It's the only way to keep that last bit of sanity, maybe I don't have to be good, but I can try to be at least a little better than I've been so far.

Whoa... freewillastrology.com. I'm not that into horoscopes, but this site not only has some really beautiful quotations, it also has horoscopes so good that it's scary...

Here's mine for this week:

You should and could be the zodiac's premier networker in 2007. The connections you foster and the deals you broker can save the world--or at least your local segment of the world. In order to pull it all off with maximum effectiveness, you should also be the zodiac's premier fun-maker. Throw parties, tell jokes, and constantly invite people to play harder and take themselves less seriously.


Wow, right? And here's the story that went with that at the bottom of the page:

The sage and her student were standing by a pool discussing longing and ambition.

"What do you want more than anything else?" the sage asked.

"To perfect my ability to love all of creation the way I love myself," the young man replied.

At that moment, the sage tackled the student and shoved his head beneath the water. Accustomed to letting his teacher shape the unpredictable contours of his education, he did not resist. One minute went by. Then another. The student began to struggle and kick. His teacher was strong. Finally she released her grip and the student surfaced, fighting for breath.

"What did you want more than anything else during these last few minutes?" the sage inquired.

"Nothing else was in my mind except the desire for air," gasped the student.

"Excellent," beamed the sage. "As soon as you are equally single-minded in your desire to perfect your ability to love all of creation the way you love yourself, you will achieve your goal."

I Want to Know, Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

“The Enemy [God] allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and began the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing. The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His ‘free’ lovers and servants--‘sons’ is the word He uses…if once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependant on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt.”

Is it really?

We might kiss (when we are alone)
When nobody's watching
We might take it home
We might make out (when nobody's there)
It's not that we're scared
It's just that it's delicate

So why did you fill my sorrow
With the words you've borrowed
From the only place you've known
And why'd you sing hallelujah?
If it means nothing to you...

Why'd you sing with me at all?

We might live (like never before)
When there's nothing to give
Well how can we ask for more?
We might make love (in some sacred place)
The look on your face is delicate

So why do you fill my sorrow
With the words you've borrowed?
From the only place you've know?
And why do you sing hallelujah?
If it means nothing to you
Why do you sing with me at all?

So why do you fill my sorrow?
With the words you've borrowed?
From the only place you've known
And why do you sing Hallelujah
If it means nothing to you?




Why'd you sing with me at all?

When Do I Get to Be Myself Again?

I like Genevieve's 25 things. I like the idea of numbering my thoughts. Some times I like the idea of numbering anything and everything.

1. I miss crab legs, and shrimp, and that makes me think even more that I'm going to have to be a vegetarian for the rest of my life, because I don't want to stop being a vegetarian just because I like the taste of things.

2. I have to listen to classical music some times, not because I really like it, but because I need the sound, and all lyrics will all of the sudden feel really petty and silly to me. Lyrics are not petty and silly. I love lyrics. I hate doing this.

3. I am utterly unconcerned about my exams this week, and almost positive that I'm going to make A's on all of them, and entirely positive that I'm going to make A's in all of my classes, and maybe A+'s. I'm ok with this.

4. I finished Mountains Beyond Mountains. I learned a whole lot, but I've forgotten a whole lot too, because I wanted to read it so quickly that I didn't take the time to write down the parts that I loved, and I pretty much never take the time to do that and I should.

5. I don't want to do gift exchanges for Christmas. I just don't. But I feel like I have to. I just think that if I want to give someone a present I can give them a present any time I want, and I hate how Christmas makes you feel like you have to give people things, and people have to give you things. I'm just bah-humbugging. I like Christmas. I really do. I just don't feel like it right now.

6. I lost my cell phone and I hate that I've lost it. I'm SO mad at myself for that.

7. I really am trying to be in the mood for Christmas, but I can hardly even make myself want to want to be in the mood.

8. There's so much to be done.

9. I feel so selfish all the time, but I just keep going on in my damn selfish ways and I piss myself off. I'm not expressing it as much as I feel it, but inside, I'm becoming a ridiculous fanatic. It's not ok, and, again, I'm really mad at myself.

10. Camp people make me feel much better, as a rule. I want to be back at camp.

11. More than that, I want to be in Uganda, or in Haiti, or in Russia, or Peru. I know that there's suffering here, and it's not that I'm not planning on trying to fix that, but A. Our suffering is grossly less and that's just true, and B. I need to immerse myself in some where else, so that I can quit being reminded of me all the time.

12. But I really miss me, and I'm tired of just thinking about everyone else all the time, and all that's wrong with the world, and I want to be the way that I was before, and I hate that I want this.

13. I think that purely academic pursuits might be not ok with me any more, because aren't philosophy and literature and poetry just things that we do instead of actually helping people? So beauty is moving... moving toward what? I might need to change my major, because I feel like I might as well be studying fashion design or interior decorating as philosophy.

14. I hate that I have to question everything that I used to love.

15. I hate that I sound like some god-damn martyr when I'm not even changing my life in the ways that I think that I should.

16. I hate that Christianity is so wide-spread and so absolutely unheard at the same time. I don't understand how so many people are reading the gospel and not getting the part about give away all of your stuff. I don't understand why there are so many rich people.

17. I hate that when I start to number my thoughts it ends up in a list of all the things that I hate.

18. I've got to stop driving myself crazy.

19. I'm lonely for my friends but I feel so distant from everyone at school a lot of the time, because I feel like I can't stop talking about the same things over and over again and I can't care about the things that everyone cares about, and I've got to stop condemning people in my head for caring about things that I KNOW are important to them, and I hate that I'm so judgmental and I've got to stop expecting everyone to be Jesus fucking Christ.

20. I have no right to be so upset about all of these things when my life is so wonderful. I have no right to be sad about all of this and it's just another way that I am incredibly selfish.

21. I'm jealous when I think of him laughing with other girls and having gentle conversations with them and inviting them out to eat Chinese food. I'm lonely for him even when I'm with him and I'm afraid that I will never be in love with anyone completely.

22. The decision is yours because my decision has always been that I want whatever you want, that I want what makes you happy, whether it makes me happy or not, because it is my responsibility to make myself happy, and I want to make you happy too, even if the only way to do that is to pretend like I don't care either way.

23. I'm horribly melodramatic.

24. I'm still so attached to my car and I hate that I am, because there is no reason for me to have a car when I don't really need one, and why in the world should I be attached to so much stuff that is just stuff.

25. Something in my life has got to change, and soon. I am making myself miserable and not doing anybody any good and I DON'T have any reason to be sad. I want to yell at myself until I acknowledge all of this but I can't. And I know that it all seems unreasonable, but show me the flaw in my logic, and not just in some appeal to emotion that says it's ok to go on with your life while children are dying from treatable diseases, because God wants us to be happy and the world is beautiful, and you'll never fix everyone anyway, because that's just exactly the problem, and I don't want to hear that bullshit. Do what you can. We all do what we can. Fuck that. We are not doing what we can when we have i-pods and luxury every where while some people are lucky to have a concrete floor in their home. We are NOT doing all that we can, and show me some part of the Gospel that says that's love, that says you can do that and still claim agape, and tell me do the children who sleep in the streets to avoid being mutilated, do they feel the love? or the prisoners of Siberia who serve 3 years in an AIDS and TB infested prison that holds hundreds of thousands of people who have maybe murdered or maybe only stolen a loaf of bread, do they feel the love? Fuck this Gospel of Excuses and Pardons for We Who Sleep on Down Blankets while children are massacred and adults are wasting away.

We're better than those priests who sold indulgences to guarantee heaven? Give away a little and you can write yourself off as a good person, right? Because no one ever said you had to give it all. Oh wait... I think someone might have said that? We are deliberately not listening. We are deliberately turning our heads. I am deliberately closing my eyes. I am so god-damn sick of myself.

And When I See You, I Really See You Upside Down

I know you've seen these pictures before. What you see really only depends on whether you're focusing on the positive space or the negative space, right? And if you kind of let your eyes relax, and just let yourself look at the picture, then it's almost like it just shifts from one to the other or to something that's just a drawing, and a drawing is what it definitely is. But, if you focus too much on one or the other- the positive space or the negative, then that will be the only one that you're ever going to see, and it might even seem crazy for you to hear that other people see something entirely different living in these lines. Which is strange, because the person who CAN see two different pictures might think it's entirely crazy for you to even say that you don't see them both. Or see them all. Or at least see the ones that they see.

Maybe we're all just looking for someone who's on the same page, and that's harder than it sounds because the pages never stop turning, not even for a second, except maybe for that brief moment when you just know that they have, when the laugh lines on someone's face wrinkle in just the right way, or when the air outside is just exactly the wrong temperature so that you have to laugh, or when you cry for so long that you let go of your crying, or when you look at me in just that way.

Any way, it really is all about perspective, and some times you can choose to see things a certain way. and sometimes you can't.

You Are My Sweetest Downfall

So... I'm more drunk than I think I am. Some of the numbness in my hands that I attributed to cold... turns our it's more from the drunk. I am much less adroit when intoxicated and when cold... understandable that I could be confused about the cause of my lack of finger mobility.