sometimes i'm still afraid i'll forget...

family time is:

sitting, eating, watching television.


but this time instead of a 'good' hallmark movie, we watched Everything is Illuminated.
an indi film shown in limited theaters that won awards in various film festivals.
i think mom only recorded it because the description mentioned the Holocaust and Elijah Wood was a principal character.


she thought it odd and wished we had watched a 'good' movie instead.


i loved it.


oh, the look she gave me, ha!


the main character, Jonathan, 'collects' things.
his office has an entire wall with a few photos, each surrounded with things in individual zip-lock bags.
instantly i realize that he is collecting things about people for a certain reason...
later i realize it's not just about people.


in one scene, Jonathan picks up a grasshopper, puts it in his glasses case, and deposits it into a bag.
the man leading him around the Ukraine in search for his grandfather's village asks why he does that.


"...so he'll always remember." i say.


"sometimes i'm afraid i'll forget." Jonathan says.




cue mom looking at me oddly.


i didn't want to forget.


i kept things because i was indeed afraid i would forget...


perhaps had i pinned them to my wall in a meticulously neat manner i would see them day by day and remember...


i don't even know where the tin with dried flowers, movie stubs, tiny bundles of dog fur and party favors are.
then there are the papers in my desk, the junk in my dresser drawers...


just aswell, i have forgotten.


as i mentioned a few days ago, 
the memories slip away and there isn't as much to hold on to.


yet here i am, still surrounded with things.
i can get rid of them now, yet i haven't the time to sort.
however the papers jammed in my dresser...
ha, 'twill be a while before those don't conjure up memories, even if they are not that special.


would that i were such a neat person...
then again, in this house i'm driven to neat-freak insanity enough, i needn't be OCD about it.




it is quite sad, losing memories.
forgetting things.
knowing they meant something important once and now you cannot conjure up a meaningful thought in regards to it.
...this is especially sad when they are a symbol of something greater, because it's not the item that carries the importance... a few days ago i said there was more to the missing than 'things.'
i suppose i'm allowed to elaborate now.


but things, once forgotten they're nothing better than a scrawl on a notepad written in the dark, you grasped for the notepad and pencil because some dream was important enough to scribble down.


you wake up.


...now what does it mean?


you have the faint feeling of it in your head, but you can't find the meaning.


life is built on trusting that such thoughts help form you even if you lose them.


...or the hope, rather.


but then there are those that...
ah, the look that elijah wood (as jonathan) gave the things he picked up...
you could tell the character got it.
wonder if the actor did.


but remembering...
what is it about that...


perhaps once you realize what you're losing you want to keep it?


i haven't a clue how to define myself.


...now i'm thinking of dreams, especially ones that are wild chases after meaning...
it's always odd to walk in your mind and have the feeling that everything is crucial... 
everything must be remembered, everything.
and then i wake up and scarcely remember a thing.
i may have a few verses edging into my mind, things like...


i don't even remember.
but they are those things that end up scrawled on a notepad.


the thoughts that scream at you while your eyes rest.


sometimes i wonder who is more vivid, me or the thoughts and meanings trying to get out.


i quite like it when we are the same.


...but i like them better when they are tall, giants...
and i'm walking about among the blades of grass that reach as high as skyscrapers.
gazing up and trying to see where they end...


most people walk among this 'forest' while blundering about, bumping into truths and leaving memories willy nilly,


then i suppose there are the people that feel each stalk, weigh it in their mind, gain an understanding of the world by wonder and memories.




i would try to better relay the image and how it says to me that, but...
well, we walk this world blindfolded. 
there are those that feel everything and blunder about in the dark just trying to make it through,
then there are those that feel each wall and doorway in an attempt to understand the structure they are in.


you know, i find it odd that i see a lot more on this page than i will a few months from now.


...then again, perhaps i will still remember the pauses, the sudden springing up of fitting words, different ways of understanding things, redundant epiphanies, ha, oh dear, the pauses, everything.


...i love to find glimmers of myself in other things...


reflections.


...i want to see this movie again already.
witty, in depth...


my parents didn't get it, but it followed one of my thought processes very well...




i just said 'one of my thought processes'

...ridiculously true. i wonder if most people have various thought processes or just one they stick to...


*sigh*


"everything is illuminated in the light of the past."


everything is illuminated.


hmm...


*ellipsis trail off into the night*


i think i'll keep these ellipsis, no pinning to the wall at the moment.






...i never want to forget, but it is wonderful to not live in fear of forgetting.

...and to all, a good night.

it doesn't feel like Christmas eve.

i don't mean in the 'it just came so fast, we just put the tree up yesterday, this year went by oh so...'

i mean normally there is hustle and bustle, running around... perhaps i'm used to coming home from school every day and seeing the tree, or picking up the tree after adventurous cats hath scaled it... but Christmas eve entails anticipation, watching A Christmas Story on TBS at 7pm, watching half of it again, various activity, then going to bed.

i stay up in my room...
and everything becomes still.

i can go outside and the stars tell me to go rest, 
i walk into the living room, turn on the tree and see the glitter...

while my mom is up later than usual causing me to lack that peace, it just doesn't feel right.

maybe i'm growing up.
but i already halfway did that...
however 'grown up' isn't necessarily sleeping in the same cluttered room you have occupied for the past 16 years, nor is it reading comic books all day because the only other thing there is to do is join your mom while she watches Christmas love stories on the Hallmark channel.

what is home, anyway.

especially when family togetherness is watching tv while eating dinner.

so many years ago i tried to start family traditions, game nights, going places, doing things...
but we didn't then.
seems to me that mom wants that now, yet it just isn't so.


hmm, mom said there wasn't anything this year i could really get excited about under the tree, then again i don't really get excited about anything.

it's true. i don't.
with people around, least ways.
besides, ha, no one really knows me well enough to get me that excited.
except for You, Lord, haha!

and even my mom doesn't know me, can't read me, no surprise there...
yet somehow some people know me for two seconds and know the kind of person i am, that side of me i suppose is the 'open' portion of a johari window. or perhaps it just rubs off when i accidentally bump into someone at the mall. they just know.

perhaps if i stay up long enough the anticipation will get to me...
then again, mom told me this year most of the things she bought for me were on my list.
she asked me for a list.
i gave it to her.
and for the first time in my life she paid attention to it.

woah.

had this happened years ago i'd be playing the violin in a house made from legos with a roof crafted from logic puzzles.
and moon shoes. i would have had moon shoes.


but Christmas has never been about that, it's the time of year my house doesn't seem cluttered because the Christmas decor makes the room seem neat, it's laying under the tree and looking at the lights, going to grandparents house for new years...

it's when you have a reason to feel warm and fuzzy, a time you try and be with your family more, a time for memories.
but here's the thing: back then i was focused on staying where i was. grasping what i had because life would not always be begging if i could open a present, taking great pains to wrap a present perfectly, putting the cat in with the holiday stuffed toys and making people jump when the cat moved, Christmas crafts at school...
i wanted to hold on then, i turned a blind eye to not having friends at school and being yelled at mostly because i didn't know any better, i just wanted people to smile and i grabbed onto simple things to keep me smiling.
ha, like that old worn 'santa clause' star i made in preschool. faded, the gold foil star belt buckle falling off, whisps of cotton left where his hat was. i put it on the tree every year. mom one year said she didn't like it, i was downcast because i made it. it wasn't much, but i put it on the tree. 
i had memories tied to everything.


i don't see these things much anymore.
memories slip away.
not much to hold on to now is there?


perhaps it is these memories that leave me, ones that i did not know were a part of the season until they left, that make it not feel like Christmas.


yeah, thanks nativity set, you knocked me a good one and made my gums and lip bleed because you, the train set, old Ms. Claus that mom never liked but i saved from the garage sale, those little porcelain mice, the ornament we got from sears that i loved so much, the one that dad took special care to put the little Christmas tree back in, the old 6-ft tree mom and dad bought a $300 pre-lit tree to replace without asking me, then gave MY tree away and i was so distraught they gave the $300 tree to the people they gave my tree to and got my tree back, and the bajillion stockings i used to hang everywhere... you all miss me.


well, i miss you too.
(and there's a lot more behind that than missing just 'things')


haha, oh, the simple things...

hmm.
my mom is asleep now.

i have a feeling that a long hot shower and a ridiculous talk with myself in the mirror will make it feel like Christmas.


not Christmas like it used to be.
but how it needs to be for now.


you know, i think since i was so alone that some 'things' became my friends.
trouble is, 'things' don't change with you.


yeah, i almost cried during toy story 3.
a lot.


ha.
Gods gift to me for...
my entire lifetime.
smiling.
living.
it's wonderful.




...this post sounds depressing.
it isn't.
okay, i cried, but i do miss some things, what can i say, haha!

reasons i'm like Spider-man...

I'd like one order of future, please.

only i could start out making a list for shopping in the morning starting with 'prilosec' and ending with 'yee gads, this arrangement of classes makes a double-major in music and graphic design seem very very plausible... what do You think, Lord?'


...in other news...
vibrant life...
ha, i do so love how it shines...

Dear friend,

i've lived life alone more than you know...
you may be young and on your own, you may have left your family and are learning lessons the hard way...
but i do have an idea of how much someone being a friend helps.

i'm glad i put a smile on your face, understanding in your heart, and helped you see that you are not alone.
that being said, i do hope that i helped more than i might think.

...then again, since you are unaware that i know your family and part of your situation, perhaps i do know.

yet not all of life resides in knowing.

thank you for learning, i know of others that do not know how...

just don't leave your family behind, you did hurt your youngest sister you know.
yet your other little sister understands somewhat.

but you are growing up, you are indeed.
-lindsay


dear other friend,
i'm not sure why you respect me, i do not wish to jeopardize that.
perhaps i can still be a positive influence.
i do know one thing.
you have a domestic battery charge now, got to spend some time in juvie, and think people are just trying to scare you.
when will you wake up?
you claim to be right with God and go at life as if everyone else is wrong.

you leave bruises on your sister, are you saying she deserves that?

please realize what you're doing...
before you turn 18 this upcoming year and leave to be on your own.

but in all reality, that's what it's going to take, isn't it?
i realize part of this is a mental disorder thing...
but one day you'll wake up with a hangover in your own vomit, you'll miss work because you were stoned, and you'll regret not trying and flunking out of school after school after school.
or you'll find worse drugs and overdose just once.

not saying it will happen.

but i wouldn't doubt you toying with other substances.
you think you're in control of yourself enough to try it if it comes around.

let me tell you:
you do control your own fate.

feel powerful knowing that?

then stop abusing it.

-the girl who should say something, even if it makes you lose respect for me.

p.s.
I like small towns, thank you verrah much.

you know, days like today have always been my favorite.

granted, the green jewel tones of the saturated green grass are not blazing forth in saturated glory, making the grayscale world seem bright and hopeful...

but it feels cool, mellow, alive.

coffee for the mind indeed, haha, many random old memories behind that phrase.

and i enjoy it quite a bit despite my fried mind.

even yesterday when my brain took a turn for the irrational as the pressure of my best never being enough took hold... walking out and feeling the air calmed me.

sometimes i just need someone to shove me outside.

ha, walking along i remembered a day like today last year, i saw the tree i leaned against as i read Anne of Green Gables.
clear mind, blog only for ramblesome thoughts and not frustrated steam, i didn't have feelings for anyone and the good guy friend i had was just a friend that i would never dream of liking, he was just the only one interested enough in what i thought to ask about it.
that was a good day, red leaves, swishing trees and a warm mocha.

today i'm just tired...
perhaps a nap would do me some good, a nap and then buckling down to finish that photoshop project.
and having good posture if i plan on practicing piano for an hour again. that would help greatly.

ha, and Lord...
i'd like to shift this back fro me needing to deconstruct every thought to only when i have certain things to say?
maybe at some point, yes?

ha, and venting about that... well, some things i shouldn't mention at all, even when i need to. if he still reads this i'll let him be oblivious and will not deconstruct here when people that are that are in certain circles... yeah.

i vote...
nap time.

perhaps i shall have more ridiculous Monty Python dreams, huzzah!

*random
i think one day i need to start a second blog and export the blogs that aren't too crazy and hurting or saying what i shouldn't there.
(EDIT, that my friend is what this is. it needed to be done.)
hmm.
or just hide those here?
perhaps.
needless to say, not everyone needs to see my convulsing and outbursts, which is why it's been quite a while since i've shared this URL.
no one needs to see or read that.
then again, i wouldn't advertise this blog anyhow, i don't like imposing my thought on others i suppose...?
naptime.
now.
then photoshop.

no, photoshop, then nap.
maybe.
we shall see.
or piano...
or theory!
hmmm...

if i breathe out will it be over...?

saw 'dead poet's society' today.

the main character finally decides what he wants to do in life, he becomes enraptured with the idea of seizing the day and when that is taken from him...
he kills himself.

a friend speculated that the movie is based upon how people react to romanticism, there are people that take it too far as he did, take it too far as one boy did by acting out in whatever way he felt, those that abhor it, those that find a balance, etc...

while taking his life, in my opinion, was not in his character, i think that perhaps he had lived with longing for something more all his life.
he found it.
he found like and meaning in words, life took him in such a way as it does to all who let it...

but that was taken away...

instead of fighting, instead of doing as i do and breathing just to live another day...

he gave up.

or rather he died with romanticism.

was his clean air, bright snow, open window, midsummer's night dream romantic as he bled to death with a bullet wound?

i often wonder when the line is crossed, when will people wake up from the dream that is life and realize what they are doing?!?

perhaps it is okay to live life as a dream as long as you are aware it is a dream.
keep one foot in reality, and one hand grasping the stars...

then again, i know what it is to live without life. 
to take in air and not breathe as you walk through the night, 
...and the stars seem so bright...
but they taunt you, for they hold the life you shall never have...

the life that you are yet cannot live in.

and why is that? why can you live and breathe yet not be able to exist in such a state permanently?!

i declare it to the skies, why cannot i look upon each person with the same intrigue and imagery i give a tree, a tree glittering with frost on such a morning that wakes your soul to such you have no idea what to do but you wish you could run and slide down the road, smiling madly and laughing at the birds as they chirp at you wildly for disturbing them!

why can i act up a storm when i'm comfortable, give a lovely how do to an old inky typewriter and ask how many frustrated students have rammed their forehead into the lovely cast-iron Underwood keys as they plead with their minds to give them SOMETHING so they will not fail their composition?!

why, why i demand, why, can i say what i mean so perfectly while talking to You Lord, why can I share my heart with Orion yet never ever show a sign of life to a human being?!?

NEVER have i lived true life in sight of another, is it conditioned into me? is the wide-world of introvert corner meant only for me? is it because not everyone enjoys laying down next to a tree and gazing up at the trunk, focusing on each inch of the bark and thinking such thoughts that one runs danger of falling in to?


but that rant i tripped into, for what i intended to say at first is how can i not live like that...
all the time...


i suppose i answered my own question.

the night air always draws me in to life...

i can feel dead at times but i do feel at peace...

when alone...

so what, if i was given a cottage by a stream and all the books i could read i would be alive and dancing in the woods forever?

i would be feeling leaves tenderly and shivering with joy at the life they bring, picking a daisy to stick behind my ear, and sticking my feet in the cold water?

one scene of that movie i understood more than the others, i do think...

neil took his shirt off and opened his windows.

there was snow on the sill and cold air came pouring in.

i knew what he was going to do...

i understood his feeling, and i understood that at that point he would take it too far.

it is not enough to fling windows open and feel the cold air pour over you.

at that point you need more.

you NEED more.

life is the most addicting thing you will ever encounter.

the character in that story had it taken from him.

he was not feeling.

he was experiencing what he could not have.

*sigh*

to lack your mind, to recall walking in the night making poetry with each word yet the next day gasping for air...

yet i still wonder at how the character was weak, or strong, enough to just end it.
he made a statement.
it was indeed pure romanticism.

but i don't understand how you cannot stand in the face of death and declare that it shall have no hold over you, or at least that you shall battle it.

but in the aspect that my friend pointed out...

i too do not know how to handle the 'romanticism'

or rather, as i see it, the life.


seeing things in such a way that they are given more meaning than an average thought could dream of...


i don't know how to handle it.

i'm going to be sitting at a desk my whole life.

i'm going to be sitting at a desk my whole life.

WHAT THE HELL DO I WANT TO DO AT THAT DESK?

will i be expressing ideas through graphic design?
creating things specifically to another's orders?

what is is that i do want?

what, to read my entire life? to sit and think for a living? how would i manage that?


do i expect to seize life at all times?

what do i want?

what should i do with my life?

and i doing design because i'm giving in?

...yes.

but also because i love design.

where is the line?


while i'm at it why don't i get a job listening to the music of Howard Shore and dreamily lay upon the grass as i float across the fields of rohan and arrive at the very cracks of doom only to then be taken to the undying lands?


i do not wish to work to support life, i wish for my life to support my work and i haven't a clue how to accomplish it!


what is it that i desire...
and why can it not be specific?


regardless, i shall now fall into the arms of sleep...

that is, in truth, what i always mean when i say 'fall to sleep'

i mean that my head finally relaxes on the pillow, my thoughts slowly become dreams, and i am at peace... blanket keeping my warm as i curl under the covers, trying to keep warm as the chill air creeps in...

i will undoubtedly open the window before i lock it for the night...

i will regret it as my mind comes awake and plagues me with the most wonderful things...

i'll breathe...


and then i will rest...




-edit-
i think that it wasn't clear that you can live without the vivid ridiculous breathing found outside...
you can indeed ^_^
that being said, i could live while sitting at a desk my entire life.
i'm just not certain i want to.

tunnel vision

...i get it.
some people just bypass all of the information on their quest for an answer.

they want to know, they don't want to realize.

perhaps not want, it's not necessarily by choice.
some things just are.

in and out of the crowd...

"she's spinning between constellations and dreams..."



...


Lord, how did he write about me this well when writing for someone else?


it is so wonderful to get caught up in music, just dance through the feel of nature in your lungs, the fresh air around you, moving wonderfully because no one is watching. you dance with the stars, and laugh in such a vivid and awake manner when you stumble, you toss your hair back and breathe... face to the stars...
and the diamonds in your eyes and life in your lungs matches the sky.


i don't know how to truly dance at all... but moving is wonderful.


...and i sound much girlier in these posts than i actually am...

relayed joy (via mouse)

my job involves painting sets for the theater department...
today the janitor stopped me at lunch and told me how much he enjoyed looking at my mouse.
haha, i love having a janitor with which you smile and greet each other by name.
i have made a lot of people smile with that mouse, i'm glad, i certainly was smiling as dancing as i painted him.

i love making things that make people smile...
'tis quite wonderful indeed.

the occasionally transparent mask.

in communications class my professor briefly people that never show emotions therefore no one knows if they're mad, sad, glad, or angry. You just never know what they're thinking.

hmm, i wouldn't know anything about such people, no sirree.


kind of odd though, you have the surface and then beneath...
both are genuine but one is more real than the other. the top part it was everyone sees and there are some emotions that almost never touch that portion.
anger, sadness, showing of what i'm thinking...
never reaches the surface.
frustration does surface from time to time, but it rather shows when the surface grows thin because the portion beneath is boiling up and expanding...

hmm.

today i was thinking today of all the obvious ways to interpret things.
things that i just know and maybe more difficult concepts or pathways certain things have to reason.

and yet in many things none of that applies to me.
i pity the person that tries to make sense of me indeed!
obvious answers not true, crazy routes to sense iffy, but perhaps something in the general direction of me messing up or all of those scars that were ripped open.
hmm.
not necessary to know why, most of the time the answer is just sitting in my head without trying to find it yet not in this case.


*random
my theory teacher however had it right that i would run along a river trying to step in the same river twice while trying to post about it on facebook!

...okay, so i'd wait until i was home to post about it.

haha, i must try this now even though it really makes no sense.

...and the head of the music department called me 'so wonderfully weird' yesterday as i was joking around with my old band director, making everyone laugh in the process.
today she came laughing hysterically on her way out of the cafeteria, looking quite like the green goblin, and hugged me tight and walked on, still laughing.
a guy walking behind me asked what she was so happy about and she said 'Oh, nothing, I'm just being wonderfully weird!'

...

that made me smile.

haha!
random:
the lady from church indeed got to come to the concert, she enjoyed it so much. it's lovely to see her smile...
ha, and she said i was the prettiest one, that we were all so beautiful and handsome but...
*pulls me in close and whispers in my ear*
"you really were the prettiest one up there!"

i do hope she is doing alright...
the old man at church that died was very good friends with her. they looked out for each other and it was hard on her...
when she sent Birthday or anniversary cards to people she would always sign it 'Your old friends,' and put both of their names.


random:
when i was little i would get cut up have to visit the school nurse every do often, the nurse was the wife of one of my mom's college friends and i enjoyed visiting with her. i believe my family went to visit her house a few times.
kindergarten to eighth grade we had the same school nurse, when i sprained my knee in 8th grade and no one was there to help me, no, i take that back there were dozens of kids running around in the gym around me it's that no one paid attention to me, at any rate i had to crawl over to the wall because i couldn't walk at all.
after borrowing crutches from a guy that was 6'4" at the time (very tall crutches) i hopped my way down to see her in her office with the blue wall and basset hound photos.

(great scot, and i just now notice that it's odd that no one helped me down the hallway. ah well. took me a bit and hurt like crazy but the crutches worked.)

ha, i remember not understanding why people would go to the nurse just to lay down because they felt sick, i couldn't comprehend not just sucking it up and moving on.
not because my parents were that way, but i was just that way.
ha, yet all the same i would wave, stop by to say hello, ask how her dogs were doing, see what was going on during one of my many solo trips to the library, tell her what i was reading...
she had a smiling face and cared.
i didn't have a lot of that in school.

regardless, i bring this up because yesterday morning she lost her fight with breast cancer.

...confidence discovered in the eyes of others.

...i sang in voice studio today, not going to lie, i wanted to but i wasn't going to stand up and say i did...
ha, i muttered to myself that i hadn't sang in studio yet, my voice teacher heard me, then other people told me to sing...
so i did, faltered in a couple of places...
but i love surprising people with my voice... (!)
no one save my voice teacher had heard me really sing, so it was nice to see everyone smile, ha, and a few people really smiled on my high notes.
as a friend said 'contralto my rear-end!'
well, i can go very low...
doesn't mean i can't also go higher than most altos!
lower than most and higher than most, i'm okay with that, just transition i need to work on!

i think it was good for me to do that, afterwards when it was over i was kinda shy, ha, and when the accompanist grabbed me  right after because it was so good and i've made such an improvement... i think that's good...

hey Lord, have i thanked you for singing at least a dozen times today?

and i do need to work on receiving compliments...

*random
in other news, almost had my dancing/painting/living ridiculously zone worked up and then someone walked in on me, that kinda makes you jump, deer in headlights, and then i think i laughed.
the guy just said hello, so the world did not end.

...see lindsay? people won't judge you.
i think.


*random
you know, in that last post especially i think of all there is to me and how many people miss it, don't even know its there...
quite remarkable...
no one sees my spirit dancing in a street with lit trees and lamp posts, a wreath on each post, snow coming down and i'm spinning with my face turned toward the sky...

no, no, no one sees that at all.

then again, others could be like that...

i just don't know them, i suppose.

but i never show myself to people that don't seek it, no one seeks, then i'm a closed book.
ish, haha, i do have my moments i suppose.


You've created an odd creature, Lord.

ha, even my parents wonder where the heck i came from...

well, You.

I trusted myself to You so long ago...

and that explains it all.

the wide-eyed wonder of the world inside introvert corner...

such a wonderful evening indeed, rushing around to leave on time, last minute trip to buy gas, being distracted by my gps and forgetting to put the gas cap on my truck, forgetting my ticket and running back to get it therefore noticing the gas cap, driving along listening to CHristmas music, seeing the Christmas Carol...
ah, it was so well put together, i smiled and laughed...
for real.

i don't think some people realize what a wonderful feeling that is...
haha, it's when that smile reaches down to the very depths, that laugh penetrates everything...
so wonderful indeed ^_^
and that is how i was this evening.


ah, and for Christmas the theater asked for contributions to their student workshops and funding for classes and schools to come see live theater.
i thought of how long it was before i saw a real play.
...sophomore year in high school, my school did the Odd Couple.

...is it so weird to say the one time someone invited me to a play, i was in 8th grade and my mom wanted me to go to an 8th grade production in another town, i said no...
secretly, i knew that had i gone it would just kill me that there are such things i had always, always wanted to do, that God has placed in my mind as something i needed to do... and i had no opportunity to do it. none whatsoever...

ha, and my thought turned to my thoughts of how people make a difference in ambitions and lives, how certain people push others to things, how i randomly decided to do the musical my junior year and i found my theater teacher to encourage me into other things... i wanted someone to see theater, remember that, try it, and find such people... i do wish i still had people like that...

didn't need that $20 bill.
no one but the person with the bucket and whoever reads this will know.

haha, i think Ayn Rand would have approved of that 'charity' in all reality.
and Lord...
haha, indeed.

haha, after the lovely performance we walked around the plaza, i wore my long gray wool coat and a red plaid scarf that did not match my green/gray converse, barnes and noble with friends, finding a coffee cup with a typewriter and type on it, seeing the lights, walking along the river and teasing my friend's husband, telling my friend that we had planned this so i could give him good ideas for future dates and such.

speaking of, i was so much more myself than when i was there last year with what's his face.
of course, i wasn't used to anything regarding the guy.


afterwards, on a whim, i turned into the stately streets with million dollar mansions near the area.
haha, my friend that i drove is from Korea and she loved what we saw so much we just kept driving.
i love such houses and such nice things, may be many peoples' "American Dream" but i would just place a wreath on my door, beautiful lighted topiaries on each side of the door on the porch that's either beautiful rustic stone that should be in Eddie Bauer or stately columns that have evergreen garland and lights wrapped around and around... tall windows with a dazzling Christmas tree inside, tall burgundy wingback chairs around the fireplace with a cream colored suede sofa and a warm jewel toned blanket?

ha, no, i haven't had such dreams for as long as i remember, no, not at all.

is it odd that such things feel like home so much it's ridiculous when in reality there's a trailor park a couple of blocks form my home, i'll probably never make more than 50k a year, and my house costs half as much as the education i'll have out of four years?
such things may never be, but they feel strangely... so right... to the point that driving along i just felt that i needed to be there.

odd.

hmm.

"but the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be on your own front door!"

ha, perhaps my neat-freak identifies such things with clean warmth as opposed to...
brown carpets, holes in the yellowed linoleum floor, things piled on the coffee table to the point that i can't put my feet on it, cats that don't know where the litter box is, holes in the ceiling paint, cheap old doors, wall paint that chips off, every corner covered with things and the harder i try to clean the more frustrated i am with how it just isn't helping...
hmm.
much more than most people have however, and even with my broken window my room can be warm. ha, and i have a lovely truck thanks to my dad the mechanic.

i love clean, open spaces...

when you can stretch out on the floor and gaze up at the ceiling, look around and see the furniture from a new angle...
ha, hug a cold, hard column and love the perspective it has that brings it to life...

mmm...

small wonder i feel so at home in such places.


and Lord...

I'm so used to feeling at home on my own, clean spaces, living so vibrantly by myself...
I love it, but I often wonder if I'll ever be capable of doing that with someone else.
I suppose it truly depends on what the other person is like, doesn't it?

ha, that's what i leave it up to You.

but in the mean time, i'll live, drive around houses i'll never be able to afford, beaming ridiculously as i see the lighted porches and driveways, taking joy in little things like the shape of a bare tree that i love so...

ha, walking to jazz today the sky was so beautiful, the tops of the clouds were lighted and then melted into the blue sky...

so wonderful...

Lord, of all things You allow humanity to be a part of, i thank You for allowing me to be part of Your creation...
because i am...

i am indeed...

the perspective, the feel, how i often can't describe the way i feel because there are not words!
it can't be described, if it is then you miss most of the meaning unless you understand me... ha, metaphors to capture the broad range of feeling my thoughts envelop, the feel to it all...
no words...
...there is only...

ha, reality, i suppose.

there is 'go outside and breathe the air. that is what i am.' on a cool, moist day...
the warm summer nights, the trees, the storms...

the lighted clouds that melt into the sky, all of it.

ha...

all of it...