New Year's Resolutions

Rather than kid myself that I'm going to stick to a very self-discplined & regimented diet/excercise program and decrease the size of my ass, or begin volunteering with orphaned Tibetan puppies with no legs, or stop smoking, or be shipwrecked on a deserted island with (insert eyeroll) the lead singer of a certain band who will subsequently fall in love with me resulting in the living out of our days in paradise and ecstasy....

I've decided that 2006 is the year that I shall:

1. Decrease the frequency/intensity to which other people's ideas/ideals/decisions make me doubt myself in an unhealthy and (frankly) tedious co-dependent sort of way
2. Seriously consider and pursue different career/educational paths
3. Write (letters, poetry, journal) at least 3x a week
4. Play guitar, however badly
5. Make a floor-to-ceiling papier mache tree for my apartment

Anyone else want to share theirs?

My Favorite Thing About This Christmas

My nieces were playing with the nativity. First, Mary and Joseph were married in a lovely ceremony. Then the donkey and the camel entered nuptial bliss. Then two wise men edged toward the altar.

My mother commented, "Those are two men."

My niece responded matter-of-factly, "Men can get married, Grandma, I saw it on tv."

My sister later explained they'd seen the news of Elton John's marriage together.

How cool is it that my 3 year old niece will have an early childhood memory of acceptance? Not all tv is evil, eh? And thank god my mother and my sister are decent people who validate tolerance rather than squash it.

Spread the love, my peeps.

Pondering

The Meaning of Life: I've only browsed a bit but it seems simple and direct and true.

Is there an objective reality? Or could gravity just one morning not show up to work and have us all hurtling through the cosmos?

myspace is addictive. I can't stop looking for every precious person with whom I ever lost contact. Please please my lost ones--find a computer, log on, be there.

Song Lyrics of the Day

Cause in my head there’s a greyhound station
Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations
So they may have a chance of finding a place
where they’re far more suited than here
--Death Cab for Cutie
"Soul Meets Body"

WTF was Wrong with Ayn Rand?

I began reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand last night. A friend of mine is reading it, and I thought I'd give Ms. Rand another try. In high school, I read The Fountainhead. For weeks, maybe months, afterward, I was "different", everyone noted. I was angry and abrasive and disliked people, very different from my former affectionate, silly self.

I should have remembered that. I should never have begun reading another of her books.

30 pages into it, I'm started to get that creeped-out feeling. That feeling that the world is soiled, that people are deeply flawed beyond redemption, that stupidity and petty selfishness are all we can expect from each other.

How does she make me feel that? I agree with the basic idea that one should find their gift and live it out to the fullest extent possible. Where does she go awry? The complete disconnection from other people, as Loren suggested? The inflexibility of the "heroes"?

I suppose I think we should find our gift and live it not only for our own self-actualization but for the betterment of everyone. I think people working with passion is good for the world. I cannot embrace a philosophy that judges so harshly people who are differ in opinion from the "hero" (e.g. Ms. Rand). I don't find indifference to other people to be a strength.

I will never again read Ayn Rand. She paints things so black and white--the "good" art/people/endeavors and the "bad". That is not the world I live in, it is not a world I can stomach.

This is True

I am a Gemini.
(Also known as "Twins")
My Horroscope:
Eternally childish - both intellectually and emotionally, a Gemini simply refuses to grow up, and will often mooch of off someone until old age.
His only true passion is pointless chatter, which he has mastered to perfection. A Gemini can talk for hours without ever getting to the point.

He reads little, but has an opinion on every issue - even though he will change it about a dozen times a week. It is not uncommon for a Gemini to become an actor or at least a "writer".

Geminis can't stand stress - neither physical nor mental.

Even though a Gemini loves to entertain guests, at best, he will have nothing more to offer than soda and chips. Usually though, it's just his endless and pointless ramblings.


***
May I draw your attention the right of the screen, where I have added a link. In the future, anything like this will be under "Stupid but Fun Things I've Done Online".

Happy Birthday Jesus

Several holidays result in horrible made-for-TV movies, but I profess the theory that Christmas inspires the worst of them.

My parents gifted me with a crock pot. Please submit recipes. I'm very excited at the prospect of soups and stews and various warm things greeting me upon my return home from the cold cruel work world.

I also received, from my brother's girlfriend (who drew my name in the name-drawing part of the holiday), the Star Wars pez collection and a copy of Pretty in Pink. The only possible way to top that is a Lite Bright, although truly even that can't trump taking colorful sugar pellets from a glow-in-the-dark Emperor head.

Death Cab for Cutie kicks ass.

I want to watch the most terrifying movie available and scream my head off.

Imaginary Friends

Maybe it's a family attribute? Reading my brother's description of it is fascinating.

There are times when a scenerio enters my head--I've always called it, "What if?". Frequently, due to my Eeyore-ish disposition, the scenerio is an expression of fears--I imagine getting the call that my father's ill/dead, or that some horrible catastrophe (e.g., volcano, meteor, werewolves) is to befall me, or that my friend/family member is in peril, or that I'm in a car accident; it's any number of small or huge events.

And once the scenerio starts, it's like I'm watching a movie--I can somewhat control the flow, or at least erase part, go back, redo it. Largely, though, it seems to take a life all its own, and I'm compelled to play it out in my mind. If spying on me alone, you may see me acting out the parts, talking to myself. Even in groups of people, I sometimes get swept away and start making faces in reaction to my inner melodrama.

What's amazing is how effectively I can manipulate my moods this way--imagine a death, and I'm genuinely sad, worried, angry, all those feelings that the actual death would inspire. Imagine (insert eye roll) dating the lead singer of a certain band=giggly girly bliss. Although sometimes the images are not of my choosing at all--I worry about my family, and scenes of tragedy striking them are obsessive at times, unavoidable, unstoppable.

I think I spend more time living in my imagination than I do in reality. It's causing some problems, I think. Can you live a "real" life if you're dreaming all day?

They are very much like waking dreams.

Does anyone else have any idea what I'm describing? Or are we genetic freaks, my brother and I?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Ah, David Bowie. Can I get a goddamn (as my coworker Brian used to say, Southern Baptist Revival style)?

****

Two websites that amuse me:
My brother Brian refers us to Cute Overload. My heart literally ached.
I stumbled across What Would Jesus Do?, where you can ask Jesus for advice.

****

Diana and I had an interesting discussion yesterday about my life. She's studying for the GRE, and struggling with language; helping her over the phone with prefixes and suffixes, I said, "Words are my life." Yesterday, she asked, "If words are your life, what are you doing here?" I was planning on going to grad school, eventually earn my LCSW, become a therapist.

What if that's not what I need? I definitely feel my life now is not stimulating me. Work is stressful, rewarding, but not satisfying the way I imagined it would be; it's not for me as it is with Diana and Melvin and others who work here passionately and happily.

She suggested that, instead of living psychology with the literary on the side, I consider living the literary with some psychology on the side. That makes sense to me. So--what can I be when I grow up?

I feel like I do when I watch a catastrophe movie: the comet's about to hit, life will be forever altered, and I'm so EXCITED. I love the upheaval and the change and the dire situations that force us to consider the essential rather than the superficial, the transient, the meaningless. I don't look forward to the worry and the stress and the confusion and the fear, but it's exciting to consider a life more satisfying, more deeply connected to my Self than the one I'm currently leading.

*****
I received a bunch of silly forwards asking if I preferred Coke or Pepsi, and when my last bowel movement was; so I decided to make one of my own. I asked about God, politics, memories, etc, stuff I really want to know about people. The responses are fascinating. My younger brother responded, and included a link to his online journal.

I was absolutely blown away. He, of all my siblings, I think is most similar to me. He's funny and playful and silly, but inside there's a serious and profound inner life. I am really honored that he allowed me to read his writing, which is very articulate and poetic. He's a watcher like me, I think; sensitive to other people's nonverbal communication and ever analyzing every shift in the room.

Anyway, I think of my younger brothers as Holden Caufield thinks of Phoebe--just amazing; whatever else is shit about the world, there are these absolutely stupendous boys in it and that is no small miracle, gift, blessing.

A Few Notes

#1: I think the Inferno test believed I am going to kill myself. There were several depression questions...hmmm. So I really feel, friends, that my actual level of hell will be a few levels up, because I'm not going to kill myself. The lust, wrath, and gluttony, though; I need to work on those.

#2: Diana wonders why I don't have an English degree/career. "You said words are your life and you glow when you talk about writing, books. Why are you going to get a master's in social work?" She asks, "What would your life look like if you focused on your passion?" Very important food for thought; certainly what I've been asking myself my entire life.

#3: I accept the fact that no-one is going to purchase me a monkey. To curmudgeon: No, please don't shoot a dear little monkey, okay? But if you came across an already-deceased taxidermied specimen at a yard sale, say...I wouldn't turn it down.

#4: How many of you are completely disgusted that I would accept a taxidermied monkey from a veritible stranger?

Yet Another Entertaining Time-Waster

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Seventh Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

What I Want for Christmas

Monkeys are the cutest.  Look at those big ears and the wee little hands.  And I really wish we hadn't evolved out of a tail.  I'd love a tale.  I'd enjoy a whippy, hang-onto-a-tree-limb tail for sure. Do you think Santa will do genetic engineering so I can have one?

Personality Test

Advanced Global Personality Test Results
Extraversion 50% Romantic 63%
Stability 10% Avoidant 63%
Orderliness 36% Anti-authority 36%
Accommodation 76% Wealth 10%
Interdependence 76% Dependency 63%
Intellectual 76% Change averse 63%
Mystical 76% Cautiousness 70%
Artistic 76% Individuality 70%
Religious 90% Sexuality 43%
Hedonism 63% Peter pan complex 70%
Materialism 36% Physical security 23%
Narcissism 30% Physical Fitness 10%
Adventurousness 23% Histrionic 63%
Work ethic 36% Paranoia 76%
Self absorbed 30% Vanity 16%
Conflict seeking 10% Hypersensitivity 83%
Need to dominate 23% Female cliche 56%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

In the Future...

All this online activity is making my head hurt. It's weird not to meet people face to face, it's weird to have these connections with people whose faces I'll never see (most likely) and whose voices I wouldn't recognize if they called me and whose sense of humor I can't gauge because who can tell sarcasm in printed form most times?

The internet is working far too slowly for me--I need for the initial meeting online to hurriedly move toward actually meeting in space-time. I need space-time. Even though in space-time, I am a terrified little bunny, holed up in my apartment and giving myself physical ailments to avoid life. Don't think this bronchitis wasn't psychosomatic in its own way...

I need a good cup of coffee and a cigarette. And then maybe a really involved art project that will take me out of my mind for a while. Patsy and I were discussing making a doll house--we just love those miniature furniture sets and the wallpaper and the wee clocks. I am running out of ***** to make ****** out of (don't want to ruin any Christmas surprises).

Stupid but Fun Things to Do Online

You're Martin Gore! Aw, that's so sweet.


Which Member of Depeche Mode are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Snowflings

a line from "somwhere i have never travelled" by ee cummings, which i always think of on snowy days:

as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

****

the snow today is carefully everywhere descending, light whispers of snowflakes blowing across the roads in streams and gusts, winding and white. it is excellent weather, if one is fire-lit, blanketed, perhaps near another warm body, with a book. it is a good day to watch out windows and pretend you're in a domed world, the sky solid and sure, the weather deliberate, god's in his heaven and cocoa on the stove.

with patsy's encouragement, i have christmas spirit of the old school variety. with patsy in the last few days, i have watched A Christmas Story while decorating my mantle with one of the nativity scenes inherited from my mother's collection and making a few christmas gifts, i have taken photographs of delightfully gawdy displays of colored lights and lit snowmen in various yards around town while sipping flavored coffee, i have discussed a cookie-baking party.

patsy encourages child-like wonder and playtime. she's my fairy godmother, i think.

Entertaining Myself by Pretending Not To Notice Everyone Hates Everyone Else

Sometimes it amuses me to walk around my workplace, smiling and greeting everyone cheerfully.

The team I'm working with at this point loathes each other so much that the mention of "Secret Santa" to celebrate Christmas cast a dark silence in team meeting that was broken only by the suggestion it not be mandatory, please. In that dark silence clearly echoed the message, however silent: I hate you people and I don't want to buy you cute Christmas whatnots, I want you all to rot in hell, I just want to get caught up on my paperwork, take my paycheck, and forget you people exist after 5 p.m. And then still unspoken, but yet I caught it, the soft postscript: Bastards.

Or maybe that was just me.

My supervisor asked, "Well, what are we going to do to celebrate Christmas?" in a tone better suited for the question, "Well, what are we going to do with all this infectious human waste?"

So--my wide smile, "Hey, howareya?"s are greeting with a scowl a la Grinch. It's delightful to provoke the miserable into making threatening animal noises at your chipperness.

My Chemical Romance Action Figures

Don't call them dolls, please. They're action figures. PLUS every 8th one is a ZOMBIE VERSION. It's like the Wonka golden ticket, only zombified.

And no, I won't be purchasing any. I'm so obsessed that I secretly CRAVE the entire collection (especially zombified, that kicks ass), but I have enough embarassment at the level of my obsession that I can't bring myself to purchase them. Even by mail order.

Trainspotting

Which Trainspotting Character Are You?

this result does not surprise me. i too would fling a sheet full of my own excrement at the parents of my significant other; it's bound to happen.

The Nation's Dictionary of Republicanisms

A few of my favorites from the brief dictionary of "Orwellian doublespeak" used by our current administration:

No Child Left Behind riff. 1. v. There are always jobs in the military [Ann Klopp, Princeton, NJ]. 2. n. The rapture [Samantha Hess, Cottonwood, Ariz.].

Wal-Mart n. The nation-state, future tense [Rebecca Solnit, San Francisco, Calif.].

woman n. 1. Person who can be trusted to bear a child but can't be trusted to decide whether or not she wishes to have thechild. 2. Person who must have all decisions regarding her reproductive functions made by men with whom she wouldn't want to have sex in the first place [Denise Clay, Philadelphia, Pa.].

You can find the entire article here.

**Thanks to NA Confidential for referring me to this--he's far more educated and knowledgeable than me, you should probably read his blog instead.