Mental Breaks

^ Madrid

I'm happy for the cooler weather. Granted I'm not totally prepared for it, but I appreciate it all the same. It's like a slap in the face for monotony. At some point the cold, too, will become monotonous, but right now it's a beautiful break.

I'm currently thinking about Sid, 24/7. Sid is my newest character. My goal with him is to make him the kind of character I can use again and again, kind of like "Sid's Adventures". Sid is kind of an amalgam of a lot of people in my life. He is kind of cold and unsatisfied (but not for the lack of trying), and he is a dreamer to the nth degree. He drives a stick because he wants control of something. He likes to sit back and watch life happen around him, and he feels that if he interferes, he'll throw something off cosmically. Sid lives for his newest focus, anything that will draw his attention in a completely new direction for a time. I think he is married, and not particularly thrilled about his spouse, but it has already happened and it is a comfortable life, so why interfere? Why rock the boat? He is a joker, but no one ever seems to truly understand his humor, and more often than not people are offended by it. He lives for his moments alone. He likes to cook but never seems to expand his repertoire. He is in love with the past.

I'm making him a kind of sad character right now, but I don't intend for him to be pathetic, so this sketch doesn't really do him justice. It's not that he's sad, he's just placid.

I kind of wish I could write a character like Robert Langdon. Someone up for adventure. I need an adventure before I feel adventure-y, though. Hence, Spain.

Waiting

One day, I will write a poem about you.

I will write about your whatever hair

and your deep brown-blue-hazel-green-grey eyes.

I will write about how attractive I find you.

I will write about your toes,

because you’re the only one

whose toes I love.

I will boast about the good you are doing

in your whatever career.

I will tell my girlfriends

everything you secretly want me to say

but protest to all the same.

I will write about your hands.

We will travel.

We will visit places,

and we will take pictures

to show to all our friends

when we return home,

victorious.

We will read in bed,

and we will watch movies

until our eyes grow heavy

and we melt into each other.

We will listen carefully

and think even more carefully,

and then speak with utmost care.

We will pick out Christmas presents

like our lives are on the line:

a beautiful whatever

for your beautiful mother.

A Long Road

"You can go govern some other little fucker's life."

Things like this tear a hole in me. They remind me that I deserve to be surrounded by people who respect me and who love me, because I am an interesting and caring woman. They remind me how this painful chasm came to be in the first place, and at times I am grateful.

But they also make me wonder who I am, what I am. They make me question my very self. They make me wonder how I got here, in such a place where the people I hold dearest feel they can say these things without any repercussions.

I have a long way to go, but things like this remind me to keep walking.

A Modern Woman Hitting the Fork for the First Time

^ Chernobyl
I'm starting to feel my life and my thoughts pulled in two very different directions, and I guess that's what being a modern woman is. Here's why:

I keep thinking about love and romance, and will it find me? Or will I find it? And if it finds me, how will I know? And how do I go about looking for it on my own? I'm terrified, because I'm really only fifteen years old in the dating world. I'm still hoping that I don't have to dress in high, high heels and deep cleavage for the gentlemen of St. Louis's nightlife to see me; I'm hoping they'll just see that I'm silly and interesting and want to talk to me because of that, not because of some carnal, testosterone-driven interest. And it kills me that even in this mode of thinking I'm torn in two directions. I want to move on from the radioactive debris that is my most recent (and only) relationship, but I'm constantly pulled back to it. Yes, I want to get married and I want to have children. And I want to have what two of my friends have... six years of solid love. But I lost that, and it's time to move on.

The other half of the modern woman is, of course, her career, and with my romantic life on hold until I graduate and leave Kirksville, the career end of things is more or less taking over. I want to graduate... NOW. I want out. I've had enough of academic institutions and simply being the show-pony through a flaming hoop for them. I need to get into my career, which, ironically, is the same damn thing. (Is this not the world's worst viscous circle?) I want to teach for good things, and teach the right things, and I want to get out there and do it already!

But first... I want to travel. For once, I want to do what I want more than anything in the world. For once, I want to feel like I'm in control of something. I want to feel alive, because I feel like a walking corpse going to class every day.

I just want to feel something. Everyone else has a passion. Am I burying my passion(s)? Or are they gone? Why does everyone else feel and I just sit here?

Please Help Me!

All I've ever dreamed of was traveling, and with your help it could be possible! Please, even if you're a stranger, and even if it's just $.50, any little bit will help! My plans are to tour Europe when I graduate college. Please help, it will be much appreciated!

A chill in August

I'm surrounded by books, yet I'm not particularly excited to read them. I'm surrounded by photographs, but they often represent little more than ink on nice paper. I'm surrounded by friends, but I take them for granted. I'm surrounded by tools of the trade: ink, paper, computer, printer, pens... I could write anything, but I have no thoughts to push my hand.

I am slipping, and I need to grip a little harder and make sure it doesn't all slip away entirely.

A ripped out page

The green monster of jealousy is a dirty, hateful bitch. I want to go to Spain, or anywhere else. I want a job. I want to be the life of the party. I want to make people laugh. I want to be hugged and kissed when I least expect it. I want to be the love of someone's life. I want to be everything I see around me.
I know why I can't write anything lately. It's because I don't feel anything. In the past, I wrote because my heart was on fire -- anger, love, lust, confusion, anything. I wrote because I felt so much, and I wanted to make people who felt, too. But I don't feel anything, so why would I make people who can't feel anything?
_______________________________________________________

Santana watched as her focus on the cheap painting across the room went in and out, in and out, like a disoriented camera lens. She could get up from this god forsaken couch, she could do something. She could work out, call a friend, watch a movie, play a game, sky dive, for christ's sake. She could do anything. Or not. The green couch had eaten her alive, completely, and the cheap painting with its overly manicured strokes had already engaged her attention. I want to go home, she thought miserably, and yet she could not put a place to the wish.
She wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Leftovers from a cooking spree and some bad eggs and cheese peered back at her from the depths. The cabinet yielded even fewer results. She returned to the couch, to her spot, where the print of her rear remained.
_______________________________________________________

See? Who would read that schlock? I couldn't write anymore at the end there. I didn't have anything left to say about this sorry woman's life.

Waiting on wisdom

I wonder what happened to me. I never used to be like this. I never used to be... pathetic. It's time for a change, but I don't know how to make that change, or what that change should be. Major life changes should be easier understood... that's the trade-off for how hard the process of the life change will be.

Outstanding Observations of the World Cup

USA fan's poster: "Where is the quarterback?"
North Korea fan's poster: "Kim Jong Il thinks I'm at work!"
Thomas Jefferson and George Washington appear to be attending the USA/Slovenia game today.
England's goalie may as well have curtsied the USA's goal in.
Denmark kicked the ball into their own goal. Way to be.

not listening, or listening too much

I am not what I profess to be. I am not lacking jealousy, and I am not proficient at Spanish anymore -- at least I don't think I'm proficient anymore. How would I know? I am not selfless, and I am not tranquil, nor am I an avid reader and writer. I am not always timely. I am not clear on what I'm doing. I am not doing what I want. I am not fat and I am not ugly.

I am not what others say I am. I am not pathetic and I am not selfish. (It is not my fault.) I am not stupid. I am not happy taking the easy way. I am not a bitch.

I'm just... conflicted, but who isn't?