fasten up your earthly burdens you have just begun

This renegade’s on the chase again, clinging to whatever scraps of light. It’s so different just being out in the open... I had thought religion must always be associated with bureaucracy, with function being above the soul.

Church... um. Haven’t been in a month or so. I get curious about the ward in my new area but... It just stays a curiosity.

My mother is beginning to crack down on me for not recieving my patriarchal blessing yet. She’s been telling me it will be a blueprint to my path in life... I hate to watch her religious flutter, it actually scares me how she can appear to be so spiritual and be so rash and set in her ways.... Why is it that I feel so dangerous saying these things? Why have I always been so pressed to not look anywhere else but in one small corner?

John wrestles with Christianity, but whenever he and Tammie have troubles, he wanders off to the Lutheran church near the apartment. Says it’s peaceful. It is actually. So are the different church houses I’ve been to in my life. At the Buddhist temple you can definitely feel an energy. As far as feeling the ‘spirit’ goes it’s surprising on how I feel it and where. I don’t think I’ve lost it, many would say before my telling them of my church activity that I do have it. I love the quote ‘ the less I seek one source for one definitive, the closer I am to fine’. But it’s not always easy...

My struggle of the soul is not just limited to Mormonism, but to Christianity as a whole. The ideals of Salvation complex me, just the whole urgency of it... The motions of Salvation as well, it is either good or evil right or wrong. Is finding the value and depth of one’s soul such a uniform process? Can it just be found by looking at the stamps on each action and making a collective desicision to see if you’ve flunked out or not? Is it really about earning love and redemption from the father???

An obstacle I have to understanding any black and white process is it is heavily based on direct associations. Whatever happened to due process? Too many factors exist for such uniform establishments, even there are too many factors within factors. It leaves too much room for discrimination and less room for thinking for one’s self. It assumes we all have same goals. Yet there is that ticker in my head again ‘beware of he who is learned’.

It’s like running your bubble test sheet into one of those machines. In less than five seconds you have your score. It does not take into account your putting down (b) when you actually meant (c). It is a machine, it can never read your mind. Divine forces should be able to understand you as you are, an atypical mold. We can’t assume that every member of humanity has the same purpose.

Draining filters. In church they are taught that there is much that our carnal minds cannot begin to comprehend. Once we are in an eternal sphere our comprehension is expanded, not simplified. I believe that after this life our comprehension will be broadened and not condensed. Eternal descisions should not be made by an earthly order. Yet we are taught that it will all fall into good or evil, white or black. Well I’m sorry we’re not dealing with a posterized black and white portrait here. We are not even dealing with a grayscale image. We are dealing with life – an endless colorwheel of beautiful complexities.

It does sound appealing. To completely eliminate the evaluation process and replace it with but one law. But that leaves too much chance to prejudice.

I am not saying it is wrong to have a focus. It is very important to have and embrace basic values, but the essentials should not choke the framework and the framework should not bury the essentials. This can’t be seen in a rigid system fueled by opposing extremes because there is no room for factors of who one is. I do not believe there is evil out there, just imbalances, just confusion as to what to do with the complexities of one’s self. There was an amazing allusion in my book. The soul is like a packaged fixture, all the parts are included but some assembly is required. Sometimes we can make bad combinations. Individuals’ purposes become a mosaic, and if all are in balance with themselves. I see little embrace of diversity of thinking for oneself. Doing that is marked as a danger. However I look around and all dangerous functions try to sever the thought of an individual. Individuals are mediums in themselves, their own songs and palates of color. We are not scaled by some universal toner that plots us out into black and right.

I’ve never been the ideal student. Most of my life teachers have talked about my delayed homework. She needs to focus more on completing assignments. Little did my teachers know how much I took from those classes. I would get so intense in art and music lessons as you can probably imagine. Back then was when the sciences still fascinated me. I would trace the rings of Saturn, and told the substitude teacher maybe the gaseous planets were created by the trails of gases other planets left behind. When we did a section on the black rights movement I imagined myself out there marching, fueled to be speaking out with the crowds. Sometimes I was considered dull because I wouldn’t respond, I wouldn’t turn in homework. Because learning is judged by paperwork, five letters and a range of percentages that I did not earn, they measured my education by what I completed, never by what I learned. The system would not allow it’s own flexibility because setting standards was far more important than communicating the essentials of education.

Sometimes the education system reminds me of my previous religion. I would keep a still, quiet place in my soul hoping to listen. I would see others who would partake in ‘unrighteous’ acts tear up in the lessons when I was waiting patiently for my understanding to unfold. It was like others could pick up on it so quickly when I’d have to strain myself to understand the nature of God and righteousness.

In seminary class, Brother Evenhuis told us a story about a mother trying to illegally cross her country’s borders through a river with her small children, and new born in her arms. The young child could not handle the trauma and began to cry. Worried that she would be exposed and her children shot, she frantically tried to calm the baby. She stroked his cheek and brought the child to her breast to try to feed him, but his crying did not stop. With tears in her eyes she knew she had no choice. She looked at her other children who were clinging to her in fear.

She covered the baby’s mouth, it wasn’t enough. Broken and reluctant, she held her infant in her hands for the last time and held him below the icy waters as he struggled feebly confused by this act in his mothers caring arms. Hysterical tears rolled down her cheeks as her child took his last breaths. She could not even whimper else give her family away. If she had not done this, her other children and herself would have been caught and tortured by the guards. She wanted freedom of religion as a Mormon convert. Even still it was considered a sin- murder. She was granted repentance by the prophet after following a long process of interviews and...

In these kinds of systems actions can only be seen as actions, but there was no room to take into account her love for her children. It was truly a sorrowful situation, how could God not see this woman’s sacrifice? How could that inflexible system take this into account. Murder is murder. What pain this woman must have felt to do the best that she knew and in one desperate situation still be reprimanded for her loving concern and pursuit for her family.

I don’t know if you had watched the Torino Winter Olympics last year. I watched the team skating sessions. Having two left feet I have an appreciation for those with grace and the beauty of delicate movement. They appear to glide over the ice as if friction and gravity do not exist to them. I believe it was one of the Chinese pairs that were out on the ice. There was so much spirit contained in this dance. It appeared that the two were in perfect animated balance. As the man spun her through the air, she positioned her knee in the wrong alliance with her ankle and the balance was broken for a moment. After she fell she curled up on the ice, she had strained a muscle. She would have been in the lead, but that spin was crucial. She was carried to the normal ground, She tried again while in excruciating pain. Upon that difficult spin she landed right with some difficulty but landed all the same. What made her do this? Just ambition or was there something behind this? It was her sheer spirit there that allowed her to dance on a damaged leg, aside from pain. This was not included in the rubric, there was no way to incorporate spirit and a focused determination within the Olympic evaluation process. If you saw this, do you remember how powerful this was? Where was the room for spirit or passion? Doesn’t spirit and passion remove it from being just an act, just a movement?

Such processes ban inward values because they do not appear to be absolute or easily measured. I believe however that these should be taken into account. I can never support a self serving system which functions on blunt and rigid framework. Something as profound as the salvation of a soul cannot be charted out by measurements. I have a hard time seeing the view of any duality, in this cause that of black and white because of it’s bureaucratic funtionings.

I realize that salvation is based on boundaries of the sacred and profane. It leads to many who will fume and preach all mighty speeches of brimstone and fire when they can’t solve problems with the black and white formula.

I do not understand the nature of sin or the nature of a sin’s consequence. I recongnize that there are acts that can be commited that can deform one’s spirit. I recognize that anything that transcends this life will call for one’s ethics. What I do not understand is Christianity’s response to sin. A sin still remains a sin and that’s where the Savior comes in. If we recognize it, then Christ will complete it for us. Sins must be suffered for. Wrong deeds deserve correction, yes. But I cannot agree with the definition of correction. If a man commits an act harmful to his soul’s growth, but later recognizes the measures of this act and does his best to understand the nature of the act and truly takes accountability why should he still be punished? What if it made him stronger?

My shortcomings have built me in ways I cannot begin to describe. The process of which I look at my mistakes and correct the thinking -/ feelings that led to them is so much more valuable. Why should sin still remain a cost after the fact, after one has evaluated a wrong doing, and resolved the issue? Are sins really permanent black marks that cannot be corrected without a call from the big guy? Aren’t sins the nature of the act or ‘crime’ a failing of the heart? Or is it still the fact that a ‘crime’ was put down on a track record? WHY SHOULD IT BE TALLY MARKS ON THE WALL??? This Universal Law that is functioned on does not take this into account, so how is this love if it is so ignorant to this? This system’s basicness is actually frightening to me. It can never be observed deeper than the face value, because that would be robbing justice? My question is why does justice rob so much from mercy?

How is this justice? I believe that all are born good, but along the ways in our lives we are confronted with conflicting parts of ourselves and all sorts of complex situations. Some are lucky enough to be given wise parents who encourage growth, but many are not. Many adults are still trying to grow themselves. In fact some religions try to encourage marriage as early as possible... Children raising children? I could accept a lot more of this system if churches were more established, Be it Mormonism or Christianity. That way all could have an equal chance. This would be great if everyone could be born into what they were able to handle or an environment that would not block their growing. Look around do you see this? Does everyone have an equal chance? No. I do not believe that every one is only given challenges that they are able to handle. This is not justice. This justice continues to rob mercy. (How in the world were these two virtues considered opposites in the first place?) What makes it like this? Does commiting a sin really pollute the universe’s atmosphere? Offset some cosmic balance by virtue of track records???

On a side note I can’t believe as one general authority has said that we are only given trials that we are able to face. Okay... So what about toddlers who are beaten bloody and senselessly by their crack head mom?

I do not directly understand a universe’s requirement for blood and torture. In this respect I do not understand the Crucifixion, or the Atonement. This system of religion seems to communicate someone must pay for this and sacrifice. Why do wrong doings need to be suffered so gruesomely for? As I said earlier why is resolve not enough? I think personal resolve is very spiritual, powerful. Why beat someone who has suffered profusely at knowing they have made a grave mistake and actually worked build themselves better ethics?

If this universal law is higher than God than God is not all powerful. I do not understand it. This says we cannot learn by experience but I believe that experience is the most profound teacher. If you make a mistake, and feel that mistake and assume responsibility, and make a respectable effort to change why does one still need to be slapped around? We should be judged by heart and intent. Not because we spiritually misspell words or use improper grammar. But by the content of the message in our souls.

Excuse me if this appears to be blashemy. I am finally speaking from my heart when it comes to religion now, not fear of a deity. I mean not to harm anyone’s beliefs and think that Christianity is beneficial to some. But I do not feel that it need be pressed as the only path to growth and personal betterment.

I want to learn how to improve, to be able to embrace values larger than I. To have firmness in all that I do. To look deeply into all that I see and try harder to seek what I may have missed. I have nothing but respect for the power of the earth and existence itself. It is a journey, and this renegade has once again packed for more nomadic trails.

nature of the beast...

Between falling off a scooter and banging my head on an unseen bar well it’s been a wondrous two days.

I realized that management has been too flooded with personal emergencies from at least four different employees to actually respond to any mishandling. I still feel twinges of guilt though whenever Jamie (not to be confused with the other chick fighting Jamie) comes in with a medical note, in the chokehold of a neck brace. I could barely even talk to her. She could barely look at me, be it a lack of neck movement or whatever...

When I had taken her shift she told me she could cover a shift if I wanted later in the week. My supervisor had thought Jamie would cover my shift the next day in return and called to make sure. That morning I had not been looking forward to work because I was getting nauseated and other fun things. Jamie had said if I took her shift she would take my Sunday shift if I wanted, but I never responded. I asked Liz if it would be okay if we swapped shifts cause I wasn’t feeling well. She said it wouldn’t be a problem.

Jamie had forgotten it because no set plans were made to take that shift and said she would be in soon enough. But I was recalled in again. Jamie called apologizing saying she had just been in a car crash, a bad one. The shift was mine again I asked to stay off the register afraid I would seriously mess up.

As if my concern for Jamie had not been enough Keelee, one of my coworkers, kept on asking me intruding questions the entire night with that undertone of blame in her voice. “Well if you feel alright then why’d you try to call in? ”she’d ask accusingly. Since when have I ever told anyone who has casually asked me how I was, how I really was?

I recognize that it wasn’t my fault, but even still, had I not had her swap that shift... I don’t think she’s holding anything against me. Still she will always remember that whose shift she would take. Ugh... Retail once again rears it’s ugly head in all it’s do or die complications.

smork work

My mac is being a real beast right now. So if anyone knows a good mac techie please let me know. Internet complications... For now we have the internet on John's computer. Even still it's nice to have ready access that I can use whenever I want or need to. I haven't had ready internet for about four years now. 'Tis rather nice.

It feels so refreshing to be out of school finally. No more hitting books over my head... No more history proffessor with an anarchist ciriculum. No more earliness.
It's all the more bearable when it's not early. Earliness is evilness. I can actually read now without feeling guitly for not reading my textbooks. lol. Freedom! There is so much that I am able to do now with time. If I didn't have bills then I'd have more time but living on my own is rather convenient.

All is going well right now. I'll cap off all the Polliannaish comments, but lets just say this past week has been, well, nice. :)

I finally applied to convergys today. Commies. The recruiter asked if I had been reffered by an employee. Yes. They can't do it by people's names though, you need to provide the employee's ID number. What the heck! Sorry, names are out now, forgot to get the number inscribed on the back of her neck. All apologies, I'm just a little critical of U.S. culture at the moment.

Even still, a desk job is going to be nice. At Savers I am all over the place, running racks, unloading trucks, cashiering... Bleh. Oldness.

damn facists

It literally amazed me. When did the course of needless procedure ever become more important than the worth or suffering of an individual? It's long since been this way I'm aware. I don't know... Every now and again I tire of living in a system where my being present is no proof of my participation. It upsets me that my social security number is worth more than I am, my ID can only prove who I am. Why should I approve of such a impersonal system? Americans seem so consumed by individuality that by the time the divisions are made no one has anything but statistical worth.

This concept made me boil once again on Saturday. What makes this okay? I had been running around mindlessly about work all day, unloading donations, training a new hire, being the only cashier for three hours. At the end of my shift I had had it. I was ready to just go home. While I was counting out, my coworker Jamie asked me if I was leaving, what time I had come in.

She seemed like she was somewhere else. Really shook up. Then she told me she felt horrible for having to ask me, but there was an emergency. She had called in work with a family emergency, at which they told her to find someone to cover else still come to work. Else she would lose her job! Lose her job??? WHAT? Why the hell does her having an emergency make her such a severe inconvenience??? The supervisors were more worried about Greg's staunch demands for clean store orderliness than they were sensitive to Jamie.

Jamie could barely even talk. She told me that her grandfather had just had a stroke. He was in the hospital, with a few hours to live. It would probably be the last time she could see him. She was going with her folks to go say family prayer with him. Some one was dying. DYING! I can hardly come up for a better reason NOT to come to work.

I took her shift. I told her was very upset at the management. That was an understatement. After Jamie left I could barely even talk for a different reason. I was pissed off that she was handled so coldly. I'm not even sure of the LEGALITY of their decision. I stopped caring about how I had worked all day, because all anyone could think about what work, work, work. What the hell!!!

As one of you can testify to, I was completely disturbed by such insensitive carelessness. lol. You were the only one that day that bothered listened to my bantering... thanks.

test tube project?

AHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAH! There is another Whitney Lomax out there, perhaps even two!
Creepiness!!

While surfing online i found all sorts of Whitneyness
Whitney Trails

I think the funniest I found was on a soap opera board called Passions. Whitney and Lomax are characters in a soap opera. A few people go off swoon over how perfect the two are for each other.

lol, anything to keep me alive between finals......

breaking a hold, holding a breaking

Classes are out now, all that is left are my finals. My work schedule is still centered around my old school schedule. I'm alone most of the day here, and it's taking some adjustment. Here, no one calls me Nae or steals my socks. Before I had decided to move out, I had just begun to repair relations with my dad and he wasn't always easy to reach. It wasn't easy to see him get so choked up about my leaving. I've never seen him that way before on my account.




Another thing that is hard to get down is being completely winded down. Living with a friend requires a social attitude. It's yet to come to the point where we can walk past one another and think nothing of it (is she sad, upset, not feeling good why did she not look at me) Always when I see my roommate. I don't mind being social, I love being social but all of the time? Hopefully as we both adjust to this place, it will settle to where we don't feel a need to remain in that entertaining mindset that is common when spending a bit of time with a friend... I still can't believe that a guy lives here. He's seen some hard times though, so he's here for a little while. I had always told myself I wouldn't live with a guy, though liberal I get a little Victorian when it comes to my relationship values. Not that I believe everyone should be this way, but I am only saying this is the way I feel.




My mom tends to put on more of a social face when I visit. I'd wondered what it would feel like, to get the warmth she sends to her customers, friends. Now that I'm away it makes it easier to get along with her, we don't clash as much. My dad seems confused when I visit. I've become a visitor... He seems so tired all the time. Now and then he'll say something that I never even knew about him, living in Oregon, school in Chicago, a girl he used to know. Ever since I've left he seems more and more choked, like he's living a life he doesn't understand. It makes me sad to see him pacify so much because those around him past and present don't value open communication.




Hate to sound cliche (in relation to my writings ) but everything about my familiar is being challenged. My previous religion is becoming a strange mist. Yet because of this a new hope has arisen to me. My concept of home has been completely diminished and it feels like being tossed around by waves between places. Brendon seems to have evaporated. My functioning and devotion to school is getting shaky. With all that money on tuition why can't I get myself to care? These subjects light up my mind and I'm positive you have all heard me blabber about the concepts and discussions in class. It's just the that the bueacracy caught up to me a little more now that school isn't my central focus. Life is becoming nomadic for me, when all I ever wanted was a firm claim to my own roots. In between all of this is extensive soul searching. What is betterment, goodness? I can't describe how disconnected I feel with so much happening...




I think I've seen another bitter truth. Someone who you have an unresolved issue with will always remember you when you stay out of contact. Because it's unresolved. After you set time aside to resolve this with a person, that remembrance can fade. It's easier for that person to forget what is going well... I would hope that people aren't this disposable. After all I believe that 'I am a part of all I have met'. Or this could just be my inner hippie who longs for harmony and maybe a touch of balance. Balance in a world where the scales are rigged already.

nicotine in my ramen

As I go from class to class I keep this fat red backpack chugging along behind me in very desolate hallways. Absolutely empty hallways would be nice seeing as I pedal a mobile public disturbance behind me. People don't realize the Or not nice at all. It messes with our concepts of order and public formalities(really I could run off with this one, just had anthro today). You just don't carry around such a rickety thing.

You want to know the sick thing about it? I like it. I actually like watching people try to act caus when they have to listen to this piece of junk groan on wheels. I like it. Who can understand how much money I'm saving? It's like 60 bucks for a good one. *laughs* It's wonderful for an instant maniacial high in the right circumstances.

So okay. I've got this thing. With ramen. Beef Ramen actually. It's not very healthy but it's soo easy to make and tastes considerably good. I've started this craze thing about it. I walked over to my roomate and said, "yeah this is my third bowl today." It's never worn out and now since it's so unbelievably cheap I am in love all over again. But why the heck do I crave it?

It's not normal. I'll take it over anyone's cooking.

the evening sirens

If I make it through this last month it shall be proclaimed as a miracle. I am more than ready for a break and a change of pace. I'm getting weary of kissing the arses of one or two of my proffessors. I can't always meet the amorphus academic expectations. Jeez. It's killing me.

I shouldn't say things like that, come to think of it. One of my classmates has just fallen off the earth, and I worry. What reason do I have to not worry when someone just abruptly disappears after they mention losing focus in school, and discord in the family. I don't know the severity of the situation but I do know he's living on his own but... I returned the call too late. His cell phone is out of service, his land line is disconnected. I'm fishing for a possible email address. I don't know what to think. I don't...

It's the type of world we live in. Urgent. Everything is so urgent that we can never know the urgency before it happens. The weight of my words or the importances of quick response. How soon must I be? There is no policy on anyone's return.

I never know how to debrief the systems of human policy anyway. Take your average person, sit him down to find all thought and words are formatted. The encryption is the most difficult part. Here and there I find an unsewn edge, a wide open hole. The soul has infinite windows, open or shut, but we only look at the eyes. Assume the eyes are key, assume we have a stable pattern of body language. I see other's systems of decoding misfire. It assumes that we have stable patterns of anything. How do I know how accurate mine is or can ever be. No one can give the diagnosis. It it about knowing what not to know? Welcome to human relativity: the most beautiful and frightening concept.

"When two good people argue over ethics, they are both right." I didn't always understand that saying. How is it that two people can be stimultaneously right? Isn't that against all order? Right or wrong? Throw it all into the picture, there will be flaws in the message and truth. If we feel and have evaluated ourselves to be right then why do we assume the other is invalid? It's like a disagreement of focal points that is all, all the lines lead to one central point , and when other lines do not parallell these it offsets balance.

My anthropology folder reads : SAVE THE HUMANS. I bought it first out of the humor, kept it for the truth it holds. We as creatures of complex simplicites are the ones most capable of infinite creation, and destruction. Where is the line? Pray that it's not the tightrope we're walking. Sorry, we no longer wear uniforms.

Crud Bus coming and ....

thinly veiled intolerance

Ever so sadly that immigration rights march will be going on without me on Sunday. Ever so sadly. The whole situation has to put it simply pissed me off by the mixed messages this country tries to send... hey hey we're so enlightened here with our democracy this freedom of oppression and many opportunites for earning finacial and self growth. Because of this everyone should like us, it's the best way to be, everyone should want to COME here. We get paranoid sometimes that you're going to screw us up so I'm sorry, wait for something to kill half of us off and we'll begin taking applications. Sorry about that but still we're the best and you should want to live here.

Cracking down on immigrants is a bit of a double standard for the U.S.. This country was originally composed of immigrants who had come hard on their luck. All types came. Prostitudes, criminals, the poorer population, and the religious outcasts all came here to begin again. Even the controversial Irish who had the about the same level of reputation as modern hispanics came along.

Now we're all on a population hype. I don't understand or agree with the hype about immigration concerns. Why should we make it a felony to enter this country undocumented? AAAaah!!! Immigrants taking our resources. AAaaahh! What is this Bush guy doing helping them out??? We can't have this!!! They're taking our resources our jobs... Does anyone realize that the only jobs an non English speaking illegal alien can land is going to be the same job that a sixteen yearold qualifies for? They are not going to be barging in our offices and taking our cubicles. They are not going to run for office and "infiltrate" our government. They are not going to be cleaning out our walmarts of food and product. With 70% of the world's resources we have enough to spare.

Why does the government even give legal minorities college aid? Just because it's cool to come from somewhere else? You really want to see how many first generation illegals go on to college? Is everyone really that afraid that your bioengineering, interior design, or buisness marketing degree and career opportunities are going to be seriously threatened by these illegals? Just browse http://www.nces.ed.gov/ if you're interested in seeing the hispanic education statistics. It's a sad reality of how many actually land finacial security and rise above that poverty. Even the legal Hispanic majority sadly still gets by on entry level due to language difficulties and remain in the lower income tax brackets.

I'm very upset that I'll be missing that March in Salt Lake on Sunday.

Every now and again it is refreshing to see people actively using their minds, showing their will to change something. I hear so many people support the Bush administration and when asked they don't know why. I hear just as much saying they disagree with the current administration but when they are asked oh just because -- he's wrong- you know that right?

I have to say the protests going on in France right now are awesome. They shouldn't be okay with their government fondling employers and giving them the 'right' to fire employees just because. Too many people feel that the greater virtue in these situations is to trust and endure. It doesn't work that way. One of my favorite poems by Alice Walker, a African American activist wrote this poem.

“The QPP
The quietly pacifist peaceful
always die
to make room for men
who shout. Who tell lies to
children, and crush the corners
off of old men’s dreams.
And now I find your name,
scrawled large in someone’s
blood, on this survival
list.”


People don't care. Perhaps it's a safety mechanism - don't think it through too hard. don't wanna burst more of them braincells.

Nonetheless it is so refreshing seeing some awaken.

you're standing on my neck.

Long time no post I guess. I took a month's sebbatical.

I keep on slipping into my old windows habits such as right clicking, alt tab, and the automatic cureall control alt delete. I'm here on campus using one of the macs, go team!! I was just messing with microsoft word just now for mac and shoot, it's a whole new rodeo. The toolbars are funky. If you want to alter your text, you use the text pallate which is equally as over engineered but pretty. Macs are pretty, they go all in depth with the design.

And I thought I was a one OS woman, hah... I'm still tryin to potty train my mac, it gives me crap sometimes. My computer started chanting, yes, chanting at 5:00 am this morning. I woke up to this inhuman electronic voice "Computer has been scheduled to shut down at 5 am, click shut down or if you do nothing mac will shut down in 1 minute and 20 seconds." "Computer has been scheduled to shut down at 5 am, click shut down or if you do nothing mac will shut down in 1 minute and 19 seconds." and then as I'm being pulled back into the natural waking world "Computer has been scheduled to shut down at 5 am, click shut down or if you do nothing mac will shut down in 1 minute and 18 seconds." I couldn't figure out what was going on as I laid there in a sleep stupor staring off. It had 1 min and 10 seconds left when I'm like okay okay OKAY you go to sleep now like you freaking should be. Gah!

My apartment is looking as homely as ever minus a table and enough seating in the front room, but it's not that big of a problem. It kills me going grocery shopping, it's got to be one of the funniest things in the world. Pushing it around my little shopping cart looking around for markdowns and Albertsons Preffered products. Buying toilet paper and oven mitts is really is hilarious, with my little purse thrown over my shoulder and I pedal my widdle cart down the aisle. Lol. No really LOL.

No one knows how oddly domestic I get nowadays, I get happy washing dishes and doing landery cause it's mine and I get to do these kinds of things. I have my own name on my caller ID which will never happen again! It'll just be a city name if it's a dorum. Way later on it'll slap some punk husbands name on the caller id. this is the only time it will come up, LOMAX WHITNEY. I Like!



That's the biggest freaking flock of birds I've ever seen so low to the ground. WHOOAH. Whoah. What was that like eighty, two hundred just flying past that window? Dude they're going crazy out there in the storm. The same storm I'm going to go out into in a minute. Whoah birds. That's a lot of birds.

that lady with the noisy backpack!!

There was an invasion of elementary school kids today on campus. This swarm passes me, and then this small group of boys passed me. They all stopped to wait for the straggler of their small clan. The short un with the shaggy hair tries to get all suave and says "You see those hot girls we were just hitting on over there?" he swung his arms out the total center of attention when I'm there behind them trying to keep quiet.

What are you, like seven? Real hot shot there. I couldn't help it just burst up hysterical right on the spot. Needless to say they kind off ran off after that...

my own way there, my own way back home

Well it's been done. I should be moving out next week.

They know where I stand. She knows that I'm leaving. She's not too happy with my living with a "Non Member". It's sad that there is such a strong name for that. She's also upset that I won't claim her family's religion and embarrased I can't help to suit her expectation she feels from her family to her children's membership. My dad pleaded with me to keep my mouth shut, that it's best to avoid it and simply agree but... I can't do that. I haven't been able to do that for sometime, but now it's louder. This is the time for me to finally open it. I hate to break it to her but I do have a voice.

My dad is a little scared to see me go, but he's saying not to listen to her. He says he knows I will find my way and it's nice to feel that at least one of my parents have faith in me.

It's all necessary. I need to go my own way.

a little backward

Tammy’s eyes lit up when she said "Hey you never know, maybe someone might find love today..." At this I smirked and replied, "Perhaps. You sound silly when you say it that way."

I came out of history and passed a girl She put her hands down on her hips shook her head and said "Well you know, if HE’S going to say that then HE doesn’t deserve you." As she flipped the hair out of her face.
I walked faster down the hall when I felt myself starting to laugh at the valley attitude.

It was like every couple had fallen off of the face of the earth. Usually they all seem to come out of the woodwork especially on this holiday. No one was holding hands at all as I went about campus. Tammy wondered if they all died.

I admit I started the day out on a more dismal mindset. My mom and I were suppoesed to have girl's day out today, go out to eat and other such things. Our religious disagreement the night before had cancelled that.

After Anna’s and my plans for the day changed, I decided to use the money I would have used on movie rentals. I went on a mad hunt for watches that day. In the back of my mind I was seriously considering majoring graphic design again as I was getting finnicky over the watch bands and faces. That little voice in my head became big and said these? These? I suddenly wanted to make my own watch, custom design one as I was criticing them all. Screw designer watches, I will never wear something over $80 out in public. Screw it.

The mad watch hunting took me to Target where I passed a mini stampede of three toddlers exclaiming "Get this un this one for mommy!". They shoved it into their fathers hand who said, "Well that’s nice. But this year daddy isn’t getting mommy anything so I won’t get mommy this. Let’s go."

I wasn’t sure about the watches there so I took off over to the mall. If I can inject this in right now it was the first time I have ever seen an Asian mannequin before. Anyway. I passed two teenaged looking guys pushing around little strollers hovering in front of the clothing departments looking like they would rather just be shot on the spot then wait for the bill to come when their wives said " ‘kay there hon, I’m ready to go." It’s the day of the empty wallet.

It's turned into a day of diamonds and chocolate. Like in a Fiona Apple song - I don't understand /diamonds or why men / get them, the only impressive thing / about them is the mining. There are all these girls expecting these flamboyant gifts completely original and exotic as a manifestation of their worth or the worth of their relationship. People lose the meaning of it sometimes while going through the motions. I'm a symbol person. I like different ways to find meaning but when it's stretched out so vainly and nervously far and REQUIRED I think all these little gifts loose their meaning.

Still watch hunting I took the escalator upstairs as I watched this small assembly down the stairs. It was a beauty pageant , the announcer had a gameshow voice and plenty of three feet tall gold trophies to distribute. There was this little girl with a crown on her head that looking like a vertical beak. Her parents should have given little miss muffet her curds and whey. The announcer took the mic and said "Now our boys were harder to judge then the girls, but here are our winners, Joey and parents please step forward." This tiny little mother comes forward and bounces her little baby boy. Agoo goo goo. Look how pretty my kid is—awwh! What the? Should children have to evaluate their looks even younger now? It’s already damaging enough for preteenage girls to compare themselves to other girls. Sometimes I want to scream when Lindsey and her friends begin talking in this way complaining that they’re fat or not pretty enough. Can someone explain to me the reason for a children’s division in beauty pagents?? Someone please explain. Please. I hurried up the escalator as I had started to laugh hysterically at the sight.

If I’m ever bitter on valentines its not a conventional bitterness it’s an anger towards what the modern societal perception of love is coming to. It’s sad. Really sad. Even when you start to think of it how one human will regard another even when favored...

Usually you can sniff out the holiday in the air but there were no tell tale signs of Valentines today. I usually saw that Valentines was a day which dissolves all fears of PDA. Really. But this year it was almost in reverse. Tammy at least had a happy valentines story at least which I was glad for after seeing all this disregard where ever I went.

On a plus note I found a watch fairly priced. On a bigger plus note I found a really really nice potential apartment. *drool*

put my feet where the earth should be

I get this feeling of rushed motion sometimes when the world starts to sway both left and right at once. You’d think that the forces would cancel out, but not really. One receptor feels the right, the other brushes to the left. I center around this imbalance.

Keep your eye on the ball, but what if gravity doesn’t count? What if it doesn't descend in an arc? One must have a guess at the course it will take to keep up otherwise you are trailing. Pilots are taught not to see but to imagine in flight school since the visual field was meant to be perceived when grounded. In the air all sorts of perceptions fire about location, weight, balance. Air pressure and localities are attacked.unordinary images messing with the understanding the view. Not to say these instincts are bad, they are only given for ordinary survival. They all have differend systems and mediums to reason with. Not even the forest for the trees, maybe the focal emphasis should be the circular thicket and the forest life.

There is always a picture that forms of a dilapidated train yard that follows these sensations. I will know something before I should and become the informed resident. waiting to feel that inevitable drowning. That's just it though, drowning is sitting right here knowing that reasons can’t crunch in every hue in one color wheel, maps itself out in a fifth dimension. Complexity is beautiful, even when sad. Sadness makes things more beautiful, beauty can create such pain.

I almost cared enough to put that wandering nav bar in its place. Almost.

Once.

blah and blah

Eye contact. Try it sometime on a stranger, watch them fidget. One of the fast acting antidotes to boredom. Oh dear. lol. What did I just do?

There is a sense of removal when I walk around campus. A pencil behind my ear, untied shoes, and ragged jeans. I look like this bipedal turtle with myoverstuffed green backpack.

My eyes usually catch the tops of the trees and the lanterns scattered about. Sometimes I catch people's eyes as I walk around, trying to think of what these people are thinking. On a slower week I think I'll count the weirdos who can't walk straight cause they are holding hands or the ones with a cell phone jabbed up to one ear.

I think one of the funniest things I've seen up here was a poster advertising the gay straight alliance down here which was immediately flocked out by all the religious club promotions. It made me giggle. Take time to stop and smell the headbutting propoganda.

Side note: yeah! I made it into metaphor! end side note.

How available these clubs seem to be, postings everywhere for these other clubs except the one that I have interest in. The writing club I'm looking for I've had to stalk for week upon week. I'm told that it exists at least...

The Davis campus has been really nice and I've been able to meet all sorts of people there. Down here at the main, it's so huge you're lucky to see one person twice. Trying to find things to do down here to get to know people, but no luck this far. The one class I have here is a dead end for that road. Most everyone in my history class has a self image complex or an uncanny fixation with football. Complete lack of variety there.

My mistake was thinking that the battle with financial aid was resolved, but I've been trying for the last two hours to accept my award and its not letting me. internet traffic.

I'm debating on whether or not I should laspe back into my being a bum and cancel my drivers insurace. As much as I love paying $108 a month to operate a vehicle I get to use maybe once or twice every other week... As much as I love thinking about accident rates and thinking of the three accidents I've been in, and the many many I've seen in the surrounding area. I think I'll pass.

Might as well take UTA around like I'm about to do now.

Straylight run

To anyone who is idling over the internet with a much coveted highspeed connection, get curious and check out this link.

It's such an odd music video, one of the few worth watching. I like.
http://music.vidnet.com/player/22410/straylight_run_hands_in_the_sky_300.php

I Miss My Sky

I bury myself in the leaves to sleep
The sun so strong and rage so deep
I keep waking to find I've been dreaming again
And the sound of the ocean is not a plane
And far away they talk about me
In newspaper columns they write about me
round dinner tables and cocktail parties
I'm a heroine and a tragic figure
I'm a heroine as I'm lying here
Beneath my sky

And sometimes
Sometimes I cry
Sometimes
Sometimes I wonder
Why we're always coming down
And why we need to touch the ground
And why I didn't keep on heading
right on up to heaven
I miss my sky

Here from below the clouds are shadows
Not the golden mountains I used to fly through
Here from below the sky's a painting
In a child's room with the future waiting
But not for me

I look up at the birds flying overhead
My sentinel's true but the signals dead
It's been 500 days of hope and sorrow
500 nights with no tomorrow
And the poetry and the best of me
And the heart and the spirit and the sex of me
All fell into the azure sea
In the tailspin with the last of me
And my wings, and my song, all that I knew is dead and gone
I'm weak and tired but my will is strong
And my hope lives on, my hope lives on?

But sometimes,
Sometimes I cry
Sometimes
Sometimes I wonder
Why we're always coming down
Why we need to touch the ground
Why I didn't keep on heading
Right on up to heaven
I miss my sky
I miss my sky

Heather Nova

along the way

Whitney, what are you doing. Really what are you doing. That little spasm in your stomach just now, thats called HUNGER. What are you doing here wiggling out of your impossible hoodie that's gotten too warm, mooching internet?

You're crazy just remember that. Almost as crazy as the people who willingly choose to read these ravings of a mad woman.

Hopefully I will have an easier time making my way out of Ogden today. Last Tuesday
I took a bit of a detour. I caught the inbound instead of out bound 603, jumped quickly out of it to throw myself into the outbound route. 25th something boulevard was announced and I pull the string and get out. After I shut my backpack I turned around in a full circle to find I was not on Washington blvd but Harrision blvd. I shrugged and thought whatever. This is familiar. I'm close I'll walk.

25th avenue is what some would consider ghetto. I can feel more at home in a rundown place like that then I can up on the hills in Bountiful or East Layton. The people may be corrupt according to some but there is usually a humility in them that isn't found anywhere else. It was a smoky part of town. I saw a man with tired eyes stagger past me with a Santa Claus sized beard carrying a drink in one hand. A beady eyed man passed me who was bundled up from head to toe, pushing around rickety cart of all sorts things you can think of. A girl around my height came out of her old house with a homemade pie in her hands to get it to a neighbor.

Town houses usually just look ordinary to me, white brown or gray boxes. These were the exception. I saw a house that looked like it was smack in the middle of ST. Petersburg with a domed roof. It was ornamented with green and yellow patterns and it had at least two spires. Another was a turquoise house on a corner that was a little larger than my house. The house had separated arched roofs and victorian niches and columns and a tentish --uhhh I don't know the real term --a tentish something that was built above the door which extended outward to about five feet. They don't build things like that anymore. I seriously wanted to sketch these houses if I had the time to. My mom wouldn't approve, she could not believe that I walked 25th alone(such a gross place). Likewise she renewed my love for the song 'Just a Girl' by no doubt.

The street that I thought was Washington was actually Monroe so I naively pressed on assuming it had to be close. I went on for three more blocks and let the 603 pass me because Washington had to be close. I stopped a guy walking around to ask if I was close at all to Washington, I was taken aback by how blue his eyes were. Don't take this from a perspective of a girl, but an observer. They weren't bright like most really blue eyes are but just straight navy blue. It was like - whoah. He told me it was about eight blocks down hill. My backpack started getting heavy.


When I found Washington my bus passed me, then stopped in traffic in front of a stoplight. I was about three fourths of the way to it when it picked up and left me again. I was getting really tired and cold and hungry and collasped on a bench in front of what I think was a church but I could be wrong. Then I saw this taco stand on the curb. 2 tacos 1 dollar. All I wanted was a drink but I noticed how happy the man at the stand seemed when he cooked, so I got tacos too. Most people I see behind a counter when they cook look like they are thinking about tall bridges or high cliffs.

I collasped again at the bench at the bus stop. Once i finished my food a clean looking girl came and sat by me holding a sprite like I was. We started talking when she said she was broke. I admit I looked at her teeth when she said that but I didn't see any yellow stains from alcohol or smoking, or brown from the harder stuff. She didn't say it in self pity, she said it like she would the time. I asked her if she had anything to eat today. She said a little bit. I made her take two dollars to get something later.

I talked to her on the ride home and foundher name was Kim and she was on her way to Bountiful to earn some money from relatives until she got her first paycheck from quest. I have to say we both talked like it was a normal conversation because I've been exposed to a lot of situations like this before and she wasn't seeking attention. It's only because I was asking.

Kim said it felt good to be out on her own even if it was expensive. Said it was good to pay bills even if they were hard to pay. I thought about that. She used to live with and help assist her mom who has cancer but she says shes 23 now and she needs to take her own space. it was hard for her to always be around someone so controlling. She helps out as much as she can but her mom gripes at her that she has been abandoned when there are two others there at home.
It's weird with her mom cause she abadoned her when she was little cause she was getting into more and more meth.

I told her I was coming from school and she got a look in her eyes. She said she wished she would have finished. College i asked and she shook her head and said highschool. She said she had dropped out because it was hard since her mom needed her so much and couldn't quite take it. I shrugged and said you do what you have to do, i think you're going to get there.

She said she likes where she lives in Ogden and it's better than bountiful where she grew up. They may be poorer but they don't have the same elevated attitude you find in the rich. They know how to have what they have cause it might not last.

I hear so many storys like this that are so unfortunate and they ask will I make it out there. I want to say yes but i don't always know. I think she has a good shot though. She talks about it like she's not going to give up.

When I got off of the bus and walked down through my neighborhood it didn't feel real at all. I got in my house and Lindsey was doing her nails. Tvs were left on and I thought why do we get all this? Why do people like Kim get passed on their parents consequences and have to work three times as hard just to get where her parents originated? Why do I get this?

Ramblings upon ramblings to shoot off from here but I need to get back. I could go on, mark my words there is so much unsaid.

shift key demons...

BLASTED FILTER KEYS!!!!!!!!!

in the blue of my oblivion

You should probably worry when someone hits on you who has your same unconventional last name. jk It wasn't that bad actually. I talk to strangers like old women do. You got a mind and two ears to funnel information into it, I talk.

My tendency to overexaggerate began in junior high. I couldn't always pluck out the right words to will the listening into hearing. In response to that I'd make a detail larger, then level it off to be 'smaller' again.

I know few people who try to listen in the truer sense. What I don't like about most modern day conversations is that the listener expects to be entertained right away. That's what televisions are for, to watch something that's interesting with them. You can always change the channel. I used to feel like I had to be a television set when I was younger to get attention. It's not a test, if someone doesn't feel like they've got their listening's worth go watch tv. People don't need to be funny or charming to earn your listening. Hearing is one of our primary functions let's use it for a change eh?

I like listening to people. I don't believe that small talk is small. Even if they are only talking about the weather, the last class, the traffic. I want to see what they choose to point out about the topic. What kind of expression comes from them in their own personal culture. That is what i aim to understand and can only find through this so called small talk.

This man Bob Lomax, yes L-O-M-A-X, talked to me at the transfer point this morning. No ordinary introduction at all. I liked that he forgot it's 'impolite' to try to talk to those who don't know you. Everyone else at the stop did what he could to exit the conversation. I believe the man was mentally challenged. It was the saddest thing to me to hear him say oh I'm sorry if I'm talking too much, I do that sometimes. Since when has it been so expensive to listen??? No one should have to feel like that ever if they talk this honestly and unspitefully. He told me he thinks he made three new friends today but he really won't know til later.

He was the only person I saw with an honest smile this morning. All anyone else could do is push him around like some social leper. I think a society will lose a lot when it forgets the simplest of things like common decency and listening... It's so sad.

overkill

I don't know quite what he did but Kenny, my supervisor, got written up for something that upset a coworker. All I know that the girl was about to quit over it. Other than that I don't know much about what went on. I know the kid gets cocky at times, and I'm usually telling him that he is such a guy with all the showing off he does. From what I've seen of his character though, he's usually empathetic and responsible unless he ods on coffee (tis dangerous for the kid).

It got taken care of today. He takes a lot of pride in his position at work, so expectedly he came out of the office completely stone faced went about robotically for two or three hours after. Later on in the shift he lightened up, fast. Dramatically fast. He was laughing and joking as usual but he had a sort of resolve in his eyes. I've only seen that kind of control before, and it rarely at that rate with the same confidence. Even then you can sense that the person has temporarily removed from it , to evaluate later on when time is better suited. Definitely something you'd have to witness to understand and respect.

In between rag offs Alex called me over to tell me that she had the weirdest dream about me getting seasick out in the parking lot. Savers turned into a big twisted carnival and well yeah, that's about as explainable as it gets.

As if it weren't bad enough that corporate decided to start selling new stock for Christmas we're selling valentines junk now. I do mean junk. Little tacky address books with sugar high looking cartoon girls on the front. The little book became the running joke the other night, a really bad one at that. Everything from TWO YEAR OLD'S fun printed socks to neon post it notes. Post it notes? Post it notes! Cookie making sets? Cheap dress up necklaces and a whole load of completely useless holiday unrelated product. Makes us feel really proud to indivually price the things between checking and put them on display.

Not quite as bad as the little advertisements for the book about the company's history titled: Pass it On. It says something like 'if you enjoyed the thrill of the Da Vinci Code, and were taken away by the magic of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, then you'll love Pass it On. A book about... A book about BLAH BLAH BLAH. I've thumbed through it on slow days and most of it is just historical documentation. Tall statement there. During training I learned aboutthe company's beginning and I will call it ordinary. Nothing too special. The founder was too strong headed if you ask me.

What a bunch of BS.

the less I seek one source for a definitive the closer I am to fine

Again another year. It's boundaries aren't even visible but I feel for it's edges before the start and after the end. The last and the first pinch together oddly but there's the right amount of contrast for them to evenly match.

It reminds me of something that Billy Collins wrote. The relationship of the end to the beginning and the bridge between them both. the middle takes the most chapters but is the least recognized. It gets dronwed out by the spur of the start and the abrupt stop of the end. Things are usually expected in clearly formated formulas but they rarely ever hold that much predictability. Middles should have more of a focus set on it especially when it is present but it doesn't stand out as much because it's all between the lines.


I am trying to learn a way to better focus and treat whatever I come across or am involved in, whether it's a hobby or situation. I want to make the most of the ability to be concious but in everyone there is an inherent laziness. So the resolution for this year sounds simple but remains far from being so. Learn to measure. I want to learn how to portion myself and my time out better, not by inches but with the abstracts everything that exists is drawn by. No kidding when they say when it rains it pours, this doesn't have to be seen in a pessimistic way. You got to take it and spread it all out evenly, save some for when it won't come so easy.

Things to be done, places to go, starting to get more of what people call a schedule, and I forget what it's like to have a constant one. I've been opening most of the time at work since I'm one of the three that has enough of an anti - schedule now to open. Hours are getting sparse again which I don't mind at all after having too many, and I earn enough as it is. But I'll be another closer again once I start school (next week holy crap crap crap!) Millions of things to get done and REsend but my best is all I can do, and I hope that's enough to make the cut.

I'm fading in and out, staying up late is getting difficult for me past midnight. I usually sanction myself to an early bedtime but this is like a vacation this week with only working two days. I just want to know why I only yawn when I 'm only a tad bit tired.

scarecrow crying

I heard it over the television one day.

I t adds to why the bottom low ‘class’ parallels the top high ‘class’ in behavior. They dive to the same extremes, spend insane amounts. Take on the same reckless behaviors, one has everything in surplus, the other splurges the same way because there doesn’t seem to be a way out. Like the ignorant rookie up against the guru and in ways they’re the same by the standard of eased approach.

The obvious is studied just in case something was misconceived. The researcher takes the pulpit, summarizing those common responses we’d have slid easily past. Ashes to ashes. Scrutinizing over the simple. However I think that simplicity can actually be very dynamic. ‘And’ is simple but look it up, the definition takes have a page.

I watched a report on Good Morning America where Dr. Drew (despite his slight controversial reputation for what he offers in the field of televised professionals) had a few cryptic words to share.

"After any kind of a relationship ends the body will produce the same biological reactions as it would to a death."

Whoah. A small duh in my head but whoah.

The hardest graves to visit are the ones of living, the ones who died away from you by petty circumstance.
People know they and the flow of things are the one with the shovels plastered in grit. Human habits take care of it. Your arms ache from digging down. The witnessing of decay is exhausting. The old stakes become stumps, the matters disintegrate into scraps.

Particularly grim I know. But I don’t see the losses as hopeless, though I do try to walk my life on that silver lining.

I got seashells once as a gift from a friend who has long since moved away. One was a starfish with rounded horns on the top, the other was a tightly wound brown shell.

Being verbally awkward I couldn’t quite explain it to you all at first. Not everything lasts, but not everything loses. What happens will happen, but there is something that remains. It came to mean something to me, those shells. More than an old fascination with them. The time span of relations we can’t go back always or fit back inside them into the old shells because of a growing... Grown from the knowing of it all.

I read the time as 12 dollars and 32 cents. i’ve worked too long.

a reversed monday

I found it and I couldn't resist. Not kidding here. LMAO. It's a book about a 'sultry wench' about the burning des...Romance novels usually make me grind my teeth and begin stabbing motions at how false they are just adding to our pop culture fairy tales. but whoooi. I bought it cause it made me laugh so freaking hard. Not bad for 50 cents, keep my bookshelf warm.

It's actually called 'Whitney, My Love'. Anna and I almost exploded after all the gigglings.

lol.

Yep. I'm agonna get my sega up and running. Also I just added a dreamcast (which I made a killing on) to the pile of the old nintendo gadgets I'm collecting. System, hookups, controller, memory card for an insanely low price. What put the cherry on my unnatural natural high on monday was the coincidence of good songs coming one after the next on the radio while I was driving about.

Got me in the most giggly mood, was it really a monday?

Trying to figure out new year plans but I've drawn a second blank. Change of plans. Anna and I will figure it out though, hopefully before new years. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Hmm

Nothing like the smell of fresh capitolism in the morning eh?

New retirement laws. And a pretty little notice had to be given on thursday to the Utah Government to stick with the old plans.

Oh I loved the new SLC restrictions passed on how we are permitted to use and build on our own land, how we can build our own homes that we live in. I can understand the width standards so that we can better love our neighbors for not battling over space. You think you own that land bud? No you own the subtle right to report a trespasser, that and only that.

Did any one else find the beauty in fining high school students $150 a cussing? For cussing? Do you realize the inflation here when the old $10 words like eminence and phantasmagoria are outrageously less expensivethan the most primal of words?

anyone else giggling?

The red isn't the red we painted, it's just rust

Ever wonder why the throat is targeted? Has little to do with the jugular and more to do with the passage. An eye for an eye, cut them with words and theywill return the favor. It's the jagged messages you split them with that makes them thirst. The memory of the wound and the will to share it with the giver...Just a dainty dose of irony here. I'm beginning to realize how cliche irony actually is...At each other's throats... It'sall figurative all this. I have not this kind of combat.

B e t t e r V e r i s i o n o f M e

The nickel dropped
When I was on
My way beyond
The rubicon
What did I do
And of the games
That I can handle
None are ones
Worth the candle
What should I do
I'm a frightened, fickle person;
Fighting, crying, kicking, cursing
What can I do
Oh, after all
the folderol
And hauling over coals
Stops
What will I do

Can't take a good day
Without a bad one
Don't feel just to smile
Until I've had one
Where did I learn
I make a fuss
About a little thing
The rhyme is losing
To the riddling
Where's the turn
I don't want a home, I'd ruin that
Home is where my habits have a habitat
Why give it a turn

Oh, after all
The folderol
And hauling over coals
Stops
What did I learn
I am likely to miss the main event
If I stop to cry or complain again
So I will keep a deliberate pace
Let the damned breeze dry my face

Oh mister
Wait until you see
What I'm
Gonna be
I got a plan; ademand, and it just began
And you're right, you'll agree
Here's coming a better version of me
Here it comes a better version of me
Here it comes
A better version
Of me.

-Fiona Apple
(extraordinary machine album)

simplicity on the surface, but the darkest pit in me is pagan poetry

Thoughts and words flow past me like moving water, shapes to my body remaining swift and coolled.

What continues is not mine to cease right here at least,act now and it spirals into a self destruct. I remember what it's like to take it by the shreads and fragment... By the stains which still bleed. There's a wonder in the way things go, the flow of it all despite the way it grinds against me... My tapping fingers plead with my mind. Responding back : give it time, just give it time and how could I know to answer? scrape down towards that sanctumn within, while others tunnel toward their own. Speaking to myself like a stranger.

But you never really know now do you?

I go through life not knowing. The things I do know can be counted on my hands. Everyday tells me to erase the last, and the case history dissolves over night. All that remains is the skelton of this brittle record. Tally marks driven down the walls... We guess well enough but we cannot be the things we believe. Not that the effort is waste. The effort is the fuel, it shapes. People function on theory alone, what has truly been proved over to a human mind is all I have to ask. Even fact must be taken with a faith. It's not the reason that makes the connection, it's the receptivity colliding with the inner skeptic. I'm grateful at times that I'm not convincing, I don't slow my own way with the surity of the ego. This world remains an illusion to the purpose we all must find. In our human skins we skirt around what we are, what is. "habits take habitat." We pretend not to be.

In this human skin there is nothing I can know to the core, the final layer. We are all bandaged to the point of disguise even to ourselves... What can be known?

Sometimes I ask myself if there is something left... I can't force my sight to span the miles. I can't pretend to hear these thin speeches. I cradle this shy variable. I ask myself if I only speak in whispers but I need to listen a little closer for my own response.

wash away...

Communication has it's limits. Truly.

What sets those limits? Expectations. Perspective. Perception. Bias. Behavior. I talk to each person a little differently as I begin to know them.

What is it? The exchange of ideas, but rarely the linking of them?

Or is it that the ability to listen is slowly becoming lost?

Tangents again...

Half empty or half full. The glass is still a glass with or without content. Maybe the speaker only wants to link the emptiness to the half instead of the other way around to make a lighter observation. Either way it is the same amount, is capable of holding the same measurements.

I hardly know what I'm talking about here. Cashier lunches are so lonesome... Just some of the things I think about when I'm in that dull hospital white breakroom. Just to occupy myself with scraps of matter. Little scribbles in my lil green notebook which someone drew circles and squares on. (hey you...) jk

It's hard to have a life when you're employed.

One of you is going to have to suffer RS alone again as I'll be working.

To anyone who cares I got my first smiley face tonight. I balanced my firstest time ever.

An electrical mishap took a huge bite out of my outlet today and almost killed a neighbor. Fireworks in my bedroom, who else can say that?

wow.

We were hoping that the electrical damage was the smell. A hair appointment told my mom about a bad room smell caused by faulty wiring in the wall which caused the insulation to burn. The guy thought that a rat may have come in the wall and electrocuted himself by chewing through the wire. Yummie. No rat. But I have a really cool hole in my wall and a screen. Hehe.

I feel like a ronchie husband. I've been sleeping on the couch everynight.

Have you ever been despite the odds unexplainably with peace? I don't know how to put it. Purpose faith and contentment maybe? Who knows.

like butterflies

I think splurge is the right word for today. And every now and then indulgence is wonderful.

Did I mention I’m a music geek?

Anna and I went on a music spree and completely disarmed the employees at graywhale with my purchase. We also swung by savers for Anna’s costume of the wenchy mother in law I said I was going to spend money insanely, and I did. I came I saw and I owned.

Positive reinforcement was muchly needed, as anticipated. The day took a different tone once it flowed onto the later hours. Angelo, the operations manager walked out. From what I was told he took off his vest and threw down his manager keys down on the office desk. Walked out and left just like that.

Kara the supervisor was promoted on the spot.

We’re talking about a responsible level headed man here. In the short time I’ve had to get to know him I haven’t known him to act rashly.

It wasn’t much of a surprise. I’ll say this ahead of time I love the people I work with but we have a sneak for a store manager. Something Scott said probably broke the scale. Halloween does get messy but it’s nothing that he couldn’t handle. Scott is slowly collasping the company but this time he’s not even meaning to. I want to know why, and I will.

When Anna and I were discussing costume ideas Angelo brushed past us. I sent out a quick hello. It made me laugh cause he has a hard time recognizing people out of uniform. A quick squint and a pause and then he responded and laughed at himself. Just casual. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Anna and I went on to buy the ugliest moo moo we could find and giggled ourselves to death.

I heard the news a few hours after getting to work. Of course I had to have it repeated twice. Not to say we were close friends or anything like that. He was a good leader though, he kept things in line. He’s not immediately friendly, but he has his own way of connecting with people.

It brought back this general topic. You expect departure to be foreshadowed. You think when people are about to leave you might hear them grumble under their breath every now and then. You hear a rumor which you deny. The person says leaving is a possibility and with a little time they’re gone.

It doesn’t work that way.

No flags are flown. There is no soundtrack in the background leaving you to put two and two together and not come up with five.

I think it’s like that when somebody dies. They just blink out one day and you find out the day or the week after. Truth rushes in on you and you can’t take down the speed. You’re expected to soak it all in.
You think back to the moment when you last saw them. Maybe you called them up to borrow jumper cables and they the only person you could think of. It could have been a meeting, and you forgot to say hello. You pass them on the street and wave casually back.

And then poof.

Makes me want to treat each moment with better care if I don’t know when part seven is almost through. It’s so fleeting.

When I was little I tried to hold still when a butterfly came close. I wanted it to flutter right onto my palm so I could watch the wings as they quivered. Their wings looked to me wispy paper with tiny paints. A slight movement would be enough to startle it. I never wanted to catch them and keep them captive. I just wanted to hold them. They were so fleeting but I still adore the creatures.

And so these little butterflies are like moments, quick to flee but beautiful both in their coming and leaving. They are so beautiful in movement. Time is precious.... I don’t know when one is about to scatter away from me so I hold each one tightly but not too tightly to crack it. My only hope is to help enhance it and help it to live well enough so that I can always recall it back to me when I shut my eyes to this changing world.

Oouff

One of the few Yu Yu Hakusho episodes I've seen was one where a particular opponent's downfall was he couldn't feel pain. If his pain couldn't be registered, he would not be able to distinguish a mortal blow.

I picked up my painting again after a month's negligence. I sat on my legs, keeping my knees and ankles as crooked as can be. A few hours later I got up and ouch. I don't notice discomfort and find comfort when I'm tensed or stretched weird. So as I stood up my knees felt like creaky doorknobs.

Needless to say after four hours of curling and remolding my joints and six hours of standing, my knees are now mashed potatoes.

I haven't enjoyed myself with painting like this for some time now. The process is so time consuming, I'm beginning to see why it took some artists years to finish a portrait.

I was hoping to hit up Graywhale again and get my own paints so that I could return the ones I have. But... Long story short it makes things easier to not have a credit card or bank account, because a certain organization needs records of every financial asset I have. Mommy can't cash it in for me so there goes my Saturday excitement. I need an insentive to pummel the Halloween Havoc everybody wants a costume NOW.

Yes I do want to spend fifty dollars on official bootlegged cds... I don't have no credit card. I don't have no credit.

I need to work on college now. Cancel spring enrollment. Apply to Weber. Hassle up my transcripts out of the highschool. Get my FASFA back in action. REGISTER.
Yes. I'm being a little silly putting it off aren't I?

passing into

One of the things I love most about work is the diversity. Somehow despite our different personalities and ways, we combine so cleanly...

I get along with them not as coworkers but as people. There's Suzie always ready with a friendly smirk. She's been clean for a year and a half. Keisha's little uns are proof that black babies are cuter than anything else. (They even waddle!) Margaret has a way of getting things done assertively without having to maintain that superior kind of air managers send out now and then. Erica's warm like most Southerners and lets me borrow a bit of Tennessee. Kenny's the hidden intellectual who shrugs at college, I don't know how he can stand straight black coffee. I've had coffee twice. I knew it was useless since I knew half of what I was drinking was sweetner, but it depends on it's flavor I guess. Larry's a vetran, for his years in the armed forces, and the company. Brianna, heh, she can make anyone laugh and forever curses Eve for menopause and high heels. Angelo is into blue grass, you can hear him hum while he closes the place.


Working alongside people who make a living out of retail... Some of them get a look in their eyes when I talk about setting off for school. As if I had asked them a question rather than made a statement. There's not a look of regret there, but I think I see a flash of remberance.

I like this environment. Despite the uhhh track record of store 1103. Here I'm viewed as an equal, their aim is not to make people feed their superiority with inferiority.

When October ends I'll have a rough time adjusting back to the flow of things. I've settled into Halloween too well... I won't want to hand in my labcoat for the vest...

Speaking of which I hope I can get a morning shift on Halloween. It would suck to have this perfect of a costume and have to grumble to myself 'all dressed up and no where to go'. I was one of the first ones to request it but I have no guarantee.

Tommorrow (or today if it's like oneish in the morning) I get paid. I'm going to be spending quite a bit of it too. I ration my spending usually but... I'll indulge a little more this time.


It's beginning to feel like autumn once again. I'm pulled outside by the feel of it alone. The colored leaves help to keep me patient for the first snowfall.

Watching from the sidelines

On the Sidelines

Games. Everyone plays them. It’s not in the polite society handbook to display one’s bare intentions. We have to be blinded by tact and particular word choice to advance onto anything else. This isn’t in my territory, I’m usually more empathetic and supportive towards someone than I am convincing. It’s both a curse and a gift. To be able to see so far into a person down to their basic hopes and fears, their instincts and impulses, strengths and insecurities. You know why. You can see their logic, you relate too well.

People think I’m random because I don’t usually format my conversations with subject relativity. I dart from one subject to the next instead of carefully leading them into it. I think I’m spontaneous. I don’t wait for the conversation to tip toe over to my own topics.

I’m glad I can’t read minds. It’s such an eerie power. One doesn’t always think what they mean or feel. Thoughts are infinite everyone has their own codes of thinking. I don’t always think in language. I explore multiple actions even ones I’d never carry out. Despite this everynow and then it would be sooo useful.

*sighs* Even now I’m bound by the chains of propriety, wearing it’s concrete mask. I wish it were more breathable.

I’ve always been a watcher. When I was in the forest I remained completely still so that I could continue to observe the wild life. I’m becoming another tree in this uncharted wilderness, watchful and constant.

I’m watching from a distance, from these velvet roped sidelines. Watching the world spin on it’s unstable axis. Quiet only on the outside.

Yet another area of my life where I’m caught between abstracts, between roles, between circumstance. Insider, Outsider. Either way it still exists. I’m only station agent, well notified. I’m not the engine, I’m not longer an engineer. It seems so short out there in the distance now, a tiny speck of black on that ladder we place on the ground. Only a witness whose seat is reserved.

"Hold onto to nothing as fast as you can"

Not overworrying, it’s more like over thinking. I classify and reclassify. I blink I breathe. I act on such a small scale.

Yes, call me a schizo, Cause Tori Amos is my confidant, cause music is my consolation. I’m not even speaking, there’s only music in response.


To trying too hard-

"Been looking for a savior in these dirty streets, I’ve been looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets, been raising up my hands, drive another nail in, got enough guilt to start my own religion

Why do we
Crucify ourselves
Everyday
Nothing I do is good enough"

To my feelings of wanting to disconnect now and then. For stillness to return to my head for one moment.

"So I ran faster but it caught me here
yes my loyalties turned like my ankle
in the seventh grade
running after Billy, running after the rain.

These precious things let them bleed
Let them wash away these precious things
Let them brake their hold on me"

To melancholy in itself.

"The smart money is all hollow.
The moon is in the street.
The shadow boys are out
breaking all the laws.

You’re east of anything west
and the rain is making speeches
and the rain sounds like a round of applause.

Napoleon is weeping in a cornerless room
his invisible fiancee is in the mirror
The band is going home, it’s raining
hammers, it’s raining nails

It’s true theres nothing left

They all pretend they’re orphans.
And their memory is like a train
You can see it getting smaller as it pulls away
The things you can’t remember...
Tell the things you can’t forget."

To childhood

"and through the walls they made their mudpies
I’ve got your mind I said
she said I got your voice I said
you don’t need my voice girl
you have your own but you never thought it was
enough of. So they went years and years like
sisters. Blanket girls. Always there through this and that
there’s nothing we cannot ever fix I said

Bells and footfalls and soliders and dolls
She and I were now.

Can’t stop what’s coming
Can’t stop what’s on it’s way.

And now I speak to you are you in there you have her hace and her eyes but you are not her and we fot at each other like blank ettes who can’t find their thread and their bare.

Can’t stop loving. Can’t stop what is on its way and I see it coming it’s on it’s way."

She doesn’t give me answers. I’m thinking in questions, she answers in two part harmony.
There are no answers. Only choices that solve and unsolve...

Arriving Renewal

Concentrate. There are voices speaking and speaking your name. This world is lost to you . Relocate, complete another.

Ambition comes then flattens, like ocean waves sloping over the shorelined years. As the sidelines become straighter, I weave another thread between.

Answers spoke out in blank riddles. Each one is solved but most are unused. Each one starves for a turn, a priority, a name. Reaches for renewal.

Continue, another day is brewing early. Remember every arrival, continue.

Fated..?

I’ve been hearing so much talk of the end of all days. Religious doom. Is it abnormal that I feel so naïvely calm? Is it this sudden feeling that everything will be alright when all is said and done?

How do I place ‘God’ , ‘Destroy’ and ‘Wrath’ in the same sentence?

Is it fair or unfair to halt the blossoming generation to be contained, shut down and denied the natural life process? These fruits of youth ripen from experience and time. Old age is not inhibiting in my mind. Knowledge can be gained, yes, but it’s worth must be learned to be treasured. You become aware of your mortality and the continuation of life then on a new level in that setting stage in your life. You not only understand but feel and experience. I still hold this, which I heard somewhere that with the weakening of the body comes the strengthening of the mind. Limitations are recognized, you are permitted a deeper pondering of your life to come when your life here ends with new awe. Know your limits and learn that you are not limited... Specific life stages have different flexibilities and options, this age does have it’s offerings. Oddly, I do sometimes look forward to my old age. I imagine myself silver haired, withered and sweetly worn with a long legacy to look back on, loving the bronzing sun as it sets majestically as I’ll look skyward. This generation and society fears aging and takes dangerous measures such as slicing open outward identity, stripping away and slicing up the face so that the wounds will slide into a generic acceptable appearance. All in a lust for an unattainable and unfulfilling fountain of youth. I have no reason to flee it, I will take every year I can if I know I have something more to add to learn to be. There is a responsibility to push to the end, to continue, and to grow.

Gods would be a different agenda. And our lives down here are so small and fleeting. Temporal always gives way to another permanence in the end.

When a door closes, another opens. When something ends something new begins. I hardly see the creation and destruction’s symbiotic relationship as dark and cynical as I discussed have previously discussed with one of you, but could not accurately explain then with all my thoughts unclothed and without words... I touch the pen against the page, tainting it’s perfected pristine color with lines and curves of ink. The softness and flexibility of clay is taken away when it is fired, but it becomes easier to keep if it is firm. A mother gives birth and the life she knew before ends transforms into something new because she now has another life to guide other than her own. Circumstance demands and simultaneously rejects. It is what change is.

Hmm.

I sit here complacently, moving with faith that with my ownership of my own soul I am bound for larger things and focused circumstance. Such a weird calm really, so come what may.

Fate itself is such a tantalizing subject So do I believe in predestination or independent destinies ? To think of my life as a bland calculation without choice, chance, or change is so listless and cold. Or maybe I could see it as a masterplan individualized for me?

I definitely lean more towards the liberty to decide. Maybe there is a very small number, say five destinies available that can be met through numberless branches of paths we can take. Like separate variables and values that arranged in several combinations can only have five outcomes (or five to keep this in measure.)

Choose your adventure books have six or more endings but around eleven or so beginnings... I really do believe that we are capable of as much good as we are bad. Could it be like this? That souls are natural magnets whose polarities are aligned with select fates? I would like to believe in destiny in a smaller degree.

Okay first ftp download failed because this computer doens't have on needed installation component.

Ohhkay. Next!

I'll take a bite out of filezilla and see how I like it. Unless one of you out there has a recommendation...? 44% and counting...

Work was pretty good, though I'm glad they didn't call me in earlier. They tried but my mom had a long distance call from someone and tied up the line. Later I tied up the line myself. hehe.

A kid looked up at me today and asked me if I was a nurse. I was wearing my new uniform for Halloween, my mad scientist lab coat. Had to smirk at that one, nope just a costume coordinator... I carefully explained that I worked there and forgave the rascal in the back of my mind for terrorizing the Halloween section which was hit up soooo bad. I really admire the imagination of the young. Sometimes I do miss childhood, as Glynn Hughes puts it 'Childhood is an exitement from simply being alive."

When I find out about something complex and perception changing it usually startles me throughout the day. Well this one followed me through the night and it's a lot like a medical insurance policy. Once you max out everything and you hit what's termed a 'catatrosphic' by having a certain amount of medical costs they pay everything off for you. It's like this really, the irony and confusion has long since admitted themselves and reached the top of the charts. I understand and feel it's different now and because I do both it doesn't sink a hole in my stomach.

It's just probing now. Filing through what I understand, running back through what's already there and adding the blanks of which I fill out.

It answers a lot of things but poses a few more but smaller questions.

97% and counting...

High Life

I really really like this song. I play it to death.




All my friends got flowers in their eyes
But I got none this season
All of the last ten years blooms have gone and died
Time doesn’t give a reason
Hey baby, do you ask yourself sometimes
What you need to be forgiven?
Everything that you’ve ever done wrong
Is the reason that I’m driven
Straight to you.

Waiting here for you
Wanting to tell you
How I get my ends and my beginnings mixed up too
Just the way you do
Thought if I told you
You might want to stay for just another day or two

Waiting for the trains that just never come
Beginning to believe in
The disappearing nature of the people we have been
We have begun to change into the worst kind of people
So unkind
Oh apologies, no apologies, this apology
Doesn’t describe the way it feels to feel for you

Waiting here for you
Waiting here for you
Wanting to tell you
How I find myself slowly disappearing too
Just the way you do
Thought if I told you
You might want to help me remain with you

I just wanna stay for a little while
I wanna stay a little while

There’s a night life falling down on me
I just feel like a change
Beneath the sun in the summer
a sea of flowers won’t bloom without the rain
But oh, this desert life, this high life
Here at the dying end of the day
I wasn’t made for this scene baby
But I was made in this scene
And baby it’s just my way
I don’t want to go home alone, I wanna come on home to you

Waiting here for you
Wanting to tell you
How I line my sky with all the silver I can use
Just the way you do
Thought if I told you
You might want to stay for just another day or two.

Counting Crows

Yum

Do I really have to go to work today? I'm in heaven.

Counting crows and chocolate. What better way to spend your day? It's wonderful.

So my new site isn't going according to planned. I signed up at bizhat.com. Thought it would be a neutral name like that which was ADVERTISED freewebhost.com. I got 50 megs (gimme more!) that I can do nothing with, because their controls are so non descript I can't even create a new page. I can view the contents, but can't add any.

So off to the forum I guess say hey I'm the newb WTH do I do here??


WHOAHHH DID I DO IT?

*hyperventilates*

I think I got it. It's uploading through publishing wizard. after the upteenth try. Okay nobody come home, please! I'm so close!

It's not official yet but check out http://palepaintedsky.bizhat.com/main.htm At least something should come up, even if it's just a blank page with an announcement from bizhat.

What kind of name is that any way? Bizhat?

Well whatever it is, it's working right?

Witness

Make me a witness
take me out
out of darkness
out of doubt.

I won’t weigh you down
with good intentions,
or make fire out of clay
or other inventions.

Will we burn
in Heaven?
Like we do
down here?
Will the change come
while we’re waiting?

Every one
is waiting...

And when we’re done
soul searching
and we carry the weight,
die for a cause...
Is misery made beautiful
right before our eyes?
Will mercy be revealed
or blind us where we stand?

Will we burn
in Heaven?
Like we do
down here?
Will the change come
while we’re waiting?

Every one
is waiting...

-Sarah McLachlan

Overthinking

Oblivious or ignorant. Hard to say.

You are given an honor when you are ignored. This is when you are noticed most. To successfully ignore you have to stalk the ignored. Figure where not to go, what not to do.

And do I even want to establish which? Truth doesn't have to settle. It forces itself in and asks nothing. People do with it what they will.

In the end blame won't matter. It solves nothing, completes nothing.

Good and evil? I've explored both spectrums of myself indefinitely. She is darkening. Anyone can see that from far away. I say this neutrally having fully explored my own darkness.

The difference is between my dark and her dark is, my blackest thoughts abolish human concepts and emotions. They mock them. It absorbs all but one feeling the adoration of nothingness, infinite night. Embraces destruction and weakness. And a strange indulgence when something is admitted into obilivion, shredded, discarded. Very focused on carnage of all palpable structure like an anarchy of the heart. I could so easily be mentally celibate had I not taken the choice to feel and actually allow larger emotions. I could rid myself of the need for positive emotion, or the abstract want/need for love (in it's variety of forms as it's definition is so large). I've done it once. Somehow a strip of compassion even lived through that. This was a different skin, and a different time, but definitely one that has formed me.

Hers is focused more on emotions to their fullest.

We take turns I guess.

It's a little different to see someone who was years back my example and life line out of that emptiness, the only one who would see closely enough to even begin to listen.

Thats the little thing that tugs at me.

EVIIIIIL

How any self respecting human being continues to live like this, I really don't know. Haaa. Can't even see my floor, dishes are scattered about, my carpet's plated with old clothes. I make a mad dash looking for shoes before work. I think I 've solved the problem though, I just keep my battered tennis shoes in the kitchen. Domestically challenged? Something like that.

Here's a few things to put on my record as a living breathing paradox. A few of the fine arts of the home don't appeal to me such as CLEANING and SEWING, but most people like to be clean I guess. Only outwardly in this display-case society. But don't get me started on the hypocrisy of man. I kind of cook, I can clean when it comes down to it, but I get by. I'll lend two helping hands around the house ,yet won't lift a finger in my room. Should probably get around to it.
I could sell this, it's like boot camp for OCD patients, spend two months or more with my brother and I. It would be quite the experience. With reality shows so tickled with odd habits and exposure of the abnormal, it would be hilarious.
I'm the proud owner of a super nintendo now. Laugh if you must, but this is victory. I've been looking for one for almost a year or two. THREE bucks roughly, thanks to employee discount, Graywhale it would be thirty - twenty bucks depending on the condition. That's crap. I bought the ac adapter for more than the system itself. I settled a bit over the $8 after I called 'AreUGAME' and they recommended looking into a FORTY DOLLAR CONVERTER. !@$%&#@ no way honey. Now I’m getting to another problem.

So here's something to keep me swearing in my sleep for a while. It's not fair to do this to the devoted. no no no no no. It's going to cause a flood sooner or later to keep me and other nerdish Zelda fans in check until 2006, since we've all been drooling at an inhuman rate since 2003 over those pretty screenshots. (I wish I had my old connection, the game testing genius I could use the inside info) I've been checking in on some sweet looking reviews and this 'un should be promising. I can't wait, theres going to be a variety of new control features, the storyline is ever darker, and the graphics... The Graphics! So life like!

hope I didn't freak you all out with my life long Zelda fixation. Just thought of something, you don't ward off vampires with garlic, raw fanaticism is much more effective. In fact raw anything is about enough. People don’t like what is unfiltered and base, most people can’t handle origins.

There is hope though. I haven't played every Zelda game, particularly the old school pixelated ones. I still got the oracles.

Okay self, do the math. You get up at what 8:00 tommorrow on your day off, and you're up and energized at 12 freaking 48 in the morning. Everything has it's price, even Insanity.

patience

I’ve been refraining from posting anything too significant lately, as it would attract the kind of attention I would not like to have. It’s been a little rough now and then and I’m becoming more and more ready to live on my own. To make it brief there’s been a few happenings here that call out loudly for me to leave. I sometimes feel like an alien in my own house. I care about different things that they would never even begin to consider. I can’t compromise myself as I have before... but the order of things here run differently. Whoever goes to the furthest extreme wins, whoever does the most damage. It’s a real load of crap. And the advice I get for this is to appease my mom, say nothing back. Do nothing and be walked all over...

I haven’t been feeling too well. I’m finding out some new fun things to worry about to make me feel like I’m sixty. I hate feeling frail.

I’m really enjoying work these days. The staff is very diverse, but even though we’re all our own people we all get along smoothly. It has a very warm atmosphere so I feel really lucky. I’ve heard people complaining about their bosses, but I can’t complain about mine. It’s nice here.


We just hired an Ethiopian someone whose name I’m still trying to retain. He’s quick to smile and very meek. His accent is one that I’m not familiar with, it’s soft and very focused on curved vowels. He struck off a deal between us, if I teach him English, he will teach me Arabic. Arabic! That’s not even his first language either. He’s very homesick but he must stay here for two more years because of a program he’s enrolled in. Personally I think modern American culture is cold, conformist, and too focused on material items. I would be home sick as well. I’m always asking him about Africa and what it’s like to walk on Ethiopian soils.

I hope to travel through other countries someday. Not just to vacation but to have more exposure to other cultures, interact with new peoples, and hear unknown languages. The farthest out I’ve been is in the ocean, waaay back when. I hope that it can be possible for me someday. That I can do more with it than dream about it from a distance.

Unwritten

I am so unheathily nocturnal. It's by choice these days or nights if you want me to be specific. I do get tired of having to be so politically correct, if speaking freely is so controversial. Ai yi yi.

I don't enjoy having my dreams shot down by the world, by reality, by what some would call fate. They aren't dead.

What I'm talking about isn't even recent, it's completely unwritten so far from where I stand.

I've got to go the way I've got to go. I'm a passionate person and I would be unhappy winding up with a bland occupation. I think I've just lost my hold on my dorm to a south weber girl who is driving my cousin up the wall.

Life unfolds itself each day, taking and then adding. I'm getting older. The grounds are shifting again and I'm almost comfortable with it if that's the word. Almost.

Changes send me off in streams of thought. We spend our whole lives trying to classify only to rearrange... It's an uncontrolled experiement with infinite varibles. It even boils down to the probability of a possiblity.

The roads are wide. I'm trailing off at highspeeds, and this time I have no guardrails.

Human minds who disagree... but everyone is looking for something

I consider myself to be very allowing and liberal but there are still ideas that I can never even begin to consider. Someone presented the idea that since no one person can supply you with everything that you need monogamous relationships do not make sense. As I am sitting here I can’t silence the choir of ‘whys’ in three part harmony in my head. Are we as people meant to have everything that we want? Why does getting it all help anyone to grow? I have seen many people in my life who have not cherished what they have been given. What I find so frightening are people who take love and affection for granted. Human nature is to be fickle, why should this trait be encouraged?. Why would having been with so many different people not spoil how they measure the worth of an individual person? I would very much like to think that people are not disposable, like objects that can easily be replaced.

If an individual has limits and a set personality will it in time starve the other in a relationship? Are commitments between a couple inside a serious responsible relationship solely built upon benefits the other can extend? Is love only sought out for selfish gain? Is being with a fellow human who understandably has natural weaknesses so oppressive?

Is it so hard to commit over long periods of time inside of relationship? Because it gets ‘old’? Is monogamy supposedly so unnatural because of these timed expiration dates? Is it like a favorite song that has been overplayed? What is not understood that so much is unwritten about people, we are constantly recomposing ourselves in various ways. A person is not a 3 and a half minute song produced by a one hit wonder band. Oh I’m done with you I know all the words you will say, I know you too well. I know that I am constantly unfolding and evolving everyday and I hope that this is for the better. It maybe that I am just weird, but the longer I have known someone, the more connected I am to them.

I am a creative person, I enjoy cultivating matter and creating. I find music completely necessary. Does this mean I must marry an artist , a poet, or a musician to be satisfied? No! While I can’t say I wouldn’t want to, what I am really looking for is just someone who can understand my thinking or at least where my thinking comes from. I don’t need someone to appreciate and approve of all my interests. Just as long as they can understand that I feel it deeply.

What I am saying is not that you can’t expect anything out of the other person in a relationship with you. I am saying that if someone doesn’t meet all your requirements on a personality level, doesn’t get a ‘A’ in all your favorite subjects, that’s okay. What I look for is someone who has the capacity to understand who I am and understand and share my values. I can expect them to be compassionate and loyal, cause I think these traits are attractive even romantic. I can expect them to be a true individual in a world whose peoples survival depend on conforming. I can expect whoever it is to think for himself, and to be logical in decisions. I have met many people who are poetic who through their hands up in the air while trying to read or write a poem. I have met artless artists and passionless musicians. I’m not going to pack my bags and leave someone because they are too quiet and tone deaf, because they can’t sketch a convincing stick figure etc. As with any person you meet there will be something unlikable about them. Realizing the humanity in someone while knowing what it is about them that matters- this is so beautiful to me. Loving someone unashamed. You can be and should be careful and clearly decisive in these matters. You should be careful who you give a part of yourself over to, and who you will be receiving a part of. I don’t want such a personal exchange to be in vain.

Polygamy eliminates the need to choose. I feel comfortable with monogamy and commitments because I know that I am capable of making with adequate time sane and worthwhile judgements. If I am wrong on something it will turn out okay? Why? Because I learn from screwing things up. Sometimes it is a few episodes of trial and error that I need to expand my ability to make a good judgement.

I see it like this, by choosing to be monogamous I am saying I respect myself. I am saying that my love is worth being kept, that it is a rare thing and by not giving issuing out romantic love to everyone I have made it precious. I have a price and an indefinite value. In return I have to earn the love of someone else and I can expect it from everyone.

In a world where people come and go out of my life, where I can take no one for granted it is nice to have a hold on a certain amount of consistency. This is something I usually keep to myself but for the arguments’ sake I will bring it up. The fact is people leave. They go you go. A spouse is someone who has agreed unconditionally to stay a part of your life forever. (good heavens I sound like a RS handbook) The first person you see is that person when you wake up. And how beautiful it is to think that you will not lose touch with that person. It is a timeless alliance that takes honor to uphold. But the rest of society sees marriage as imprisonment. Looking at the rising divorce rates marriage isn’t trendy anymore. So if embracing my values is unnatural or relatively unconventional, I dare to beat against the tide.