This is the section of my web page where I rant about the shortcomings of my life, which is actually pretty damn good compared to those of many others in this world. So if you don't wanna hear it, go away. If you're just looking for updates and pictures and cute quotes, go away. In fact, just go away, period.
Excerpts from my "novel:"
I want the exciting, the sparkling, the unpredictable. I want to “fall in love with life and drink it like a fountain that is coming like an avalanche, pouring down the mountain.” I want the exotic, the realistic, the spicy, the heart-wrenching.
Do people crave normalcy?
On some level, I think so. Everyone needs a niche, a place to feel at home and completely comfortable. The new kid in fourth grade will do anything possible to fit in (that is, if the kid hasn’t yet developed a solid sense of self. If this is the case, the kid is bound to be chastised until his or her peers grow up). Fitting in may involve wearing the local clothing style, picking up new jargon, or finding a really nerdy kid to walk all over.
On the other hand, I think having a “story” to tell inflates many people’s senses of individuality. In a way, I’ve sort of delighted in letting people in on the secret that my parents were never married (a common practice in areas of Europe, I hear). It’s out of the norm here in America - it makes me interesting, different. I fit in to society well enough, now I must show my strong individual self. If having a dysfunctional family doesn’t screw you up too badly, it’s likely that you’ll find some sadistic, hedonistic pleasure in conveying your woes to the world.
The fireflies are so beautiful. Do they know they blink in syncopation? Maybe they’re jealous of Venus, who is peering over the western horizon. Do flowers see all the colors of sunset and spend their life trying to imitate that beauty? Oh Guitar Boy, Firefly Boy, bring your happy songs down here! We could make beautiful music together!
*
On to animal crackers. Oh, the poor, sweet, innocent things. They never asked for this horrible existence. They never asked to be conceived in a cracker factory, only to be horribly tortured by sadistic elementary school children, and later by sadistic college students. I mean, this poor little...hippocamelphant-goat doesn't even know what to expect as I slowly reach for it, but when it sees those pearly daggers that are my teeth, aimed for his most personal of regions, he gets this sinking feeling in his stomach. I'm sorry! Blame society! I'm a vegetarian! Wait, no I'm not...
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So yes, back to how orgasmically nice it is out here. I connected my 3-way lamp to an extension cord in the living room and dragged it out here. [Summer roommate] came out to join me. Aww. Here I am, not doing work, and there he is, doing work. What a surprise. Helpful Lotus Smart Suite Word Pro tells me that "orgasmically" is not a word. I think it's about the most descriptive, most ambiguous, and most delicious word in my vocabulary.
Speaking of orgasm-ification, I took one of the World's Greatest Naps today after class. I could feel it coming on - I was in the kitchen, scrounging up some food-like substance (we're left with noodles, peanut butter and papaya strips as our main diet until Thursday) when it hit me, and I had to give in. It's one of those situations in which nothing can be done to counteract the impending doom. Nope, no homework. No IMing. No masturbating. I mean, no...pooping. Just sleep. And it was good. The air was cool, my "chill" mix was playing (used for sleeping, studying, filling up my required six pages of the day etc.) and the nap was great. [Summer roommate] finally knocked on my door around 5:00 and roused me from sleeping through the alarm clock I had set. I can’t express how wonderful a nap can be - for the mind, the temper, the appetite, the soul, the body...Those angry, sweaty guys who shout a lot about justification and reciprocity and revenge just need a nice cold shower...and an hour's nap.
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Life would get pretty boring if we were never cold, or hungry. I guess people need downs to counteract the ups, to make the ups more enjoyable. Like every once in awhile, you'll have a really great dream. I mean, it's one where you're having sex a lot, and it's great, and you're this movie star and life's just grand! The next night you want to have another whiz-bang dream, but it doesn't happen. That dream was so great because you don't have dreams like it every night, just once in a great while. If we dreamed about sex every night, it would get pretty monotonous. If we were cold and hungry every day, life would be pretty miserable. But the extremes, if only sporadically placed, make life rather adventurous.
*
7/14
Dangling above the College Library is the waxing moon. Last night it tangoed with Venus before they both set over the western horizon. Aah, and above me, a dozen gnats tickle the air, taunting my “swat” reaction. But they aren’t bothering me, so I won’t bother them.
The sun is blood orange, the delicious color of peach skins. Three long, thick, wispy clouds stretch from points in the western sky to a single location northeast of here. Where all the clouds come together, their whites, blues, pinks and purples converge, mix, mingle, melt into a nondescript bluish-purple.
Sometime a change of position or location can mean a world of difference. The sun is blazing a furious orange, already wispy purple at the bottom. The sky around it could be bottled and sold to rich ladies for thousands of dollars an ounce. Damn eyes - why can’t I stare directly at the illuminating monster? As I look, I can see it setting behind the line of trees. Time now to look, not write. Enjoy, and enjoy just for myself.
18 held some of the greatest ups and downs of my life. And I suppose it should - every day is more real, more recent, than the one before it. But every day gone by colors our minds as the sun does the sky, and hence illuminates our lives with experience. Every day gone by, every experience, is worthwhile, helpful, colorful, beautiful. A day one considers wasteful has not yet been recognized for its devastating significance. If I could plop the sky on a waffle cone and lick it, it would taste brilliantly sour, sickeningly rich, deliciously sweet, bitter, pepper-hot and liquid nitrogen-cool; it would be filling and yet leave so much to be desired. It would taste of experience, it would taste of the yearning that experience leaves you with. I have to poop.
*
Outside these walls, inky blackness threatens to swallow me up if I stare for too long, or even think of braving it. No, this cursed place says, Tis better in here. Out there is uncharted, uncertain land. Stay in here where all is known, charted, explored and understood. But the threat just makes the pull of that blackness all the stronger.
*
Hmph. Boys are dumb. Why can’t they all just disappear? I know why...but still, they’re so inconvenient. I think they constitute a different species. Allow me to generalize and therefore speak for 99.9% of males, and most likely anger any male to read this. They’re dumb. Did I mention that? Maybe not in academics, but in life. They’re oafish. What kind of a stupid, pointless, angry, bash-into-people sport is football anyway? How could a person be entertained watching huge grown men break bones over a ball made of a dead animal? I mean come on...if your testosterone is really that out of control, go run around in circles until you collapse from exhaustion! Or do something useful - like run in a hamster wheel. Why is it that football players get paid more to entertain us than farmers do to feed us? Rhetorical question, I know. They smell bad. Why is it that a guy’s room always has a...stank-i-ness to it? It smells like, well, a boy’s room. Boys are stupid. And dumb. And STUPID! AAAARGH!! I can type that until my fingers are worn through, but why can’t I believe it? Hmm..I wish I had a boy here right now...to PUNCH!! Any boy will do. Okay, let’s make that a boy around my age...’twould be rather black-hearted to punch a young boy. And no one over the age of 70. Unless he’s a real asshole. I could really go for a run right now...too bad it’s so late. I wanted to this morning, but my ovaries were in the process of churning cacti through my fallopian tubes.
*
So as long as we're on the topic of guys, from the unappreciated, to the creepy, to the ex, I'll use my experiences to come up with what I do want in a guy. ... Spontaneity is a must - I mean, why should every action be justified? In 6th grade, such actions deemed me as "weird." But hey, Al Yankovic made millions from just being himself (speaking of which, that bastard is still married. When will he wise up and realize that I'm the girl of his dreams?) - and through the same tactic, I will someday meet the right guy. Someone willing to sit in an ice-cold fountain on a sweltering day to cool his balls. Someone who will go for a run in the rain, who will just go with the flow of life, not resist it - like improvising on stage when something goes wrong. Life is hard, shit is going to happen, and you had better be able to bend with the times. I want someone who spends more time looking up at the sky than straight ahead, or, even worse, down at the ground. I mean, the worst that could happen is that you run into a lamp post, or get a sore neck...or cause other people to look up in wonder. I want someone who will miss me when I'm gone, will think of me when we're not together, but not to the extent that he can't function without me. That kind of neediness is suffocating... I WANT A GUY WHO WILL READ FOR FUN. Someone eager to fill his head with ideas and concepts not his own, who will consider them and add those mental pictures to his repertoire from which he will draw on in the future. Someone who's not afraid to fantasize, or to wonder, and to share those wonders - as blatantly silly as they may be - with other people. Someone who not only doesn't mind stopping to smell the roses, but does it frequently; who's not afraid of beauty, or admitting the presence of beauty. Allow me to sum up by saying that a person I love...should love me just as much as I love him. That's the best way for a relationship to work.
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A word of caution for anyone giving advice: personal experience is a priceless commodity...It is a treasure that, above all, you had to “learn the hard way.” Feel free to hand it out wherever you go, but BE ADVISED: always keep in mind that it was your. Personal. Experience. What happened to or worked for you could very well be an isolated incident, and when shared with others should always be followed with, “But that’s just my experience. It may work differently for you.”
"...advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise..." - passage from The Fellowship of the Ring.
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“Whoa you guys, I smell like pot. That can’t be...people at the drive-in smell like pot...not me! But here I am, smelling like pot!” -me
*
The persistent thunder rolls through the clouds, dances over sleeping forms. It will present itself, do its job and leave - much to the oblivion of early-morning risers unlike my night owl self.
*
If only I could bottle that moment in time, I’d take it out during high stress moments. Or on a cold, dreary winter day when the sun hasn’t shone for weeks and the lake is frozen over. Or on a blistering summer day when the lake is sickeningly placid and reeks of algae. I wish I could send a vial of Right Now to [my friend], who of all people could use a dose of Unprecedented, Unprompted Beauty right now. I would like to offer it someday to the person I love as a symbol of myself, the most heartfelt gift I could ever give.
I love big, comfy sweaters. Especially the kind with the hood you can pull over your head protectively, in which you can retreat into your own dark world of softness and fluffiness. I love sitting here on the terrace, warmed by the sun, cooled by the wind. I love Christmas, and those ridiculously happy moments you experience around that time, right before saying to yourself “Okay stop. This is corny." Ya know all those moments I love? Yeah, I love 'em. I love that time at Thanksgiving when tensions ebb and we all get along and laugh at the same thing, whether it be a song and dance production we "kids" put on, or Aunt Sally's annual Flaming Napkin/Wrapping Paper incidents. I love this warm, sleepy feeling. Right now I have everything and everyone I need: the world and myself. Though it would be nice if I had a sweater.
*
It is so hard to stare adversity in the face and take it. It is so hard to look someone in the face as they laugh at something you've told them, something that is a core operation of your heart. It's a great ability to look into that guffawing face, stare at the back of the throat that's exposed in the all-out laugh, and stand straight. To know that it's still your belief, regardless of the reaction.
Yes, I believe in striving to find beauty in life. I see nothing wrong with a woman who devotes her life to writing books that make people feel good about the stupid things they do. So much time is spent trying to belittle other people for the sake of one's ego that many people are left with truly deflated self-images, no matter how tough their skin seems. What's wrong with being soft? Soft hearted? What's wrong with seeing the beauty in everything and everyone? Oh yeah, either a) you are the only one doing so, and therefore are especially susceptible to injury by the hard hearts of others, or b) to quote the movie American Beauty, there's so much beauty in life that one's heart just wants to swell up and burst.
And now, for real life:
I'm exhausted. I feel like I'm the Psychologist of the house. My dad has told me angrily "don't act like a little mommy," but then he turns around and tells me to keep the house clean and to make sure the kids eat right while he's out of town! I've gotten to the point where I guess I'm no longer best friends with my sister, and I'm so angry and sad because I know it's no one's fault...and that nothing can be done about it. I'm angry that my dad has decided he's spent so much attention on my sister that he'll now switch to my brother - though he kind of glazed over me. I'm angry that my mom is such a kind and generous person, and has dealt with so much shit in her life...and has been rewarded so little. I'm angry that I take things so personally. I'm angry that I feel I have to decide now (or should have decided my junior year of high school) what I want to do for the rest of my life. Hmph - a Psychology major. What can one do with that except therapy? Well, we'll see. I have a long time to live, and a lot can happen.
Okay.
I'm happy I'm surrounded by such caring people. I went to college and met people with whom I will stay in touch for the rest of my life. People I connect with better than anyone from high school. I'm glad I've been given the chance to leave home and find myself, to follow whatever path interests me, to make these great friends and learn to really appreciate life. I'm glad I can appreciate all these things without believing in a higher power - I appreciate every aspect of life for myself, which is as I believe it should be with everyone.
Oh, you think this is all? I've only begun. Now, go away.