Power of Positive

Reading a Cosmo that someone left at work the other day, I came across that one article that they publish every three or four issues about being lucky.
Power of Positive Thinking Everyone!
And that typo I just made, that one where I typed "Power or Positive Thinging?"
That's much more exactly what I'm going to try for the mo'.
Positive things for the day? Cleaning the house, doing the dishes, looking good when I go to work.
Maybe I'll buy some flowers for the table too.
I'm hoping that positive things will make me happier without changing my situation in any real way. I am happier when I come home to a clean house.
It makes me more confident, where if I don't have a clean house, I feel like I'm hiding something. I can't bring someone home without some warning. This way my house is presentable for everyone all the time.
Anyway.

Ok, here's a little secret: Since it's Memorial Day Weekend a lot of people have gone away, and all the people who hadn't gone away were doing other things last night, so I just watched a movie and went to bed. Thinking negatively, that makes me very sad about the state of my Friday. I'm trying to think about it as simply another day. That would have been a completely nice Tuesday. No reason for Friday to have that connotation that I have to drink and socialize and "Party" even though I feel better about myself and feel better in the morning when I, you know- Don't.

Anyway, that's the plan. I'd better get to cleaning the fridge now, so I have enough time to get pretty for work!

Wishes

In fairytales they always tell you when you have wishes. Very explicitly, even.
"Now, I will grant you THREE WISHES!"

I think it would be much more fun if they didn't tell you.
Today I was in the kitchen fixing a snack, and I said to myself, "Where is that canned fruit? Oh yeah. I ate it."
I puttered around some more looking in the refrigerator and the cabinets and said,
"I wish I had more canned fruit."

ONE WISH DOWN!

Crap.


I wonder how many more I have to go?

Worry. I has it.

I am feeling bad, right in the middle of my stomach right now. Not sick. That wouldn't be remarkable, but this isn't sickness it's guilt? I think. Guilt for what?
I don't really know why. Maybe it's worry? Am I worried about my job, and the fact that it is so frustrating? Maybe. Yes. I am. I am also worried about my two classes other than Psychology. I am worried that I wrote a really bad essay for my Judaism class, and I don't know what I got on my Latin American music midterm, but I bet it wasn't very good. I have that feeling.
I feel worried about what I am going to do this summer, I am worried that Stephen, who used to be a good friend of mine, but who I haven't seen in two weeks, will become one of those people that I can't even talk to anymore because we suddenly stopped talking, and it's been too long and we just can't manage to start talking again.
That worries me.

There are some things I'm looking forward to, though. I am looking forward to seeing Lael this weekend. I am always looking forward to going home and snuggling with my cat. I am really looking forward to seeing Rebecca and spending a few days in that weird different world of Rebecca-dom. I think maybe I will just go talk to Meredith, then go to bed and wake up tomorrow when everything is better. Maybe?

Logic

My strong suit? Not really, especially not in the realm of relationships with other people. Those are illogical to the extreme.
i.e. Last night I saw a friend I hadn't seen in a while. Really, we aren't that close at all. He was holding hands with a girl. I had no idea he was dating someone! (Public handholding points to that, right? I haven't been single so long that I've forgotten everything about dating right?) Not that I care, I'm glad he's happy. But damn it! If he's got a girlfriend...

Does everyone else I know have secret girlfriends too?

And then my other friend has this lab partner. We always knew that he liked her, but my friend seemed pretty apathetic. And yesterday, what do I find? There has been kissing. Now, I don't know about hand-holding but I'm pretty sure I remember something about kissing.

Again, I am thrilled for her. Just... surprised.

So now logic follows that since these two people have secret (from me) little lovers that the young man for whom I hold a small flame must have a secret girlfriend. That is why I haven't heard from him in a week. Obviously. Not because he has ridiculous amounts of studying to do, not because of midterms. Secret Girlfriend!

Because that's how logic works, right?
Grump.

If I were going to go crazy,

If I were going to go crazy, I think a fun thing to do would be this;
This requires having children.
I would find a mommy blogger with kids roughly the same age and gender and read their blog religiously. I think it would be better to start in the archives for this anyway.
Then, having internalized all the information, live out their life completely as my own.

I mean, not really. Just tell everyone that I was.

Following me? Yeah, probably not.
I mean- When I call my parents to report on the status of my own children, tell them what is going on in blogger world. "Child A said the cutest thing, _____." "Child B still isn't sleeping very well..."
This also applies to status of marriage (or dating, or singletude, whatever) house remodels, possibly even work related stuff.
Right now I'm reading Mir, http://wouldashoulda.com, and for her I'd also tell anyone I was talking to about the great clearance items I've picked up, maybe even medical procedures I didn't actually have.
Completely false life based on someone elses.
Hell, I wouldn't even need kids. Not if the people I was talking to were distant enough.
I think it would be a cool performance art piece too. In fact, it could start out as performance art, and be so strange and unsettling that it turns me crazy and I do it for real.
Probably the best way to work it.

Terrified.

Have I ever been terrified of sending an IM message before? I don't think so... There's a certain someone on my buddy list who I have a little crush on and I do get butterflies sometimes when I really want to say hello, but I really don't have an excuse for the contact, you know? That rush of "aack! What will he think?" when I press the send key? Sometimes by accident, because I've decided not to but it's habit?
That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about terrified. Genuinely scared. "What will I say?" That's a viable question to worry about, I guess. It is not the question I am asking. I already know how to start the situation. I'm going to start it with "Hey"
In fact, here's the first few lines.
Me :Hey
(10 seconds)
You: Hey.
(See the period there? I left it openended. You made it final. Nice, jerk.)
Me: So... How are you?
(I'm giving in. Like I gave in by messaging you first. I am a failure.)
You: Fine
(Jerk. Asshole.)
(20 seconds. I'm not accepting that shit from you, my ... friend)
You: -Begin to fill the silence. -
And that's as far as I've got because to be perfectly honest, I have no idea how this guy is. I know that his answer probably won't give me any explicit details, but other than that I have no guess.
And so I sit here, warring with myself. Mousing over the side of my screen so that by buddy list comes out. Wanting to see him on it. Definitely feeling better when I don't see him there. I did say he could make the first move, but we all know I'm probably not anywhere near strong enough for that.

Macro/Micro Existential Crisis

A light went out in the distance, quietly, without commotion, explosion. Why did a light go out? I thought, unhurried. Once a light goes out it does not turn back on. There is plenty of time.
I look out into the vastness, at the countless lights I can see, nearby and in the distance, and to the patterns, swirling, infinite, of lights which are too far away to distinguish.
I might not have noticed that one solitary light disappearing into the black, among so many others still burning strongly, but I have time to look. I have enough time.
There will be no great change in the sky now that that light is no longer with us. There are so many, each one so small and insignificant.
As I think about that light, now missing, if not missed, I watch my own personal timekeepers as they fly around my being, quickly, never pausing. One, two three, the nearest one flits. Slower, the outer rings drift. They have only passed by a few times when I decide. It is important to me to know why that light went out.
I begin to prepare myself to communicate.

Without looking at the paper the graduate student hands me, I stuff it into my bag, not wanting to compare my score with the eager participants on either side. I will read the comments, written in green ink to avoid bruising my precious young ego, once I am alone. I stand up to leave, swinging my bag over my shoulder, smoothing out my rumpled sweater and see the bus at the bus stop, nearly empty. I could board it, ride it home, retreat to my own room, a quiet womb free of people who expect me to know what it is that I want to do with my life. Hoards of students with majors, plans, aspirations flow by me on their way forward. Everyone seems to be moving forward.

We are warm. We feed here in the warm darkness, all together. It is comfortable. We are comfortable. Now we eat. Soon we breed, then we will become more. We are already many. We like it here.
My feelers cling to the fibers which I know well. I have not been here long, but I am one of many, and this place of dark warmth is as familiar to me as it was to my father and my fathers father. We stay generation after generation. We like it here. We are warm, the fibers are soft and good to cling to and there is plenty of food. I see more food over there. My brothers shift to allow me to reach it. We are content.

I begin to communicate. My awareness stretches out toward the space where the light once shown. There are are other lights nearby. I direct my consciousness to them.
“Why” I begin. It is not polite to communicate quickly, and so I pause, letting the farthest time keepers drift by me again and again. I continue
“does that light no longer glow?” I can tell that the other lights understand. They do respond yet. Things happen slowly here.
As I wait for my answer I look out to my timekeepers. Sometimes it is hard to concentrate on something so close, it is much easier to look beyond them, but I enjoy them as they circle me. They do not communicate, they are too small, but I feel as though we understand one another. They keep me company while I wait.

I pass by the bus stop, resisting the temptation, and continue on to my next class. I find a seat near the back, I am early and the room is nearly empty. With a sigh I retrieve the essay and turn it over. That is not my name. This is not my paper, but everyone is gone now. I will have to wait until tomorrow to correct the error. “Scientists Observe Death of a Star.” I read it while I wait.

A cold sweeps through the warm fibers. My tendrils wrap and grasp, clinging on to my dark home now threatened for the first time I remember, my father or my fathers father remembers. As the fibers once again settle, I look around and see that many of my brothers are no longer beside me. Thought I am not alone, for the first time there is space between myself and my family. Too much space. We huddle together, a momentary pause in our life of eating, breeding and feeling the warm darkness. The cold and the dangerous movement begin again and my tendrils come loose. I am flung upward, a direction of which I was not previously aware. My claws catch on more fibers and hold on. My brothers are far below.

I have come to understand that many lights do not have timekeepers. Perhaps they do not desire them. My own desire for the comfort they provide, circling me endlessly, marking the passage of time, draws them to me, keeps them near. Perhaps the lonely lights do desire company, but the timekeepers do not desire them. I am grateful. I am humble. I count them again. One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight... Nine. The ninth timekeeper is shy, he hides at the outskirts of my love but I smile my warmth at him anyway. I wonder if he feels it, sometimes.
I continue to wait.

I read the paper twice, ignoring the incorrect punctuation and the awkward sentence structure and concentrating instead on the miracles contained within, which I have not taken the time to think about in so long. In this quickly filling lecture hall it seems as though I am quite large. I fill an entire seat. When other people climb over me to reach their friends in the center of the room, my legs feel awkwardly long and I tuck them away under my chair to make more room, but I have been reminded that I am in fact very very small. 100 light-years away a star died. Compared to that, what am I?

I look down at my brothers who managed to cling to the fibers. They have returned to their lives, eating, breeding, enjoying the warmth. I could climb down to them. I could join them, and resume my place in the world. It would be difficult, but possible, I think. From above I can see that there are other families like mine. As far as my sensors can detect there are more fibers, more food and more like me. I turn around, surveying a vast world I had never experienced before. I could climb down to my brothers, but instead I turn away, to explore and to discover.

I feel the lights in the distance, I feel them begin to answer.
“The light” They pause, and I watch my friends spin.
“ran out of fire. It had to stop.” I understand. I can feel it inside of me, the fuel that I burn in order to glow. I have plenty. I will continue to glow. The light in the distance did not, and will not.
After we stop burning are we simply gone? I do not know. I do not think so. I am comforted that I will continue to watch my timekeepers for many more rotations. I send my warmth out to them. I imagine that I can feel them smile. They are beautiful and they are mine.

I feel as though the world and I are reaching some kind of understanding.

The dark warmth is comforting but as I move forward, in a direction I have come to associate with up I am beginning to feel myself die. My reality becomes colder and lighter the farther I climb. Even though I will die I will discover what lies beyond the warm fibers. I believe that there is something beyond the warmth and the darkness. I believe that I will reach it and then I will know.

I have accepted the space now. There used to be a light there and now there is not. There used to be a light everywhere, and if they all continued thru out time there would not be enough room to shine at all. It is very crowded here. If I concentrate I can see things even smaller than my tiny timekeepers filling up the spaces between the lights. It is more comfortable to look out at the far lights and accept the illusion of space that they give. Perhaps it is good that there is one less. There are so many things.

I have read the essay seven times now, and have not heard a single word from the professor standing in front of me with his projector and bullet points. I can identify the feeling that I have been trying to grasp for so many months now, as I wavered and remained undecided about what I wanted to do with my life. I am feeling crowded. There are too many things in this world, crowding me out and making me claustrophobic. The sciences they study here, with their atoms and microscopes just make the world seem even smaller than it is already. It is obvious what I was missing. I pick up my sweater which has fallen to the ground and shake it as I walk out of the class. I feel sorry for offending the professor, but I know what I have to do. It is time to turn my face up, away from the ground and away from the world. I need more room. It is time to turn to space, where there is room to stretch out in between the few but fascinating things.

My body gets weaker the farther I climb. It is so cold. I pass by food that my family will never eat but I do not have the energy to stop and enjoy it. The light is becoming blinding. I rely on my feelers alone to find fibers to climb. My body reacts against the cold as I finish my ascent and feel something beyond fiber food and brother. I stretch out my feelers, experiencing the rest of the world. My claws release their grip on the fiber. As I expire I grasp the emptiness of the world beyond that that I have know.

There is nothing.

Sometimes things are in disarray. Sometimes the tutu, which sat so nicely on the lamp, making the room glow rosily whenever someone leaned all the way over the couch to turn on that particular lamp, falls off, landing halfway on the Buddha in the corner. Sometimes it becomes necessary to clean.
I thought, sitting on the couch, the selfsame one over which a person would have to lean to pick up the fallen tutu, remove it from the table in the corner, from the right leg of the Buddha, from its accidental resting place. I thought about all the things that need to be done and the fact that I am not doing them. Not one single solitary one. Not going to class, not doing the dishes, not even getting dressed, not really.
And on that couch, that selfsame couch, I came to the conclusion that I could give one succinct reason for not doing any of the things that I really should be doing instead of looking at my messy apartment, my ballerina Buddha and my inside-out pajama pants. I can excuse them all with one simple want, desire and fact. I do not want to be wet.
To say that dryness is my one desire would be, of course, false, and would, in fact, prove, if true, that I was completely content. Here, on this couch, I have succeeded in dryness, succeeded completely. However, this state would be compromised by any of those things that I need to do, want to do, have to do. As follows; in order to get dressed, first I would have to shower. Wet. If, say, I were to decide that I could get away with not showering for a few more hours, and wanted to go to class in the state that I am in, I would need to go outside. Into the rain. Which is wet. But without leaving this room, without wearing anything different, I could begin to clean, starting with the dishes, which need to be cleaned in the sink, with a sponge and warm faucet water, which has the tendency to splash, all over my makeshift pajamas. Leaving me, as it seems is unavoidable, wet. And that, simply can not be born. I’m sure you understand.
There is one thing, though, which it seems I can rectify without breaking any of the statutes of limitation with which I have trapped myself. And so I stand, carefully, to avoid spilling any of the cups piled so precariously on the coffee table, or any coffee on the cup table, step onto the nice white couch with my slightly dusty bare feet and return the tutu to its rightful, if accidental, home atop the lamp in the corner by the Buddha, so that, if anybody asks, I have accomplished something today, after all.

I've always wanted to keep a record

Now, this seems a little negative, even for me, but I would love to have a list of the things that I absolutely can't stand.
I suppose that I could, you know... do things I like as well.
But for now.
I do not like:
Beeping
Tapping
Blinking.
I do not like them very much indeed!

Very. Tired. Girl.

I was born in the right age.

This morning I got up with the idea that my class was happening some time around noon. It didn't worry me that I couldn't put my finger on exactly what class that might happen to be or exactly when around the hour of 12 o'clock that I was supposed to be attending it. (I take the same bus to all stops and it only comes once an hour, so I knew which one to get on.) It didn't really seem necessary. Until, that is, I showed up at my first guess and met a dark, empty classroom.
Is this the classroom for my... Psych Discussion? I ask myself.
... Yes. I believe so.
When is your Psych discussion?
Noon. Ish. Maybe.
Oh yeah? Huh. Well.
What is a girl to do? My brain can't formulate another better answer to the question, and in any other age I would have had to sink down onto the cold cement, put my head in my hands and think. really. hard. until I was able to wake up and deal with the situation, probably missing my... um... class? this morning which I was *almost certain* meant that I wouldn't be getting that... one test back. From that... once class. That I... have this morning.
But no! I was not limited to my own sad spent brain power which would still be on strike for a few days after this weekend (oh man) I had the entire internet at my disposal.
And now it's time to get off the internet and go to my SOCIOLOGY discussion (praise Google!) and collect my Sociology Midterm! At 12:30, which is, indeed some time around the hour of noon, thank you very much.

Now, this is not very interesting.

Sherlock Holmes doesn't know how many planets are in our solar system, but he knows the minute difference between different cigarette ashes. Hmm.
And he's famous for his deductive reasoning, and most of us are not. Now, he's also fictional, but that is beside the point.
College (and school before college) teaches some very useless information. Or, at least information that will become so completely unuseful after college that it seems kind of... irresponsible to crowd our brains with it.
(Because yeah, we can store as many bits of knowledge as we want, I'm not arguing for limited memory storage but recall DOES get harder. That's about as fact-y as psych gets...)
I guess what I mean by all that babble is:
Scientific Calculator v Graphing Calculator v Calculator you get as a free gift from some finance based business. I know difference! I didn't think that was weird. But after going home and requesting to know where in the hell my scientific calculator had been stored and being met with blank stares and then three (yes, three) graphing calculators, I'm beginning to realize that it's not really standard. Standard knowledge, I mean.
And why would it be for a non-math profession? (And why on earth would one turn down a graphing calculator in favor of one that doesn't do as much? Precalculus tests- Also, why would someone spend a quarter on something when they could just plug it into their big shiny machine...)
So I think I'm going to try to forget it. Because this is not something that I need to know.

EDIT:: 4/28/09 "Also, why would someone spend a quarter on something when they could just plug it into their big shiny machine..." I just read that again. It didn't make any sense. At all.

Conclusion: I appear to have meant "Who would someone waste a quarter in college (10 weeks) on a class to teach them something that can be done by a calculator." Which does make sense.

Sunday

Saying your very first word aloud at 5 in the evening is such a weird feeling. Maybe that's why I almost make an effort not to go out into public on Sundays, just to have that jolt of oddness in my life every week.
I'm pretty sure that I developed the Sunday outfit: badly fitting jeans and this one old green shirt, because it's the one thing that transitions seamlessly from couch to grocery store and looks great with unwashed or brushed hair.
As I get older and refine this weekly ritual more the only things I can think that I'd like to change are, having a sunnier kitchen and living room to curl up in, and have an inside radio that picks up NPR without my having to work too hard at it.

Funny little habit.

I've developed a habit, and it's gotten much stronger now that I on my own. I think I should preface this with a bit about my parents. They were never into being proper. They taught me right and wrong as best they could and when to say thank you and to keep my elbows off the table, but I took an interest in learning when to say "May I," and "whom" all by myself. I could have gone my entire life saying "Can I have that cookie," and it would not have bothered them at all.
I still refuse to put a napkin in my lap, which irks them slightly, but that is another story.
Back to the habit.
Now that I live nearly alone (with a mostly absent roommate with her own room) I find myself giving myself instructions.
"Now, you know you have to get up early in the morning. Not just early enough to get to class, mind you, but also to wash your hair. No excuses, it must be washed."
"Oh, I suppose you may listen to your ipod if it helps you fall asleep, but you know you really must stop relying on things like that. You're getting a bit old for security blankets you know."
It's as though I have an alternate personality that chimes in with good motherly advice, in a vaguely trans-Atlantic accent, that my mother would never actually give.
How strange.
I wonder if other people have imaginary nannies on their shoulders telling them to eat more broccoli instead of another piece of chocolate. Or maybe they just call it a conscience and don't feel the need to personify it with it's own specific accent.
"But you must stop dragging this whole blog-posting out just so you don't have to go to bed! Lights off! I mean it!"

Dad's Birthday

I forgot it. My mother reminded me a few days ago, don't forget your dad's birthday! It's on Thursday. And I did. I forgot. I'm bad with that stuff. Really really bad. Unbelievably bad. The curious thing here is that, who cares? He doesn't care. He's 57...er 8 ish and when was the last time he did anything for his birthday? Or wanted anything. It doesn't logical that I should call. I guess it's a social obligation that I need to conform to. And it's not one I like.

I'm finding it very hard to write a decent blog post at jury duty. They all end up sounding preachy and slightly irritable. I'm wondering if this could possibly be the fact that it is nearly 2 and I have been in this room (which looks like a cross between a free clinic and an airport) since 8.

Why can't I be interesting right now? I don't know. Ask the Sacramento County Courthouse.

The Last Few Days

On Thursday, two days after Tuesday, which happens to be today, I will no longer be a freshman. Freshmen are a curious breed. They tend to giggle profusely and have a tendency to get in the way when there are important things to get done. This is not their fault, we were all freshmen, in High School, and some of us again, in college. They, as we did, will grow out of it.
What I marvel at now is the fact that I will never ever have to be a freshman again. I'll have to be new sometimes, a fresh person, but not a freshman, and being new isn't nearly so bad. It never lasts an entire year, certainly. Because you're a freshman until you're not any more, and you can't escape it until you're a sophomore.
It seems as though we've done it. Most of us, with few casualties.

Dear Lowly Student,

What is your source? What is it? Is it the Fire Sermon? The Elephant Jataka or some other more obscure Buddhist sutra? How do I know that the information that you are presenting is true?

Well, Professor, I don't actually know what my source is. I have been studying far eastern asian religion, and it's philosophy for several years now. I have been reading and watching and listening to information on Buddhism and India for as long as I have been able to. In fact, I feel as though I have a fairly comprehensive understanding of the teachings and, honestly, the religious experience of Buddhism. You are not my only source.
So, when I write an essay I am not going to justify everything with source materials, I will simply summarize, to the best of my understanding, the best answer to the question.

BOT HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW IF YOU ARE RIGHT?

Perhaps you might draw on the fact that you are a PROFESSOR OF THIS STUFF. I think that you might have a good idea of whether or not I am right. So, instead of asking me what my sources are or picking at the sentence structure that I use, why not simply TELL ME THAT I'M WRONG? Thanks.

Write something, then

A combination of fine forces set out to work on me yesterday. The first was my Humanistic Psych class, a class which rarely has actual work, but often results in odd, insubstantial projects. For instance, this weekend I was supposed to have sex for world peace. I did not. This might be a shame, I'm not sure. But, the real point is that today he suggested that we "create something." I, after storming out of my room in a mostly unwarranted grumpy fit, decided to do that. I was going to create. But what?
I wrote a book.
Fine, I didn't write a book, but I did start one. It's no Ulysses, but I like it. I have no aspirations to greatness with this piece of work, it's a metamyth. It's a hero's journey, but I am thoroughly enjoying the process. Yesterday I wrote 2500 words. Guess how many words I wrote today? My great plans as I fell asleep about finding out how Elodie was going to find the temple in the woods and how the mother was going to remove herself from the narrative? Zero. I did not write a damn thing. And now, in bed, as I should be discovering exactly what Charles is going to say when he wakes up in the morning, I am writing a pointless, long over-due blog entry.
I guess it's better to write something.

Many days

It has been many days since I have had the desire to write. Even now I am not interested in this. There was a reunion concert for my old youth chorus. It was held at the Mondavi Center in Davis, which is big and beautiful on the inside, and much to my surprise we mostly filled it. Perhaps not sold out, but there were no large patches with no people, and when we, the alumni choir, performed, there was a huge amount of applause. Not that I do it for the applause or really for he audience at all, I do it to hear the melding of the different tones and to get to be part of a fourth or a second and have my whole body tingle with the beauty of the chords.
I really do miss it. Next year I should audition for the other acapella group on campus, and not screw up the audition.

Human

Taking humanistic psychology, apparently I am supposed to ask myself "Who am I?" and then, after I answer myself, "Who am I really?" I, of course, have no idea who I am, at all let alone "really" but even before the class started I was writing in my red book of "Things that I have done" which is basically a list of reasons that I am an interesting person, in order to convince myself that I am, in fact, an interesting person some of the time. I started a new list this morning too, in the back of the book titled "Things I want to do." There are only two things on that list so far,
I want to have a jelly bean hunt on easter with my children.
I want to be able to guide a raft down the entire American.
The already finished stuff is much longer. My favorite one isn't really something I've done at all. Not really. When I was in first grade I accidentally walked in to the second grade classroom. They were so old, it seemed impossible that I would ever be that old. I am very excited and feel very accomplished to have lived through second grade.
I wonder if that is who I am. Someone who lived through the second grade. I imagine that that is definitely part of it.