Ryugus

And life rolls merrily along….

2005-11-27T20:48:00.000-07:00

First off, let me ease your minds/give you the worst news of your life…I still live. Yes, I’m still kicking, and even a little harder, so go bite your aunt’s asphalt. The question that still seems unanswered is this: will my life EVER have any semblance of normalcy?

Let me start off replaying this escapade by saying I have a new job (again). Interestingly enough, it’s for the same company where I had my first job. As my best friend so aptly put it “Welcome to three years ago!” Things are a bit different though, I was hired directly into a supervisor position. Not out of the ordinary, but let me tell you how it happened. When I found out about the position, I didn’t immediately apply. Instead, I talked with my former supervisor, asking her honestly if I could do it. She seemed confident, and had, in fact, been speaking with the district manager a few days prior about me, so I put in a web application. I few days later I got a phone call from someone saying she’d like to talk to me about the position. So I called…and she had NO idea what my qualifications were for the job! It baffled me why she even called me if she had no data. So I briefly went into the standard sunshine-blowing-up-the-ass maneuver, and she decided to have me come in for an interview. Apparently the district manager remembered me, and put in a good word, so after a second interview with the district manager herself, as well as the DM for the rest of the departments in the store, I got the job. Fun.

Then there are my finances. I finally have a fair job, so I’m getting things paid, which is nice. I finally even am able to buy certain things that will make my life easier, such as food, and things. So I decided to give a fair sum to a charity that I believe is doing a lot for society, even though I can’t necessarily afford it. I decided that it was worth the few meager weeks I would have to spend as a result of it, so I just went for it. Well, a little while later, I found out that my high school boyfriend decided to bequeath his entire estate to me. It’s not impressive, but thoughtful, and slightly more than makes up for my donation. Go figure.

Lastly is my love life, or lack thereof. I’m still the kind of guy who doesn’t need someone there to make him whole. Lately though I feel like I’ve been neglecting an entire dynamic of my existence. While the rest of my life is improving, bit by bit, I have this one area that is naught but a chasm. There are two fronts that have appeared in the battle against the nothing. (Amusing side note: I got a kitten and named him Sebastien. If you need me to explain why that’s funny, you need to stay out from under your rock a little while longer.) There’s this guy that I had a class with a few terms ago. Great guy, funny, smart, drop dead gorgeous, you know, perfect. He even likes me, too. One problem…he says he’s not looking for anything. He’s totally giving me indicators that he wants to start something, then he acts uninterested. He flip-flops between the two worse than Bush and Kerry in the last election. It’s totally driving me crazy. Lately though, his interested phases seem more earnest, so I don’t really know how to take it.

Then, there’s my ex. Even after we broke up, we remained amicable. We’ve gone to get coffee together, and even had dinner once. Recently though, we’ve been a lot closer. That has a lot to do with both of us coming to terms and taking responsibility for the events of our relationship. So not long ago we went to a movie together. One of those kinda cheesy flicks by a director we both like. Ok, so it was Corpse Bride (which rocks, by the way.) Afterwards, we went to Johnny Carinos, and had dinner. He mentioned during this that I should come over to the house (which looks great since I moved out, all redecorated and nice, except the kitchen ^_~ ) and watch some episodes of the West Wing (which I know now is a great show) that he has on DVD. So a couple weeks later, I do just that. To start with, he suggests we go out to eat. I’m hungry, and I’m not very picky about what or where I eat, so we agree on a restaurant that we both love, but are generally too poor to go to as often as we’d like. So we’re sitting at Hapa (a yummy little Sushi and Sake bar on Pearl Street in Boulder) having a good time, and we’re joking around, and I insist on paying for dinner. Yes, bitch, it’s my turn!!! He’ll learn eventually…then we go back to the house. After several episodes, a couple cups of tea, several smoke breaks, a deep discussion, and pausing our joking to clear the definition of a word, it’s four AM. It’s decided that I will stay, and I’m ready to curl up on the couch and pass out, but we end up in the bedroom. Now don’t get too excited, nothing happens, except we fall asleep together for the first time in more than a year. The following weekend, we did nearly the same thing. Then again the weekend before Thanksgiving. We still haven’t done anything more than fall asleep together. Not that I would be terribly opposed to anything else happening, but seriously, how much more bizarre a relationship can two people have?! NOTHING in my life is normal anymore!

There’s a song that creeps into my thoughts every time I think about the twists my life has taken. One verse particularly: “There’s a moment that we all come to in our own time and our own space, where all that we’ve done, we can undo, if our heart’s in the right place.” Well it must be! I keep getting these chances to make right the things that I’ve done and not done. People whom I’ve not seen in a decade hire private investigators to find me, and I have a chance to heal 15 year old wounds. I’m talking about mistakes that are old enough to drive! I’m not just reconciling these within myself; I’m getting to fix them with those people. I’m not sure if someone up there likes me, or that being’s masochism is being satisfied at my expense. I have to say I’m enjoying the irony.

Emotional sleight of hand

2005-08-09T15:21:00.000-06:00

Deception…now that’s a jagged little pill. I feel like people thought genuine are now in a constant state of propitiation. I feel like I’m being tested, to see how long it will take for me to break and become subservient. I’m no bronc. Little do they know I’m extremely difficult to break, mostly because I have a strong mind, good heart, and a very low tolerance for bullshit. I will choose to end the association long before I get close to breaking. I find myself being put in a tough position, pitted against someone I’ve known for eons, though it seems more to me like I’m being forced to choose sides, forced to give up close friends. I sense that he’s scared of me, of what I can become, and of being below me. That’s where things are headed quickly, but he also knows he’s ignorant of many aspects of how life works, and his past, and he knowingly wishes to remain so. He cannot possibly keep up to par with me if he doesn’t learn. It’s funny, he tells me things he senses, he explains how he views aspects of his life, and all of it is misinterpreted. He’s not nearly as perceptive as he imagines, and what perception he does have is not super accurate. He’d better realize soon that I’m not one to be bridled, and if his attempts persist he’ll be purged just like anyone else who has tried. I do not need him, I want him…if he were gone tomorrow I’d be just fine, I did well before, I’ll do well again.

Friends will be friends...

2005-06-28T18:36:00.000-06:00

A few people meet, a clique forms, and one, invariably, is the unspoken leader. It’s not done outright, or even overtly, but somehow one becomes the backbone.

I have only one really close group, and somehow or another I seem to have become the hub, the one they come to with problems about the others, neighbors or just life in general. This used to put a huge strain on me, but after m recent spiritual growth spurt, it makes me proud and happy that I can handle them without upsetting them.

One is well on her way, and only needs a gentle boot up her ass occasionally. Sometimes her life starts to get to her, and I have to pull her aside and help her pull her head out of her ass (usually with a satisfying *POP!*). Quick, clean, and effective.

Another stands well on his own. Usually my walks with him entail me gaining another perspective on covert happenings of the group. He’s very strong willed, and a good friend, and I trust his judgment. It’s nice that he and I are at angled ends of the spectrum, I tend to have a fiery passion about things and he is earthy and well grounded.

Which brings us to our fourth. She’s the one who seems to need the most maintenance. When she falls, she ends up flat on her face, and it takes me a couple hours to get her composed and pushing in the right direction. Thankfully that doesn’t happen often. Mostly she is just misemotional. I sometimes am leery about saying much to her, for fear it will be taken wrong. She seems easily offended, which upsets me. She can feel like we’re picking on her, but we’re trying to point out one thing or another to her. I, and the others, want so desperately to tell her how proud we are of her, and how much we truly care about her, but we don’t want to precipitate a massive boast session. She has so much potential but she still needs to do the work. I’ve even sensed an urge to leave the group from her, and I don’t know how to tell her how heartbroken we’d be.

Still, I know day by day I’m doing the right thing, helping everyone, giving them tools to better handle their lives. I only hope they use them before it’s too late…

Start, change, stop.

2005-06-23T19:51:00.000-06:00

It’s funny how time can fly, then without warning, slow to a crawl. I started this semester off strong, in control, and then it seemed to gain momentum from nowhere, and quickly I lost control. Weeks seemed to fly by with me standing, bewildered. In my mind I seem to have misplaced the happenings of the term. How my life has evolved before my eyes, without me knowing. At the beginning I was stagnated. Stuck in a poisoned relationship, my progression spiritually was stifled, and I was suffocating as a student, to say nothing of my hectic, and unpleasant work life. As these things weighed on my consciousness I grew more and more frustrated, felt more and more apprehensive of something elusive. I knew I had to take my life back, reorder the pieces and begin again.

I dumped my suppressive boyfriend, though it took weeks for him to stop affecting me. Even now when I catch a bit of gossip about him I can’t help but wonder what it must be like to be that caught up in misemotion. As awful as our relationship was, breaking up with him seems to have completely shattered him, as I knew it would. A friend idly complimented me, he didn’t even manage to drive his ex out of the school, and I was able to push mine out of the state (nearly the country). I didn’t realize what a profound effect I have on people.

Interestingly, the breakup handled the lack of spiritual progress. I shouldn’t be surprised; there are data in my religion that state clearly what I’ve just learned the hard way. During the entire time that my ex and I were together I made no progress on a cycle that should have take two weeks. It instead took me nearly a year. Now I’m moving along at a decent clip, finding it easier to handle life, day by day. I’m even finding that situations that would upset me before now get handled smoothly without a second thought. Native abilities are returning to me, and I find myself more and more aware of my surroundings.

My first two terms here at school were fairly successful. Then, I met the man who would later be my ex. Since meeting him my grades have dropped steadily until finally I was kicked out of school for a term. This was my first term back, and now I had to prove myself. I broke up with him in the beginning, and I scheduled my classes. One was a class that I feel is truly beneath me, and the other is one that I had failed three times prior, because I let my life get in the way. I decided to take only two classes, to ease back into the groove of being a student. Things started off well, with me disagreeing with nearly everything one professor said, and being utterly bored, and unimpressed with the other. I kept up rather well, and despite three consecutive nights of being up until three or four in the morning I passed both classes. One of them I was really nervous about, I was taking it for the fourth time, and my Dean had gone up to bat for me to get permission to take it again, because school policy dictated that I take it at a different school now. I had two tests to make up, and the final to take, and I did them all on four hours of sleep, on the last day possible to take them. I had to get permission from my boss to take the tests while I was on the clock, as it was the only time I had to take them, and I passed them all better than I expected.

Work was an area for me that I preferred not to talk about. I don’t like speaking ill of people, and I just saw no way around it regarding work. I worked in customer service, and had some of the most inane conversations with people I could imagine. Imagine my relief when I found that they weren’t willing to work around my school schedule and I had to quit. I walked out on Monday, had an interview Tuesday, and was hired Wednesday. I now work in a place that’s pretty calm most of the time, and where I can develop my natural talents. I have plenty of time while at work to do homework, catch up on reading, or even exercise my writing abilities. I even found out that after a year they will start helping me pay for school. Score!

In scheduling my classes for next term I decided it’s time to break down my self-imposed barriers. Anyone who knows me knows how incredibly shy I used to be. They also know how I used to loath writing. Both seem to have dissipated, so I decided to prove to myself that I can do them. I’m taking a speech class with my best friend, woman_of_heart, and a professional writing class. I apparently have the same professor for both, and I’ve heard great things about her. I’m definitely looking forward to them. Since speech is with woman_of_heart, I know that we can both keep each other on track, and encourage and keep in check the other.

Last but definitely worth the wait, I have a new boyfriend. I had originally planned after the breakup to just make my way through life until I got to a stable place before I started a relationship. Then out of nowhere comes this guy. Now, I have several tests that I put people through. First is the email test, if it’s online. If you don’t have something more interesting and intelligent to say to me than “uh..ur hot” then I’m going to delete the email and not bother with a response. Then there’s the second email test. This is where I figure out if you can hold a conversation, and whether or not you’re willing to listen too. Next comes the first date test. This is yet another chance I have to be nit-picky and decide you’re an ass and won’t survive me and subsequently purge you from the ranking. Then there is the roommates test. Few if any make it this far. This is where you’re held to the most unimaginable scrutiny, a panel consisting of woman_of_heart, enveloped nescience, and black wyvern. Not only did this new guy pass these, the final test included woman_of_heart’s mom, the alpha bitch. He not only won approval, but woman_of_heart keeps offering to do a hand fasting. It’s truly an odd thing to go from dating someone far beneath you, to dating your equal. I find myself keeping up with habits from my last relationship, only to be told I don’t have to do those things. I’m actually with someone who has his head together, who knows the difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’, and who knows that I need personal time away from him too. I really think I don’t just ‘like’ him. He even willingly went to church with us, and that was only after being together for little over a week. The second week, he went to church and even paid money to attend a seminar with us, and afterwards bought the basic book of my religion. The best part about it is I know that he’s not doing it just because he thinks it will make me happy. Like me, he hates being placated.

I don’t think my life has ever changed this much in the course of 15 weeks, but all I can say is I’m looking forward to the future for the first time in my life without fear, and without worrying about the present.

I'm not stupid, asshat!

2005-05-26T14:47:00.000-06:00

So, to bring everyone up to snuff, I worked for a year in a professional copy center. I have a pretty good idea of how to run things. In fact the only reason I wasn’t supervisor there is I went to college, and couldn’t be there during the day. So then I come here. The management reminds me of a child running a lemonade stand, and indeed it’s treated as such. Ever see a kid in a lemonade stand? All you have to do is act sad, and say you don’t have any money and I bet you’d get a free glass. Same idea here, we don’t even charge for black and white copies!!! There is NO communication between shifts, NO access to the work anyone else has done, the full time chick has all jobs emailed to her personal email account, rather than the one set up specifically for the copy center, and NO ONE other than me has any copy experience! Because no one else has experience, the copy center student workers are treated with such condescendence that it makes my blood boil thinking about it. I got an email today for color copies (one of the few things we actually DO charge for. It went like this: “Can I please get a color copy of these two banners? Please open the files in paint. Then do a page setup and set it up for 8.5 x 14 legal paper, portrait. Thank you.” The files sent over were both in JPEG format. First off…if you want a good quality color copy, you NEVER use Microsoft Paint! Second…8.5 x 14 legal paper? I’m sorry, is there more than one kind of 8.5 x 14 paper? It IS legal paper don’t be redundant. I’m not completely inept, thank me very much!

And in other news...

2005-04-27T22:52:00.000-06:00

So I finally broke up with my boyfriend. What fun that was! The little twit cheated on me twice at least and the only thing that kept it from being an apparent third was that the guy he met online wasn’t that cute in person. I’ve been resisting the urge to write about him, but withholding emotion does bad things. I don’t dare talk to him, for fear my words spew like acid. He’s a fragile little creature, and can’t take what I have to say to him. I’ve no wish to obliterate him, though he’d better watch his step. People who cross me learn quickly to tread lightly. My mother is a prime example of this. She fears upsetting me, as I may never speak to her again…or something like that. I’m not quite sure what it’s all about. Really the only difference between me and other people is that I have my boundaries firmly established. There are set patterns of acceptable behavior, and if you deviate, you get purged from my life. No one steps on me, let alone someone with whom I would like to spend the rest of my life. The point he fails on is this: I do not need him in my life; I want him in my life. I do not depend for my survival on anyone but me. He, though, is probably already dating someone else, or just out there turning tricks, for fear of being alone. He’s incredibly needy, and completely untrustworthy. He’s deviously dishonest without reason, and his vacillation makes him unreliable. I will miss him, perhaps, when the novelty of having my life back wears off, though I doubt it. I look forward to building my life again, after he ripped it apart. I may find someone who is ready for a mature relationship, or I may simply make my way in the world with only my friends. Either prospect makes me happy, and brings peace into my once chaotic universe. Things long forgotten finally begin to fall into place. Friends long forgotten, return to me eons later. What joy I find in my life now.

Morons

2005-04-23T15:45:00.000-06:00

It's the bane of intelligent people everywhere. Once you do one thing that people think is amazing, no matter how mundane, you are the one people come to for everything, up to and including fixing their mistakes. My mom made me build her a website for her business. Not a difficult thing. She knows nothing of web design; if I threw a couple acronyms at her she'd probably have a heart attack and die. Yet she saw fit to go romping around through the settings on the site, and all of a sudden no one can access the website. Well done! You've broken the Internet, I told her. Then her merchant account disappears. Then she makes too many guesses at the security key that she couldn't access her first order! And it was $600!!! Now I get to sweep this mess up, while she's asking inane questions about a procedure that she's already read the instructions on. I told her to do the first formula. It has only four steps. I get an email asking how to do it! I said, "You just read it! You couldn't have forgotten that quickly!"

Now I have a new job. I had to leave my old one because I couldn't get a new schedule. I walked in and showed the hiring manager a proposed schedule. He said it should be fine, and asked me to submit the paperwork for it. I got the forms in shortly before I had to leave, as I was going to be gone for two weeks on vacation. Something told me to check back, and so I did, on the last day of my vacation. Bear in mind that I needed the new schedule to start the previous Monday. I got there, and I found out that the entire request was denied! Not part of it, the whole thing! I had to work at a second job the next day, but now I was scheduled here too. Not gonna work. I talked with the sup on duty, and she couldn't do anything but mark me as off unpaid. The hiring manager wouldn't be in until Monday, so I'd have to work the first part of my regular god-awful split shift, from 6:30 to 9:30 AM. He was supposed to be in at 8, but he was late as usual. Strolling in with an arrogant gait at 9, I decided to go see him when I got off. I walked over to his desk and the pompous twit wouldn't even look at me while he commented that he can't afford to lose a closer, and there are many people waiting in line for an earlier shift. Besides, he commented, "I'm not required to work around your school schedule." Really? Actually, no employer can deny someone an education by refusing to work around school. Rather than argue the point, and because the job sucked to no end, I acknowledged him, walked back to my kennel, and proceeded to pack my things. I emailed a couple people, and my sup, and just walked out.

My new job is better, though not by much. It's something I'm experienced at, so that helps. The only thing is, I'm the ONLY one here experienced at it. This place is run in such a slip-shod fashion that I'm itching to take over the managers position, which I could do sleeping upside down in a corner in some stranger's apartment four towns over better than the existing manager. She's sweet, but she's just kind of there. I asked what I thought was a typical question, when was the last time the copiers were calibrated. She gave me the most perplexed look I'd ever seen. I just about said, "Trade me seats." She keeps coming to me for ideas about how to make the place more money. I keep saying why don't we charge for our services, that'd be a great start. Everyday I come in she's left me at least one project that she couldn't/wouldn't do herself. On the bright side it's so much less stress. I've had the chance to realize how little it takes to make me inexplicably happy. I've started honing some of my innate abilities, much to my parents chagrin.

Good Ol' Willie

2005-04-07T10:42:00.000-06:00

I'm kinda tired of hearing people say Shakespeare is boring, so I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite quotes. These are both from 'Much Ado about Nothing'. Benedic is a character I really identify with. Someone who, against all reason, ends up getting married after all (to the woman he's trashing in one of these quotes, no less).

The first is when his friends are teasing him about getting married:
"That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will have a trumpet blasted in my face,or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which I may go the finer,I will live a bachelor."

Here, he's complaining about how Beatrice treated him at the party last night:
"Oh, she misused me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were none living near her; she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror and perturbation follows her." Ouch! Poor Beatrice. She did deserve it though...she got in a few shots of her own.

Gifts

2005-02-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

What is the greatest gift of all? Is there one single thing that eclipses all others? Is it a thing, an emotion? A feeling, perhaps. What if I had it in my power to give the ones I care about the most priceless of all things? Can one give freedom, as easy as one gives a warm smile to a stranger? I have given amazing things. I have stopped, with a touch of my hands, terrible pain when a friend had a relapse of Multiple Sclerosis. I have given sensation back to a friend's left hand that had none for several years. I have even stopped a constant pain that had lasted two months in a friends' shoulder. But to give true freedom, that is something wholly different. I was given freedom once, and to the one who gave me this I owe a debt that I cannot possibly repay. It is impossible to express my gratitude. All I can do is pass on that gift. Freedom, I'm learning, is not an easy thing to give. People often suspect help. It is, then, something that cannot be haphazardly given, it is something one must reach for. Until you peak up over the maze, you cannot possibly know where the prize waits. All I can do is offer, hope, and wait for you to take that first step into a larger world.

2005-02-06T00:47:00.000-07:00

Right...

Stop being so damn lazy!

2004-11-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

The first action of beingness is to assume a viewpoint. The second action is to extend from viewpoint points to view, which are dimension points. Thus space is created. Not a tough concept. Very neat and tidy logic, easy for any high school freshman, with any investigation skills, to verify with reality and find true. Yet during the course of one day, one can encounter such a lack of real inquisitiveness as to prove the pandemic of illiteracy catastrophic. My sister comes home one day from school with an assignment that just appalled me. She was to read a paragraph, and interpret from the context the meaning of certain words. Now, I’m sure to most this seems an entirely logical thing. Look again with a critical eye and you’ll realize how wholly unworkable this idea is! This concept assumes many irrational things, not the least of which is that the writer was a competent individual and actually knew what the word meant, and used it correctly!
Then you come to the possibility of having an ambiguous sentence. For example: “It was found that when the crepuscule arrived the children were quieter and when it was not present, they were much livelier.” HOW would you figure out the meaning of crepuscule by means of extrapolation? Until the meaning is cleared up, you’re left with nothing but confusion. I don’t want to do that to my readers, so crepuscule means twilight or darkness. I think the most dangerous effect of this philosophy is that it teaches students laziness and to take someone else’s word for things. Honestly, how much effort does it take to pick up a dictionary and look up the damn word! Taking someone else’s word for things is the rudiment of giving up control. When you’re content to let someone else make your decisions for you, you’ve become a puppet.
In the example of my sisters homework assignment, the paragraph said “The storm pounded against the ship rakishly.” The correct answer when it was graded was something to the effect of “harshly, or roughly,” which is not even close to the meaning! Rakish means “having a streamlined appearance, with reference to ships, or dashingly or sportingly stylish.” Close, but not quite. This now means that there are about twenty-five students that have a misunderstood word. What makes this sad is that it’s undoubtedly far from the first, making one wonder what else he really doesn’t know. Take this figure, and multiply it by the number of classes in that school. Damn. Then multiply it by the number of schools in the US. THAT is the result of accumulated laziness. This creates a country whose citizens are minimally functional, if at all. A country where 36% of *college graduates* have trouble interpreting a bus station time table.
It only takes a small bit of curiosity to extend from your viewpoint a few other points to view. Confront those points without shying away, one will become more astute. With a little perspicacity one realizes that, in order to learn something new, he need only move in space to another viewpoint. Yet all I see are people who, by conditioning, are too lazy to observe more than one point at a time. These are the people who call customer service to demand that their late fee be removed, because how dare we charge them a fee for being two weeks late in their payment. Worse are the people who throw an absolute fit when they’re assessed a finance charge on their credit card, and insist that we waive it. Mind you, these fees are seldom more than $1.50.
The remedy for this problem is simple. Get off your ass and take responsibility for your education, the rest is sequitur. Stop teaching children, the future of this race of mankind, to cut corners, sweep the mess under the rug, that someone else will handle the consequences for you, or that one person doesn’t matter and can’t make a difference. A person taking responsibility for himself, as well as his sphere of influence, is what will save us all. As each person follows suit the problems of the world become more and more solvable. All it takes is to stop being so half-assed about things, and quit relegating blame.

Salvation

2004-08-26T11:26:00.000-06:00

Is time a companion or a stalker? Something that hunts you all your life. Sometimes when the beast nears, you feel a sense of urgency, a pull at your gut, telling you something must be done, but what?! Nothing comes to mind, life seems hopeless, a pointless journey one cannot hope to finish well.

All the gains you’ve made, your friends, loved ones, people who would do anything to help you, all fail you in the end. Time always gets his prey. But is all really lost? Is the sole purpose of life to win the game? How can it, it is impossible. Maybe the purpose is just to make those friends and loved ones.

Suddenly life seems easier, the pressure lessens, you feel at ease. Your attention comes to present, your eyes look into those of your lover. All at once your soul is stolen away and it all seems worthwhile, after all.

Just a happy little muse

2004-08-24T19:51:00.000-06:00

What if everything you thought you were...you weren't? If you had based your life on something thought innate, how would you handle finding out it was a figment of your imagination? I see the fools walking by every day, content with their dillusion, unwilling to find the truth. They somehow muddle through life, jadedly thinking that their miserable existence is as good as it gets. How I long to have that narrow-minded view again. Why can't you unknow things? Why must one be responsible for what he knows? I know I must grow and change, but I'm happy here. I'm filled with sorrow, knowing the life I'm making for myself is for nothing. I don't wish this to happen, yet I wish it were over already. Just pull me out of this misery.

A New Hope

2004-08-01T17:53:00.000-06:00

Afraid of remaking previous mistakes, I approach this new person with reservation. He seems to view me as a pillar of emotional strength, if only he new the train wreck that I've become. Things are different this time. Now I have knowledge on my side. I know what I have to do to make this ship sail. This brings me hope, that someone such as myself can be salvaged, forgiven, and become an equal. How can this debt be repaid? I have nothing to offer but my unflinching lust for life, and an inexorable love. Is that enough to buy salvation? The task ahead of me seems doomed to failure, something that will take an impossible amount of confront. Is he strong enough to accompany me on the journey? My task will take so much effort, I don't know the effect on me it will have, but I fear that the weight of it will obliterate his fragile form. With each step I will move toward total spiritual freedom, and I wish to take him with me. If we survive, it will be an incredible adventure. It's a long way to heaven, and one hell of a ride.

Now back to our regularly scheduled rant

2004-07-11T16:13:00.000-06:00

I couldn't believe it! After paddling down this fucking river for seven hours, I realized I had no idea exactly where I was. I was amazed, confused, and utterly pissed all at the same time. How the hell do you get lost on a river?!?! It's a line! With a beginning, and an end! As long as you're on the that line, how could you NOT make it to the end? And yet, here I sit in my aluminum canoe, three hours past the time I SHOULD have arrived at the dam, and I see none in sight. I was on a trip with five other friends, and they were going a little slow so I decided to paddle ahead a little. I noticed, about half an hour later that they hadn't caught up yet, so I pulled off and made lunch. I had no one to talk to, so I started arguing with my little radio. It looked kinda like the face of a bug, so I named it something bug-like. "Damn it Bob! Where are they? They should have been here by now!" Bob, of course said nothing. I knew it was a long way still to the dam, so I decided to just keep going, only more slowly this time. That's pretty much what led me to here.

I just came out of the woods, and now I'm looking across the valley. I should have been at the dam three hours ago, I can see for miles, and there's no dam. I casually mention to Bob, whose face resembles that of a bug, but I'd never tell him that, "I hope we weren't reading the map upside down." I paddle on for another hour or so. My radio didn't get any reception out here. That pissed Bob and I off big time. We're stuck in the middle of nowhere and we don't even have any music. Perfect! After another hour, Bob starts to lose it. "We're not going to make it! Where are we? We have no food, no water, and no one even knows we're out here!" I slap him. "Get a grip! We'll be fine! I have some trail mix, and we're sitting on a river, we've got plenty of water, dumbass!"

In the distance, I see a road. It looks like it comes down to the river. A livery pickup! I scream at Bob to paddle faster, and faster. We make it to the concrete slab, and jump out onto dry land. I look around: there should be an emergency phone somewhere. I find it and call the livery. My friends are looking for me. Stay put the man said. Bob and I chat until everyone arrived. "How did I miss the dam?" "We slowed down to pull off the river. There was a portage we were supposed to make. We assumed you had already gone through." Bob looks over laughing at me. "Shut up!" My friends give me a strange look...

And now for something completely different!

2004-07-11T15:22:00.000-06:00

For me, winter was always the most romantic time of year. When it gets cold out, images are conjured up in me of busy mall in the evening with lights everywhere, a warm feeling inside, and a light snow falling. To me, that's heaven. So imagine my surprise when I experienced that same feeling of magic at the end of June, one summer.

My new boyfriend and I were taking a trip to Ohio to get the belongings I had left after moving to Colorado the summer before. He was a handsome, thirty-something Colorado native, and I was a Midwesterner, just this side of jailbait. He had lived here all his life, except for a six year vacation in LA. We set out on Wednesday morning, hoping to make it through Nebraska (we were taking I80 most of the way) before we stopped for the night. As the day wore on, we passed the time listening to music I had never heard, and getting to know each other.

As evening fell, I saw the familiar sights of summer; campfires in the distance, a train rolling by. Then, one by one, the fireflies began to dance in the sky. For me, this was a comforting sight, yet one unworthy of pulling my attention away from my new love. For him, though, this was quite a wonder to behold. After nearly going off the road a couple times, we pull into a rest area for a better look.

Out in the field beyond the small isle of civilization, the fireflies dotted the sky like a curtain of lights on Broadway. Even I had never seen so many at once. He stood there in the dark, completely mesmerized by the sight, a virgin experience for him. I took his hand and led him away from the lights, into the field, and we sat down to watch the show. We sat for hours, until the moon came up. By then, I was resting my head on his chest, absentmindedly humming a song I had heard earlier for the first time. I didn't know the words, so my boyfriend started to sing, and we danced in the moonlight.

Just found this on another site

2004-07-11T12:41:00.000-06:00

Thought it was interesting...

"He who is willing to sacrifice a little freedom for a little security deserves neither."
-Benjamin Franklin

Here's Your Sign!

2004-07-08T16:26:00.000-06:00

My god what a day. My job sucks. I couldn't sleep, so I got up to make a sandwich. My mind was plagued by the events at work. How could people be so stupid! I work in a printing place inside an office supply place. When you walk up to the counter the first thing you see is a Xerox Doc 12, a 265stm and off to the side are three 545's. Yet, with all this irrefutable evidence that we are, in fact, a copy place, some guy walks up to my counter, seeming to be an educated man by the look of his suit and brief case, and asks me "Do you all make copies here?" I stood for a moment, completely dumbfounded, then found myself about to say "Nope! Xerox just sends us really kick ass paperweights!", but I thought better of it and just said "yeah."

Not to be outdone, my mom calls me up to tell me why I need therapy. She said "Your brain works like a computer, and sometimes you need to defragment your brain." I snicker. "Mom, how does that defragmenting work?"

"During the day all of your memories get out of place, and when you sleep, they get put back where they belong. Sometimes you need help with that, if the day was really traumatic."

At this point I'm completely astounded by my mom's lack of reality. "Ok, first off, that's not how a computer works, and most certainly not how your brain works!" She gets pissy and hangs up.

These are the things occupying my thoughts as I look around absentmindedly while eating my sandwich. My eyes happen upon the window, and, oh my god, there are frogs on lily pads floating by. Have I lost it? Is this the complete nervous breakdown everyone keeps telling me about?! What's in this jelly? Oh, no I know what's going on. This is God getting me back for all of my mean thoughts today. Or, more likely, Attila the Christian (my mom) decided to pray for me to realize that her ill-researched analogy was correct. Yeah, I bet that's it. With that comfort in mind I finished my sandwich and went to bed, now completely exhausted.

My Caretaker

2004-07-08T16:07:00.000-06:00

I woke up this morning, feeling like an extra in "Night of the Living Dead: The morning After" and stumbled to the shower. Forty-five minutes later, I'm drying off, and the door swings open. Sitting in the doorway, with a pathetic "feed me, I'm starving, you asshole" expression on her face is my cat. She squeaks a light meow at me and runs to her food dish, purrs at it, then runs back. I feed her; she stares at her bowl for a second, and then shoots me a "you're kidding, right?" Look. I say "shut up" and she starts eating, contented that I do, in fact, love her. So it goes every morning.

In the evening, I come home, walk in the door, and she is sitting on the sofa looking like an axe murderer just walked in and found her. She has the look of a terrified defendant who KNOWS he's getting the death penalty, and she runs into the study, hiding, well in sight, in a corner. This isn't the first time she's been neurotic like this. I made the blunder of buying her one of those mechanical litter boxes. Oh my GOD! What a nightmare! She goes in it for the first time, and ten minutes later the rake cleans the litter. She heard the noise, gave it the most indignant look I've ever seen from man OR beast, SMACKS the box a couple times, then slinks off looking dejected. It got so bad she'd eventually sit in the box for hours just to keep it from going off (this was before she learned how to open doors, so she couldn't come in the bathroom and watch ME go, yet).

Now her vice is rubbing her face on everything. EVERYTHING!!! I'm sitting on my bed reading, she takes the opportunity to scratch her face with the dust cover, unless it's supper time, then she starts chewing on the pages. I open the curtains, and she tries futilely to rub her cheek on them. That's why my boyfriend and I changed her name. She was named Famón when I got her, now we call her Mrs. Whatzit. That's who she reminds us of, this quirky little bag woman who appears out of nowhere and does weird things in "A Wrinkle in Time". She take good care of me though, making sure I'm up on time (to feed her), ensuring I get enough exercise (chasing her to her food dish), and even making me get enough sleep (by sitting on my bed in strategic places so I can't get up without disturbulating her). So caring, and understanding.

Affluent Stupidity

2004-07-05T13:57:00.000-06:00

"Have I offended you in a past life?"

"No," she said, annoyed.

"Would you like me to have?!" I countered.

She gets pissy and walks off. I HATE people like that. Nothing seems to please them, convinced of their own stuffy superiority. This one I encountered at the bank. I was there because they once again proved that they can't add. Now, if they were still doing this by hand, I'd be a little more forgiving. But we're talking about the ability to punch numbered keys in a meaningful order! You're even TOLD what to type! Yet these slobbering life forms, just this side of the food chain up from ameobas, seem to fuck this monotonous task up more often than they change clothing. I stand there in line for the better part of an hour, while some old man insists on depositing his entire collection of rare pennies, dating through the decade of the 1980s, waiting to be told that the bank doesn't refund fees due to bank error. I leave after much arguing with this woman.

Another wonderfully cheerful and carefree Monday! I somehow pass the time before I have to go to work. I haven't had to work all weekend, so when I arrive, there's a huge pile of word searches and campy tropical trivia, courtesy of the "Have Fun Committee"--which is essentially what all the student council and drama club queens do in the real world. They insist that, by doing something I was bored with by fourth grade, they can make this a better work environment. I have an idea! Let's all get together for slumber parties, roast marshmallows, sing camp songs, and drool over Josh Hartnett! WHEEEEEE!

Then the phone calls start. I'm plagued by people who insist that their customer's social is only 6 digits (sorry darling, it doesn't work that way) or customers so fucking paranoid (thanks Dubya) that, at the mere mention of giving their social security number to another living soul, they get bitchy, saying, "You can't make me, I don't need this card anyway!"

That's NOTHING compared to the store "ass"ociates themselves! If they're not lying about seeing a student ID, they're trying to use their own Visa for the poor, underpriviledged housewife, who, as it turns out, already has delinquent accounts with every other division my bank services. Beautiful! Then there's the associates (the true Ass. of the Month) that interrupt everything you say, then hang up in the middle of your decline speech. Yummy!

Then there's school. School seems to be mostly populated by a whole new breed of idiot. Here I have to deal with Psych teachers who proclaim that, "According to Freud, since you're male, your mother has a subconscious sexual attraction to you, and vice-versa." Hey sweetheart! Freud also did enough cocaine to kill a small state. I'd pick South Carolina. They're just weird.

My mother still takes the cake. In the early days it was the typical hippie drugs. She was cool then, laid back (placid) and tolerant (unable to give a shit). But since she hurt her back, she's been on anti-inflammatory meds. Then she started bipolar-fixing meds, then meds to counter out their side effects. Now she's on pre-emptive Alzheimer's meds. When she's even coherent she gets high on God. What a winner! The perfect role model! When you're too fucked up to be responsible for anything it's OK! Jesus makes it ALL better--He can make your problems go away!

Oh well, I've survived this long. But if something happens (like Bush stealing the election again), there's always Canada!