Homage to um... whatever...

Two photos that struck me as entertaining in one way or another...





... both for entirely different reasons, the minutiae of which I choose not to go into presently...

1950's Atomic Ranch House Blog!!

I love this guy's blog... to be perfectly honest, I don't really read all that much of his posts, as I am more interested in the visual aspects of his interest in 1950's atomic style.





He seems to be more interested in actual 1950s memorabilia and the like, whereas I'm all about the look and the (affordable) recreation thereof... but he's still quite the inspiration, all the same!

Facebook stalking produced tears...

... and it was someone I didn't even know: I was just browsing his pics and BAM... I shed a tear at this photo...Ugh... I hate being such an emotional little bitch...

Utter randomness....

... merely to save some photos I found interesting.

First off, we have this photo which I believe was from the twenties... looks like Miss Gaga is not really the first to debut the "holy crap what is she wearing on her head" style...And also, Daft Punk! The two guys who make up Daft Punk! SANS their futuristic masks...


Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter are freakin' hot! And that's about the extent of my creativity, insight, and interest today.

Mason Cash Stoneware

Oh me, oh my... to be among the wonderful cooks (the aforementioned Two Fat Ladies, Nigella, Gordon Ramsey, whoever the hell he is...) who utilize Mason Cash...

Why must import fees be so hefty?! For these and for Jennifer and Clarissa's other stoneware of choice, Cornish Blue?

(Sigh...) Perhaps someday...

Two Fat Ladies

I love the Two Fat Ladies Cooking Show... for myriad reasons, but I will be brief in predicating why I find them profound.


What are they? They are (or rather were... rest in peace, Jennifer Paterson, who died four days before my birthday in 1999) just what they say they are: two fat ladies... a rarity, I feel, to find someone who is honest about who they are. They were older, not the Polaroid of perfection when it came to looks, and - indeed - rather portly. But they were happy

They were never without a joke, or a snipe, or a song... they were always ready to utilize the greatest of their talents to provide for others (and yes, I realize they were cooking for people on a 'show', but it is hard to argue that the folks in the show were not in turn enjoying the food that was indeed prepared for them). They were everything the world tells me and countless others we should not be... and yet there they were: still cooking. What lesson might I learn from this? What indeed...

Heaven bless you both, Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson-Wright (who's name is actually quite a bit longer than that...) Happiness finds of its own accord those who feel no great need to seek it.

Well, I have failed.

I didn't delete facebook. Goddamnit. I am still on the life-leech and I am somewhat ashamed.

I did, however, go through and delete a large number of "friends" with whom I really don't have any contact. And I plan on getting rid of more. When? Hopefully as soon as possible.

I didn't feel good while doing it. I didn't feel bad, either. Well, actually, I felt a little bad, but therein lies an interesting query; why would I feel bad severing an e-connection? It is a shame that I would feel anything at all when cutting an electronic tie to someone I don't even know. That right there should be enough to convince me to go all the way, but I guess something still grips me.

That being said, I suddenly feel the need to revamp my e-personality... recent thoughts in my head tell me that the way to conquer a beast is to employ the beast's own tactics... why should I fear facebook or the e-world? Why can I not make it work for me? Like those little fish that suck on to the bottom of sharks... REMORAS... I need to do that... become an e-remora... I like that.

First off? New AIM... AIM is a great tool, I feel. Or not, really... but whatever. Man, I just can't bring myself to care about much of anything right now... my head is swimming in a pool of caffeine, and it kinda sucks.

I need to start over... I have to. Lest I be made a slave of the e-world... the e-world should be, not so much my slave, but a useful and important tool... damnit.

I will be sure to keep track of how that is working for me...

So here I am again utilizing this unread blog to analyze my idiosyncrasies and avoid the cost of a therapist. In the interest of revamping and/or restarting my life (as I move on toward the ripe old age of 30...), I must take into account the state in which I live. At present, it represents my college years... a little on the messy side - unorganized, cluttered, haphazard. They say a place for everything, and everything in it's place... and frankly, that just ain't the case in my house. I hesitate to say home, as I know I will not be living at my current residence for all eternity. I don't even know if this is the state in which I will eventually settle. I don't know much of anything, really, but c'est la vie, right?

Anyway, I'm here to ruminate on the concept of clutter and why I allow it to both happen and persist. Really, it just seems to occur of its own accord, but I know for a plain and simple fact the reason: I have too much stuff with which I clutter my living space. Now why not just throw it all away? Well, I convince myself that whatever the object is that I am questioning the usefulness of will, while not presently useful, will one day be essential, so why not save future money and time and keep it around? That being said, there is not a sliver of guarantee that this will actually be the case, therefore making me cogitate on what else might keep the errant objects around.

Perhaps it is a clinging nostalgia? The item/article/object means something to me... something special... lub dub lub dub. Please... there ain't nothing special these days. But I keep holding on: to a T shirt (for which I paid too much), to a pair of shoes I might match with... something on down the line, or to that sheet of paper on which there is some information that I cannot readily recall but will be crucial at some point in the future. The future! says I! What the hell is wrong with me?! How can I be a fatalist if I am so worried about the future? I mean... that's a friggin' contradiction in itself! I shouldn't be worried about any of this crap... or is that a cure to my fatalism? Am I not a fatalist after all? Hmmm...

Well, that cannot be the case... seeing as how the opposite of a fatalist (I think) is an existentialist. Well, sort of, anyway... in that I want to rid myself of this wretched predeterminism that seems to keep me from doing life. Yes. Right? Sure.

Purge.... that's the answer. I need to buckle down and get rid of the shit that is causing me grief. Get rid of it. Don't throw away... there are other who could use it. Other people who actually need it. Shoes and clothing, especially! I must do this soon. I WILL do it soon. Today, tomorrow, and the next day. Prepare to purge. And then purge.

And enjoy the space in which you can - and will - live.

So I feel my resolve to quit facebook on the 31st waning... and for the silliest of reasons. I keep thinking about how much "work" it will be to keep it from me. I mean... there's the iPhone app to delete, and the link on my homepage, and the website to ignore at work? Well, it's BLOCKED at work, so heck, work will be the best place to ignore it once the app is deleted... but all in all, I just keep thinking of the peskiness of escape. BUT! That in turn should bolster my resolve! I mean, hell... it's gripped me so tightly.

I know I need to do this... even if I think it will be okay if I don't or if I step down incrementally. I do however feel that I will not actually delete my account. I would really be in for a lot of work then, saving all my photos and whatnot. Besides, I was reminded recently (by the anecdote of a friend) regarding the "healing" of someone in Alcoholics Anonymous: they must learn to deal with existing in a world where temptation exists; simply because they are trying to shit-can the sauce doesn't mean where they live will simply hide it from their view. A truly recovering alcoholic must learn to stare it right in the face and know that any desire they feel to partake - any sliver of "need" - can be fought and conquered with the allowance of something more constructive... something to better one's self. I suddenly feel it might be worth going to their website and seeing what some of these things are... see if perhaps I might be able to use them in my quest to fight off facebook.

Heh, the facebook movie is coming out soon... "When you have 500 Million friends, you're bound to make a couple of enemies"... I love it. So much is being "discovered" about facebook - it's a subject of freakin' research... which in turn makes me a subject of research. A faceless subject... HA! How ironic is that? Wait, is that irony? YES! It is irony! "The use of words describing something other than their actual intention"... I am a faceless subject of the study of facebook... irony... marke ye it downe. But in all seriousness, they release these undoubtedly interesting facts regarding facebook, and I am curious just what they are expecting us to say in reaction. For example, they state that were facebook a country, it would be the third largest in the world behind China and India... heh: China, India, facebook... nice. Is that supposed to instill some sort of pride? HA! Patriotism, even? I pledge alliegence to the page, that is my personal opiate.... fantastic.

I need to get away. I heard on NPR the other day (in a segment which is part of the only thing I can stand to listen to anymore... a book review) an interview with a man named Alvin Tofler and his wife who co-wrote a book in the seventies called Future Shock. "Future Shock" I then learned was the shattering, overwhelming stress that befalls a society (or a person) at the alarming rate of technological expansion that promises to occur at any given moment... or now, as the case may be. While natural cases of future shock may very well just be heightened stress, Tofler and co. seem to think it may very well extend itself into insanity. Exciting, eh? Exciting enough to be made into a documentary style film narrated by ORSON WELLS... oooOOoooo...

I couldn't help but find myself affected by the piece... and I now want to read the book. But then again, do I really want to read the book? I mean... it was written for a 1970s audience, so will I absorb it the same way? And on top of that, will this book allay or compound my fatalism? It seems to have helped the author and his wife... they are in their 80s, living in California in a mid-century modern house... my dream... but will the book have the same affect on the reader?

Facebook appears to be the catalyst for my future shock... who knew, eh? I DID. Or do. Or whatever. The point is that I must keep renewing my resolve to find my middle way... my medium path towards balance in a future which I cannot see. And to do that, I must be able to focus... and lets face it: facebook doesn't really allow for a whole lotta that.

Textually Abusive

HA! You like that title? SOOOOOO original, don't you think? Yeah...

Anyway, it is a topic which has plagued my mind a little, as of late, and I feel that I need to doodle around it so that I might understand not only my resultant frustration but also how I might in turn deal with it in a face-to-face setting. I know that my words tend to be a tad jumbled when put on the spot... improvisation was never my forte. Therefore, why not plan out my grievance... no... no, that's far too dramatic a word. My response. Yes. Response.

I know this gentleman... well, not really "know"; he added me on FACEBOOK, and of course, this means that we are bosom buddies (a-ga-duh). He seems a decent fellow and I hate to kill him, and I seem a decent fellow, and I hate to d-... wait, wait, no; he seems a decent fellow and a wonderful, upstanding citizen* - graduate of SMU, teaches music, a very artistic guy. But he also seems to have a rather jagged edge to him; he loves - LOVES - to text. At all times of the day and night. He has the Sprint Evo phone, and apparently, he is able to talk and the phone understands him, thus negating the need for fingers to text.

And so he prefers texting to actual vocal communication. It suddenly seems to me then that perhaps it is a power/control thing: that he is able to do 100% of the talking and not feel obligated to actually listen to anything that the other person "says" (or rather types), basically allowing him to read whatever he wants into the texts he receives back. This leaves him quite vulnerable to one of my least favorite aspects of e-communication: lack of inflection. People do not realize (or at least far too many people tend to ignore) how important vocal inflection is when it comes to interpersonal communication. And seeing as how this guy thinks we are moments away from marriage, this makes our relationship all but insufferable.

The man sounds like such a nice, somewhat shy guy when we actually do converse on the phone, but a different facet comes to light when he texts me. He becomes rather haughty and attention starved... I guess kind of like my very own facet somewhat of the same lustre that I have learned to control. He assumes that I am ready and willing to agree with anything and everything he says, and being a teacher with summers off, he seems (please note I say 'seems' because heaven forbid he should explain himself) to become almost incredulous that I am unable to go on a date with him in BFE where he lives at the drop of a hat. I feel as though he may have been a rather privileged child... and perhaps might still be - one who has never really known want without fulfillment. I mean, heaven forbid that I actually do things in my life outside of my day job - my DAY job, which he has, but from which he is presently on summer hiatus - which I find more important. Selfish? Perhaps... but not in the slightest bit uncommon.

I think he feels he's charming, and that I am just head over heels for him and am merely playing hard to get. That being said, I do not find his character at all palatable and in all honest I am quite afraid of what inner demons this text persona is meant to keep covered. I fear that this "relationship" could go nowhere but down from any statement of exclusivity and thus I must bolster myself for the moment when I will need to merely tell him to stop.

My heavens I'm a picky bitch... but I was a child of the GHW Bush Era: "ME, ME, ME!" ... I was taught to think I was worth it.

Okay so I think I have figured out the meaning behind my ire whereupon I hear a specific phrase that is meant to administer (what I assume is) comfort. Why anyone would care is beyond me, but hey... I'm rocking my spiral, just like Susan (and John) said...

I guess it is misguided to call it a phrase, as I can't really narrow it down with such specificity; it comes in many a guise. But the idea is such - that all situations are never so bad as they could not be infinitely worse as demonstrated by [fill in the blank here]... and without fail, there is always some immediate example just itchin' to be used for just such a coddling admonishment. Okay, that's not fair... that I speak in such scathing terms of an act of comfort that more often than not is meant for just that: comfort. And you know, thinking on it now, I feel as though my shame for not having recognized the situation (aloud?) before it being called to my attention is what makes me lash out... but therein lies my conundrum, that I lash out. That it brings my any consternation at all is unsettling to me, but I feel it is somewhat justified...

It is my opinion that when a situation of greater severity than one's own is called to attention, it produces - initially - the desired effect of assuaging frustration... but I think that this assuagement is laced with - I personally feel - what might be contempt for the individual providing the comparison as well as the individuals involved in the situation of greater severity. Basically, we transfer the energy expended on our self pity into scorn for those who have it worse off than we do. Or at least that kind of feels how I react... and frankly, I am ashamed of this. It's a cruel thought, and I would do well to not say this when met with just such a situation as mention before.

Is it necessary to compare? I mean... we are alone in this world - we are utterly alone. The world exists because we open our eyes to see it, and a trillion different worlds exist because of each of a trillion sets of eyes. Therefore, is it really a good idea to compare? One might say that it is simply because it puts our insignificance in perspective... and it does, but then one must take into account the general self-centeredness and egoism that is the human way. And suddenly, it might be safe to venture that we as singular human beings would not look at it as a verification of our own insignificance but rather that of others, whether actual or imagined. And that's no bueno.

But then why not just be an egoist all one's self? Does that justify it? Nope... not in the slightest. And that's where awareness comes in... we have to realize our insignificance and accept that it is not such a negative thing. As the Buddhist saying goes, "you are already complete. You just do not realize it", whereupon one might then hear "when you do something, burn yourself completely"... we are not here to amass, we are here to disintegrate. Whoa... we are here to disintegrate.

Okay, I am spiraling... again... out of control. Well, no, that's not true; I have 'total control'. Or rather everything is stagnating, but kind of like a centrifuge which is in fact constantly moving but in one direction and to nowhere in particular. I have too much on my plate, and the world is not in my corner. Not that I can expect them to be, mind you, but the resultant situation does seem to put a damper on the prospects of my goals and aspirations...

I am in the show at Ohlook, [title of show]... FABULOUS. I love it, and I love my cast... they are amazing people. Some of the finer people I know at the moment. Unfortunately, the time I get to spend with them is marred by the fact that I spend every other waking moment (basically) at my day job. At that place. With those people. And it is, I feel, killing me softly.

Susan Blackwell - famed fellow "day-jobber" from [tos] - says (as I was reminded by my good friend John, that upon creative stagnation, one must keep doing something... anything... even if it is, in fact, a spiral doodle on the page one which you are writing. And suddenly I see the grand metaphor for the "page" and the potential "doodles" one may "write" thereon... huh...

Anyway, I stated (on facebook goddamnit) that I was spiraling, or trying hard not to or whatever... and in accordance with Susan Blackwell's words, John reminded me that I must, in turn, "rock it". One must "Rock the spiral" to keep going, keep all of it moving until you can pick back up where you left off. And it makes perfect sense... COMPLETE sense. Keep the mind moving, as the hardest part is just "starting".

"Just start. That's all you have to worry about. Starting. Get away from your computer, grab a notepad and a pencil and just write. Anything you want. Play. Doodle. Whatever. Okay?" says the character which I portray in the show when he talks to his best friend regarding creative inspiration and the set-backs thereof. Man, I wish I were a writer. That'd be amazing. But then again, I am quite the fatalist, as of late, and feel that nothing I have to say is of any great (or marketable) import. THAT BEING SAID... that is quite alright. And who knows? Perhaps the creative spark that triggers the ability to formulate quality thoughts into recognizable and universally understandable patterns will happen when least I expect it... wouldn't it be loverly...

Anyway, I am feeling a tad better as I sit here wasting time eating my bread-and-milk (thank you, Nigella Lawson! Although my bread is lo-cal and my "milk" is Almond Milk... go figure)... my head hurts however... and feels a tad dizzy. I felt this way last night at rehearsal and chalked it up to the heat and the ridiculous amount of "spinning" required in our choreography. I'm sure it looks fabulous, but at present, I kind of suck too much to get it right on the first night...

Here's hoping we have a show on Thursday... and that's not because I doubt we will have it ready as much as it is I doubt the marketing put into the show itself. Whoa... bitchy, Marshall. Pull it back. Anyway... all the same... here's hoping.

Okay, so I feel I have a better grasp on the whole "anti-facebook" sentiment I have felt as of late... I deliberated on this the other night as I felt my drive to break myself away wane - a sure sign of addiction, don't you think? I mean, it's bad enough I don't just walk away and leave it, cold turkey... but that I was thinking of extending my deadline for exeunt just helps me solidify my theory.

That being said, it is just a theory... but a well supported one - if there are scientific studies on being addicted to porn, surely one can be addicted to all things electronic... I mean, hell, look at Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ... the incessant need to dominate over life... or something like it.

Anyway, what snapped me out of it, really, was the Wikipedia article on Jean-Paul Sartre's (famed French philosopher of the existentialist tract) On Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, or rather the study of being. Heavy stuff which is WAY above my head... but reading just the article made me want to start reading Sartre. I mean, not just this one book, but perhaps some of his plays as well; No Exit or Huis Clos as it was called in French sounds quite interesting... rather anti-fatalist as it discusses people "existing" eternally in hell, but hey, there you go. I know that it will take me forever, as that is just how I roll, but I feel that his existentialism would help me balance the encroaching fatalism I feel inside... whoa...

Anyway, this totally relates to the whole facebook thing... how? Well I'll tell you how; the idea behind this opus gripped me from the very description of the introduction in which the subjects of being in itself versus being for itself are portrayed as rather oppositional; "in" implies a lack of consciousness that, in our limited capacity, can only be approximated, and "for" implies that consciousness of something for the validation of the self comes into play. Blows... my... mind.

The first chapter is basically a page from the book of any one's life, whether or not they choose to recognize it, and practically verifies my theory that the road to "happiness" (or at least a path of little resistance) is one most certainly NOT paved in expectation; the Origin of Negation comes from the disappointment or resentment we feel when something expected does not come to pass, or the negation of expectation, at which point Sartre states "it is evident that non-being always appears within the limits of human expectation". From there, he describes the existence of "bad faith", or rather this expectation that we are all generally something that we are not. Now, this sounds initially rather pessimistic, but reading on (in the article, mind you) changed my opinion.

Sartre implies that one can escape bad faith by recognizing that the actual self and the projected self are not the same thing, and that basically, in that you are an existent being, you are not "no thing", you are anything. Anything at all... through effort of course, but abounding in endless possibilities and whatnot. We must realize we are beings who exist and not just some social position or aspect. He qualifies this, though, by saying that the "authentic" being is one who balances the existence, the bad faith in various conditions we must take on, and the nothingness in between. Like... whoa...

Facebook, yes, right... facebook is a condition on which I have taken willingly that I cannot shake. I am not my facebook. My facebook - in a perfect world - should be me, but it is not. I am my own being, endlessly capable, and not defined by online critiques of my e-personality. Therefore, it is my personal theory that the resultant no-thingness that exists between who I actually am and what my facebook portrays me to be (in all its "electric sheep" glory) is the barrier I must pass through (or perhaps through which I must return) in order to be more personally actualized.

Why am I making such a big, (poorly) philosophical fuss about something as trivial as a facebook page? Because I know what it is like to be addicted to something that is only harmless on the surface... addicted the candy from the wolf in sheep's clothing... addicted to routines that are endlessly self-destructive regardless of how we justify them; they may be harmless to the condition which consumes us, but they are poison (POISON!) to the existent being.

It is in this spirit that my faith in my decision to drop facebook is reaffirmed and renewed. July 31st, 11:59 AM... die, vampire... die...

Chumbawumbic Wisom...

"She's been born into the wrong time; she keeps nonsense on her mind.

She's a poet; she's a builder; she's as bored as bored can be.

She's a have-not; she's a know-all; she knows just how to say 'yes'.

She's skating frozen chaos till the no good gods are dead...

She's a clueless social climber; likes the wrong side of the bed.

She's a pick-me-up, and she's a "drink to me" in the company of friends.

She's tried every variation - she's so common, she's so cold.

She's homesick for a future... can't stomach what she's told."

You know, I wish I couldn't relate to these lyrics, but I'm afraid that I can in ways I never thought possible when first I listened to them back in the day. And who's fault is this? Wouldn't it be simple if I could just blame Chumbawumba? Lay guilt upon them simply because I heard their lyrics? It's suddenly oddly humorous that there is such controversy over children hearing violent lyrics and exhibiting the potential to be violent... might the same thing happen should one hear introspective lyrics? The debate shall surge, no doubt...



But I guess that's why I write here; introspection seems to be a very precarious term these days - to one direction, we who look within are ahead of our time, forging a path to enlightenment and self-understanding and the understanding of how we fit into this world... to another, we are self-centered, self-aggrandizing egoists who feel the need to look out for none but number one. I like to think myself nowhere near the latter, but does thinking just so make me egocentric? It seems so... but then again, so does blogging, regardless of whether or not anyone reads it!



My feeling is, however, that there are certain aspects of our very humanity which are rather egoistic; namely self-preservation and self-continuance. Continuance of the species is a very self-centered ideal, but in an oddly altruist fashion. It suddenly makes me rather ill to think that we cannot help but be so damn human.

In other news, I have decided that I must... MUST... delete my facebook account... if only for a month. Facebook has captured more than just my attention; it has captured my very soul. I find myself going back to the website time and again at home in the evenings just HOPING to have caught some one's attention; just praying they will have commented on a photo or a post or something. But as I have "e-aged" on facebook, I have noticed more and more that - with the development of things such as the "like" feature and "hiding" - people really just don't give a shit; everyone is there for the same reasons I am there, and the majority of them have already formed e-cliques into which entry is quite exclusive. That being said, I feel that facebook has become just a complex, "belled and whistled" online photo album which people can publicly ignore... and frankly, I feel like that might just be poison!

There are such things as computer viruses - computer programs that make your computer sick - but I now believe there is also computer poison, or rather computer do-dads that make you sick. Facebook is one such do-dad, at least for me it is. Some people have built up an immunity to this poison... I however have not. And therefore the way to build aforementioned immunity is to ween myself onto it... from a lack thereof, of course. Meaning? I must delete my facebook account and start over at some undisclosed time in the future.

My mother suggested I just not go to facebook for a while or only intermittently, but as with any addiction, you can't just only do it sometimes... you can't just "shoot up" after lunch and no longer call yourself addicted. Therefore, I will go cold turkey at the end of July for at VERY least a month, if not longer... dependent upon my needs at that point, and by needs, I mean thus: if I can learn how to appreciate the "social network" that may be provided by facebook, and if I can utilize it as such as opposed to an e-life coach or "positivity" generator. If I can ignore the "social" aspect of it and use it merely as the aforementioned photo album (you know, as opposed to flickr which would do just the same thing...). And various other reasons which I really don't care to discuss. And why should I?

Anyway, yeah... July 31st, 11:59 PM... deleting my facebook account for at very least a month. If not indefinitely. So there.

So I feel like I've come to a stand-still. Big news, I know, but I wanted to try and see myself explain it, so here goes...

I am keeping myself from the outside world. I am imprisoning myself in my house and defending my captor... and it's stupid. It's stupid of me to say that my friends never call when I have cancelled so many chances to associate myself with them. And what's worse is I try to turn it around on them by magnifying any instance in which they are unable to sate my desire to socialize... and I am so ashamed.

I need to just leave my comfort zone... leave my home... get the hell out. But I don't know where to go... how to do it... WHAT to do... and, as an aside though pertinent to my predicament, I'm so very frightened that I am going to be too old to save myself from my own loneliness. I don't want that to be the case, but who's to say it won't be?

I suppose a good Christian would tell me to find strength in God or Jesus... and it is short-sighted of them, in my opinion, to think that I haven't tried that in the past. God and Jesus are not there. And that's fine, because there can be plenty of people there... REAL, LIVE people who will listen, whether they want to or not... it's simply up to me to go out and find them...

Yes, the problem is within... but I think the problem therein is an emptiness... and while the solution may come partly from within, I think the emptiness will be shoaled with something that may very well come from the outside... heaven knows what, but that, I think, is my quest.

Here's hoping...

I need a hero...

...that's the song to which I am currently listening here at work. It's been a crazy day during which I have had few moments to think about anything other than the task at hand (which is a good thing, no doubt... but a little unnerving when there seems to be so much else to ponder). But now, there seems to be a blessed lull in the business to which I attend, and I am going to take this opportunity to reflect on the song which I hear.

I do need a hero. I'm holding out for said hero not just until the end of the night, but forever more and always, amen. Or at least that is what it seems. In my case, I really am not sure just what that hero is, seeing as how more and more I think that it mightn't actually be a person, but rather an action or a thing. And I suppose therein lies a conundrum, seeing as how as of late, my life has been quite full; I attend a gym in the mornings, and then work at my full time job (at which I have recently been given a batch of new duties that keep my QUITE occupied), and then I head home only to then head to rehearsal for Romeo + Juliet. After that, there really aren't very many hours left during the day with which one could do anything, really... I suppose I could devote them to reading or crocheting or something, but in all frankness, my mind seems so mushy by then, that neither of those pastimes really appeal to me.

Thus, my life is full. At least my week is full. My weekends? Well, they are about to be full (seeing as how we are honing in on opening for the show), but at present, they are more occupied by a kind of mental regrouping with my family in Weatherford. I enjoy this, but at the same time, I think it might be working somewhat to my detriment...

I arrive home and feel a sense of relief to be around something familiar, but then I realize that this has been the case for a while now. I live in Arlington - a town in which there are amusement parks, malls, and varied distractions of all sorts, and which is situated near two major metropolitan areas within which are housed yet greater numbers of distractions and diversions - and yet I take no advantage of this. I guess part of that is my preference to partake of these things with someone else - friends, family, etc - yet experiencing a dearth of people who might fit that bill.

That's not very nice... I guess... but it is none the less true. I'm at a point now where all of my friends don't seem like friends any longer (and I don't doubt that not being in school any more has a great deal to do with that... although to be honest, when I was still in school, I felt markedly similar to now). I guess I'm just curious... how does one break free? My friend Troy feeds me the "look at me" lines somewhere in the ballpark of "all I did was change my job, my boyfriend, and all my friends, and things got better"... and hell, he's probably right on the money when it comes to what I should do... but frankly, I just don't see how the hell all of that comes about. He admitted it took a while, but to hear him talk, you'd think it were an infomercial for a weight loss product or get-rich-quick scheme...

I hate to sound whiny, because it's been my experience that people tend to find that a big turn off when it comes to deciding whether or not to associate with you. I suppose that is why I vent here. But venting, admittedly, will only get me so far. The rest is up to me making active changes and rolling with the resulting punches...

... now if I could just figure out what the hell those changes need be...

Nostalgia and all it entails...

I'm a sucker for nostalgia. And the enchantress one finds in the Beauty and the Beast story, nostalgia is an aspect of life most two-sided indeed.

I start out with a little story; the other day, I was in a Target (as I far too often am) and saw a shirt that had been in the store for a while. It is a red plaid shirt - a lovely tartan for which I would love to discover the clan name, but I digress - that I may never actually wear, but held special memories; the plaid was the same as was once displayed on a simple bow tie that my childhood teddy bear once wore (before it disintegrated from age). That, and it was remarkably similar to plaids my since deceased grandfather in Michigan wore almost daily. Needless to say, the shirt itself drummed up wonderful memories that brought me a lot of happiness... and it was on sale, so I ended up giving in and purchasing the shirt. And hell, listening to myself here has made me resolve to one day MAKE it work...

This has been a recurring theme in my life, these past few weeks/months... within a relatively short amount of time, both of my parents have been forced to deal with their parents' estates and belongings - one because of a death, and the other because of a stroke (although both remaining grandmothers are in need of constant care, and thus have been privy to moves into rest homes... one even to a different part of the country). I suppose this is a fact of life, but in my selfish little brain, it was a fact of their life, and I suppose I didn't really give it the thought that such a prospect deserved. But then, the prospect became burgeoning reality, and hit home.

My father, as of late, has been away on business... so much so that he was, technically, living out of state - frankly, it speaks volumes to his abilities to juggle that, the job he was asked to do there, his own mother's condition, the conditions surrounding my mother's mother, and then... well, me and my brother. That being said, this business is now mostly over, and he is back home; this has afforded him the time to think about his future... retirement and the like, and how he'd like to prepare for the time when all the above-mentioned challenges will one day become mine and my brother's. Thus, he's been talking of redecorating the house, sprucing up property value (for a time when home prices might not be so low), and getting rid of unnecessary and discretionary items that would be merely a hindrance on the process of estate planning and sale. He walked be through the heirloom pieces we posses and spoke of why they were special... he showed me what he might want to rid the house of (and some of the things I jumped at and said to give to me... I'm not as ready to let go of some things... even some things that I have no actual connection to other than the fact that they have been a part of what my brain considers "home" for so long).

He wants to change the way he lives in order to prepare for the way he and my mother will die, is the long and short of it... and it scared the hell out of me. I got all emotional again, as I so often do... but at least this time I kept the brunt of it bottle up; no need for tears. But regardless, I can't help but feel a little affected by my parents' apparent willingness to prepare for their own earthly demise.

In a perfect world, I would assume that each individual would contemplate their own end and not be bothered with or worried by the ends of others. But this ain't no perfect world, and it is very apparent to me that I will constantly be affected by the deaths or impending deaths of others; my grandfathers are, in fact, dead, my grandmothers both to follow within a few years, I shouldn't wonder. I find no pleasure in that, but I am damned and determined to find peace in it, somewhere... because it will occur for my parents as well. It's already happened for some of my friends, and that is unfortunate; they were young - too young, I felt, to have to deal with such a predicament as the death of a loved one.

Well, I don't know what else to say on the matter, except that it has weighed heavily on my mind these past few months... and to think I would never have thought about it had my parents not been going through all of this... but as I said... fact of life, right? Here's hoping; I intend to follow my parents' examples, as they are both lovely people for whom I would not trade the world... however, soon enough, they will be forced to trade the world for the shuffling off of this their mortal coil...

*Shiver*

So I'm markedly curious about President Elect Obama's choice of Rick Warren to perform the invocation at the inauguration (wow, say that five times fast). It confounded me so much so that I thought "why not look up the rules that made him make the decision?" So I did...



... there aren't any, so it would seem. No, according to most sources, it would seem that the Constitution says nothing at all about the utilization of a bible or a pastor or priest or whatever to "swear in" a president. So it would then seem that the atheists are right; this whole deal is just a bunch of bullshit that is meant to clean the wounds of a beaten down right-wing and it would be a happier place were we to abolish the idea of a religious ceremony of any kind marking the beginning of a United States Presidency.



An interesting article in BeyondChron, a San Francisco online newspaper gave an interesting history of the process of swearing in, which I will cite here; author Tommi Avicolli-Mecca states:



"As an atheist I am offended that Christianity is being promoted at a state function. There’s no legal basis for its inclusion. The U.S. Constitution says nothing about a president using a bible in taking the oath of office. In fact, President John Quincy Adams used a law book, and Franklin Pierce and Theodore Roosevelt swore on no books at all. It’s not just presidents. In November, 2006, Minnesota U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison sparked national controversy when he chose the Quran as the book on which to lay his hand. The phrase 'so help me God' wasn’t even in the oath until President Franklin Roosevelt used it less than 100 years ago (though some claim it was Lincoln who first included it). The Constitution does not mention anything about a minister or other religious person giving an invocation or benediction during the swearing-in. It does forbid establishment of a state religion."



Gasp, I know.



It would seem that we have been duped, really, into thinking that we need to follow some sort of religious guidlines in order to have a viable leader. I agree whole-heartedly with the atheist idea of leaving the leadership of varied portions of the world to a more secular and worldly methodology; the person swears not by God, or Allah, or Vishnu, or whatever, but rather themself.



Goodness, how lucky do we have to be in order to get it right, you know?

It sometimes frightens me how far the ignorance of youth reaches into adulthood. That was a negative start, I guess... but it's true; myriad examples of stupidity and useless bickering abound in my life after the age of 19, and some of them I look at less as "learning experiences" and more as "detriments to character in an adult world". And all that being said, sometimes, it would seem, that these fleeting (though prevalent) moments of childhood ignorance are useful tools when solidifying the importance and substance of present-day occasions of great weight and meaning.

I cite an instance in the office the other day: I am a lucky individual allotted the privilege of being able to listen to my iPod while working on whatever project needs my immediate attention (a blessing indeed... music ne'er has sounded as sweet...), and seeing as how it is the holiday season, I have been listening most prevalently to music geared toward just such an season. Now, being at work has always had a sobering affect on me... to my detriment, no doubt, but also to my benefit in that it focuses my thoughts and is almost a form of meditation in the sense that my mind generally takes an auto-pilot format. Because of this, I have been listening ever so much more closely to this collection of carols and songs that I have known for many years, and, although some are just as cookie-cutter as ever (no pun intended), some, in all honesty, have taken on a much more poignant meaning in my life.

I was listening to the song "I'll Be Home For Christmas" as sung by Victor Garber on the old 2001 Broadway Cares Christmas Album, and I found myself pondering the lyrics as I heard them (the man sang the song slow enough, I had time to write a thesis right then and there... har har...). The song made me think of my mother and father - two of the most important (if not the most important) people in my life - and how their situations have changed since I first knew them as a young boy; my father's family lived in Austin, and we would more than likely spend the Holidays with them, seeing as how my mother's family (her mother, father, and numerous relatives) lived in Michigan. But the song made me realize it wasn't always that way; my mom used to come home from college or wherever and spend Christmas at home where she grew up, and my dad no doubt did the same. But nowadays things are a little different...

Both of my grandfathers have since passed away, one due to brain and age complications and the other the victim of advanced age coupled with devastating cancer; both of my grandmothers are decidedly different people than when I first knew either of them, as one has had a stroke and is living in an assisted living home in Austin and the other has since moved away from Michigan, leaving her house of many, many years behind for an assisted living home, near my mom's brother, where they are capable of helping her through her advanced dementia. All of this seems like it only just happened, really; this is all so different than any memory I have made since I first began to recall any particular holiday season... and I suppose that made me query just how much the season has changed for my parents.

My father will never be able to go home again... at least not in the sense of Christmases long-past; his father is long-dead and his mother is struggling to hold on to the person that she once was (and doing a damn-fine job if I do say so myself... even without total mobility of the entire right half of her body, she is still an artist, a writer, and a fervent reader); my mother's father is also gone, only more recently so, and her mother is not doing as well holding onto who she really is, living every moment as if she'd never lived before... but still one of the greatest personalities that any one has ever known. And, while pondering on all of this, Garber sang the final line of the song... "I'll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams"...

And that's when it all hit me, and I began to cry.

I cried for my mother and father who were being forced to move away from their pasts, or at least the expectancy of a reasonable facsimile of the past... and I couldn't stop. Lucky for me, no one really saw, as my "office" is out of the way... but had they sat next to me, I'm sure they would have noticed. But I could not help the tears; I suddenly felt compelled to do something - anything - to make Christmases more worthy of past holidays that my mother and father might have experienced, and part of me feels that will be nought but an exercise in futility for the rest of my days... the past is gone; we can never reclaim it.

But as so many have said (including my wonderful Buddhist role model, Brad Warner), the present is all you really need worry about, as that is what is more than likely to affect you at this very moment. You can't touch the past or the future, but you cannot help but touch, taste, see, roll around in the present. And so therein, I think, lies the lesson I must learn from this, my brief fall from ignorance; my parents are my present, and I will cherish that and make merriment there-with. And my brother, and the family I still have scattered about the place... and far be it from me to rob any of them of the potential for a memory or dream that will most assuredly one day be part of their present moment...

... so there.

Yes, I cried. I know, I know... gosh, you're such a cry baby... but it's the truth. I tear up a lot these days... I think it's because growing up is like the phantasm that was the Wizard of Oz... "Great and Terrible"; great in that it's a chance to change, but terrible for the exact same reason.

Bah! The paradoxes that are life will be the death of me yet! (har har...)

FIN!

A vicious holiday conundrum...

I'm torn.

Not like you care, but I feel the need to cogitate on the matter, seeing as how either side of the equation is something for which I feel rather strongly.


I don't give to the Salvation Army "bucketers" any longer; in respect to recent events, I cannot in good conscience supply capital to an organization that may very well willingly discriminate against a person who is either gay or of non-Christian background. I note that the S.A. does state that they give to anyone who are in need of their aid, but they also freely reserve the right to discriminate in the hiring, promoting, or general acceptance of homosexual men and women. Heh, I've even gone so far as to find these little slips you can print off from a SoulForce Website (a pro-gay Christian Group) which you put into the S.A. buckets in lieu of cash that state you will not be donating to them, but rather to a more worthy charity. Of course this little bit of jollity was met with resistance, as every thing is these days...


An acquaintance of mine said "it's just another form of discrimination" seeing as how the slips state that the user will specifically NOT donate to Salvation Army... and I suppose that's true. But in my personal opinion, it is not necessarily the organization which would in turn bear discrimination, but rather (in my mind, at least) the cause. I do wish to give to a worthy cause in these holiday times; what better gift to give than to those who have nothing? And I suppose, worse comes to worse, the Salvation Army would be a catalyst through which one could support the poor and hungry (which is never a bad thing). But lest we forget, there are hundreds of charities out there, some of which are openly pro-gay, and in all honesty, I don't think I could care less to whom I give the money as long as it is used for the same purpose and with the same goal in the mind of the middle man - it just seems that one middle man is less hateful than the other towards the people with whom he chooses to associate himself.


I don't know what to do, because on the one hand, I feel that giving to, say, Brothers and Sisters, or Broadway Cares, or hell, the HRC (in spite of their weak-minded diplomacy in the wake of a conservative in-office regime) would be just as effective and more-so worthy of a good feeling, seeing as how these groups are, while guilty of the same amount of potential for discrimination, make it a point to speak out, as a group, against it.


But then again, I am just a bleeding heart liberal...


Fin.