:40 PM - [Link]
...
Monday, May 03, 2004
The one whom I will simply refer to as "Ken" keeps pestering me about this "Oberlin Votes" Initiative. I was initially excited to help work on this noble pursuit (to register each and every eligible Oberlinian to vote) but already I'm fatigued by it. It's not only that I feel like this Ken fellow is haranguing me, it's also that I don't entirely agree with his approach, and that, to a degree, I'm not sure how much I agree with spouting what I believe to people who may believe something entirely different. People who want to vote will, and they'll get registered. People who don't want to vote and can't be convinced of the importance of doing so simply won't. I'm certain that if I were of the latter position, I wouldn't want to be lectured or pressured. In a word, I'm not sure I agree with the ethics of the entire thing. Then again, I suppose I adhere to a hands-off approach in the realm of proselytizing one's beliefs, so I'm not sure how I would change this initiative to better suit my mettle. Democracy, democracy, democracy. If I ruled the world, there would be several years of Social Darwinism, followed by an in-depth search for the last remaining ancestor of the false Dimitri, who, once found, would rule the lands with a system of representative monarchism, however that would work. I would be in a cave in Peru by then, so any further elucidation on my part is only superfluous. A system of nice-deed doing would replace wage earning. But, I digress.
Ahniwa sums up best how I have ended up feeling on the matter.
You only have control over you, and thus you should be your main concern. I know it seems like an uphill battle, us against the world, against idiocy, et al. But you're awesome, and so you make the world a little more awesome, and that's all you can do :)
It's true, individually, for each of us.
euc 3:40 PM - [Link]
...
Stop emailing me plz.
Senders of chain-letters, cute pictures, anything that tells me that I'll have better luck/sex/weight loss if I pass the email along to 5+ friends, etc, etc, please heed this warning. I have created a program that will inundate your inbox with everything that I think is cute, and/or clever, which includes (but is not limited to) Rimbaud's description of a season in hell, some of Camus' more cryptic writings, the Marshall Plan, and pictures of Binjamin Netanyahu looking pensive. There will be no further warnings.
euc 10:56 AM - [Link]
...
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Breathing in I calm my body,
breathing out I smile,
dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment.
-Thich Nhat Hahn
(thanks pattyz)
euc 3:27 PM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
My list of things to acquire over the course of this summer:
1. A black abductor van with a crowbar mounted to the dashboard.
2. One really strong arm (preferably the left) ala Trogdor.
3. A bunch of tough-guy phrases to say (i.e., "don't you cry for johns. don't you dare." and "it's the number I told myself when I was a kid... 500 street fights until you're a legitimate tough guy."
4. A pair of sleek, dark goggles to wear around all the time.
5. A buzz cut.
euc 3:39 PM - [Link]
...
A new day again.
The interesting thing about this book, Do What You Are, is that the personality types the authors describe really do seem accurate. I'll admit, I was skeptical when I first learned the premise of the book. I guess I've become disgruntled about "typing" people, as so many of the friends I had at OU were strangely captured by astrology and often used it to explain everything from why their hair wasn't doing what they wanted it to, to why the cute guy at the bar didn't wink back Friday night. But, I digress. The Meyers-Briggs model certainly has more substance to it than any other "typing" mechanism that I've encountered, I suppose that one can expect this when one considers the amount of research and refining that has gone into the evolution of this model. The accuracy of Meyers-Briggs' "type" has been true for my personal evaluation, and also for Ahniwa's. What a novel approach to figuring what kind of field one ought to go into; so obvious, yet so under-used. While I still haven't gotten into the meat of the book -- the part that explains which job characteristics are best for my personality type and why -- I have gained a tremendous amount of insight as to why I react to situations and ideas the way I do, and why I've liked and haven't liked jobs in the past. I would recommend this book to everyone, regardless of whether or not one is looking for a change of vocation.
But, back on track. I wonder if Rimbaud and I could have a civilized discussion about society, or if I would find him base and given to shock value. In the use of metaphor, he is the Everest that all writers should aspire to surmount. I suppose that this isn't on any type of track whatsoever, I'm not sure why I put it that way. Well, so be it! I'll leave it there, out of spite!
euc 9:57 AM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Breathing is an arrival.
Everything keeps saying, "no, no, no," it turns out that I must trudge through a vast snow storm, no compass, only my sense of attachment to everything around me as a guide.
Stop the whirling, stop stop stop. Stop the self-doubt. You are your own worst enemy or greatest advocate, the line that separates them looks an awful lot like choice. Where is Myzel, where has he gone to? The world is a place where the marvelous can pop in at any second. If you see him, send word that I am here now, and waiting.
It's often important to know when to let go.
euc 8:41 PM - [Link]
...
World's gone mad, more and more interaction is like that song off The Streets, the fight between the drinker and the pot-smoker. Incendiary knee jerking reactionating it's c00lz0rz to h8z0rz!
So skeptical, so skeptical. I think I originated in the middle of the ocean, with all of the other crazy things, spending my first years bivouacing under orion's placid eye. [what we trade in for summer.]
Last night I submitted myself to the human experiment that is Meyers-Briggs, apparently fewer than 1% of the people in this country end up with the same personality "type" that i did (INFJ). There are only 16 of these types in total, I didn't look to see which was the most common. I imagine it's LOKA. (loud obnoxious know it all.) heh. Jaded. Yes, I am, very much so.
euc 12:23 PM - [Link]
...
Friday, April 23, 2004
At Evergreen, I was friends with a guy named Zak (eccentric) who aspired to be a writer. During the course of one conversation I mused, "hasn't everything already been said?" He eyed me warily, as though what I had just said was anathema, plauge-inducing. "That's a writer's death," was his reply.
It's still a question that I wonder about. It seems rather deterministic of me, as much as I revolt against saying that. I've been reading so many books lately about how to determine what the right job is, ie fulfilling, engaging, personally vindicating, and beyond that, how to find this job. I wonder about people who work in factories, there will always be people who work in factories. The most recent of these books that I'm reading says, "there is a perfect job for
you, and it's within your reach." But, who dreams of sewing soccer balls together? If everyone is entitled to an equal slice of the pie, who cleans up the dishes? Perfection is a myth.
Hello, Dostoevsky, please spend some time with me and remind me exactly why I revolt against stasis. The pursuit of equilibrium. Human nature is not something to be afraid of, or to ridicule as base or luddite. What a tangent I've found myself upon. However, I am certain that I'm not an organ-stop, or an ant; Chernyshevsky's utopia still does not grip me. There is a thin residue of frustration lingering about, its source eludes me.
euc 10:21 AM - [Link]
...
Thursday, April 22, 2004
I think I could be really tortured about my affair with the delivery man. I need to find a two story roof to jump from, whilst proclaiming my deep affection for the driver known as "Jeffrey." Maybe I could even find some sunglasses like that kid from Bolivia. "I loaf heem!" I would only feel more vindicated if I were 13. Sometimes, when you work in an office, it gets really boring.
euc 3:41 PM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Today was dull as sitting on a roof watching planes land not terrible, yet not remarkable. George W. Bush keeps sending literature to Tony Marshall via the school board, for some reason I keep intercepting it. I know Tony would just throw it away, call me curious if you will (though I'll continue to call myself tactless.) After reading each piece, I send it back with "TAKE THIS ADDRESS OFF OF YOUR MAILING LIST KTHX" emblazoned across it in large black letters, yet they continue to come. A selection from today's letter:
Senator Kerry has spent two decades in Congress; he's built up quite a record. In fact, Senator Kerry has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue. He's been fro the Patriot Act and against it; for NAFTA and against it; for the No Child Left Behind Act and against it. My opponent clearly has strong beliefs -- they just don't last very long.
It's interesting, the lack of fact used in the letter. What demographic would be captured by such obvious tripe? Ah yes. The ones who don't question what they read or hear. The ones who feel complacent most of the time, yet can find the passion to be incited by a good line. The ones who claim they're 100% American!!!111!one George Washington would guffaw at Bush's tactics; Abraham Lincoln would admonish a man whose daily routine so often involves dishonesty, a lack of ethics. I'll tell you what, I'm not falling for it. I can't stomach the thought of another four years with a president who pushes contraversal bills through congress at 4:00 am, then calls each republican at home so that they get out of bed and vote to push it through. (Sorry, senior generation. Paying for your prescriptions just got even more difficult, if that's possible to imagine. Maybe you could go back to work to affo... oh wait, that's right, there's no jobs anywhere!)
Yarg, yarg, yarg. Tired of being lied to. Tired of seeing this country's international reputation swirl around the drain ring, a breath away from being flushed completely. No, I don't put crap into my body, no, I don't wontonly use gasoline, yes, I feel compassion for those around me; also, I vote. Viva la revolution!
euc 4:12 PM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
One of the copier delivery guys decided to go out of his way to flirt with me. He looked like the elusive fourth beastie boy, the one they call "MC Womanizer." All of his lyrics contain the phrase, "I am the most mackinest," and while on stage he is known to grab his crotch a lot, and wink at the "ladies." His ex-girlfriends own sweatpants that have the words "Princess" or "Brat" emblazoned across the ass. I don't know why he felt the need to inform me that this copy machine delivery thing is just temporary for him, or that he wishes he were still in college, or that he was going to be "partying" tonight, or stretch his arms and lay his head on my desk.
Stay away, not today, disco copy machine delivery guy. What a bizarre day, today.
euc 3:19 PM - [Link]
...
"What hope can they have," she mused with the judgmental skepticism that I've come to expect from the devoutly religious, as jaded as that may be. "What do they think happens to their loved ones after they die, if they don't believe that Jesus Christ was our savior?"
We were talking about Judaism. What frightened me most about the conversation was the complete and total inability to bend for a moment; the obtuseness, that there wasn't even a desire to be right, because the idea that she could be wrong had never, would never, enter the equation. I suppose it never helps that I have a hard time bending in this regard as well. Often I forget that subjects which I regard as purely academic hold a great deal more emotion/attachment for others. One day, I will die, in time there will be no one left on earth who will remember me. I will be a photo in some dusty chest stashed in some cellar, even that will one day be discarded. There is no hope for any of us other than what we have for ourselves for today, which for me is not only liberating, it's enough.
euc 1:47 PM - [Link]
...
I'm playing the damn bongo, and the world go to hell.
euc 10:38 AM - [Link]
...
Run away tonight with me, because I can't bear this sameness any longer. "We are all born, we all die, and in between is mostly pointless spam." Why did I leave Olympia? What is the root of that feeling? When you cut the stagnation down, chop its knees off, what have you got left? Must come to some kind of terms with things. Humans have made living so cyclical... every 365 days the loop starts over. Tuesday. But. Has there ever been a Tuesday since the world began? So dangerous to think this way, someone please give me an explanation for religion that doesn't involve monthly deferrals to be paid out at a tax free high yield interest rate after death no life but that which we make!
And I wonder more and more about what Pat's dad thinks, atheism, no kind of nothing after one dies, no flim flammery with bits of energy returning home, no virgins on clouds, just dust and ashes. At first this idea was so foreign to me I immediately dismissed it as the thoughts of someone jaded, embittered. I have begun to adopt the idea, and with the adoption there is some amount of peace. There is no life but that which we make. Though I think of Epictetus, that man is "a little wisp of a soul carrying around a corpse," human intelligence is so incredibly fallible, we can know all sorts of things that make absolutely no difference, and of death we can know nothing. So in lieu of any real understanding, we make things up. Carrion in a river of carrion, today my disposition mimics the clouds; low, heavy. Merely the storm before the calm.
euc 9:39 AM - [Link]
...
Friday, April 09, 2004
Work, work, work. It's Good Friday today, I really have absolutely no idea what causes this day to count as significant for the religious among us. It's the good Friday. Next week we have the mediocre Friday, which certainly isn't a good Friday, but at least then we get to eat red meat and drink wine. Then we have the rainy Friday, which is celebrated only by followers of Ba'al. And there you have it.
euc 2:11 PM - [Link]
...
Monday, April 05, 2004
I have been so lucky throughout life; this is something that I could realize more often, especially when crookshanx would take over my humor. (Dark and portentous.) My friends are of such a temperament that most of them would serve even if their backs were broken, if it meant that someone else's load were lighter even for a short while. Also, I was born with a mind that is not easily won by a persuasive argument, organized religion has not captured it; it does good acts because it realizes that this is the right way to live, and not because it believes there are gifts to be received after one dies. I have never known hunger, or poverty, or the absence of basic freedoms. I have never been an inflictor or receiver of violence.
I have had so many doors open for me in life, and I'm sure there are too many doors to count yet to be discovered.
euc 12:53 PM - [Link]
...
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Meditation for today:
So keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, free from pretense, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, kind, affectionate, strenuous in performing all proper acts. Strive to be the sort of person which philosophy wishes to make of you. Revere the gods and help others. Life is short. There is only one fruit of this earthly life: a pious disposition and social acts. Asia, Europe are corners of the universe; all the sea a drop in the universe; a little clod of the universe: all the present time is a point in eternity. All things are little, changeable, perishable. All things come from thence, from that universal ruling power either directly proceeding or by way of sequence. And accordingly the lion's gaping jaws, and that which is poisonous, and every harmful thing, like thorns, like mud, are after-products of the grand and beautiful. Do not then imagine that they are of another kind from that which you venerate, but form a just opinion of the source of all.
It's april fools day, don't sign any contracts or take directions from strangers!
euc 10:17 AM - [Link]
...
Monday, March 29, 2004
Final numbers from the match.com project:
qtgirl14
570 views
37 winks
11 emails
fireguyohio
296
26 winks
6 emails
My observations of the whole ordeal are that internet dating is, all in all, a severely lack-luster experience.
In terms of sheer numbers, women users have a much larger pool of applicants to draw from. That the female profile was viewed about twice as many times in the same time frame as the male profile is indicative of this. My assumption would be that women users have a much higher probability of successfully finding a date through this service, but I'm not sure how to comment as to the quality of the potentials. Of either gender. I will say this: the emails that the female profile received from men were FAR more sexual/forward than those that the male profile received. Examples of this:
An email she received from humdinger4u said simply, "Interested in an encounter?" (actually this email was received on two seperate occasions from this user.) [37 year old male]
Another from sean_734 had a subject that simply said "Wow," with no actual message. [35 year old male]
One of the profiles (ahmicman2003) that "winked" at the female contained the phrases, "Looking for action next summer" and "will be in the area."
[43 year old male]
The age range of male users who winked at this 19 year-old female's profile was 19-43, with average being right around 30.
Emails received by the male profile from various female users were more along the "I'd like to get to know you better, these are my interests, etc," variety. I can say without hesitation that the female users who contacted the male profile were all interested in something long-term, or, were interested in starting the process of a relationship as opposed to looking for brief and varied "encounters."
The age range of female users who winked at this 25 year-old male's profile was 19-37, with the average being right around 25.
On examining the entire process, I can't really say that I see much difference between online dating and going to a bar with the hope of meeting someone special. It actually occurred to me that many of the users (especially true of the male users) seemed to be people who had tried the bar scene, been unsuccessful, and grown tired of it. The questions one has to answer to post a profile strike me as mostly superfluous (eg, about your potential date: what do they look like? what is their job? how much money do they make? do they like cats? There certainly is opportunity to expound upon oneself, but many of these entries read like car ads.)
I think that the feeling I take away from experimenting with online dating is the same feeling that I take away from interacting with people in general: there is a whole lot of ego involved in interpersonal relations, and it seems that looks play a larger role in potential interest from the opposite sex than interests/politics/religious affiliation. This is not entirely surprising. What is surprising is the lack of tact to be found in people's attempts at selling themselves. Suffice to say that the dating game is a meat market, whether it's played in a bar, on a college campus, or online. No wonder so many marriages end in divorce! People don't know what they want from themselves, I think, let alone what they want from a significant other.
I think that I might rename this the "Emily gets even more jaded" project. :-)
Thanks to Chuck for being my partner-in-crime with this whole thing.
euc 12:06 PM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
From Anne I have learned:
Quiet strength.
That knowing when not to justify one's ideals is as important as knowing when to.
The desire to find happiness even in adverse situations.
The attention to all sides of an equation, the attention to each individual person's comfort.
That change is constant, and not something to fear.
From Ahniwa:
That allowing oneself to relax even (especially) in the face of pressure and adversity is a virtue.
That preconceived notions are generally a better reflection of the person who does the judging than the one who is judged.
To treat everyone as deserving of attention.
From Patrick:
That the only way to overcome awkward situations is to plunge in headlong, without hesitation.
That there is always another side to any argument, and often there are three or four other sides.
That barriers were made to be overcome, that there is no limit to what a person can learn if they provide the drive.
The importance of taking care of the body.
From Chuck:
The ability to learn from past transgressions, the virtue of forgiveness.
That there is humor to be found in all situations.
That a true leader knows when to pass on the reigns of leadership.
From my father:
The fortitude to see that an undertaking is done correctly, through to its conclusion.
That honesty transcends all lines of demarcation.
That one must act rightly, even when this casts one out of favor with the majority.
The importance of an adherence to a personal set of ethics.
From my mother:
The desire to serve, without thought to any quid pro quo.
Compassion for all, regardless if you are treated with compassion in return or not.
That unflinching dedication to one's ideals and humility towards those with differing views are not mutually exclusive.
So very thankful for all of you.
euc 9:25 AM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
There's some requisite amount of wading through preconceived notions, stereotypes, ridiculous assumptions when you're a woman. When does it stop? When I'm old and grey, and on a shelf somewhere? I'm positive the same is true for men, but never having been a man, there is no certainty in my assertation.
The fact that I'm a woman does not also mean that:
I like children.
I smell good.
My intellect somehow has a cap that it cannot exceed.
I can't tell the difference between a table saw and a reciprocating saw.
I like it when strangers call me cute, or sweet, or yell at me from the window of a moving automobile, or think I'll find a conversation about the latest diet fad or shoe sale to be interesting.
So many women out there, though, who work against any positive image that might be able to stick its head through the throngs of negative images. So many who cake the makeup, wear the spikey heels, low cut shirts, breast implants, vacuous conversation, gossipy reality tv im voting for whoever hubby votes for that the newest shade of nailpolish blabbity blah. So much anger fermenting over such a long period of time. It's unhealthy for sure, but as yet I haven't found a way to deal. Why is it difficult to find women's jeans that aren't made to fit like sausage casings?
I just want to be an equal, I want to be able to be around frat-boy and sorority-girl types without having my knives out. I try to be accepting, but there's this vicious cycle of stereotypes going on... I need to figure out how to break out of it. They judge me, so I'll judge them, too. Kill the killer lest you become him. So much ... what's the word anne uses? Dukkha? Too much of it, ocasionally burying me, someone send a reed that I might breathe through.
euc 11:29 AM - [Link]
...
Monday, March 22, 2004
I should be getting work done. Wet cotton surrounding my brain, takes the edge off the senses, an early start this morning and now feeling ambivalent. Jack's dull blade.
My eyes feel warm somehow, if I can't get back in bed I wish at least to be dancing. Out of the whole thing, the entire going-to-vegas-wedding-experience, my favorite part was swing dancing with you at the reception. Only just two days ago and yet it feels like years ago. Slow this morning, like a snail, my thoughts absolutely languish.
Labels will kill me. I think about the woman at the bar, dress that could easily have been a slip, conversing with a man whose hand found solace upon her ass, then kissing, somehow without a trace of passion -- grotesquely -- what did she think about the ordeal when she woke up the next morning? Did she think about? This morning I send her the strength to go out in public in modest clothing and comfortable shoes and still feel beautiful. Damn this rotten society, where the hell is my waterfall...?
euc 10:06 AM - [Link]
...
Friday, March 19, 2004
I was thinking yesterday how I'd be glad today, because it's Friday. I hate that type of thinking, it worries me a little that I'm falling into it. Friday, friday, friday. Has there ever been a Friday since the world began? I get to play around in this mass of flesh and carbon and such every day, not just on the weekends, not just when I feel I have the time to enjoy it, that line of thinking will send me straight to auto-pilot. Must try to remain conscious of this. Soon again it will be Monday, and then what? I will not lament for Monday!
The squishy robot on my desk has a wound on his face from where he was shanked by Jon Brogger. I begin to wonder if Joe Bradford is still alive, if Jon ever finished our book. Sometimes it's overwhelming how much I miss the Northwest. Somewhere in the Puget Sound there is a sealion named Marcel delighting to be gawked at! Wool, rain, grey, green that makes you feel as though you've never truely seen green before, someday I will return.
euc 8:40 AM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
On the front porch tonight, the quietness that only accompanies a snow covered world, dark of night, pink-orange glow of the street lights illuminating an empty street that shines from the cold moisture like oil. There was a small, infintessimal speck of snow amid the field of blue-grey, it shone like a diamond; in the speck I saw you, Anne -- your energy, the beautiful pulsing of quiet strength, magic that cannot be touched. There was a smaller speck not far away from the first, flickering on and off, watching, hoping to pass unnoticed. I remembered being sixteen, sitting on the deck at mom and dad's house with you on countless other midnights, watching the moon turn red, smoking cigarettes, thinking we were the biggest rebels in town. The green.
Tonight I send to you any strength I might find, any fortitude that might help you get from here to there. Two ships looking for safe docking.
One constant: And were I damned to be some place that you were not; that self were hell to me. So we must meet apart -- You there - I - here - with just the door ajar that oceans are -- and Prayer -- and that white Sustenance - Despair.
euc 8:37 PM - [Link]
...
Something about his presence, something so endearing, something that cuts so deep, right to the core. Life is so horribly beautiful at times, so fragile. [if I'm playing against you, I think I'd rather lose.]
I want to be fair and I have no real idea how. I don't know how to gauge the point at which honesty becomes selfishness. Which feelings do I control, and which can I only listen to, abide by? I feel a kinship with Sisyphus in my inability to detach myself from the goings on of this world, the convulsive beauty. There is no point to any of this, no action to be taken, there's only each individual moment, encased in amber. In three thousand years' time a team of archaeologists will find us and marvel at how rudimentary their ancestors were. But we'll be smiling.
euc 10:50 AM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Nothing to say, it's mid-March and yet the living room windows are wet with falling snowflakes. This is not entirely a bad thing, though there's something obliquely depressing about a snow day (something like what I imagine a church must feel like on Monday...?) Enough time to realize that I don't have enough time to start a new life in New Zealand. Perhaps tomorrow....
Maybe it's just the Doves song playing in the background, chorus drilling into my mind that "you turn around and life's passed you by."
There's... some kind of change that I'd like to see take place, or that is drifing about in the air and hasn't yet come to fruition. Its presence is just noticeable enough to leave me with that "pea under my mattress" feeling. If, when I run today, the blizzard envelops me, I will use my recklessness to guide me. Send your beacon?
euc 11:18 AM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Early morning runs when Ohio's winter still bites menacingly at spring's first attempts at dominance are difficult to get motivated for. Probably that's why first thing in the morning is the best time to go -- there's not enough time to sense the cold and convince oneself out of the going. Frosty lungs, black sky with a sliver of pink-orange at the horizon, hard pavement. Startled geese gossiping loudly with each other about what you are, why you're there. I run because I desire to own the early morning hours. I run because I want to beat my body and make it my slave.
So much for a slow start today, the auditors have multiplied. Two now, both strangely young looking, they can't be older than myself. One would think it would be requisite for a state auditor to be grey and somewhat dusty in appearance. Wanting, asking, demanding, this that and this, wheneveryougetachanceineeditnow, someone please call in sick for me tomorrow.
euc 9:11 AM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
I have the time today, I think, to say something witty or interesting or outlandish, but my mind has decided to spite me. Nothing complex going on in there so far. As Ahniwa would say, (in his sleep) my head is full of glass. Because I'm weak, another poem written by someone entirely not myself will have to suffice to describe my thoughts for today.
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.
-W. Yeats
More later?
euc 2:43 PM - [Link]
...
Monday, March 08, 2004
Too busy of late to commit anything to text. This will have to change.
For today:
Year One
I was still standing
On a Northern corner
Moonlit winter clouds the color of the desperation of wolves.
Proof
Of your existence?
There is nothing but.
-Franz Wright
euc 4:31 PM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
There is a woman who comes into the Board Office with some amount of regularity. I have no idea why she comes here; when she arrives she simply wisks past the receptionist's desk and floats straight for the Superintendent's Office. Head held high, she acknowledges no one. She is middle-aged, her flowing mane of greyish hair would probably make wigs for eight cancer survivors. She is part of what I would refer to as Oberlin's estrogen club; women who, at the cusp of middle-age or just passing it, have devoted their lives to arts and holisi-thera-masso-sacral-ontolo-yogaism. Ah, yes. These women can be found frequenting coffee-houses (though only the ones that have been decorated to resemble New York City lofts), waltzing around ballet studios in flowing silky fabrics adorned with patterns of varying hues but mostly saffron, nosing through books in the Public Library's children section, and meeting with each other about god knows what. I imagine that the books on their bookshelves at home have titles like A Brief Herstory of the World, Our Daughters, Ourselves, Our Curves, and Freeing the Goddess and Tampons and Such. Being a woman myself I obviously appreciate a woman's take on things, but my philosophy on minority groups of people has generally been that if you seek to cleave yourself off from the majority, you only further any imagined differences. Discrimination will only end when diversity is no longer a conscious issue. We all work to the same end. But, I digress. The times that I have seen her on the street she has only snubbed my attempted acknowledgement, so I have to believe that this is a woman who isn't very nice. The other women I'm acquainted with in this club aren't very nice, either. I find some humor in the thought that their male mid-life crisis counterparts are sporting comb-overs and careering around in tiny sports cars, trying to catch the eye of anyone younger than the wife but older than the daughter.
Ah, but I'm not really so jaded! It's just that it's Tuesday.
euc 4:20 PM - [Link]
...
She's gone, it's hard to know how to feel about it. Sad for the parting with Pat, sad to recall the death sensation that lies therein. Excited about her earnest work to expose that sensation and understand it, thereby expelling it. Perhaps? At any rate, excited that she embarks on an adventure with only herself as a guide.
The world opens its arms to you, there is no limit to what is possible.
Except for me.
The auditors have come back today, my life is now, once again, a swarm of old receipts, financial reports, bank statements. Curse these state auditors! What a boring bunch of drudgery this involves. More later, providing they don't find my ledgers to be lackluster. I hear they flog you for that.
euc 10:40 AM - [Link]
...
Thursday, February 26, 2004
I'm not entirely sure how to address Las Vegas. Upon return I find that I am even more misanthropic than ever. To say that I disliked Las Vegas would be such a grievous understatement I'm not sure if my lips would allow it to pass through. Las Vegas is the absence of anything good, or interesting, or clever, or beautiful. Las Vegas is a fifty year-old woman with tight clothing and caked makeup trying to appear teen-age again, who realizes how absurd she looks and yet changes nothing. Las Vegas is a night of ambling drunkenness ending with sloppy, self-conscious sex, and a greasy hung-over breakfast rife with awkward conversation. Las Vegas is all visceral and nothing substantial, nothing whatsoever. To speak of the small activities with which I passed the time would be taxing and pointless. There is little to do in this desert city for one who wishes to avoid the mouth-breathing throngs of humanity. It is nearly impossible to emerge from even just a fifteen minute jaunt out of one's hotel room without smelling like Johnny Cash's ashtray. Enough complaining, the past three days have been one continuous stream of complaint, even my body was not happy there.
Flying over Ohio was like coming back to an idyllic paradise, if that's any indication of how happy I was to return home. Nevada has had its chance, I doubt I shall ever return.
euc 11:14 AM - [Link]
...
Sunday, February 22, 2004
A knot in my stomach as I anticipate getting on the plane. Not exactly wanting to go, this is an altogether new experience. No feeling that I might, perhaps, gain something in the going. Oh well. As Ahniwa said, "You only get married.... twice?"
There is a great deal of solace in the knowledge that Anne accompanies me in my hesitation. An adventure with my cohort, this has not happened for quite some time. Shadrach and Meeshak, loose in Las Vegas. I hope that the library has had time to prepare for what is about to be unleashed ! Sigh....
euc 3:09 PM - [Link]
...
Thursday, February 19, 2004
The cold medicine makes me feel like a paranoid copy of a copy of a copy of myself. Feeling slightly two-dimensional. It gets worse as the day progresses, this is quite interesting. It seems that the words I think in my head decide to change themselves when they become the words that I actually say, so communication has been less than cohesive today. I imagine that, while on this medicine, my brain transforms from its normal grey cauliflower state to a much louder, gaudier, ribald state. There is simply too much distraction for the neurotransmitters to fire correctly.
Ann Fuller came to see me today. How does one speak of Ann Fuller? She is at once incredibly intimidating and undeniably endearing. She is the type of woman that I want to be when I'm 65. Fierce, too invested in those around her to say anything other than exactly what is on her mind, acutely intelligent, charming, understanding. When in her presence one gets the feeling that this is a woman who simply "knows."
I knew why she had come to see me, though she broached the subject cautiously.
"I've been watching the City Council meetings."
She talks to me about the terrible job that Daniel Gardner is doing as the chairman, how power really actually does seem to corrupt. When I agree with her, she tells me she has decided that I'm in her age bracket. This is news that I accept willingly. Seems a small price to pay for conversing with someone who shares my ideals but elucidates them in a more direct, epigrammatic manner than I ever am able to...
euc 5:49 PM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
It's strange, how people reason. A woman that I'm casually acquainted with was talking recently about dieting, and that she heard some statistic that said women who take multivitamins are, on average, 10% slimmer than those who don't. How this number was derived is entirely a mystery. So, now she's taking multivitamins. I propose to her the idea that perhaps women who are inclined to take multivitamins are somehow also more inclined to be physically active than women who don't, thus explaining the lesser density of the former, yet she simply stares blankly at me and pops another greenish capsule into her open mouth.
There are also people who think that the Highway Patrol singles out red cars, as studies have shown that proportionately, red cars get the most speeding tickets. But what of the idea that perhaps the type of person who would purchase a red car is also the type of person who would speed?
One of the school secretaries' favorite pastimes, when she is feeling especially Lilliputian I surmise, is to rail against the injustices that the secretaries face in the form of their computers, and how sub-par their particular machines are. "They're too slow!" "They crash all the time!" are the more frequent among her many battle cries. Closer investigation of the aforementioned machines show that it is not infrequent for these secretaries to be running Microsoft Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Netscape Mail, Real Audio, Winamp, Scheduling, eSIS, the Microsoft Hearts Network, whatever spyware has infested these machines that probably have never seen a Windows Update screen, and whichever insipid email .wav forward is being sent around on that day. When I suggest to her that perhaps some more ram would be beneficial, she replies "No! It's not a question of memory! They need to be REPLACED!" as though inside of each computer tower there is a special, magical, pristine emerald that runs the entire operation, and once it cracks, there is nothing one can do but start over.
I'm not fooling anyone when I say that each person is special and deserving of attention and focus. I am, through and through, a misanthrope. Don't believe me if I tell you otherwise! I must step away now, to return to my damp, dungeon-like basement, where I will continue to play dirges on my pipe organ.
euc 9:57 AM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
A bad start. Too much pettiness hanging about the air this morning, and I am mired in it. Maybe I have become didactic in my ...old age, but somehow I believe that there exists a certain thing called professionalism, and it goes hand in hand with common courtesy.
A bad start, this morning.
There is a woman in my office -- the receptionist, actually -- who sort of exemplifies what I would label as the quintessential office persona. She delights in gossip, (as I don the mark of the hypocrite) she rarely does actual work that I can tell, she is on the phone with her sister for often over half the day, and when she's not on the phone she's looking up the latest diet fad. This wouldn't really bother me, I think, if my office didn't have a huge window that looked out on the front door. This receptionist is immune to any type of interruption when she's otherwise engaged (which, you see, is most of the day) and therefore does not respond to the people who come through the door looking for whatever it is people come to a Board of Education for. When the receptionist doesn't acknowledge their presence, said people look through said window and turn to me as their second line of recourse, with the frantic eyes that humans often get in unfamiliar places when they do not receive the response they had expected, as if to say "will no one accept the fact that I'm here??" So of course I get up and see what they want, and if I can help. This getting up quite frequently interrupts some set of numbers that I'm working with, effectively derailing any train of thought I might be experiencing.
Probably, I wouldn't even mind all of that too much. The problem arises when this insipid woman interjects when I'm helping one of her victims of inattention. Halfway into my helping the random_person_off_the_street_001, she'll decide that she needs to hang up the phone and do her job. She'll look up, listen for a few seconds, then cut me off by saying what I'm working on saying. Perhaps this woman is an evil genius, realizes that I'm currently working on developing a deeper appreciation for those around me, and has decided to test my fortitude. Well, perhaps I can offer her a slice of pettiness, as I seem to be experiencing more than my fair share on this particularly pissy Tuesday. How is it that humans can at once be so delightful and also so repulsive?
euc 9:40 AM - [Link]
...
Monday, February 16, 2004
Monday morning and the beauty of having a big, lofty house all to myself.
People hear what they want to hear, and you can't change that. It's better, maybe, that you don't try. Human beings are so wrapped up in their ideas of what's right. Me too, me too! Once I wrote about vibrations, energy, learning. I believed that thoughts and ideas roam the planet as vibrations, pulsing at various levels. For a mind to experience a new idea, one would have to be in tune to, or able to decode, said vibration level. This morning it strikes me that there is perhaps some substance in this idea.
Too sleepy and caffinated to explore it any further for the moment.
euc 9:10 AM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Today I have a thin residue of frustration on my tongue. Perhaps it is enough to choke me if it goes on unchecked for too long. To quote someone who elucidates her discontent better than myself, "I am consistently disappointed in the quality of people in the general public." In a word, I have become perplexed by the lack of compassion that often underscores human-to-human interaction. Often it appears to me that the country is comprised entirely of solipsists who would be just as likely to extend a middle finger as they would to extend a hand to help someone in need. But, I digress. This was not meant to be political, also, I would like very much to refrain from the pigeon-holing of groups of people -- this is an action that I find myself doing somewhat easily, yet which I highly disdain when it is done by others.
Anyway, in doing my part to raise the nation's level of concern and compassion for The Fellow Man, I have decided to elucidate my personal code of conduct. We are, after all, unable to control that which is outside of our sphere of influence. Namely, if each solitary person would likewise delineate and adhere to a set of moral guidelines for themselves, I have to believe that the world would be a nicer place to live. However, I will never be said to have been a meliorist, so I have no actual hope of this ever happening. One can still dream.
1. Do not be a party to gossip.
2. Treat those with whom you come into contact with compassion and understanding. Do not be rushed in your interactions. Even if you are busy, treat each contact as if that particular interaction was the only thing you had to do that day. If the person you are interacting with is ill-tempered, realize that they are suffering and it is a disservice for you to add to that suffering by joining in their ill-temper.
3. People are just like you. Stop thinking that those around you are alien and somehow not offended by rudeness, or abruptness. Stop thinking that they somehow do not feel or think.
4. Do not make a judgment on an issue until you have researched viewpoints that do not agree with the one you are first presented with. Do not make ill-informed decisions or speak hastily.
Well, that's a start anyway. To be continued, I suppose. What did Rambling Jack carry in his backpack?
Bread and roses.
euc 11:41 AM - [Link]
...
Monday, February 09, 2004
The senses are dull today, my brain is enshrouded in wet cotton. A nasty combination of strep throat coupled with the flu is making its way around the office, my throat begs for a lozenge first thing this morning and I begin to worry. I am a carbon copy of myself today, my reactions happen in dream-time, a moment too late and through a veil of cheesecloth, or spiderwebs, or fog, or some such thing.
In two weeks' time I will be returning from Las Vegas, from the wedding of my eldest sister. Marriage. Later this year, my twin sister will be married. I wonder what the vow and ceremony signify to them, how they decided that it was the right decision. I have to admit that at some level, it scares me... though I can't exactly quantify why.
I am surrounded by dollar signs this morning, a cacophony of numbers. There is not enough time for letters yet today.
euc 7:41 AM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Clear communication, the impossible dream.
Is it my inability to understand the world, or the world's inability to speak in a concise manner? Whatever the root, it has been making me feel like a stranger in a strange land of late. Makes me feel so incredibly small, fragile.
Facing each other, lips flapping, nothing registers. There is a feeling in conversation that the other one is simply waiting for his turn to speak. Or, some lack of patience causes the idea to fragment itself on the rocky teeth on its way out of the mouth and I can't decipher what is essential out of the garbled mass. Maybe I ate aluminium as a child, and now my neurotransmitters aren't up to the task of crossing the synapic gap. The world is pale blue yet through my eyes it's andy warhol pink. Speaking -- verbal communication -- ought to be regarded as an art. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Honestly I believe the answer is more likely to be found in some work by Artaud or Wittgenstein. Language is simply not up to the task of conveying the stuff that happens in our minds. Varium, et mutible!
euc 7:18 PM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
The welcome mat is out, rain or shine.
There was a message in the sky last night, from Kholibri. The magical part isn't finding each other. It's what keeps you together after you've found each other.
I have this idea that intermittently pecks away at the part of my body that would see me content to be...content. The idea is that some other place will bring me happiness, that some other profession will do it. That those billygoats braying on the other side of the fence really have found the grass to be greener over there, so what possible reason could I have to not see for myself?
This is problematic mostly because, more and more, I've been realizing that if we can't find happiness with what we're doing now, then happiness is useless. If it is outside of our control (ie, attached to a place or occupation) then it is not essential. An unattainable carrot we dangle in front of our noses to keep ourselves moving forward, to provide the illusion of progress. We [I] have to stop caring about the carrot. Happiness is essential, and available, always.
"Baaaaaaaaa," those billygoats seem to call at the most inopportune moments. I suppose that's really the only time they ever call. I suppose the solution to this duality is in the realization that, probably said billygoats don't even exist. The grass is not greener on the other side because there is no other side. To sound, as Ahniwa puts it, "like a fortune cookie," all sides are One, and this One side is as green as you could possibly imagine it to be. It is not better, or worse, it simply is.
euc 6:36 PM - [Link]
...
Friday, January 30, 2004
24, blonde, athletic build, female.
First impressions, first impressions. How to make them more meaningful than simply what is on the surface...? I suppose that's what first impressions are about. Surface. Perhaps I should relax about it, realize that once people work with me they'll see beyond the whole young blonde thing.
Take me seriously!
When shouting that, though only in my head, serves only to make me feel even younger.
There is also:
BA in International Relations with a minor in Russian. Rooski Yezik, da! a deep affection for Gogol. Akaky Akakyevich. Political inclinations, an appreciation for diChirico's haunting use of verisimilitude, the crunching of the numbers and blah, blah, also, blah.
Why,
when the man from Quebecor stopped over to the office today,
did he seem rather taken aback when I was able to answer his questions about his company's tax abatement status? No, sir, you don't need to wait for my boss to get off of the phone. Yes, really, honestly, I can help you with that. Tax abatement isn't exactly the type of thing that one can stumble through unless they have a general idea of what they're talking about, is it? Good, good, good. Now, go away.
Yes, go away! It is, I suppose, my final point of retreat. With anxious ecstasy I await the day that I can tell the entire world to go away, as I make my final retreat to a cave in... Peru, or some such place. I think that my cave will be situated behind a waterfall. There will be two statues in front, on permanent guard duty, saddled with the task of keeping the world out and watching over my abundant supply of mangoes. These statues will depict mannish looking women, with hair in their armpits, unibrows. My kinsmen !
euc 4:13 PM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Words come into the lexicon of the contemporary American faster than, say, money is spent at the Pentagon. Where do these new words come from? How does one go from feeling absurd to feeling well-expressed when using the term bling-bling to indicate anything other than the sound a bicycle horn makes?
Who are the pioneers of locution, these noble fellows bringing us words like metrosexual and w00t?
One must also face the coin's other side. Inevitably the new words of today will fall silently out of existence, as a plane passing over the Bermuda Triangle, never to be seen again. Where does an adjective like wack find its eternal rest once its era of utility, in this instance the early 90s, has passed? Perhaps words that have fallen out of the vernacular of those who forced them into life simply spend the rest of history in a state of suspended animation, waiting for their chance to, once again, accurately describe an emotional state, action, person, place, thing, pet, or relative.
These words are the jelly bracelets and Zubas pants for the brain, that capricious lump of cauliflower.
Is the rite of passage for a new word nothing more than passing, perhaps precariously, through the lips of some pivotal member of popular culture during a tete-a-tete with a similarly pivotal member of popular culture? Ah, the new linguists.
Then, one must imagine, the editing process consists of said word being repeated in as many situations as possible, until it is either lauded and incorporated into everyday diction, or laughed at and thrown off to survive in stasis with wack and all the rest of M.C. Hammer's noxious contributions to what was the English language in the decade previously mentioned.
I, for one, prefer to believe that a word like jonesin' is plucked like a cabbage from some vast garden of words that may someday be. There has to be, at some point in the process, some amount of magic. If not, one is left with a bleak reality that words -- that fundamental unit of human communication -- are incarnated on an ad hoc basis, created with no more thought than one would give to the process by which pork rinds are created. But I digress. In short, perhaps I was meant to be the founding member of the Academie Anglais. Someone has to stand watch over English Language.
euc 1:10 PM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
It's the end of January. I am woken at some ungodly hour by a blinding flash through a window near my bed. Five seconds later, a low rumble spreads out with the face-contorting force of a dam breaking. How is it possible, in late January in Ohio, to be having a thunderstorm? My first heavy-eyed, sleep laden idea is that this was simply a figment of some dream, a remnant from the sleeping world that has trod malevolently through to the waking world. This theory is anulled with the next flash and rumble three minutes later.
A trip downstairs and a look towards the thermometer tell me that it's still below freezing outside. Buses can't drive on freezing rain, let alone through a freezing rain thunderstorm. No buses of course means no school, and for an unprecidented moment I decide that, occassionally, it's good to be working for a public school system. [I have made a similar assertation only once before that I can recall, on a Friday in which too much pizza was ordered by the school's cafeteria, the remainder of which was distributed to quite a few of the number-crunching types in the main office, e.g., me.]
The phone rings, it's a woman from the office, voice still warm and heavy with sleep.
"Yes, Emily, hello? There's no school today. You don't have to come in. No one's going out in this."
I think of phoning my sister to gloat but decide to save that for later, after I've had the requisite amount of sleeping in and bouncing around on the bed with the giddiness of a fifth grader that one would expect to accompany news of a snow day.
euc 10:36 AM - [Link]
...
Sunday, January 25, 2004
The final transformation begins, the last room to be redefined in a house which used to belong to my less-than-attentive sister. The walls of the room are a cityscape painted in blue and gold, and tell a story of what was once contained therein. A rectangle of dusty yellow reveals where an old metal cabinet, whose weight rivaled that of a lesser whale, once stood. Too ponderous for my sister to move, it was simply painted around. A wall now intersects the doppleganger of the peg board that collected dust and cobwebs for the five years she was here.
The drywall is mudded, the walls sanded and primed, and yet underneath somehow the blue and gold stand sentinel over the story that only my sister can tell, the story of dreams that never come to fruition [and then, one must imagine, depart to some beautiful sepia colored planet where they dine on figs and frolic amid patches of wild mint, for dead dreams must spend eternity thusly], of hastily incubated ideas that were never developed properly and therefore never unfolded to the correct dimensions. When she comes into this new version of what was once her house, the resentment that washes across her countenance is inescapably apparent. I begin to understand that her story is not for me to hear, and the blue and gold paint fade from memory as the first coat of the new color dries.
euc 1:03 PM - [Link]
...
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Tell me I'm not the crazy one.
Ohio has just passed a law banning same-sex marriage, denying state employees benefits for their same-sex partners. This law also prohibits unmarried cohabitating heterosexual couples from being eligible for couple or family health care coverage.
The seventy year old woman in my office says, "finally congress is doing something right."
The small light in my center -- the part that distinguishes good from evil, feels pain, interprets beauty -- flickers. Pale, cold, hollow. My spirit crushes down to some soft someplace, down down down, like a heart breaking. How can this be happening? Human beings are fragile creatures, we must be so delicate with each other.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
This ban is a law seething with intolerance for that which is different; it is an affront to the values and ideals that this country was founded upon. Health care has become a precious commodity in today's economy. To deny coverage to those who have every right to it is inhumane and unethical. It is against the spirit of America to impinge upon the rights of a group of people because they are outside of the ideological framework from which the majority views the world. There is a reason that America is known as the melting pot. We must be tolerant, understanding, good. In a time when we purport to be building democracy overseas we abridge the rights of a vast number of our country's own citizens. I am bereft of hope, speechless. How can we possibly be living in a world where there still exists such a lack of compassion for those around us? The passing of this law came during a week which began with a day of observance to honor the birth of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The irony is annihilating.
euc 1:25 PM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
"I don't mean to sound judgemental" usually precedes unflinching judgement. Until you understand all sides of an issue, until you can approach the idea/situation in question without bias, there is no moral ground from which to render an opinion. Frustration. There are six billion people in the world, what is right for one person cannot possibly be right for every single one of the remaining five billion nine hundred ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine. Because my path may sometimes look like yours does not mean that we are both on the same path. I wish we could have more understanding, more meeting half-way. There has to be some variation between lives, otherwise there is no point for anyone other than that first "one" to act independently. We weren't born ants! Let's celebrate that we don't all have to report to the same drudgery of carrying bits of sand every day, that we can all come to understanding in our own ways, via our own thoughts. Perhaps there is a "right" that is quantifiable at the individual level, but as yet I cannot believe that there is also a "right" that(or that this same individual "right") is quantifiable at the macrocosmic level. Six billion of which I am one.
euc 12:30 PM - [Link]
...
Monday, January 19, 2004
When do relationships get easy? When does the pendulum just stay in the middle, abandon its rythmic propulsions from unparalleled happiness to unhesitating readiness to walk away? I can't think anymore, I have no high water mark against which to make a solid judgement, there is no line of demarcation. I love you, but can we be right for each other? One question that returns to my mind as unfailingly as the tide returning from the sea, though there is no moon that I can use to explain its presence -- what keeps two people together? Do we have it, whatever it is?
Above everything else I want us to grow into people that we can forever be proud of... or, continue to be people we can forever be proud of, rather. I'm afraid that we stay together out of ease, comfort, time, fear, a million other things that don't feel like the right thing. What the hell is the right thing?
No life but that which we make. I'm confused, confused, confused. Carrion in a river of carrion. My compass has fogged over, I have no idea how to find North.
euc 6:39 PM - [Link]
...
Friday, January 16, 2004
I only stopped because of the clock pointing to anguish. The world halted mid-revolution, the ocean stirred. There is no reason to be anxious. There is no reason to think that things are not as they should be, because this idea of "should be" simply does not exist. Two things to guide you: what is and what is not. Will be is a fallacy, a siren, do not fall victim to its luring song. The entire world opens its arms to you, there is no limit to what is possible.
euc 4:02 PM - [Link]
...
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Hotel art on the walls, what do you think of when it is just you and the silence? Your eyes are wild, though you strike me as impossibly sedentary. Wild as in dangerous, untested. Fickle. It is a question that I ask desiring that it never be answered.
Frenetic is the pace of thoughts careering through my mind, I don't extend my hand for any of them. In search of calm.
euc 12:00 AM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
"Most people lead lives of silent desperation"
...
Who started the system, and why do we all keep going along with it? Silent desperation when I'm so happy inside... We will get to the top of the hill, we'll leave our respective boulders somewhere along the way. A fourty hour work week crunching numbers when there is a song beckoning to be written, a lifetime of bills when my dreams take me off the grid. We have the fortitude, all that's missing is the confidence. Perhaps not today, but someday...
Warriors do not walk alone. Happiness, misery, a million beautiful horrors. Will you dance with me tonight, after safety has gone to bed? Will your embrace balance upon the line that seperates love from death? Crush me under the weight of your expectant gaze, crush me completely.
I want to forget all of this falseness that surrounds the undertakings of men, I want to run, I want to remember the joy of soaring. I want danger, I want to end this overpowering stagnation. I want to fall in love with the moon. How do you search for me, and where, and when? Answer me at midnight, crush me with your embrace, take my breath and turn it into the northern wind.
The six year old in each one of us is still very much alive, posted to sentinel duty over the decisions we make that turn us into the people we become. The six year old remembers that the world is a place where the marvelous can pop in at any moment, despite the constant reinforcement that would have us believe otherwise.... climb the ladder, get the house, the car, the kids, day in, day out, responsibilities, compromises, endless... when the only thing you really need to do is breath, eat, sleep. There is a clandestine joy in my body, I will find it.
euc 8:34 PM - [Link]
...
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Ohio is a barren wasteland today, and it is beautiful. The world outside is bleak, a doppleganger of the neighborhood of six months ago. Reflecting over a glass of wine I admit to myself that I would rather work with the philosophy of Julian Simon than that of Michael Moore. We have to be creative where we see destruction, we must not let ourselves be controlled by grief, motivated by despair. I cannot view myself as seperate from those around me. To do so is myopic, and destructive.
I remember the words of my first psychology professor, though his name is long since forgotten. "The average person has more depth than they are willing to show." At eighteen this was an impossible idea for me to appreciate in any fashion, academically or otherwise. As I age I feel this idea attach itself to my very core. You must be gentle with those around you, little one, they are reflections of yourself, just as you are reflections of them. The steel-blue eyes of my father, resolute and yet gentle, honest, make me wonder how I could have ever thought otherwise.
euc 12:00 AM - [Link]
...
Friday, January 09, 2004
Too much thought for silence, too little hope for speech. I am the tear in the back of your throat that will not expel itself, will not be swallowed. My wish is for honest debate, dialogue without hatred, the free flow of ideas, statistics without bias. When I read the political tracts of the "right," I come away knowing more about the left and why the left is wrong. When I read the political tracts of the "left," I come away knowing more about the right and why the right is wrong. I begin to wonder if there is any real debate going on in this country, or if the vehement intolerance and mud-slinging is the new status quo. There is so much talking, but so little is said. I want honesty, facts, understanding. If there exist publications representing the political left and the political right in the USA that present the platforms of each side in a way that is more academic than fanatic, please, please direct me to them. wonder_yak@hotmail.com
Perhaps it is politically naive of me to think that anyone actually stands for anything, that politics involve anything beyond knee-jerk reactions and being wittier than the opposition.
For the Left:
"One is not superior simply because one views the world as odious."
-Chateaubriand
For the Right:
"While you are alive and able, be good."
-Marcus Aurelius
euc 10:35 AM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Life is good here, but there is a fine layer of dust covering everything. What startles me is how quickly it accumulates, how we grow so accustomed to the dust that it begins to choke us and we take no notice. There is medicine for choked lungs, there is medicine for dyspepsia. Onward, onward, onward...
Though, the gypsy blood in my veins waits for its opportunity to take command, to reduce to ash the solid rock foundations of the life I've built here. Sturdy granite when I seek the unreliability of lath and plaster. We must imagine Sisyphus happy, Emily, repeat it to yourself.
Ah, but it is not really so bleak! Dostoevsky once proclaimed, "man is not an organ-stop!" and the fire in my heart swelled. Despair is requisite if one is to feel joy, therefore, I do not banish despair.
When I tell myself that, once I've saved enough money, I'll trade this safety in for adventure, do I believe it? How much is enough? What is the desire underneath the desire?
I was lying when I said I was a spiteful man; I was lying out of spite!
The question which served as catalyst to this latest pea under my mattress:
Why did Candide leave Eldorado?
euc 3:43 PM - [Link]
...
Friday, January 02, 2004
It is nice to be alive, but there's so much work to be done. My country is led by a crook, too few are comfortable, too many suffer. My hope is that 2004 will be the year that true patriotism returns to this great country, that Americans will throw off the blinders that those in power would have them continue to wear, and bring dignity back to this nation. More than anything I want the climate of fear to dissipate. People should feel comfortable expressing their ideas and opinions without fear of intolerance or reprisal. There is nothing more unpatriotic than quashing the free flow of ideas. We need to educate ourselves, we need to be accepting of each other, and we need to conduct the business of this country in such a way that would make our founding fathers proud. Never has it been so crucial for the average person to feel connected to and influential over the future of this country, and beyond that, to act on that feeling. There is so much we can do.
euc 12:00 AM - [Link]
...
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Dinner with my parents and I wonder if I act despondent. Betrayed by my restless eyes, what they broadcast is hunger. Will not be satiated by food. You are safe with them, little one, though you proselytize running from convention. They are happy and you need not worry. Your missives are for yourself, and though I wonder about your drive I know that you are getting somewhere. Onward.
In Olympia I began the tale of Myzel. My hand recoils now to think of summoning him once again, after so long an absence. To be sustained and then simply move on. My King of France, Myzel! Together we built a raft and sailed to the middle of the ocean. We sailed until there were no horizons, until the only place to look was down and still we looked up! One day I will return to you, Myzel, and finish your story, though as for today I have not yet found my hand. Have another drink young sailors, and be merry, for your ship leaves at dawn!
euc 12:00 AM - [Link]
...
Monday, December 29, 2003
A bit of resolution, a chance for a fresh start. It feels good beginning again with you, it feels sacred. Real. We must be vigilant for each other. Sentinels must never fall asleep.
I will be patient, and good, and humble. Welcome me back, human race! I had my eye fixed upon some momentary pleasure and somehow missed the ceremony of our parting. I return to you, unequivocally.
euc 1:31 PM - [Link]
...
Saturday, December 27, 2003
same old thing, all the time. winter. the cold that chills you to the core, steals what little joy you would resign into. the optomistic determination is replaced by withdrawn acceptance, fear.
"Woman! Why are you thanking us as if we just saved your life? Nothing awful ever happens! It's all just an adventure!"
I need desperately to remember the limitless possibilities of last year, I need to remember the Jinn. The robber baron blood that will not see me fail. Anne, what would I do without her? My sister. Exemplifying freedom when the cage's bars draw ever closer around me. Stop all of your dramatic festering and make a decision. Decide on a direction and go; go until you've seen all that you wanted to see. You cannot sacrifice your happiness in the name of someone else's happiness, because it's phony. It will not last. Do not abandon yourself.
euc 4:59 PM - [Link]
...
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Christmas music wafting from the speakers, a feeling of plastic-ness. December should not be the only month that we are excessively willing to show our love and appreciation for our fellow man. No more judgement, this is not even a request. The fuzz hum static of a million computers leaves me feeling removed, captive on a strange planet. The churning of the conditioned air here is as relentless as life.
Am I the moral twin of Midas?
Whatever decision you make, whichever path you choose to take, as long as you follow it with justness, fairness, and humility, it is the right path.
euc 12:00 AM - [Link]
...
Monday, December 15, 2003
There is never a point at which it becomes too late to begin again. You are not bound to the person you were a year ago, and likewise you are not bound to the person you are one year from now, because neither of those people exist. Do now.
The gun metal grey of an Ohio winter sky. There is some magic in the air, some mysterious idea floating around that reminds me that there is no such thing as "have to."
Be excellent to others, but especially to yourself.
euc 4:11 PM - [Link]
...
Saturday, December 13, 2003
There is this connection that defies any attempt at explanation. I can't even speak of my affection -- the words only fall flat and prostrate. I am weak.
There is a monkey wrench precisely between the two gears that keep this whole operation moving. I cannot take my eye off of this wrench; it has me transfixed. As I watch it I begin to realize that the wrench is me.
...
Turn it off. [if only it were that simple.] You spoke too much/soon.
I can't give you common sense -- that much you've got to come up with on your own.
Take you to the edge of the canyon and then I'll just watch you plummet. Marcus Aurelius, turn your eye away for just this moment! I tried! Didn't I? And it sounds so much like me not believing myself.
Any fool can make you believe in them. I want you to believe in yourself!! Would that I could force you to see that. All of this nonsense would be over.
If I take you to the canyon's edge and you look to me for instruction, don't talk to me on the long walk back [she says as she's already begun to turn]
There is only one point left to be made.
"You love me now, but you'll hate me soon."
And yet that scorpion's tail you hide (judge, jury, executioner) has me prostrate. For the moment.
euc 12:00 AM - [Link]
...
Friday, December 12, 2003
the drama we engage in to make our lives interesting.
don't....
your task is to be a good human being, to not stray from your nature. to seek knowledge, leave no stone unturned, find answers to your questions, etc, ad infinitum...
"Though thou be destined to live three thousand years and as many myriads besides, yet remember that no man loseth other life than that which he liveth, nor liveth other than that which he loseth."
and yet somehow, down to the very core of you, you're absolutely certain that there is no certainty in anything. Not even death. This point is crucial; not even death! and with this thought there is some amount of joy -- though clandestine -- and I wonder if I am simply a philosophical virgin, cringing for some system of belief to underscore my actions...
The Russian in me simply says "onward!"
today:
"the white men are landing! the cannon! we must submit ourselves to baptism, put on clothes, work."
euc 12:00 AM - [Link]
...
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
A blank page. My life used to look like one. Corridors, sharp turns, circles, repetition--now it looks like a maze. Where am I going with any of this? I don't fit in here, that much at least is obvious. I'm not made to be an "administrative professional," but fear has so far rendered me unable to try anything else. The lies we tell ourselves to make it through day to day.
Running on empty.
"Life is the slow trek, through the detour of art, to recover the one or two images in the presence of which your heart first opened." Yes, yes, yes. It feels too simple, but really, Emily?. What are you doing? Why do you think that through all of these years, all of these major changes in your life, you're still enraptured with Russia? Reading The Brothers Karamazov in high school set you apart from your peers, and it also opened up a world of morality, personal belief systems, responsibility. Freedom. The title of the book changes, the pages obscure and blend together, but the undercurrent remains... Life is huge, meaningful, sometimes painful, but always purposeful. As a human being you have an obligation to live loudly, and never with resignation. This you owe not only to yourself, but to everyone around you, everyone who might, in any way, look to you as an example of how to be a good human being.
You choose safety, but at what cost and to what end? If safety is the death of diversion in the journey, the death of alteration, then it is also the death of life. A worker bee wakes up every day with one purpose in its mind, one goal to drive towards unflinchingly--preservation of the hive. Its life is a road map free of the problem of independent will, personal choice. When we as human beings give up our free will, we become drones. We are assigned the task of pushing our potential and overcoming the obstacles that would cause us to resign ourselves to a challenge-free life. The voice that follows you into the most confident recess of your mind--that mental sword of Damocles--asks unceasingly, "is there not more to life than this?" Will the answer ever be no?
euc 12:09 PM - [Link]
...
Post a Comment
<< Home