The girl who waited

Waiting weighted with wonderings within and without. Wistful, yet wary of wandering.
Willfully wanting a way forward that would whisk away the distraction of longing, whilst remaining resolute in aforementioned affections. Applying wisdom, weeding out and wiping clear the waning warmth with which my appetite had been whetted. Whistling a wily tune of when and why, my weeping washes the windows of my soul. I reside where I am in this world, both wonderful and weary, worse for the welcome but content to contend for now. And so I wait.

Note to self:

When I start to feel lost or directionless, I have to seek out inspiration.
It's the most important thing.

Autumn

Magnolia leaves shining like satin as they tremble in the breeze.

A single dandelion bud standing tall and proud amidst the bark and wilted grass.

The tiniest black spider craftily sneaking up the mountain of faux leather, only to be rudely flung into the wind.

Sticky drippings of sap lazily making its way through the grooves of the roots.

The quivering tones of birds and squirrels speeding through the branches, blending oddly with the whoosh of traffic that sounds more distant than it is.

Feeling both numb and alive, grateful for the pricking painful reminders, and yet longing for rest.

Alpha...

The arrival of bountiful creative desires.
Energetically falling gracefully into hopeful intensity.
A journey kept living by moving nominally onward.
Perceptively questioning reason,
striving toward unity in various ways,
to examine the yearnings for zen.

Links to other cool stuff archive

10/19/11

"Synesthesia, from the ancient Greek, σύν (together), and αἴσθησις (sensation), is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway."

How to Steal Like An Artist

Ladies and gentlemen, the practically inhuman Gillian Murphy

Would love to hire this guy to play music for us to dance to

Post-Katrina, graffiti said it all

This list is about things that inspire us...this blog is a constant source of both entertainment and inspiration

Considering our obsession with collaborative work, this is one of the coolest ideas/projects we've heard of in a while (full disclosure: the crush we've had on Joseph Gordon-Levitt pretty much since Angels In The Outfield, should in no way count as a bias towards this project)

Proof that dancers can be superheros

Like father, like son...both equally awesome

A world where people are just trying to connect

9/1/11

A day in the life of a Tibetan monk

Ok Go = awesome. Pilobolus = extra awesome. Therefore, by our calculations: Ok Go + Pilobolus = the awesomest thing ever

We could (and do) spend hours reading these

Zoe Keating...we have no words

The most brainy wedding photos ever

"Chinese super beautiful modern dance"...pretty much says it all

Dare you to watch this and not smile

The smallest, and largest stop animation films ever made...and both shot on a phone (be sure to also watch the "makings of"...it is seriously mind-blowing)

"Hey Ladies", an incredibly intriguing survey, put together by NPR, of women musicians from around the world

Can't decide if these make childhood monsters more scary or less...

Ballet is hard

7/2/11

The genius that is Radiolab

Currently kind of obsessed with Rodney Smith's photography & blog

"Life's too short for the wrong job"...we couldn't agree more

Brazil is beautiful

The lovely & brilliant work of Story Vessel Books

Timelapses videos that create eerily beautiful living photographs

"Her morning elegance"...stunning

You can thank us later for this

A vast plethora of design inspiration From Up North

"Jayus", an Indonesian word that means "A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh"...and 19 other awesomely un-translatable words from around the world

When the magic of dance and the magic of film collide, it creates something that neither could on their own

3 words...Indian. Pole. Gymnastics.

Neil Gaiman should rule the world

Falling's not the problem...

"I've fallen out of favor, and I've fallen from grace.
Fallen out of trees, and I've fallen on my face.
Fallen out of taxis, out of windows too.
Fell in your opinion when I fell in love with you.


I've danced myself up, I drunk myself down,
found people to love, loved people too drunk.
I'm not scared to jump, I'm not scared to fall,
if there was nowhere to land I wouldn't be scared at all.


Sometimes I wish for falling, wish for the release,
wish for falling through the air to give me some relief.
Because falling's not the problem, when I'm falling I'm at peace.
It's only when I hit the ground that causes all the grief."

I apparently picked the right profession

The past 4 days I have not wanted to dance.

I have not wanted to stretch.

I have not wanted to move.

The debate that usually happens in my head of deciding whether or not to go to class didn't even happen. The reminder alarm in my phone that goes off an hour before each class was given no attention whatsoever.

This may sound as though I'm being overly-dramatic (which is almost certainly the case).  But of all the reasons to decide to pass up an opportunity to dance (injury, illness, schedule conflict, exhaustion, flat tire, zombie attack, etc.), simply having no desire to is rarely the case.

Tonight I ended up going to the open gym practice at Mpact Gymnastics and worked on the fabric for a while, and after a little over an hour, the world was again as it should be.

Now obviously, I was just feeling a little burnt out (which is totally normal...tomorrow is the end of the 4 week dance camp I've been teaching for).  But it makes me happy that after all this time (22 years to be exact), and all the various occurrences of burnout over the years, still all I need is 4 days off from the burning drive to pursue it in order to fall in love with it all over again.

Rome

Rome is burning down in my mind.
Finding every excuse that traces the lines
left behind by smoking remains that glimmer
and reduce all my reasoning to whines and a simper.
Feeling sorry for myself, and abashed to admit
that I may have indulged when I thought I had quit.
Fell off of the wagon and bounced down the road,
rolled under the wheels, then stood up.  I suppose
that I'm being too hard on myself once again,
that it's not even necessarily the end.
But when will I learn not to strive and to strain
and to push so damn hard that I nigh burst a vein?
To just chill the fuck out and to just let things go
goes against every inch of all that I know
how to act, how to be, in my head and in life.
So obviously, I need a release...or a knife
to cut out all the crazy, controlling compulsions
that try to create/avoid the revoltion
that inevitably occurs whether I like it or not,
so I might as well get out of my head and my thoughts.

It's definitely you...

Current favorite Cadillac Sky song...I miss them being a band.

Old dancers never die...they just passé.

Okay, so I am nothing if not a huge, giant dork...today I came across a website selling god-awful-trinkety-vaguely-dance-related-gifty junk (mostly t-shirts and coffee mugs and posters and tote bags).  And though the sayings on everything were all unequivocally and almost unforgivably cheesy, several of them made me laugh out loud.  Read at your own risk.

If ballet was easier, it would be called football.

I may be a dancer, but I can eat like a fat kid!

Warning! Accident prone dancer.

Ballerina by day, deadly ninja by night.

I'm a dancer, I only count to 8.

When I'm not at school (work) I like to hang out at the neighborhood barre.

No, your other right foot.

I'm only wearing this because my tutu is in the wash.

Old dancers never die...they just passé.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein

I need a circus man

Though steel, still beating my heart, passing from stone to ice.
Cold gripping the flow of life from my veins, all that remains from the sweet waters edge.
Dredged from the mud beneath what seemed wet and so clear.
Holding dear to the hope of one still untouched.
Unreached and searching too for one to entrust all the dreams and the truths.
Worn and maybe bruised, but not damaged beyond repair.
Complementary patterns and passions and obsessions. 
Redefining life walked as one and as two or possibly five.
Alive and still breathing, not just air, but fire.

...still be my vision, O Ruler of All

"Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

naught be all else to me, save that thou art;

Thou my best thought by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, thou my true word,

I ever with thee and thou with me Lord;

Thou my great Father, I thy true son;

Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.

Be thou my battle shield, sword for the fight;

Be thou my dignity, thou my delight;

Thou my soul's shelter, thou my high tower:

Raise thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise:

Thou mine inheritance now and always;

Thou and thou only first in my heart;

High King of Heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,

May I reach heaven's joys, O Bright Heaven's sun!;

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all."

- English Versification by Eleanor Hull 1912

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall...

"Rop tú mo baile, a Choimdiu cride:

ní ní nech aile acht Rí secht nime.

Rop tú mo scrútain i l-ló 's i n-aidche;

rop tú ad-chëar im chotlud caidche.

Rop tú mo labra, rop tú mo thuicsiu;

rop tussu dam-sa, rob misse duit-siu.

Rop tussu m'athair, rob mé do mac-su;

rop tussu lem-sa, rob misse lat-su.

Rop tú mo chathscíath, rop tú mo chlaideb;

rop tussu m'ordan, rop tussu m'airer.

Rop tú mo dítiu, rop tú mo daingen;

rop tú nom-thocba i n-áentaid n-aingel.

Rop tú cech maithius dom churp, dom anmain;

rop tú mo flaithius i n-nim 's i talmain.

Rop tussu t' áenur sainserc mo chride;

ní rop nech aile acht Airdrí nime.

Co talla forum, ré n-dul it láma,

mo chuit, mo chotlud, ar méit do gráda.

Rop tussu t' áenur m' urrann úais amra:

ní chuinngim daíne ná maíne marba.

Rop amlaid dínsiur cech sel, cech sáegul,

mar marb oc brénad, ar t' fégad t' áenur.

Do serc im anmain, do grád im chride,

tabair dam amlaid, a Rí secht nime.

Tabair dam amlaid, a Rí secht nime,

do serc im anmain, do grád im chride.

Go Ríg na n-uile rís íar m-búaid léire;

ro béo i flaith nime i n-gile gréine

A Athair inmain, cluinte mo núall-sa:

mithig (mo-núarán!) lasin trúagán trúag-sa.

A Chríst mo chride, cip ed dom-aire,

a Flaith na n-uile, rop tú mo baile."

"Be thou my vision O Lord of my heart

None other is aught but the King of the seven heavens.

Be thou my meditation by day and night.

May it be thou that I behold even in my sleep.

Be thou my speech, be thou my understanding.

Be thou with me, be I with thee

Be thou my father, be I thy son.

Mayst thou be mine, may I be thine.

Be thou my battle-shield, be thou my sword.

Be thou my dignity, be thou my delight.

Be thou my shelter, be thou my stronghold.

Mayst thou raise me up to the company of the angels.

Be thou every good to my body and soul.

Be thou my kingdom in heaven and on earth.

Be thou solely chief love of my heart.

Let there be none other, O high King of Heaven.

Till I am able to pass into thy hands,

My treasure, my beloved through the greatness of thy love

Be thou alone my noble and wondrous estate.

I seek not men nor lifeless wealth.

Be thou the constant guardian of every possession and every life.

For our corrupt desires are dead at the mere sight of thee.

Thy love in my soul and in my heart --

Grant this to me, O King of the seven heavens.

O King of the seven heavens grant me this --

Thy love to be in my heart and in my soul.

With the King of all, with him after victory won by piety,

May I be in the kingdom of heaven O brightness of the son.

Beloved Father, hear, hear my lamentations.

Timely is the cry of woe of this miserable wretch.

O heart of my heart, whatever befall me,

O ruler of all, be thou my vision."

- Original texts of the now-called Be Thou My Vision in Old Irish; English translation by Mary Byrne in 1905

Unwritten.

I want to be more.
I want a story.
I want to be the story,
and to write the story.
I want to be important enough to re-write history for.
There is something in me that is worth sharing.
Something worth tearing down for and tearing up over.
I believe.
I'm not being dramatic.
I'm not over-stating.
I am not afraid to fail.
Or if I am, I choose to not let that stop me.
I am not weak.
There is something bigger than me ready to eat it's way out.
But instead of devouring me, it's going to feed me.
And I will be ready.

Graceful Exit

My friend and I were recently having a conversation about relationships and how often people don't seem to be able to healthily let go of someone/something so that it is able to stay in their life by simply changing it's place or importance.  Not to in any way whatsoever toot my own horn, but for example, the fact that I am once again friends with my ex-fiance and the friend that he left me for.  And I say "once again friends" very purposefully instead of "still friends", because in the beginning it was messy and bad and there was definitely a good deal of time that we all made sure to not ever be in the same place at the same time.  But I very strongly believe that there are some people in your life that you can simply not replace.  And it occurred to me one day that my life was richer with the two of them in it, and if I chose to continue to be hurt and angry and bitter, then I was the one losing out.  But I also was not able to come to that conclusion until I completely let go of him and chose to move on from the relationship.  I got to a point (I'm sure only by the grace of God) to be able to see it truly for what it was...I didn't put it on a pedestal and only remember the good times, but nor did I throw it in the gutter and disacknowledge that there were ever any positive moments...it was an incredibly intense and defining relationship that I can't regret because I wouldn't be me without it, but it was also unhealthy and not right and the only way for me to grow as a person was to be out of it.  I guess I'm lingering on this point because I think that that is maybe the problem.  When a relationship (whether it be romantic or a friendship or whatever) ends, people have a tendency to not be honest about what it was and hold onto some idea of what they think it was and then not ever actually let it go.  Literally almost every time that someone finds out that I'm friends with my ex, they tell me either that I'm crazy or "well you're a better person than I am, I could never do that".  But why not??  Obviously there are some relationships that the healthy progression of letting go and moving on means that they are no longer in your life.  But it's more the fact that it's almost socially unacceptable to stay friends with an ex...and god forbid that your significant other is still friends with their ex, hell-to-the-no!  Why can there not be a healthy level of trust and friendship that is a result of truly letting go.  (I'm not saying that a married person should go have one-on-one candlelit dinners with an ex...but seriously why is it so hard to believe that someone whom you once cared deeply for in one way, you can still care deeply for in a completely other way??)

Ok I know that now I'm just up on a soapbox and dually ranting about a legitimate societal frustration and also in reference to a personal situation that I'm choosing to not naming names about.  I guess all these thoughts that have been swirling around my head lately finally culminated today when, while cleaning and organizing I started reading an old journal, and came across something I'd written down that a former pastor said once....I think it sums up the point I've been trying to make, much much more concisely than all my rambling:

"There is a trick to the graceful exit.   It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over - and let it go.  It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives.  It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on, rather than out."
- Pastor Jim Hylton, 12/21/00

Story of my life

If you can't decide if you're dead or alive, you just need to feel that way once...

Some day I hope to be the Rebekah that could inspire something like this....

Bucket list item #493: To be a ninja dancer w/ a sword in flour

It's all about the picture

"In the early 1980′s I found myself among the people I most wanted to avoid, when I was younger. Despite my insistence that I wanted nothing to do with the corporate world, here I was right smack in the middle with the master’s of the universe, and to my surprise and amusement, I found I loved it.

Despite all the problems with my father and the years of escaping to the impoverished world he couldn’t understand or control, I found that I was able to stand beside these men (as at that time it was 90% men) and feel not only comfortable, but some part of me felt right at home.

I guess I understood them, wasn’t intimidated by them, and in fact found myself defending them against a society that both admired and loathed them. I found some loathsome, but many I found were valiant and distinguished. I guess in my fashion I tried to expose their nobility.

I had tried the same with people of no means, and now it was time to find the hidden goodness, or at least a part of these men the public face never showed.

This is another story without a picture. Not because I didn’t take one, I did, but I think it best for me, and for him, not to reveal his identity. In this case, I think it is best to protect the guilty.

This is a story about risk, GREAT RISK. I wasn’t putting myself in harm’s way (although in a way I was). It’s a story of what I find lacking in most people’s portraits. Not their ability, but their emotional courage.

With this introduction, I must digress for a second and explain my methodology and my tactics with dealing with these men.

The scenario goes something like this, their secretary, or marketing director, or creative director of the agency would advise me that I had 3o minutes to photograph a certain CEO.

I learned quickly to simply smile and off to the races I would go. I would try to set up a meeting with the CEO a week before the shoot. This sounds easy, but at times was next to impossible. Who was I, this insignificant, unimportant photographer wanting some precious time with the king? They’re protected or flanked in every direction by people whose job it is to protect these men from meddling people like myself.

After a while, I did get good at this and often found ingenious ways to circumvent these guards and found ways to meet with the man of the hour and convince him to forget the notion of a thirty minute picture and give me a day or two. I must admit almost 90% of the time it worked, and next week I will tell you more, but now I must tell you about a time it did not.

As you might expect, one of the times I was unable to plow through the linebackers and get to the CEO, was with a real master of the financial universe, a moneyman extraordinaire, a man whom a few million here or a few million there was decided like choosing between French toast or pancakes.

These were generally the people I liked the least. They made nothing but moved money around and used their brilliance to outwit the world and their competitors. In my mind, they generally did not add to the general good that drove American enterprise but there were exceptions to this and perhaps, in retrospect, this was just too simple a model either to believe or to be true.

So back to my story, despite all my protestations I never was able to meet this man prior to the shoot.

The morning of the shoot, he walked in and quickly announced to me, and the 20 to 30 underlings who also were in the room, in a gruff and emphatic voice, “Let’s get this over with as soon as possible.”

As usual everyone was very nervous. The agency representatives that hired me could lose the account and therefore their jobs. The marketing director could lose his job for hiring the agency that hired me, and so on. Everyone looked in control, but in fact everyone was totally out of control. What would happen next? All the underlings agreed inside, “Let’s get this over with as fast as possible, so he will be happy. And we can all go back to our bagels and make some more money.”

I said fine to him, directed him slightly and took one frame and announced, “Were done. It’s finished.” Everyone in the room froze with fear. He then said to me quizzically, with a smile on his face, “We’re finished?” He was surprised how easy it was to win the battle.

I said, “Yes. I have a competent picture of you. You get what you put into this. I am ready to invest my soul into this portrait of you, to work as hard as I can, are you? You have a picture that represents your commitment. It’s fine and should work well enough for your needs.”

Everyone was wide-awake now. Our man said this is great! We’re finished. Thank you. And off he went. Everyone left in the room didn’t know if they should celebrate and eat lunch for two or if they would be returning to eviction notices.

As I was packing up with my assistants and just about to go to the elevator to leave a secretary came running up to me and says our man of the second would like to see me in his office. I went to his office and he immediately started showing me pictures of his various homes. At first I had no idea what was going on. As we didn’t know each other well enough to vacation together, but in reality it turned out he was showing me places that he could spend time with me, and wanted to know where I would like to take his portrait.

So you see, the moral of this story is not about him or me; it’s about the picture. How important is it to you? How much are you willing to invest to fight for it, to protect it? And most of all, how much are you willing to risk?"

 - Rodney Smith (photographer extraordinaire)  

original blog post

Rodney Smith photos

Jar of Hearts

"You make my dopamine levels go all silly."

"I'm not telling you it's going to be easy,
I'm telling you it's going to be worth it."


- Anonymous

I wanna feel natural and safe in a volatile place

"I wanna fit in to the perfect space,
feel natural and safe in a volatile place.
And I wanna grow old without the pain,
give my body back to the earth and not complain.
Will you understand when I am too old of a man?
And will you forget when we have paid our debt
who did we borrow from? Who did we borrow from?


Okay part two, now clear the house.
The party's over, take the shouting and the people, 
get out!
I have some business and a promise that I have to hold to.
I do not care what you assume or what the people told you!


Will you understand, when I am too old of a man?
Will you forget, when we have paid our debts,
who did we borrow from? Who did we borrow from?


I wanna have pride like my mother has.
And not like the kind in the Bible that turns you bad.
And I wanna have friends that I can trust.
That love me for the man I've become not the man that I was."

Divine inspiration

"A good piece of art should inspire you to do it yourself."

- Stan Ridgeway

That's one of the things I love about good art....the feeling I get when I see something so amazing, so well done, so inspired, that I get this undeniable urge to attempt to create something even a fraction as good.  And it can come from unexpected sources...sometimes it's a song on the radio, sometimes it's watching a dance piece, sometimes it's a musician's live performance, sometimes it's an article in a magazine or a story in a book, sometimes it's a TV episode or a movie....but tonight it was church.  

I had the slightly unusual experience of having the majority of my technical dance training done through my church.  So the idea of associating creativity and inspiration and art with God was something that I simply took for granted.  (I'm not going to get into the whole thing about the difference between being a Christian artist, and being an artist who also happens to be a Christian...that's a whole other point and a whole other can of worms)  My point is that it's been a very, very long time (as in I don't actually remember the last time) since that feeling of inspiration and the drive to create that I get from good art, came from anything specifically related to anything spiritual.  But tonight during the worship after the message, I got completely lost in just hanging out with God.  And then at some point I got this antsy, almost hyper urge to create.....anything.  I wanted to dance, and draw, and write, and....I don't know, sculpt (though I've never sculpted in my life).  I even for a brief moment considered driving 40 minutes to the studio to go dance.  

I don't want to loose that feeling.  That creative drive, the ants-in-my-pants urge to make something amazing is what I need to motivate me.  I keep getting caught up in the logistics of trying to start a company.  I keep thinking, I need to lay out my 5 year plan and 10 year plan and look for sponsors and recruit dancers and get rehearsal space and and and....I mean, I do need to do all those things, but if I loose inspiration then there's no point to any of the logistics.

The dictionary definition of the the word "inspire" is:
to fill with an animating, quickening, or exalting influence; to produce or arouse; to fill or affect with a specified feeling; to influence or impel; to communicate or suggest by a divine or supernatural influence; to prompt or instigate; to give rise to, bring about, cause; to infuse or to breath life into.

For some reason I don't really feel as anxious about all the details as sometimes I think I should.  Maybe some part of me is more mature and trusting than I think....but I kind of feel like if I will be faithful to stay inspired, and continue to trust the place I'm in and the provision that has already happened, then the rest of everything will come.  And obviously I don't mean I think I should just spend all my time dancing around my apartment and sponsors will magically find me to give me money or anything like that...but I so have a tendency to get lost in the planning and the details, that what I need to do is remember and trust that what I'm called here to do is so bigger than me.  

Soooooo I think what I'm gonna do now is put on some good music, find my sketchbook, maybe make some hot chocolate, and create something.

Dancing about architecture

* Scroll down and click the play button before reading on *

I love it when something has the ability to stop me dead in my tracks...for just a moment, the rest of the world stops and all the clutter in my head quiets and I am overtaken.  It's an incredible feeling.  And one that I haven't had in a while.

A line from one of my all-time favorite movies (Playing By Heart in case you're curious) is "You can't talk about music.  Talking about music is like dancing about architecture."  Keeping that in mind, I'm going to give it a shot anyway....

Earlier I was in the car on my way home, listening to a playlist comprised of "I And Love And You" by the Avett Brothers, the self-title album by Mt. Desolation, and "In Rainbows" by Radiohead (these 3 albums work together surprisingly well...I just put it on shuffle and it's magic).  I had just pulled into my driveway and was distractedly gathering my things before turning the car off, when Thom Yorke's voice hit this one note and I froze.  My breath caught and I was completely transfixed.  I sat motionless as the note soared into vibrato before trailing off...then the drums came back in, along with my breathing, as my eyes filled with tears.  These are the moments that I live for.  These are the moments that I am just arrogant enough to hope to create for others.  This is why I believe in art....really good art....that can inspire and change people's lives....even if it's just for the length of one note.



* the moment I was referring to happens at 2:59 in case you're wondering *

It's not the chase that I love, it's me following you.

Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul

(totally never thought this song would work acoustic or as a solo - it's just so massive when it's done with everyone - but I have to say, Marcus rocked this to a whole new level.  I will never doubt him again)

Love and Monsters

"You know, when you're a kid, they tell you it's all grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid, and that's it.  
Ah, but the truth is, the world's so much stranger than that.
It's so much darker, so much madder.............
and so. much. better."

- Doctor Who, S02E11 "Love and Monsters"

You desired my attention but denied my affection....

This I Believe....

(stolen from Neil Gaiman...I'm telling you, I might be obsessed)


"I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.


I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marily Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed.  Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice one that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.


I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass.  I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.


I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative.  I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.


I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.


I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one armed Siberian shaman.


I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars.  I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.


I believe in a personal God who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do.  I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive.  I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.


I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly.  I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.


I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies.  I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.


I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."


- Neil Gaiman, from "American Gods"

The wisdom of Neil Gaiman

I've never read any of his books (not yet anyway, though there's a large number of them on my list), but he is the author of my current favorite quote (in fact favorite enough that it's been a fleeting thought to make it a next tattoo)....
"Sometimes you wake up.  Sometimes the fall kills you.  And sometimes, when you fall, you fly."

Just out of curiosity, I did a google search for "Neil Gaiman quotes"....and hit the jackpot.  So, so, so many lovely, lovely words, strung together in such funny, touching, beautiful, profound ways.  His books just jumped to the top of my To Read list.

In no certain order, here are some of my favorites.....

"Have you ever been in love?  Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable.  It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.  You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. they didn't ask for it.  They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore.  Love takes hostages.  It gets inside you.  It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart.  It hurts.  Not just in the imagination.  Not just in the mind.  It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain.  I hate love."
(from "The Kindly Ones")

"I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school.  They don't teach you how to love somebody.  They don't teach you how to be famous.  they don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor.  They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer.  They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind.  They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying.  They don't teach you anything worth knowing."
(from "The Kindly Ones")

"He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once."
(from "Neverwhere")

"When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn't make the darkness go away.  The bad things are still out there.  The nightmares still walking.  When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better.  'It's all right' we whisper, 'I'm here, I love you.' and we lie: 'I'll never leave you.'  For just a moment or two the darkness doesn't seem so bad."
(from "Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days")

"It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people."
(from "Good Omens")

"Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dream, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks.  Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas - abstract, invisible, gone once they've been spoken - and what could be more frail than that?  But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created."
(from "Fragile Things")

AND

"I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time."

Words vol. 1

I've been realizing lately how much words mean to me.  A few years ago my best friend described me as an "external processor".  And it was like a light bulb went off.  My whole life the only way for me to make a decision or work out a problem was to talk it out.  Sometimes even talking to the wall will do, but somehow getting it all out of my head and into the air is the only way for me to work.  When I was younger and working on some of my first freelance choreography gigs, I used to make my sister stay up (sometimes very late into the night) with me so I could talk through my ideas and show them to her as I went.  

But sometimes when I'm really emotional I have a hard time organizing my thoughts into words....actually, that's not entirely the case...it's more that I have a hard time getting them into any sort of coherent stream.  I end up reverting simply to individual words (i.e. Pain. Love. Anger. Frustration. Manipulation. Communication. Why?)  Either that or I use poem or music lyrics.  You know they say the way to know if you're in love is if all the love songs suddenly make sense...or if you're going through a breakup suddenly all the breakup songs were written about you.  Well for me it seems as though the music that I am drawn to in general can usually be turned to in various times of emotion (whether it be happy, sad, lonely, excited, etc) and used to speak for me.  If I look back throughout my years of blogging, it is evident how much this is the case.  The times that I was feeling the most are usually full of posts containing only strings of individual words or copy/pasted song lyrics.
I am most definitely my parents child....I have the overly-emotional side from my mom, and the overly-practical/logical one from my dad.  I think that even in the times I'm at my most melodramatic, my brain knows I'm not being completely rational or in control and so, when writing at those times, instead of putting exactly what I'm feeling into my own words (and possibly regretting them later when I'm a bit more objective), I instead turn to these safer, more vague ways of expression....individual words that could be interpreted various ways, or songs & poems that are someone else's.

It's also occurring to me at the very moment, that I really should write more often because it can sometimes serve as another form of external processing for my brain.  (in fact, that statement is the proof of itself)

I have other thoughts on my love affair with words....more later....

All exits look the same

I heard what you said.

"I heard what you said. 
I’m not the silly romantic you think. 
I don’t want the heavens or the shooting stars. 
I don’t want gemstones or gold. 
I have those things already. 
I want…a steady hand. 
A kind soul. 
I want to fall asleep, and wake, knowing my heart is safe. 
I want to love, and be loved." 


- Shane Abé

A fail to kiss is a fail to cope

Ok so not only is this video completely and incredibly awesome, the song is about the best thing I've found to describe what I've been feeling as of late....