When in doubt, take a nap.
Not really.
I haven't been sleeping well lately. I've never made that complaint before. Sure I've had nights where sleeping just wasn't working out for me, but not usually several nights in a row. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong. I was in bed for an hour and a half, trying not to toss and turn and wiggle. My head pounded, my ears popped, and my throat scratched. I was miserable. I fetched some water and a large dose of tylenol and went back to bed. I think it was another half hour before sleep finally came, and then it was frail and sporadic.
Alex says I need to wear myself out and go to bed at 10. I'm not sure if that would work. But something's gotta give because the fall semester fast approaches and I teach at 8 a.m. I've got to be ready and peppy for those students, even though I likely won't get that from them.
I'm just over halfway done reading Yanni In Words. I love it. I borrowed it from a friend but I've decided I'll have to get my own copy, so that I can reread it whenever I need a boost. I thought about writing a fan letter, but fan mail is cheesy and I'm not really sure what the likelihood would be of him actually reading it. LOOK AT ME: I am a writer that is avoiding writing because I assume that my work will never be read! What kind of life is that! I am so ashamed right now, of myself and that I could even THINK of limiting myself in that way. I'll write the letter. It will be the most gorgeous letter I've ever written. If it is read by the intended audience, fantastic. If not, at least I wrote it.
If other writers had said the same to themselves, nothing would ever have been accomplished. And yes, it is about recognition and, I suppose, a "public" that recognizes your name and your work and appreciates it. I don't like to call that fame, but maybe that's what it is.
I wonder where my passion went. As if it is gone from me. Hidden. I want it back. That is my greatest fear--that I have lost my passion to some black void. That it is irretrievable. I remember having such passion so regularly that I didn't know what to do with it. I applied it to everything. Then what? Where did it go? Now I only see it sometimes? I don't know. I want it back. Music was my passion, and love, and friendship, and dancing (mostly spinning in circles) in the sun. I threw myself into everything. Poetry. Cleaning the chicken coop. Standing up for myself and my sanity. Making my opinion known. What are these things but the result of passion? And of course, finding myself. And I realized that instead of embracing who I am, I reject it and am never happy with myself. Then I whine about my inability to change myself into that person (that unknown person) that I want to be. I want to be me, but I want others to see something different. I don't want them to see me.
Like this is about maintaining an image. I'm not sure what this is about. Me, being me, and my passion. Letting it rage. It needs out. I've kept it locked away and starved for so long that I've almost become blind to it. Why did I put it away? Whatever made me think that was a good idea?
Today is step one. Today I will find my passion and I'll stuff it full of the things that make my heart soar. I'll stuff it full of the things that make me crazy, the things that make people look askance at me, the things that make me roar with life so everyone else can hear.
If people call me passionate now, with my real passions locked away, then they will be blown away once I've got the real deal back in the game. They won't know how to respond. And then you'll see it in my writing too. Then what will they call me? It is a challenge I am willing to face and take head on.
Therefore, I will write the letter to Yanni. I will unlock my passion and feed it what it needs. I will make myself known.
I will.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
#79--Yanni
This post is all about Yanni and I don't care if you judge me.
I've been reading his... biography? memoir? (Yanni In Words) lately and I realize just why I look up to him so much. I suspected his strength of independence just from how my mother talked about him. He's a genius and a revolutionary and he set the pace for all those who followed him. And he never let anyone tell him he couldn't do something and he refused to get distracted from his life goal and he did everything he wanted to do.
And that's awesome.
And I'm going to see him live on the 14th, and I'm so excited. (I'm seriously screaming inside when I think about it. I get really giddy--hearing those familiar songs LIVE is going to rock my socks off!).
People look at me funny for liking Yanni and his music. I don't always understand why. Maybe they don't see what I see or hear what I hear. They haven't really connected with his music and his work.
Thank you Yanni, for inspiration as a child who knew virtually nothing of the world. Thank you Yanni, for continuing to inspire me to create my own work, to address and express my emotions, and to go after what I want to do, no matter what.
Here's to Yanni!
I've been reading his... biography? memoir? (Yanni In Words) lately and I realize just why I look up to him so much. I suspected his strength of independence just from how my mother talked about him. He's a genius and a revolutionary and he set the pace for all those who followed him. And he never let anyone tell him he couldn't do something and he refused to get distracted from his life goal and he did everything he wanted to do.
And that's awesome.
And I'm going to see him live on the 14th, and I'm so excited. (I'm seriously screaming inside when I think about it. I get really giddy--hearing those familiar songs LIVE is going to rock my socks off!).
People look at me funny for liking Yanni and his music. I don't always understand why. Maybe they don't see what I see or hear what I hear. They haven't really connected with his music and his work.
Thank you Yanni, for inspiration as a child who knew virtually nothing of the world. Thank you Yanni, for continuing to inspire me to create my own work, to address and express my emotions, and to go after what I want to do, no matter what.
Here's to Yanni!
Saturday, July 21, 2012
#78--Sometimes When You Feel
Once in awhile I just get in a mood. I guess I'm always in a mood, but never the same one. Sometimes I'd like it to rain for days, steadily. Other days I want to live a life I can't have.
That isn't to say that I'm unhappy with the one I've got, just that I wonder what it is like to be in a different situation, to practice a different set of skills, to have different goals. I suppose then, that having different goals is one of my goals, and so perhaps I should work on that and implement it into my life. I am not saying that what I've got going on is mundane either, but perhaps expected. Yesterday I wanted attention, today I'm after spontaneity.
I've decided nothing ever happens in Kansas. At least, nothing anyone really wants to hear about. Maybe that is the situation for a majority of the Midwest in general... But I can't say for sure. I've only ever lived in Kansas and visited those other places briefly. I think it is those brief ventures outside of the expectedness that makes me want to leave, to be different.
People are too focused on being different from others. People are too content with being the same as everyone else. How is this important? I'm back to yesterday's discussion of individuality versus group. Is that it? We view the 1% as individuals and the 99% as a group? Therefore we can never come out on top, can never regain what we've lost. But what did we lose exactly? Our courage? Our self-esteem and self-worth? Our ability to grow spines?
Love others and be true to thyself. <-- That's the best I've got. This is something we should all strive for. If we did these things, and only these things, the world would improve. But it isn't something only a few can do and expect profound results--it has to be a group/collective effort on the part of all. But then we become too focused on the differences between people, and their beliefs and their practices and their points of view, and we fight again, we belittle, and we watch at the other team kills itself and we smile smugly in satisfaction at their pain and lessened numbers and we think we are great, when the only thing we've really done is succumbed to evil and hatred.
So what, that person is a homosexual, and someone else isn't sexual at all, and one person has a penis and another one has a vagina. So what? Who cares? These are the ways in which we define ourselves and we allow others to define us. Then there's the whole... I'm this, this this, this, and HUMAN campaign, which is great but it is still a label. I'm alive, and I deserve to be treated fairly and with love. I treat you fairly and with love, unless you say something against me personally (like, that I'm an evil tyrannical bitch when I'm not) in which case I'll be upset and I'd like to talk to you about your viewpoint but you'd rather avoid me and only spread further gossip about me when you don't even take the time to tell me why you're angry. And no I won't retaliate, except not speaking to you when I see you in public places, and I feel that's fair. And if you really wanted to talk to me you would have done so of your own will rather than waiting for a chance meeting at the store. Unless you feel that vulnerable that you have to have strangers around to overhear your complaints... In which case, people need to be plain with one another. "I'm upset with you because...." and "I'm sorry, I didn't realize that was upsetting to you. What I meant was..."
Two simple sentences. Instead we'd rather hold grudges or shoot up a theater or drop a bomb on someone else.
Gah.
This went a lot differently than i thought it would.
That isn't to say that I'm unhappy with the one I've got, just that I wonder what it is like to be in a different situation, to practice a different set of skills, to have different goals. I suppose then, that having different goals is one of my goals, and so perhaps I should work on that and implement it into my life. I am not saying that what I've got going on is mundane either, but perhaps expected. Yesterday I wanted attention, today I'm after spontaneity.
I've decided nothing ever happens in Kansas. At least, nothing anyone really wants to hear about. Maybe that is the situation for a majority of the Midwest in general... But I can't say for sure. I've only ever lived in Kansas and visited those other places briefly. I think it is those brief ventures outside of the expectedness that makes me want to leave, to be different.
People are too focused on being different from others. People are too content with being the same as everyone else. How is this important? I'm back to yesterday's discussion of individuality versus group. Is that it? We view the 1% as individuals and the 99% as a group? Therefore we can never come out on top, can never regain what we've lost. But what did we lose exactly? Our courage? Our self-esteem and self-worth? Our ability to grow spines?
Love others and be true to thyself. <-- That's the best I've got. This is something we should all strive for. If we did these things, and only these things, the world would improve. But it isn't something only a few can do and expect profound results--it has to be a group/collective effort on the part of all. But then we become too focused on the differences between people, and their beliefs and their practices and their points of view, and we fight again, we belittle, and we watch at the other team kills itself and we smile smugly in satisfaction at their pain and lessened numbers and we think we are great, when the only thing we've really done is succumbed to evil and hatred.
So what, that person is a homosexual, and someone else isn't sexual at all, and one person has a penis and another one has a vagina. So what? Who cares? These are the ways in which we define ourselves and we allow others to define us. Then there's the whole... I'm this, this this, this, and HUMAN campaign, which is great but it is still a label. I'm alive, and I deserve to be treated fairly and with love. I treat you fairly and with love, unless you say something against me personally (like, that I'm an evil tyrannical bitch when I'm not) in which case I'll be upset and I'd like to talk to you about your viewpoint but you'd rather avoid me and only spread further gossip about me when you don't even take the time to tell me why you're angry. And no I won't retaliate, except not speaking to you when I see you in public places, and I feel that's fair. And if you really wanted to talk to me you would have done so of your own will rather than waiting for a chance meeting at the store. Unless you feel that vulnerable that you have to have strangers around to overhear your complaints... In which case, people need to be plain with one another. "I'm upset with you because...." and "I'm sorry, I didn't realize that was upsetting to you. What I meant was..."
Two simple sentences. Instead we'd rather hold grudges or shoot up a theater or drop a bomb on someone else.
Gah.
This went a lot differently than i thought it would.
Friday, July 20, 2012
#77--Just Another Girl
I'm just another girl. I've got the same dreams as anybody. I only think my ideas are original.
Before I go any farther, I should just go ahead and say this might seem like a downer post, but really it isn't. Bear with me.
As I was saying--
I'm just another girl. Except I'm not girly and I'm not a tomboy. I'm feminine and not. I'm eccentric and sultry and spiny and brash and nurturing all at the same time. Do I know who I am? Sometimes. I have the same dreams and goals as anyone else. So why should I be held apart from the crowd? How do you gain and maintain your individuality when there are so many other people just like you? What makes me more deserving than anyone else? What is the value of a person?
You don't know me. And you will probably never take the time. I'll be just another gravestone in another cemetery. Someday someone will walk past my head stone and say "She must have been a real person once. She must have mattered to someone. I wonder what she looked like?" Then they'll wander on and visit the grave they came for, or break up the vault they meant to, or upright all the fallen-over flower holders. And then they'll go home to their families or their dog.
What is the point of this post you might ask? I don't know. Do you? If you have any insight, please enlighten me.
I've got dreams. I've got goals. I've got secrets and confessions and favorites and dislikes and passions and star fire and you and I don't even know what else. I've got a house that I can call home and a two-dog family and I've got these things and you've got your things. I've got my memories, which will only ever be my memories and no one else's, for we all experience things differently. I've got all this unique and individualness that cannot be remade or copied or undone by anyone. How can I express that to you? You are just as individual as me, and in that we are the same. Little copies of each other for millenia and having sprouted from the loins of some water-turned-land-crawling-monkey-fish-ameoba.
Some might say that all anyone wants is to be famous. If we were all famous, no one would care. If they did, they'd care enough to be different. They'd be infamous; thus starting the cycle of difference and un-noticeability all over again. Here I am making up words. What did you do today? Yes that's a challenge.
I don't know that fame is what I want. I think I want to be noticed. Especially during the summer when one can't find a job and is at home a lot of the time and no one talks to you but your dog when they want to go pee and that's not a real conversation anyway because it isn't even the same language and doesn't hold the same conceptual structures either. Attention. So, that must be what I'm wanting now. As ever. But what is wrong with that? Doesn't everyone want to be acknowledged? Even folks that claim to be afraid of people or who are anti-social or worse, all they want is to be acknowledged, to have friends, to communicate and feel like their ideas are worth something; to feel like they are worth something to someone, even if only for a moment or twenty.
Are my ideas good ones? Are they worth sharing? Are they worth hearing? Hm?
Before I go any farther, I should just go ahead and say this might seem like a downer post, but really it isn't. Bear with me.
As I was saying--
I'm just another girl. Except I'm not girly and I'm not a tomboy. I'm feminine and not. I'm eccentric and sultry and spiny and brash and nurturing all at the same time. Do I know who I am? Sometimes. I have the same dreams and goals as anyone else. So why should I be held apart from the crowd? How do you gain and maintain your individuality when there are so many other people just like you? What makes me more deserving than anyone else? What is the value of a person?
You don't know me. And you will probably never take the time. I'll be just another gravestone in another cemetery. Someday someone will walk past my head stone and say "She must have been a real person once. She must have mattered to someone. I wonder what she looked like?" Then they'll wander on and visit the grave they came for, or break up the vault they meant to, or upright all the fallen-over flower holders. And then they'll go home to their families or their dog.
What is the point of this post you might ask? I don't know. Do you? If you have any insight, please enlighten me.
I've got dreams. I've got goals. I've got secrets and confessions and favorites and dislikes and passions and star fire and you and I don't even know what else. I've got a house that I can call home and a two-dog family and I've got these things and you've got your things. I've got my memories, which will only ever be my memories and no one else's, for we all experience things differently. I've got all this unique and individualness that cannot be remade or copied or undone by anyone. How can I express that to you? You are just as individual as me, and in that we are the same. Little copies of each other for millenia and having sprouted from the loins of some water-turned-land-crawling-monkey-fish-ameoba.
Some might say that all anyone wants is to be famous. If we were all famous, no one would care. If they did, they'd care enough to be different. They'd be infamous; thus starting the cycle of difference and un-noticeability all over again. Here I am making up words. What did you do today? Yes that's a challenge.
I don't know that fame is what I want. I think I want to be noticed. Especially during the summer when one can't find a job and is at home a lot of the time and no one talks to you but your dog when they want to go pee and that's not a real conversation anyway because it isn't even the same language and doesn't hold the same conceptual structures either. Attention. So, that must be what I'm wanting now. As ever. But what is wrong with that? Doesn't everyone want to be acknowledged? Even folks that claim to be afraid of people or who are anti-social or worse, all they want is to be acknowledged, to have friends, to communicate and feel like their ideas are worth something; to feel like they are worth something to someone, even if only for a moment or twenty.
Are my ideas good ones? Are they worth sharing? Are they worth hearing? Hm?
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
#76--More of the Same
Lots of things are happening lately.
My car is close to being fixed. We'll see how that goes. Yay trees!
Friends are moving back to town and out of town, so some happy and some sad. Helping them takes a lot more time than one would anticipate.
I need me space though and I feel like I'm not getting that. I think I need to take up a new practice. Who knows. Maybe I'll start getting up early (I need to do this anyway in preparation for the fall semester since I am taking and teaching early classes) and going for walks before I start my day. Then I'll have some extra energy at the beginning of the day, I'll be keeping healthy habits, I'll be up on time, and maybe I'll even get a bit more in shape for it. This of course goes hand in hand with my gym attendance going up. I have started going every day and I intend to maintain that for the future.
In the meantime, still working on thesis findings. Got an email back from the prof. and I skimmed through it. It looks absolutely helpful, I just wasn't feeling entirely focused today. Hm.
Also not sure that my ideas are being taken entirely seriously. Ah well.
Pizza arrived... so ciao for now!
My car is close to being fixed. We'll see how that goes. Yay trees!
Friends are moving back to town and out of town, so some happy and some sad. Helping them takes a lot more time than one would anticipate.
I need me space though and I feel like I'm not getting that. I think I need to take up a new practice. Who knows. Maybe I'll start getting up early (I need to do this anyway in preparation for the fall semester since I am taking and teaching early classes) and going for walks before I start my day. Then I'll have some extra energy at the beginning of the day, I'll be keeping healthy habits, I'll be up on time, and maybe I'll even get a bit more in shape for it. This of course goes hand in hand with my gym attendance going up. I have started going every day and I intend to maintain that for the future.
In the meantime, still working on thesis findings. Got an email back from the prof. and I skimmed through it. It looks absolutely helpful, I just wasn't feeling entirely focused today. Hm.
Also not sure that my ideas are being taken entirely seriously. Ah well.
Pizza arrived... so ciao for now!
Sunday, July 15, 2012
#75--Too Tired to Write a Real Post
What a week.
Spent a lot of time with my friend Lisa, and that was nice. Now I'm home again, and back to reading and writing and posting on this lovely blog.
Otherwise, I'm pretty tired. I stubbed my toe today--hard enough to make my whole foot hurt. I may have also sprained a finger. I don't know how I managed that. I didn't think typing would really bother it but it does. All the more reason for me to make this a short post.
Got some WWI letters from an antique store, along with a cameo brooch and two skeleton keys. I fully intend to use these for story writing.
I'm ready for August for several reasons. If only I could go to that concert on the 8th--Fun, Electric Guest, Silversun Pickups, Alabama Shakes... <3!!!
Anyway, more substantial stuff tomorrow, or as soon as my finger doesn't protest too much.
Until then--
Spent a lot of time with my friend Lisa, and that was nice. Now I'm home again, and back to reading and writing and posting on this lovely blog.
Otherwise, I'm pretty tired. I stubbed my toe today--hard enough to make my whole foot hurt. I may have also sprained a finger. I don't know how I managed that. I didn't think typing would really bother it but it does. All the more reason for me to make this a short post.
Got some WWI letters from an antique store, along with a cameo brooch and two skeleton keys. I fully intend to use these for story writing.
I'm ready for August for several reasons. If only I could go to that concert on the 8th--Fun, Electric Guest, Silversun Pickups, Alabama Shakes... <3!!!
Anyway, more substantial stuff tomorrow, or as soon as my finger doesn't protest too much.
Until then--
Thursday, July 5, 2012
#74--Fitting In... Blah blah blah
When I was a kid, I had a notion of what was "sexy" or "attractive" for females. Being a girl myself, I felt it was necessary to identify with some trope (and I still feel that way). However, I feel also that there are so many different versions of what is sexy or attractive that it is impossible for me to decide which one I should go with.
As a girl, I really had a thing for Anjelica Huston in The Addam's Family. Another big influence for me was Winona Ryder in various roles such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Star Trek. I was also very fond of Cher, especially in her role from Mermaids, along with Whoopi Goldberg, Demi Moore, Gillian Anderson, Madonna, Julie Andrews, Deborah Kerr, Betty White, Bea Arthur, Catharine O'Hara, etc. Even my mother fell into this category for awhile, but that may have been because I did not yet know her intimately as an adult does, as I do now.
I think I lost my gusto for this halfway through making that list. It wasn't about who was pretty in the face for me (though that was a factor) but it was more about who they were (or are) as a person and the roles they chose to perform during their careers be it on a musical or theatrical stage or both.
I'm also not saying I don't still look up to these people, or that they are any less an ideal of beauty than they used to be--just that I finally feel society's push for what I should feel is attractive. And maybe society has changed since I was a kid (most likely) and that's okay too I suppose.
I guess all I really wanted to accomplish with this is a throw-back to my childhood and remembering those values that I had in mind then--values I had selected myself and not because someone or a group of people told me to choose differently.
As a girl, I really had a thing for Anjelica Huston in The Addam's Family. Another big influence for me was Winona Ryder in various roles such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Star Trek. I was also very fond of Cher, especially in her role from Mermaids, along with Whoopi Goldberg, Demi Moore, Gillian Anderson, Madonna, Julie Andrews, Deborah Kerr, Betty White, Bea Arthur, Catharine O'Hara, etc. Even my mother fell into this category for awhile, but that may have been because I did not yet know her intimately as an adult does, as I do now.
I think I lost my gusto for this halfway through making that list. It wasn't about who was pretty in the face for me (though that was a factor) but it was more about who they were (or are) as a person and the roles they chose to perform during their careers be it on a musical or theatrical stage or both.
I'm also not saying I don't still look up to these people, or that they are any less an ideal of beauty than they used to be--just that I finally feel society's push for what I should feel is attractive. And maybe society has changed since I was a kid (most likely) and that's okay too I suppose.
I guess all I really wanted to accomplish with this is a throw-back to my childhood and remembering those values that I had in mind then--values I had selected myself and not because someone or a group of people told me to choose differently.
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