letters_in_sand

I've been thinking a lot lately about how there's this lovely, kind, G-rated version of the world that they present to you when you're a kid. And, impressionable kid that I was, I totally bought into it.

And now I'm, what, 32, and I still expect the world to be that way.

At least I've now realized that this is what's going on.

An example is how I'm always disappointed and amazed when people are gossippy and judgmental and petty and entertain themselves by saying horrible things about other people and/or each other. That always sends me reeling.

But I think what I hate even more, is how much I hate that, and how shocked and horrified I always am by it. Like, OF COURSE that's reality. OF COURSE people don't have higher standards of behavior. OF COURSE not everyone is so damn sensitive that they hear cruel remarks as though the remarks were about them. THAT'S JUST HOW IT IS.

Conclusion:

DAMMIT.

I dreamed I was the only one on the cruise ship who could use the hoverboard!

YES!!!

This song makes my teeth tingle ...in a good way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS77ciZeL58&feature=related
(the video is awful. I recommend hiding the video while listening to the song.)

No darkness can keep you from my sight.
I tell you, I need no sign, no star, no light to shine.
This world is prepared for us - don't you feel it's time?

It was just 3:15 on Friday, then 10:40 on Tuesday, and now it's Wednesday again, and I already did this part.

How am I supposed to know when my deadlines are?!

I DO NOT APPRECIATE

thinking of keeping a calendar to track which random objects feature prominently in my obsessive consciousness from one day to the next.

lately:
- ORANGE JUICE!
- LISZT'S PIANO ARRANGEMENT OF DANSE MACABRE!
- LUTE!
- JARS!

1. I was savoring a song lyric this morning, which indicated that maybe my brain, with its Meaning Deficiency Disorder*, was working reasonably well. It was the first line of Walk Like an Egyptian: "All the old paintings on the tombs, they do the same dance, don't you know." Except I looked it up and it turns out the line is sand dance, not same dance, which is not as good, but oh well.

That cracks me up. What a great conversation starter. Much like, "Oh, say, can you see ...?"

That's the kind of random shit I would say out of nowhere, in real life, which is probably why I'm not in the office clique. Or that's what I like to tell myself.

I AM TOO DAMN ECCENTRIC TO BE PART OF A CLIQUE!
ok.


2. I wish it would rain forever. magically, with no flooding and overly soggy grass and drowned crops or any of those side effects.


*3. Insufficient Dopamine Vulnerability Disorder!
my brain sucks at making essential neurochemicals.
Or so the pharmaceutical companies would have me believe.
Seems plausible.
But anyway, yeah, so this is kind of funny in a non-humorous way:
I've realized that, probably because I have trouble deriving meaning from things that damn well should be meaningful, I ALSO inadvertently assign WAY too much meaning to stuff that should be meaningless.
(Like how I'm not in the office clique.)
:'(


Yay... life lessons.........???


( 4 )

Having a musical craving for an album which would depress me and which I don't have here anyway.
argh

Today I told someone a really great summary of how I've been, which was this:

I am embracing the fact that I have a tendency to go through phases.

Right now, I am going through a phase where pretty much all I do is WORKWORKWORKWORK!!!!! and it takes all my energy, and we are losing people at work soon, so I will be WORKWORKWORKWORK!!!!!ing even more in the near future, and I'm not sure how that's possible, because I'm already drowning, and I go home at night and go directly to sleep because work has taken so much of my energy, and then I have my evening in the wee hours of the morning, and because of all of the above, I am having a small crisis of meaninglessness.

Simultaneously, though, I am going through a phase where I make a lot of smoothies. :)


Also of note, the thing I say the most times per day, by far:
"Okay."
Does this mean something?
Does it mean I'm more accepting of things? More agreeable towards people?
That's kinda what I'm going for, but I'm not sure if I'm there, or if it's just a word I say a lot.

Today's diversion... a goldmine of nonsense.


"The quiz contestants ate strawberry with cream while Walter the circus clown played the xylophone."
"The overweight little schoolboy with a bike is holding hops and fine cotton in the pocket of his attire."
"For a moment I was in someone else's plush squeaking armchair."
"Dotsyo the Gnome ended up sleeping in a carriage for frogs."
"Sexy of body, yet scared of the swimsuit."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pangrams

If I was up in the middle of the night doing insomnia*-fueled art, does that mean I'm living the dream?

I don't mean that in a pun way that references sleep. What I mean is that I pictured myself, wishfully, as someone who stayed up all night playing with metal.

Doesn't FEEL like an accomplishment, possibly because I was doing some very algorithmic parts of the process, rather than the fun, really-creative parts.
I'm just like, I made a frame. Big deal.

A lot of art is busywork, and I love it for that.
But this just makes me wonder. All the stuff that potentially lets you be brilliant has such a low ratio of those moments of "Brilliant!!" to the many many hours of mindless repetition and other forms of drudgery**.
Science, I've noticed, is the same way.
You may have that moment that's like, "I'm a genius genius!***"
But THEN you have to write a grant, and get it funded, and run a study, and analyze the result of the study, only to find out that either
a) well, the data may sort of hint towards that you are right, if you spin them this specific way, and/or
b) the data indicate that you were full of shit substantially incorrect to begin with.

I dunno, it's just something I ponder, how much of anything is truly the essence of what you love about it?

Maybe I'm being excessively negative.

Part of the problem, also, is probably that I was watching St Elmo's Fire at the time, which is like a watered-down, crappy Dead Poet's Society, only co-ed and with more fail.


*I guess it's not really insomnia if you fall asleep at 7 and wake up at 1:30. It's pretty much just the intermission between sleep shifts 1 and 2. My sleep is, by some people's standards, incredibly screwed up. I can't decide if I think it is or not. "Should I fix this?....meh...I did want to have awesome middle-of-the-nights doing ART, after all..."
**I want a nicer word for this, as there are many types of drudgery (especially of the mindless type) that I enjoy, but it's eluding me.
***http://www.mp3lyrics.org/h/hair/manchester-england/ HAPPY THANKSGIVING

my dad just referred to my grandmother as "Meta-Mom."
:)

Been listening to Live's album Mental Jewelry.

It started last weekend, because I think the album has a nice dark-grey feel to it, and I figured that would go with my pissy mood, which it did. What I really wanted was Tool's Aenema (sigh, omg, ok, Ænema, if you want to get all technical about it), but apparently my wacko past self sold that album when she was half out of her mind and eschewing half of her possessions, so I was out of luck there. Except I have it electronically still somewhere, but didn't feel like looking for it, so was out of luck either way.

Anyway, I got Mental Jewelry when I was fifteen or so. It was pretty cool how it happened at all. I came home from school one day and my dad told me Live had a show that night at Penn State, and they were signing autographs at That Cool Record Store at Penn State, did I want to go on a random road trip? Well, of course I did, and so we went. Of course this is perfectly illustrative of how awesome my dad is.

But yeah, we already had Throwing Copper, so we bought Mental Jewelry so that we could have them autograph it. Which we did.

Also of note is that at that age I was a total guitar fiend, and I think I went through most of my cds, which was quite a few (in the hundreds) and learned how to play every song I could figure out, at the rate of 1-3 songs per day. I would write down the chord progressions on notecards and quiz myself on them. Wish I still had the notecards. Damn you, half-insane past self! Mental Jewelry was a great album to learn how to play. Most people who've been subject to my babble about music have heard me go on about albums that are consistent without being homogenous. This is such an album. And the chord progressions are fairly easy, and the melodies are in a good range, and all that stuff that makes something fun to play on the guitar.

My point is, I've known this album really well for half my life. I knew all the chords and I knew all the words. I used to play and sing them in the laundry room late at night (since that's what I did to prepare for the open mic nights of my future).

But when I listen to it now, it's hitting me very differently.

Like I said, I chose this album to go with my pissy mood. But certain lines were really standing out.

"I decided that anxiety and pain were better friends, so I let it go. ... Did you let it go? ... Let's get it back."
"The perception that divides you from him is a lie."

It was really hitting me that every single line on the album is about compassion and oneness.
I don't know if I knew this and forgot, or that I didn't know, and whether that's mostly because I didn't know anything about Buddhism yet.

I've known this album long past the point where you stop asking, "What the hell does that mean, pain lies on the riverside?" But I never knew what it meant until now. The water is compassion. You can bathe in it & swim in it & wade in it.... or, you can have a sucky life. One or the other, not both. Interact with the water, or suffer, alone and lost, for all your days.

"Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home."

(Arcade Fire)

depressionism

dear my dreams,

stop messing with me and go back to delighting me.



dear my sleep,

you are not supposed to start at 8 or 9 p.m. you are supposed to start around maybe 11. ok?



dear my cells,

are you ok? we've slept for 16 of the past 24 hours, is why I ask. I hope you're doing something productive in all that time, since I'm certainly not.