Me and Tela the Great

Don't worry, the cable is still on!

2008-10-01T19:35:00.003-05:00

Student teaching . . . is eating up my life! I drove home from school yesterday and this thought passed through my head, "What kind of world do I live in?" I mean, really, what kind of world do we live in? That was not the first time I have had this same question, but I had never yet encountered the blatant lack of motivation that seems to be inherent in our students. Parents don't teach their children to value an education. The cable and cell phone bills are of higher priority over the water bill. The ability to empathize has been forgotten. Instead, everyone is entitled. Entitled to a sleek car, unlimited credit cards and as much fast food as they can eat. I feel like I have become my Dad who is known to walk around shaking his head while muttering about common sense.
What makes everything worse is that we (Americans) don't even have it bad AT ALL! Read this blog, www.baghdadburning.blogspot.com
It will make you so proud to be an American!

thoughts from the backyard

2008-09-09T18:38:00.002-05:00

My favorite time of day is when the sun makes the leaves look iridescent. If I were to create my own story about how the world began, I would say that this light possesses magical powers. That this light can touch a face, erase age, strike worry, and remind the mind of things not yet seen. Every kind of writer has been inspired by this light. I just want to sit in it- feel warm in it. Maybe in this story I would tell, the light would be the source of all beauty. . . creativity. . . happiness. Music could be heard in it; your favorite kind, of course. My sunset light doesn’t make the world ugly. Everything it touches is washed beautiful.
Yeah, that’s my sunset.

A new semester

2008-09-01T09:57:00.003-05:00

Hello again!

Summer did NOT last long enough, but I am glad to be back in school because I GRADUATE this December! I am student teaching right now at Joplin High School which is a lot of fun. I love my students! I have to say that I was not shocked at the students behaviors, I was more shocked at the low expectations that teachers bring into their classrooms. I have about 170 students . . . I am making every effort I can to get to know each one of them, but sometimes their faces become a blur to me, especially at the end of the day.

God is just so crazy sometimes. . . five years ago, while I was in Bible school, I would have never dreamed that I would be a teacher! I did not believe that I was smart enough to go to school. I am going to graduate with a 3.8 GPA! Not that grades are everything, but God is just the master at bringing the best out of people. :)

This blog is the perfect record of the fact that my life has been a series of ups and downs. I have no wish to explain everything and lay lay out every emotional hurtle I have gone over, but I will say that allowing God to be a part of my life if the best choice that I ever made. He has constantly helped me to see beyond my own insecurities. He has given me confidence to face hard-headed people. He has helped me to recognize what my husbands needs from me. Really, He is the reason that I am happy.

It's going to be a great semester, I just hope I get a little sleep!

2008-06-26T14:53:00.002-05:00

Early Spring was beautuful, Summer is now here, and I am just now sitting down again to write a bit. Just caught up with Resa and Krister's blog. I always love reading about other people's lives. It just helps me stay motivated and understand that I am not alone in this big world. Actually, I have been in freak out mode lately. I graduate this December with a teaching degree. Yah! or maybe not. As great as it will be to be finished with school for a bit, I have to wonder what is next. I guess that the next obvious step would be to get a teaching job, but . . . I am not sure about that quite yet.
Anyway, the Summer sun is shinning and I have many more adventures ahead of me before the hard work of student teaching begins.
Peace.

2008-04-17T23:03:00.003-05:00

I mould my world with the shape of these words.
They are sticky and sweet, a lump of clay
held in a child's hand.
I pull them apart,
watch them grow to fit the space.
Do I have enough room for them all?
Do I have enough room for every word in every language?
If I try to cram them all in will I explode?
Maybe the fitting of each word in it's right place
is the job of the poets.
Maybe we all need to be poets.

The Grass is Greener

2008-03-31T14:50:00.000-05:00

The rain has been coming down hard today. It has reminded me, once again, that I am human. The clouds above me are just the beginning of a realm that is completely beyond my control. That kingdom has been marching across the sky of my world striking fear and awe into the inhabitants of the land below. At times today, chunks of ice have hurtled down to earth and the wind has followed with a punishing vengeance. Arrows of lightning have vaulted from the earth and back to the sky leaving the air charged with fire. The invading army took captive my land for a short while, and then as quickly as they had swept in, they stormed out, leaving green grass and swollen creeks in their wake.
Someone said, “Is this God’s punishment?” Maybe yes, but, probably not. It is just the natural cycle. The storm comes; wakes the landscape from its winter-time slumber and strips bare the overgrown places. The storm ploughs through the barren fields, making way for fresh growth. The storm leaves. It goes on to trouble other places. Yes, in some places it caused devastation. But, in my backyard, the sun is shinning, the grass is greener and the birds are once again chirping spring’s song.

My Week

2008-03-07T21:46:00.002-06:00

Unconnected, momentous words that seem to stifle or
make alive the moment I am living in.

Creative, bouncing words shaped into neat boxes
that take flight into the blue thunderous sky of my soul.

It has been a good week.

2008-02-24T00:32:00.003-06:00

Wow. . . just perused this little thing called my blog. . . a puzzling event to realize that one is so very strange. . . At any rate, here is another oddity that I just created.

Will the Glass Slipper Ever Fit?

You live in your cartoon world
little girl; your curls fixed just right.

I’m trying to sort my pastel-world from reality:
I’m a mixed jumble-
thoughts never matching a black and white world.

Put your silken dress on, dance ‘till midnight
strikes, study hard, do the dishes, love with no heart.

My childish heart beats; my collegiate brain
swirls with remembered dreams. . . Go away!
Really! Life just isn’t a cartoon dream.

About a Tree

2008-02-19T21:50:00.000-06:00

I still smell your scent now, can feel the itchy scrapes you left on my skin. Your great boughs protected me from the open sky and comforted the strange sense of littleness that accompanied me. Climbing up your staircase of bark was a great feat; one that I did every summer’s day. My butt would grow numb, but I didn’t care: you always cradled me as long as I wanted. I would gaze up at the myriad of your leaves, try to count the large number of them all, but I would always get lost in the way the sun peeked through the canopy above me. If I closed my eyes really hard and opened them up again, the world became a glimmering place where the leaves looked like bits of stars.
Now, you are cut down. I never carved my name into you, but you left your mark upon me: on my right shin. I went back to the place you use to stand, so tall like a father, and I sat upon your stump. I thought, “Should I dig up these roots, bag them up, and take them home with me? Would I feel like I have taken back the pieces of me that I left with this tree?” I stooped to start hacking, but the soil was firm and hard: I couldn’t reach the roots without breaking them in two. Tears ran down my face, I launched my shovel out into space.
There are parts of me that have been cut down, but the roots are still buried deep.
Everyday, I open and close my eyes hoping that the leaves will shatter into glimmering stars; that my thoughts will become what they should be and I transformed. Maybe, like my old climbing tree, my dead thoughts must be cut down. If I put down roots, deep and strong, will I grow back?
So, I question, I climb up the limbs of my thoughts, I scale each one just to make sure they should stay. I hack and pillage, but to no avail, little pieces of thought limp around and I am still as I am: a big contradiction; I think, but say and do differently. I wish I could take refuge in my thoughts once again. The only thing visible now: a stump.

Winter

2008-02-17T20:52:00.000-06:00

Cold night air
never inviting;
yet, always beckoning,
always striving
to freeze me to death.
Never lying. . .
cold night air, with its hate
and misery found in the marrow of my bones
has fashioned for me a wealth of repose.
If I lay down in the shadow of the night,
one last breath taken out of spite,
I could fall into icy sleep and,
never again,
feel my juicy heart break.

Another School Shooting . . .

2008-02-08T14:59:00.000-06:00

6.7 billion people on this earth-
20 in that classroom. "Not so bad,
Could have been worse."
She held the gun up,
looked into their faces,
knew their names,
and pulled.
Out of 6.7 billion, only 20 were hurt. . .
"Not so bad."
So, mom, dad, brother, sister, friend,
Is it so bad?

Help me understand!
I have been hurt,
my wounds daily ooze blood-
I limp around like a war vet-
few people care to bandage. . .
to offer crutches.
Yet,
I still love,
I still give-
I offer to help; try to understand-
I could never pull a trigger.

I hate watching CNN! I always hear about the several hundred tragedies that have occurred around the world in the span of twenty-four hours. . . Does anyone else feel like the world is becoming smaller?? It can't contain all of the hurting people, so we shoot each other trying to make room, but all we do is continue the cycle of violence and hurt.
Makes me just wanna live beneath the dirt. . .(Phish song:) These guys do a great cover-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORkqu1YRUX8&feature=related

Sky Surfing??

2008-02-02T18:35:00.000-06:00

I have spent the day alone and it has been nice. I didn't work or even do much homework. Instead, I drove around, did some shopping, bought a cute pair of shoes and sipped a Chai Latte while I talked to my Mom. Their are times when I get this amazing sense of my aloneness. That aloneness is felt to the very center of my being and it produces an ache that is reflected in the world around me: the sky becomes not so bright, people all of a sudden distant, uncaring and myself misunderstood.

Then, I saw the sunset. The sun had just disappeared and had left behind billowing waves of gold and pink across the sky. I saw the vividness of the color and felt that warmth down inside. I started to laugh all by myself in my car because, instead of having a deep, poetic thought to match the moment, all I could think was: I would love to surf that sky!

Songer

2008-01-15T11:14:00.000-06:00

reve
sans fin
ni treve
a rien

dream
without cease
or treaty
of peace

Samuel Beckett

What a great way to start a new semester. . . After I read the short lines above in my World Poetry class, I couldn't help but let my thoughts wander to my own dreams. That probably was the author's intent, but class is not usually the time for dreaming. I love this translation because it seems to stipulate that dreaming requires a fight on the part of the dreamer. I just love that! If I am not a dreamer, it is not because their are no dreams to be had; It is because I have not fought for them.

Another translation by Raymond Bell reads:

dream
on
and on
dream on

Maybe I would have enjoyed his perspective when I was more whimsical than I am now. I mean, his translation doesn't imply that a dream should be fought for. Why not? Should a dream be fought for or should a dream simply be a happening that we stumble across in our everyday dreary world? You know, I think Martin Luther King had something to say about this topic.

Dr. Saltzman

2008-01-10T21:16:00.000-06:00

You liked Arkansas Smokehouse Chicken
Why? I cannot say, except that you gulped it
down in five to six bites with at least three Diet
Cokes in between. For a balding professor with a limp,
you walked gracefully down the hall: heedless of weighty
books and the weight of your soul that buoyed others up.
You said that you found love in the stacks and
I always believed you, I mean, look
at who would always sit across from you. Do I sound uncaring? Like
one of those Hallmark cards that simply spout remarks that
never quite hit the spot? If I do, I do not mean to. I will just
always remember you in this way.

One of my favorite English professors passed away the day before yesterday. I will miss him.

"Untitled" because the only titles I can think of are overly dramatic!

2008-01-05T11:15:00.000-06:00

So, the holidays were actually fun this year! In years past, I have ended the holidays with a certain hopefulness that they would never happen again. I mean, Thanksgiving dinner with my family has been the scene of numerous life changing confessions and the occasional flying butter knife. (No wonder I crave drama of any sort!) If you are wondering, butter knives did not fly and their were no life changing confessions. Their were some tears, but they were my sisters and primarily because she didn't want to leave for Pennsylvania.
Now I am very tired. I am tired of baking! I am tired of the sweet scent of cinnamon wafting in the air and the sticky pine needles that my cat and dog continuously bat off of the tree. All of that is gone now and I am left with my silent, simple home once again.
Really, their is so much to say, but it is seventy degrees outside in January! I can hear the birds singing, as if they are pretending it is Spring. . .
P.S. I actually thought about naming this post, "Butter Knives Didn't Fly!" but, I think that would be a bit dramatic. Don't you think?

Just some thoughts. . .

2007-12-22T00:46:00.000-06:00

While waiting at the 15th Street light to turn into Walmart parking lot, I had an interesting thought: most of my life is spent waiting for my turn. Whether it be waiting for my turn at a light, in line, for the bathroom, or even my turn to talk, I think that most of my life is spent in waiting. What would happen if I skipped waiting for my turn? Perhaps, people would yell at me to stop cutting in line; I could be in a car accident because I ran a red light. On the plus side, I wouldn't forget what I needed to say and I wouldn't feel as if I'm going to pee my pants by the time a stall emptys. If I stopped waiting my turn would chaos erupt? Would I be brave for stepping out of line and taking a chance?
To think of life as a straight line is kind of depressing. I had this mental picture of the world painted in shades of gray with all of its inhabitants wearing black suits. The waiting line stretched around the world; nobody bothered to look around, they just paitently awaited their turn. We all wait our turn to be born, fall in love, and die.
So, what is it that makes life interesting? Why do I keep getting back in line?

When is this ride over?

2007-12-16T22:11:00.000-06:00

I have tried to write three separate times today. Everything always comes out emotionally charged and I immediately press the backspace button. I guess that I have said too much that I regret. At least with this written diary of my life, I can edit the emotional gush, or at least try to. But, I need to write. . .

I feel like my life is a carousel ride complete with the cheesy music and pastel pony's. The carnival worker only stops the twirling motion long enough for me to catch my breath, puke and mount my purple pony all over again. The pictures that whirl by as I stare off into the twirling space are the pictures of my life: past and present. I try to make sense of everything, try to put the pieces together and assemble myself in some order, but I can't. The pieces are scattered here and there; the motion of my life is a gigantic circle, I always seem to come back to the same spot again and again.

So, here I am feeling lonely and so many other things. Feelings. . . Ugh, do I have to? Do I have to feel all of this again? I don't really want to define the "all of this", but I will say that my feelings primarily revolve around questions: questions that I have tried to answer.
When I started this blog, I wanted this to be a place where I could feel free to express whatever I wanted to. I didn't want to feel inhibited by religious or moral constraints; I just wanted this to be a sort of confessional if you will. Now, I find myself scared. Scared to admit what my real questions are. I have already voiced those questions out loud once before, and they turned my life into hell for a couple of weeks. Sometimes it is just easier not to admit that something is nagging, tugging and compelling me to be, see and do different things. So, I smile, say the usual whatevers and go on with the day.

So, I guess this is me just putting it out there that I am not OK with the way things are and that someday, somehow, I am going to change it. I going to get off of my carousel ride and walk over to the roller coaster, as if that is any better, but at least I will see, feel and hear new things.

Life Lessons from a Crazy Old Man

2007-12-14T13:16:00.000-06:00

Last week, I finished reading King Lear. Throughout the play, Shakespeare seems to question whether or not humans can live alone or not. Do we need civilization, community, family and friendship? Their is an incredible scene depicted in which King Lear, an old man, stands naked on the heath with nothing around him but nature's fury. If we are alone, what are we? Shakespeare says that we are just a two legged stick when we are alone; it is our interactions with others that makes us human.
In literature, the loner is usually treated as the hero or the crazy person. Why do we idolize people or characters who seem to be able to stand alone and conquer the elements? Hollywood has perfected the persona of the loner. They have made the loner everything from genius and hero to crazed psychopath. I am not sure which category I fit in, but I would like to think that I am a heroine. My past life has taught me that aloneness is just the way life is. Maybe my true adventure in life lies in connecting with other people and sharing my life with them. "Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world." Great line, huh? The Grateful Dead know more than they let on. Maybe, just maybe, if everyone realized how connected we really are, wars would stop, every kid would have a great Christmas and everyone would have great health care.
Have I solved the world's problems yet?

Great acoustic version of Eyes of the World at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbaVXxNOdQg

Whew. . .

2007-12-12T23:54:00.000-06:00

Well, my semester is over! Christmas break is upon me and I have to decide upon some very important things. I have to choose from my list of must read novels and decide which one I want to start my break off with. I want to clean my house and make it smell like Pine Sol and Febreeze. I want to bake snickerdoodle cookies, roll out gingerbread men, and drink jasmine tea all day long. More than anything else, I want to hang out with my family and laugh; laugh a lot. After my family has to leave, I want to share a bottle of wine with friends and talk about all of the things that my family can't understand. Finally, I want to feel normal: sleep for eight hours at a time, eat regular meals that don't involve a plastic plate and six minutes in the microwave and smile because I know that life can be pleasant even if I am counting the days until school starts again.

An Icy Spell

2007-12-10T11:44:00.001-06:00

Winter has officially arrived. It announced it's coming yesterday morning when I woke up to a frigid house without power. The entire would seems to be under a spell with branches covered in a crystal haze. Instead of finding a warm place to rest in, the entirety of the Joplin population seems to be struggling to break free of this wintry spell, and I have to wonder why. A spell is cast for a reason. Whether that reason be to rest, sleep, and eat lots of food or to just stop and observe all of the little things that the busyness of life keeps me from noticing. Why to do we feel the need to take pride in that feeling that says, "The show must go on!"? Why can't we just enter into the stillness? To make a buck, I will be part of the busy throng this evening. I will put on my little waitress apron and venture out into the icy world because my boss says that I have to. But, for now, I am going to sit in my friends' living room while the fire warms me; I am going to read Shakespeare and allow my thoughts to wander, and I am going to drink coffee and hope that all of my friends are as safe and warm as I am.

The Truth about Religious Idiots

2007-12-04T14:23:00.000-06:00

Every year, my university campus is visited by a set of religious idiots. They appeared today. What usually happens is a crowd will gather around the religious idiots, heckle them and move on. Something new appeared today: one of the religious idiots had made a poster. Of course, the poster listed off some sins that, in their opinion, sends a person straight to hell. For example: homosexuality and sex before marriage. Each religious idiot took turns yelling out something that wasn't even in the Bible. Stuff like, "If you are having sex out of wed-lock, you are going to hell." Some of the stuff they were shouting didn't even make sense. Stuff like, "Young women need to get married. Masturbation is wrong." Who yells out stuff like that?!
This happens every year, and every year, I hear the same backlash from my classmates. What is really scary is when you hear someone say, "That's just the way Christians are." A comment like that is enough to make anyone want to immediately shut up about their beliefs.
My first reaction to the religious idiots is always anger. I'm always angry at these people who do this, but, mostly, I am just really sad. I'm not quite sure why people like that feel they need to make fools out of themselves. Oh, I know that they feel they are fulfilling some sort of religious obligation, but I just don't see that kind of Jesus anywhere in the Bible. I mean, he lifted up the prostitute and called the religious people hypocrites. What would Jesus have done today? Should I have walked over to those people, grabbed the sign out of his hand, and torn it in half? Should I make a sign that reads, "This guy doesn't know what he's talking about!!!" with a big arrow drawn in his direction? What do I do? Because the truth is, people really do think that Jesus is just mainly concerned with all that stuff. If someone were to ask me what I think Jesus is most concerned with I would reply that Jesus just wants me to accept what He has done for me. He wants me to involve Him in my life. He wants me to stop hurting myself and start living in a way that isn't self-destructive. Because, the truth is, I need help. I don't always like to admit that, but it's true.

So, I guess the moral of the story is that I shouldn't act like a religious idiot and when I encounter one next, well, I'm not quite sure what I will do, but I would like to tell them to shut up.

The Man in the Moon and My Dad

2007-11-29T20:19:00.000-06:00

The moon shone full that night
with nothing between heaven and earth.
New winters crisp freshness
hovered over the pasture, assuring
the little farm that
the snow would stay to keep company the newly
deceased leaves.
Someone like the Man from Snowy River
emerged in the early morning stillness.
He walked with the gait of a man who knew his way
seeming to count the nightly moon as his confidant.
This night watchman of the sky always looked on, never sharing
secrets bestowed, yet, somehow,
never shedding a tear.

I have this very distant childhood memory about a morning spent on the farm with my Dad. When winter finally comes, I always remember that morning. A fresh snow had just fallen and my Dad's footprints were the only to be seen on the landscape. The moon was full, but was preparing to descend: it was that awkward time between night and day. I don't know why I woke up that early, but I did. I saw my Dad traversing the pasture on his way to break the ice for the cows. For anyone else, this could be a lonely, sad picture, but that's how I know my Dad. He is happiest on the farm, with the cows and his acres of pasture land. I guess I love that memory because, in a way, it reminds me of myself. Sometimes I wonder why I am the way that I am. I suppose that I know that I love snowy mornings because my Dad loves them.

That is just one image that makes up who I am. Nobody else shares that with me; it's all mine.
What is an image or picture that helps to make you the person that you are today?

Version 743

2007-11-24T23:48:00.000-06:00

Should I give up
and accept this version
of myself?

The paper is
written upon; time is spent,
I can’t go back

or forward, push
the backspace button and re-
live again. The

cursor blinks and
I try to fill empty white
space with any

thing not me.

In my Creative Writing class, we have been discussing and experimenting with using different voices in our writing. In my class, we have been able to academically explain why it is fun and necessary to play with different voices. In real life (Can I say 'real life'?) I play thousands of roles, or employ different voices. My most common and comfortable role would be that of waitress. I become that one as soon as I enter the kitchen at Red Onion. Most of the time, I feel like I am only me when I am sitting alone thinking or writing. At the same time, I know that everything that I am I have borrowed from other people. My thoughts, actions and words have all been handed down to me. People talk about grand adventures on which they want to find themselves, but I can't help but think that maybe we just find bits and pieces of ourselves in other people.

My Technicolor Magic Wand

2007-11-18T16:37:00.000-06:00

I am not one of those people who believe that we are just who we are separate from our experiences. I believe that our experiences define us and shape us. What if those experiences aren't good? I mean, what if those experiences teach us destructive behavior and we just stay in that cycle because that is all we know?
I have been thinking alot about this Happily Ever After idea. My experience has taught me that Happily Ever After doesn't happen for many people, but shouldn't it happen for everyone?
My experience has also taught me that Happily Ever After has not happened for me yet.
Last night, one of my friends said that she believes that we are the creators of our own Happily Ever After. I think that I agree with her. At some point, I have to recognize what I want out of life and make that happen for myself. How will I go about doing that?
For those of you reading this who do not know me so well, four years ago I finished up two years of Bible school. The person that I am now is so different from the person that I was then. Back then, it was effortless to take God at His word and believe that eveything would turn out for good. Now, it's hard to believe. I feel like I am standing at the bottom of a gigantic wall trying to figure out a way to get over it. That wall has always been there in the distance, but I have walked as far as I can. Now, it is between me and the rest of my life. What is my wall made of? It's made up of all the bad experiences, all the hurt that I hold on to, and all the questions that nag. I will always believe in God- I can't not believe in Him; I feel Him everyday. Lately, I have been remembering His promises to me; promises for everyone really. Those promises are a magic wand for me. They are the thing that I hold on to when I feel like I can't believe anymore. I think about those promises as I look up at my gigantic wall. I am not quite ready to scale that wall, but I am ready to wave the wand and see what happens.

I have a magic wand
forged with promises and
courage. Waving it
is no small task, but,
once it moves, the color
is radiant. It colors my
life in shades of peace, hope
and a joy that shines from within.
Can you, little magic wand, give me wings
to flutter as I fly
over my wall of hurt, worry and
fear? Can you color my
life forever in Technicolor
brilliance?

A Time to Hibernate

2007-11-17T21:09:00.000-06:00

Tonight, I smelled winter in the air. That smell reminds me of wood smoke and snow; it also makes me want a cup of tea with a warm brownie. I have been taught that bears hibernate in the winter. I have never stumbled upon one of these bears, but I think that it would be nice to live in their little cave all winter. I wouldn't have to venture out into the cold wind; I could just sit in my easy chair and read a favorite book. Sometimes, I think that winter is suppose to remind us about the harshness of life: it isn't always sun rays and rainbows, it is sometimes cold and cruel. As harsh as winter can be, it can also make me hole up in my little cave and recuperate. It can make me think about all of the things that I have avoided during summers lazy days.

Happily Ever After: Myth or Reality?

2007-11-14T08:36:00.000-06:00

Happily Ever After: fairy tale,
myth or reality? As far as I know,
my foot doesn't fit in the glass
slipper, my hair long enough
to climb up and I am not
a princess.
My hair doesn't fall in glistening
waves to complement the
sparkling diamonds in my dress.
I do have step-sisters, but not
of the ugly kind. I go to grandma's
house to find it empty; luckily, the wolf
didn't gobble her up. She just disappeared with
her body still here. The spell is not over
at the stroke of twelve, she won't wake up and I won't
wake to my prince kissing me with his
immortal kiss.

When I was a kid, I loved to read fairy tales. I think I liked them because they portray a world in which bad things do happen, but somehow, every story ends with "Happily Ever After" tagged on at the end. I think that someone should write the story that follows after Prince Charming and Cinderella got married. Maybe we all write that story in our own lives and we just have to believe that "Happily Ever After" will begin at some point.

If I sound cynical, heart broken and etc, it's because I am. I haven't completely discarded my happy ending, but now it seems like a lot of work to make it come true.

Right now, the sky is cloudy with the wind tossing the trees back and forth. Tomorrow will be better; tomorrow, the sun could shine.

Now on the market: The Shakespearean lounge pad for cats. Hurry, you can buy mine for the juicy price of $74.99!!

2007-11-12T14:10:00.001-06:00

My cat, Tela, likes Shakespeare. Actually, she just likes to lay on the big, fat book while I attempt to look up references for my paper. I wish that I could find that book as comfortable, but I usually have to work really hard to get my brain to wrap itself around the archaic language and the many themes that are so outdated that Sparknotes is one of my most frequented bookmarks. I should get annoyed with her, but I am actually grateful for the interruption and a different perspective on the many uses of Shakespeare.

I just smiled which feels good after all the frowning down at my paper.

Yeah, Shakespeare was and is brilliant. I admit it. Sometimes, I just have to remind myself about the reasons I love something, so, here is one of my favorite Shakespearean sonnets for all you lovers of love:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his highth be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I just finished watching Sleepless in Seattle and I have to say that the movie made me remember that kind of love that I haven't let myself think about for a very long time. This sonnet is not about puppy love, but is, instead, very realistic about love. If Shakespeare was the master of anything, he was the master at recognizing the impediments of our humanity. Can I have that kind of love described in the sonnet? Do I posess my "ever-fixed mark" already?

My Sometimes Zombie Existence

2007-11-11T19:52:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I forget that I am really alive. It seems so easy to just exist: do the homework, go to work, eat and sleep. Today I had a moment in which I felt alive. I was driving along faster than I should have been driving with the windows down. Phish was wailing out Funky Bitch on my CD player and I just felt that freedom on the inside that reminds me that I haven't joined all the zombies yet: I am still alive. I am not part of Anne Rice's undead city of famous bloodsucking vampires, I still eat what I like to eat. (Mainly chocolate and Mac n' Chz) I am not REALLY a responsible adult yet. I still work a mindless job and have teachers tell me what to do. I hear Trey yell out "Can't I live while I'm young?!" and I couldn't agree more.

With the wind in my hair
I remember you:
curly-haired funky bitch
dancing like no one is
watching; laughing without
a cause, hoping that the wind
always catches her just the right
way to carry her off.

Brilliant Leaves of Thought

2007-11-10T17:01:00.000-06:00

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. Everyone likes spring with its safe pastels, but fall is a season that only bright, colorful souls can love. Fall is the time when things are getting ready to die and it is amazing to me that before leaves officially give up their tree branch home for the land below, they declare their independence by bursting into bright arrays of color.

I think that most things in my life are still in the spring season: things seem to blend together in a pastely mess. Their are times though that I get a moment. A moment of complete serenity in which one thing in my life pops with the brilliancy of autumn. That moment is the moment in which I actually express exactly how I am feeling; in which I create something so beautiful that I sigh or can just sit and feel at peace with the people around me. Those are brilliant moments for me.

Maybe someday I will understand the sweltering heat of summer and the icy cold of winter, but, for now, I would like to stay in the autumn.

Nervous laughter

2007-11-09T10:34:00.000-06:00

What should a first post on a blog entail? Should I list all of the major events of my life starting from the age of six? I think that would just be boring: boring for me to recount and boring for the reader. Yeah, drama has occurred, but who doesn't have drama? Actually, for all the weird people who think they live without drama I just have to say: STOP pretending!
Wow. . . I really like to use question markes and exclamation points.
I am rolling my eyes at myself right now.

Enough.

I guess I am just nervous. . . like first date jitters. The kind of jitters that make you laugh at everything that is not funny in hopes that they will see how pretty you are.

So, this is my first post and I know that I really haven't written anything of great importance, but it is a start.