thoughts on images, part one

rarely will i post photos of myself on my blog. i thought i could do a photo a day as i went through my (ridiculously large) collection of band tees, but i got bored with writing about that so i dropped it (but still went through a month or two wearing a different band tee every day). i think i thought that if i was tracking my physical progress through something, it would make my own means of tracking my internal growth more tangible. this, of course, isn't how things work, and i came back to the realization that my image and my thoughts are entirely separate vehicles of expression.

when i think more about it, i guess i feel like seeing my face will somehow distract or influence what i write, and whether that's positive or negative, i'd like to steer clear from that. i like the way words sound and look and feel when you say them and read them. i like the way words paint their own pictures when you don't have any pictures to base them off of. i like the thought that someone is out there reading this in their own voice and trying to figure out the tone to read each word and which ones to emphasize, and perhaps even what sort of facial expressions come along with each idea. you don't need to see a picture of me to do any of this, and perhaps if you had one, your own thoughts wouldn't be able to stir properly.

everything seem to be accompanied by an image as well. think of everything you buy, think of how the new york times seem so much more captivating with a lovely photo.

words alone begin to be terrifying when you're left to deal with them yourself.

the board game.

let's play a game called "pull yourself together and pretend everything's fucking fantastic even though you're having the shit chewed out of you every other night." we'll make the rules simple, dress yourself up in every goddamn outfit that makes you look fucking fantastic everyday, and ten extra points if you throw on a pair of heels and get your make up perfect. you win if you've pulled a fast one on everyone and nail this.

let's play a game called "one cup half empty" where you pretend it's half full the whole damn time. let's make up rules and number them one through six and have them go as followed:

fake

it

till

you

make

it.

let's wrap it up in a lovely package and sell it as something beautiful, and let everyone know that the beautiful thing about mastering this game is that even in your worst, you can manage to pull yourself together when everyone else needs you more. let's say this game lasts about a month or so. let's say you can't play with friends, they couldn't catch on. when they say "too much" and "attention" right after one another, you pass. you could try and explain the rules, but if they want to be best friends AND shoot you down when you explain what's going on, is it worth it?

--------------------

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let's cut the bullshit and get to the point:

conflicts that drag on for over a few months blow.

stress and conflict that manage to maintain themselves for nine months and more are exhausting and heavy on the heart.

sometimes i can't handle it all on my own.

sometimes i just need to be around people/places/things that aren't weighed down to heavily by all of this, and i'm starting to think that's too much to depend on.

so i'll just do everything by my goddamn self.

today i realized if i can foresee and ending point, this doesn't all feel so weighty and morose, and perhaps if i pretends it's a game i have to feign my optimism though, then maybe i can make it out okay.

so everything's fucking fantastic.

and if it's not, it has to be... it just does.

one two three four

could've been better focused

(it's a metaphor, fool).

summertime & stay 18 forever

Nietzsche, I am in love (with your words)

"What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' "

all at once

i kept

all the sweet things in a file. girls do that i think. all the sweet nothings that might have meant something if i had any patience. i'm slipping. not down, just out. i'm slipping too fast and too far from anything recognizable, and it's the same damn problem i keep running into, but they're not really problems, they're just things that don't have solutions yet. the thing is, i keep slipping too far away and it's like i can't recognize the things i have and what they are anymore because

because

the measuring rod by which i kept track of what lovely and love were

have changed

or shifted

or been taken down.

after things got bad at home, i haven't been able to figure out anything anymore.

patience

is the one thing i will never be able to keep much of, and with that i am certain i will never be able to keep anyone close. i keep everyone at bay. that's the worst of it all; i keep everyone at bay and with that it seems to be my most gracious company. i can count in my head the handful who have stuck through, one of whom is living with me, another few scattered around the state.

i think

i think i fear anyone getting too close again

because

i still can't get over how much i lost myself the last time and i don't want that to happen

(again

again

again)...

...

"you need too much attention" he said. they could kill if they were anything but words.

"that's too easy" i thought, and i thought more about how i need someone who can put up a better fight. attention is easy to give and easy for me to live without (the sullen bay being my most giving of company). calling it attention would be too easy, and maybe i just gave up with it being a simple name for something so much bigger.

the webs we weave ourselves can either bind us else...

"it's not attention i need" i thought. i didn't have the energy to argue so i let it go. sometimes that's all the beauty we can find: the letting go. the truth was that i didn't know what any of it looked like anymore. i didn't know how to say "everything you've told me i've heard before and had my heart broken worse", and i didn't know how to tell him "everything you've done for me i've had done before" because the truth cuts deeper than anyone wants to talk about. he could have told me every day for a hundred years i was something, but i'm lots of things to lots of different people, maybe seven hundred years worth of different things to different people. i didn't need attention, i needed to know why this was any different from anything else. i'd been told too many times before that someone's wanted to keep me forever, so much so that forever means nothing.

everything's been stripped of meaning.

i needed definition.

that's something i lost a long time ago, and have been stumbling in and out of relationships (boyfriends, family, friendships and otherwise) trying to figure out. "it's great that i'm special, but why am i special to you." i was awful. maybe i still am. i don't need attention. i don't need structure. maybe i just need someone who knows what the hell they're doing.

i guess i just need someone willing to fight me for me.

i don't want any of that world back

but i don't know where i stand anymore.

tell your fiance i'm sure she's lovely

but please don't bother telling her about me.

i push everyone away when they get too close

because

the closest relationships i have these days seem to be

all sorts of backwards and i can't keep up.

i just realized this and damn near had a heart attack.

i have no idea what the fuck i'm doing.

we were never here

i'm starting to feel like there must be something inherently wrong with the way i see things.

not everything.

just some things and other things.

i feel like i keep coming back to the same starting point while still spiraling upwards. like my life is taking me back to the same points even though i've already passed them, that i'm being brought back to the same events to have some sort of "do-over" with better knowledge. i bet some people hope and dream of having these opportunities presented to them, maybe a lot of people do, i don't know. do you sit back and think "i wish i could do that situation over again, i would do things differently this time around" or "if i knew back then what i know now, it would all be different"? i feel like a fair amount of time i give myself do-overs (and why not? i make my own reality), but other times i am certain life is playing some awful trick on me and i'm forced to take one step forward and two back, all the while working with the knowledge i have gained in the meantime.

but do you ever wonder "if i knew back then what i know now..." and think that maybe things would end up the exact same anyhow? that no matter how much knowledge or wisdom you gain between any amount of space or time, that if you're put in the same situation again, it will just always end the same? even if you change every bit of the situation on your end, if the input of the opposing factor remains the same, the end results can't change.

i've been thinking about this a lot.

...and will it happen again?

texts from last night

"i feel like i have no reason to be. having already been for 23 years is less and less a convincing enough argument to make it to 24."

go ahead. ask me how my day's been.

i've had this text from last night

from one of my best friends

on my mind all morning.

and he called to spend quality time,

..."seek not hours to kill but hours to live..."

but what falls through keeps falling.

so i work.

a lot.

so i don't have to think about this.

coffee talk

i haven't talked about coffee in a while.

unfortunately, a lot of this has to do with not working with coffee anymore (in fact, i don't think i've talked much coffee since i jumped ships with blogs).

here enters the verisimo 801:

officially? not a bad machine... if it were 2005 and its plastic parts didn't clip off so easily in the middle of a downtown seattle rush. also not bad if it's double wands were covered or could move about more freely. maybe if the hoppers were larger that would be better, or if it wasn't an automatic machine altogether. honestly? i hate this machine. starbucks started replacing their semi-automatic machines with these bad boys a few years back and i have to say, "training" on these machines is a lot faster, but there's no real coffee experience when you get to the bottom of it. baristas trained on these machines lose the knowledge of what effort goes into making coffee, and on top of that the flavor extraction is bitter.

every time.

so boys and girls are "learning" about coffee but the real art was lost as soon as these machines moved in. while starbucks have moved on to bigger and (admittedly) better automatic machines i can't help but ask, was the loss of real, honest coffee experiences worth the automatic upgrade? i can't say it was worth it.

bikini kill etc

my mind's wandering... no words yet today.

(untitled)

i know everyone and their mother listens to this song, but god she's lovely:

the book of three

"leave all your love and your longing behind, you can't carry it with you if you want to survive"

foursquare

"i couldn't tell if i was a masochist or an optimist"

i am here again.

if i was just more of everything...

shit.

cheshire

"the loneliness, it's palpable"

what resonates is significant to what is hidden in our core. the very things that move us can keep us from moving, from breathing. what is it about these things? i can't find the words to pin down or define explicitly what they are, but there are things there within our own selves that are instinctual and so much a part of who we are... what sort of things have we kept from our own animal instincts that we can no longer tap into? what sort of things move and halt us that we are so programmed to overlook as animals that use (and maybe overuse) our intellect?

it's a curious and beautiful heartache all at once.

it's not a loneliness of human contact, because that is for certain something i do not have. is it recognition of things that i know i will never have? i know i'm a stubborn hopeless romantic. it's something in the air breathe in and out when i walk down the streets of seattle in the early morning and fall in love with. it's something i feel underneath and throughout lovely songs that is separate and still entirely a part of the music.

"i wear my garments so it shows, and i know only love is all maroon..."

it's nothing i can write about honestly right now, first because i don't know, and second because i do.

hush that fuss

it's been a rough week or so.

i don't know why, i just don't feel like type-writing. i haven't been inspired enough to write a letter to one of my dearest friends, and i have writing just to fill space. i've been getting my fill of creative outlets: i've been dancing more (again, thank god), reading, drawing, and taking a hell of a lot more photography than usual. i've been working a whole hell of a lot, and i've been broke as all hell for the last few weeks.

i have to psyche myself out to eat top ramen.

that broke.

but it feels good, you know? it feels good to be on my own, to figure out how to take care of myself.

soundtrack for the latter part of this day:

1) "my lovin' (never gonna get it)" - en vogue

2) "i wanna be down" (remix) - brandy featuring mc lyte, yoyo, and queen latifah

3) "if your girl only knew" - aaliyah

4) "the rain (supa dupa fly)" - missy elliott

5) "rosa parks" - outkast

6) "don't walk away" - jade

7) "whatta man" - salt 'n' pepa featuring en vogue

8) "no scrubs" - tlc

9) "try again" - aaliyah featuring timbaland

you know.

early 90's sort of evening...

i'll write about a love i never had.

in the morning i'll give you a call

when i decide whether or not we can still talk

(or be in love)

or any of the other half-winded movements

we made up to get by, and then...

and then maybe we can talk about how i loved

(and you loved)

and how we almost always fell in love with

how

we both wanted the whole stretch of the universe

(for ourselves but not for us, my love).

and then we can sift through the silence and the static when

we can both touch (and go) on how

it never came to us because we dreamt

with our eyes open

and breathed in a stagnant air

we only caught in between dreaming and living.

and i hate you for everything you made me give up

to be anything but myself

and i love every goddamned false image

i built up around you

so i wouldn't have to think about what we aren't.

and i'll write about a broken heart i never had,

but maybe then i can figure out why you stop and start

the way you always did

and never will around me again.

and why'd we stretch so far?

i could never not love the way

you move in the morning

and i could never love the way you won't.