Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Dreams, they slip through our fingers do they not? I wanted to be an actress, a writer, a journalist, a wife, a peace corps participant, a homeowner, a career woman.And yet, in time, those dreams vanish like mist and I find myself only wanting what I can have today: "I want waffles."
Where to find equilibrium? If dreams vanish like dust, shouldn't I take the opposite extreme, wanting nothing at all, so as not to feel disappointed?
Or is it good to dream? Without dreams, we may never have goals, seek accomplishment or feel any kind of gratification.
They say a part of growing up is "having your hopes dashed" and realizing your dreams may never come to fruition. Or maybe part of going through life is realizing that the dream you thought you had wasn't your dream at all. An easy thing to say in retrospect. But when you want the dream in the present, losing out to it in the present definitely sucks.
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that."
But how does one not dwell on dreams? Aren't our dreams what get us through the day? The little specks of light in what could otherwise seem meaningless?
A dream is a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep. In dreams you will lose your heartaches. Whatever you wish for, you keep.
But too often, I am slapped in the face with the reality: the unpleasant disconnect between what I yearn for, and the patterns that life consistently throw at me.
And then nihilism sets in and I let go completely. "If I can't have it, I don't want it...."
I see that both schools of thought lead to destruction. I therefore must reject both. And seek an answer that I'm not even sure I lack the cynicism to believe:
"Delight yourself also in the LORD; and he shall give you the desires of your heart."
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Some more random writings that don't turn into anything
As he reached the end of the sentence, the typewriter went “ding,” but the man didn’t hear it.
There was a girl down the hall who did hear the typewriter. She also heard the beautiful, un-earthly music emanating from the walls. It had begun quite suddenly that last Tuesday. Beautiful melodies vibrating through her, chains of score with no logical explanation. No one seemed to know where it was coming from either. That was the trouble with living in an apartment complex full of deaf mutes.
The man reset his typewriter. The knocking on the woman’s door grew louder.
“I’m coming!” the girl said, putting out her cigarette. Ironic, she thought, that her apartment complex be so full of noise. How then would she be able to file a complaint? She could already hear the pitiless landlord in her defensive voice, “No one else seems to mind the noise,” she would say, then smirk and be on her way with the checks. She was kind of a bitch that way.
It was the man down the hall. She knew him only as the one with a chin mole, because people around here didn’t have names.
“What is it?” the girl said. She didn’t have a problem with being rude because no one could hear the inflections in her voice. The man held out his hand, revealing a perfect, sunshine colored lemon.
The girl frowned slightly.
“I don’t suppose you understand that I’m completely alone here. I don’t have money, I don’t have friends, I don’t even have my sanity. I give up.”
The girl rummaged under her backpack, into the folder holding an article about the ways in which lemon juice could battle addiction. It was what mole man had given her a week ago. That is where she kept her pack.
“Here,” she said, opening the man’s fist and pushing the cigarettes into his paper Mache fingers, taking the lemon for herself. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where all that music is coming from? Unless I really am just going crazy. Then again, I’ve just asked a mute deaf man a question about music.”
The man turned around and gave her an empty smile. Then he was on his way.
The girl bitterly began tearing pieces of peel from the lemon. She would eat the lemon, she decided, the whole thing. But first, she would bite into it, sucking out all the juice, so that maybe her taste buds could feel as sour as she felt on the inside.
To her displeasure, it was delicious. She ate the whole thing, and then the music stopped.
“It sounded like a full orchestra and a woman’s voice,” the girl wrote in a journal, which she had dug out from under her laundry. It was bent in the middle and the ink had run in several spots throughout. But she could still see her name etched across the cover in golden letters: Persephone K. Potts.
“Full strings, definitely some trumpets, and an eerie voice that gets louder when the music gets softer. It sounds like she is calling for someone.”
A door down the hall slammed. That was the signal that meant skinny tall girl had returned home. Skinny tall girl weighed, in Persephone’s estimation, about 100 pounds, stood at least 5”11 in height, and was also very angry.
Persephone had gathered as much by watching skinny tall girl bash her head against walls, throw food out the window, and shout swear words at passer bys.
“Something about her parents not wanting her from an early age and then going deaf from the abuse of foster parents,” the landlord had explained nonchalantly. Of course the landlord had seen so many of these types pass through the walls that the stories of each tenant had all mixed into a giant grocery bag of memories labeled “Neglected freaks.” Persephone had almost started her own grocery bag with the same label, until she had realized that she was one of them.
SPLAT! Persephone looked out her window. A giant cantaloupe was flying through the air. Sometimes, especially on nights like tonight, she hoped for the food throwing, because it meant that some of the remains could be salvaged from the streets below.
There was a girl down the hall who did hear the typewriter. She also heard the beautiful, un-earthly music emanating from the walls. It had begun quite suddenly that last Tuesday. Beautiful melodies vibrating through her, chains of score with no logical explanation. No one seemed to know where it was coming from either. That was the trouble with living in an apartment complex full of deaf mutes.
The man reset his typewriter. The knocking on the woman’s door grew louder.
“I’m coming!” the girl said, putting out her cigarette. Ironic, she thought, that her apartment complex be so full of noise. How then would she be able to file a complaint? She could already hear the pitiless landlord in her defensive voice, “No one else seems to mind the noise,” she would say, then smirk and be on her way with the checks. She was kind of a bitch that way.
It was the man down the hall. She knew him only as the one with a chin mole, because people around here didn’t have names.
“What is it?” the girl said. She didn’t have a problem with being rude because no one could hear the inflections in her voice. The man held out his hand, revealing a perfect, sunshine colored lemon.
The girl frowned slightly.
“I don’t suppose you understand that I’m completely alone here. I don’t have money, I don’t have friends, I don’t even have my sanity. I give up.”
The girl rummaged under her backpack, into the folder holding an article about the ways in which lemon juice could battle addiction. It was what mole man had given her a week ago. That is where she kept her pack.
“Here,” she said, opening the man’s fist and pushing the cigarettes into his paper Mache fingers, taking the lemon for herself. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where all that music is coming from? Unless I really am just going crazy. Then again, I’ve just asked a mute deaf man a question about music.”
The man turned around and gave her an empty smile. Then he was on his way.
The girl bitterly began tearing pieces of peel from the lemon. She would eat the lemon, she decided, the whole thing. But first, she would bite into it, sucking out all the juice, so that maybe her taste buds could feel as sour as she felt on the inside.
To her displeasure, it was delicious. She ate the whole thing, and then the music stopped.
“It sounded like a full orchestra and a woman’s voice,” the girl wrote in a journal, which she had dug out from under her laundry. It was bent in the middle and the ink had run in several spots throughout. But she could still see her name etched across the cover in golden letters: Persephone K. Potts.
“Full strings, definitely some trumpets, and an eerie voice that gets louder when the music gets softer. It sounds like she is calling for someone.”
A door down the hall slammed. That was the signal that meant skinny tall girl had returned home. Skinny tall girl weighed, in Persephone’s estimation, about 100 pounds, stood at least 5”11 in height, and was also very angry.
Persephone had gathered as much by watching skinny tall girl bash her head against walls, throw food out the window, and shout swear words at passer bys.
“Something about her parents not wanting her from an early age and then going deaf from the abuse of foster parents,” the landlord had explained nonchalantly. Of course the landlord had seen so many of these types pass through the walls that the stories of each tenant had all mixed into a giant grocery bag of memories labeled “Neglected freaks.” Persephone had almost started her own grocery bag with the same label, until she had realized that she was one of them.
SPLAT! Persephone looked out her window. A giant cantaloupe was flying through the air. Sometimes, especially on nights like tonight, she hoped for the food throwing, because it meant that some of the remains could be salvaged from the streets below.
Monday, January 2, 2012
TWO blurbs
BLURB 1:
It happened a really long time ago. Someone spoke the forbidden word and the world has been doomed ever since. I don't know what the word is. Don't ask it of me because I don't know! Anyway, one guy did figure out the word and he said it over and over and over again because he hated the human race and he wanted to annihilate the whole thing. That was kind of stupid of him because he himself was human, and you would figure that any sane and decent human would not want to speak a word that would curse his own race--seeing as he as a human would have to put up with any curse inflicted upon himself.
But we all know that people are more liable to do something stupid than something clever--so the word was spoken and a lot of bad things began to happen. Buildings crashed, bombs were dropped, and families were torn apart. And all because of a silly word.
It just so happened that there was a word that could put everything right again and all anyone had to do was speak the word, but nobody seemed to want to do this either. In fact, the more and more the buildings fell, and the men murdered and the women left their children, the more people wanted to say the terrible word.
And then people started saying the word all over the place. The word itself became very common place. So common place, nobody even knew what the word meant anymore. The word was translated into every language and people stopped flinching at the mention of it. And soon, everyone forgot that the reason all the bad things were happening around them was because of a word and they started blaming the bad on other things like money and the solar system.
____________________________________________________________________________________
BLURB 2:
A woman was sitting by herself. Nobody could tell she was crying. This was because she sat alone. The amphitheatre where she sat had long been deserted, which meant that it made for a perfect place to go and cry by one’s self. The woman cried and cried because no one was there to stop her.
“Why are you crying?” said a man. The woman jumped at the sight of him.
“You scared me,” the woman said, looking up to see a man in a red petticoat. He looked to her like a ringmaster. She was smart enough to know that she was in a theatre, and not a circus tent, so she said:
“Are you an actor?”
“Oh,no. Are you?” the man replied with a smirk.
“Me?” the woman said. The thought of someone mistaking her for an actress was laughable, especially in her current conditions. Looking down at herself, she confirmed that she was indeed wearing the white linen dress that she had inherited from her godmother many years ago. It looked more like a potato sack than anything else.
“I am not,” the woman said.
“You sure are putting on a show,” said the man with a small smirk. He offered her a tissue.
“Oh, thank you,” she replied, blowing her nose. “I didn’t think anyone was in here. I certainly didn’t mean to interrupt you and your....thing” the woman stopped. Where had the man come in from? She had of course entered from the pit, a secret passage she had known about since childhood. But she had ceremoniously blocked off the opening. As far as she knew, all the other doors remained locked.
“I am a magician,” the man said, seeming to read her mind. “It is my job to appear out of nowhere.”
Before the woman could reply, the man had sat in the seat next to hers and taken her hand in his own. The woman drew in breath, realizing that it was ice cold. Looking into his eyes, the woman’s heart began to race. She knew this man from sometime very long ago.
“You are sad,” the magician said. It was not a question.
“I had been wishing, praying for it my entire life,” the woman said through choked breaths. “And now it is all ruined. Because it turns out, there was a mistake. And I have to give it back,”
“I helped you once,” said the magician. The woman’s heart raced faster. She was a little girl again, dancing circles around her father’s old friend. A man she knew to cast spells.
“I could say the words,” said the magician, “and no one would have to get hurt.”
“Would it hurt the baby?” the woman said, clutching at her stomach. Not even the bulkiness of the linen sack could disguise the bump where her stomach protruded.
“It would feel nothing,” the magician said. He released her hand. The woman didn’t speak, which seemed to mean an agreement had been made between the two of them.
“Aghata! Romancya! Eet beter vallence son agaust!” the magician cried.
The woman bent over crying.
“Stop it! STOP!”
It happened a really long time ago. Someone spoke the forbidden word and the world has been doomed ever since. I don't know what the word is. Don't ask it of me because I don't know! Anyway, one guy did figure out the word and he said it over and over and over again because he hated the human race and he wanted to annihilate the whole thing. That was kind of stupid of him because he himself was human, and you would figure that any sane and decent human would not want to speak a word that would curse his own race--seeing as he as a human would have to put up with any curse inflicted upon himself.
But we all know that people are more liable to do something stupid than something clever--so the word was spoken and a lot of bad things began to happen. Buildings crashed, bombs were dropped, and families were torn apart. And all because of a silly word.
It just so happened that there was a word that could put everything right again and all anyone had to do was speak the word, but nobody seemed to want to do this either. In fact, the more and more the buildings fell, and the men murdered and the women left their children, the more people wanted to say the terrible word.
And then people started saying the word all over the place. The word itself became very common place. So common place, nobody even knew what the word meant anymore. The word was translated into every language and people stopped flinching at the mention of it. And soon, everyone forgot that the reason all the bad things were happening around them was because of a word and they started blaming the bad on other things like money and the solar system.
____________________________________________________________________________________
BLURB 2:
A woman was sitting by herself. Nobody could tell she was crying. This was because she sat alone. The amphitheatre where she sat had long been deserted, which meant that it made for a perfect place to go and cry by one’s self. The woman cried and cried because no one was there to stop her.
“Why are you crying?” said a man. The woman jumped at the sight of him.
“You scared me,” the woman said, looking up to see a man in a red petticoat. He looked to her like a ringmaster. She was smart enough to know that she was in a theatre, and not a circus tent, so she said:
“Are you an actor?”
“Oh,no. Are you?” the man replied with a smirk.
“Me?” the woman said. The thought of someone mistaking her for an actress was laughable, especially in her current conditions. Looking down at herself, she confirmed that she was indeed wearing the white linen dress that she had inherited from her godmother many years ago. It looked more like a potato sack than anything else.
“I am not,” the woman said.
“You sure are putting on a show,” said the man with a small smirk. He offered her a tissue.
“Oh, thank you,” she replied, blowing her nose. “I didn’t think anyone was in here. I certainly didn’t mean to interrupt you and your....thing” the woman stopped. Where had the man come in from? She had of course entered from the pit, a secret passage she had known about since childhood. But she had ceremoniously blocked off the opening. As far as she knew, all the other doors remained locked.
“I am a magician,” the man said, seeming to read her mind. “It is my job to appear out of nowhere.”
Before the woman could reply, the man had sat in the seat next to hers and taken her hand in his own. The woman drew in breath, realizing that it was ice cold. Looking into his eyes, the woman’s heart began to race. She knew this man from sometime very long ago.
“You are sad,” the magician said. It was not a question.
“I had been wishing, praying for it my entire life,” the woman said through choked breaths. “And now it is all ruined. Because it turns out, there was a mistake. And I have to give it back,”
“I helped you once,” said the magician. The woman’s heart raced faster. She was a little girl again, dancing circles around her father’s old friend. A man she knew to cast spells.
“I could say the words,” said the magician, “and no one would have to get hurt.”
“Would it hurt the baby?” the woman said, clutching at her stomach. Not even the bulkiness of the linen sack could disguise the bump where her stomach protruded.
“It would feel nothing,” the magician said. He released her hand. The woman didn’t speak, which seemed to mean an agreement had been made between the two of them.
“Aghata! Romancya! Eet beter vallence son agaust!” the magician cried.
The woman bent over crying.
“Stop it! STOP!”
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Rollercoasters
When studying fiction, characters are revealed by a number of factors:
+Symbols
+actions
+What the character says about himself
+What other characters say about him
I am not alone in the quest of "finding myself." I believe it is something that we all have to do at one point or another. Me being a literary person, I often soul search by using these literary tools.
I believe my symbol is the rollercoaster. When I was young, I loved going to amusement parks (btw: I still love going to amusement parks.) I enjoy the most thrilling rides. The ones with the loop-de-loops, the towers that drop from hundreds of feet, the ones that flip you upside down and run backwards. The ones where you are on such a steep drop, you can't see what's waiting for you when they pull the lever. In other words: Anything scary and thrilling. The ones where you must face the "unknown." Tellingly, the "safe" rides make me sick. Don't put me on the swings, or the teacups....I will likely throw up.
In decoding the puzzle that is "self" I can't help but parallel this need for thrilling rides with need for a thrilling life. I need to know that I will be inched up at a slow and steady pace, before getting a bird's eye view of what's below me, and then dropped with sudden speed, without notice. I need to be sent through loop-de-loops, places where I don't know what is up from down. I need to be at the top of a U shaped drop, sitting on a mat, not knowing what I'm in for because I can't see what's ahead for me.
Of course eventually, I will get off the ride complete with exhilaration. Did I mention that I go to amusement parks with my best friends? Because when I get off, we laugh until our stomachs hurt. Because we know we just had the time of our lives.
I'm going to California at the end of January. I can't wait.
+Symbols
+actions
+What the character says about himself
+What other characters say about him
I am not alone in the quest of "finding myself." I believe it is something that we all have to do at one point or another. Me being a literary person, I often soul search by using these literary tools.
I believe my symbol is the rollercoaster. When I was young, I loved going to amusement parks (btw: I still love going to amusement parks.) I enjoy the most thrilling rides. The ones with the loop-de-loops, the towers that drop from hundreds of feet, the ones that flip you upside down and run backwards. The ones where you are on such a steep drop, you can't see what's waiting for you when they pull the lever. In other words: Anything scary and thrilling. The ones where you must face the "unknown." Tellingly, the "safe" rides make me sick. Don't put me on the swings, or the teacups....I will likely throw up.
In decoding the puzzle that is "self" I can't help but parallel this need for thrilling rides with need for a thrilling life. I need to know that I will be inched up at a slow and steady pace, before getting a bird's eye view of what's below me, and then dropped with sudden speed, without notice. I need to be sent through loop-de-loops, places where I don't know what is up from down. I need to be at the top of a U shaped drop, sitting on a mat, not knowing what I'm in for because I can't see what's ahead for me.
Of course eventually, I will get off the ride complete with exhilaration. Did I mention that I go to amusement parks with my best friends? Because when I get off, we laugh until our stomachs hurt. Because we know we just had the time of our lives.
I'm going to California at the end of January. I can't wait.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Bucket List
Travel is wonderful. I wish I could spend all my time travelling. It isn't even necessarily the destination that concerns me, it is simply the act. I love going to new places and trying to figure out how things/people work in strange and foreign environments. There are so many new things to learn when you travel. So many things to see, hear, witness. I love going from place to place, never having a home. Simply acting as a loan wanderer on the next adventure to who knows what.
I suppose travel satisfies some need in me to feel new. New places, people, things. Change. It is my greatest friend, but unfortunately, a friend that I don't see often enough...
Things on the bucket list that I have done
+Go skydiving
+Run a 5K
+Act in a play as someone truly inspirational (For me, this was Millie in Picnic)
+Work at a theatre (I will count both Vintage and Arvada Center in this list)
+Write something wonderful
Things yet to do
+Write a full-length something (play, book, ect...)
+Travel to distant lands and take loads of pictures and meet lots of people
+Help places and people in need with hands-on work
+Find a place to call home
+Marry a man who loves God
+Become financially stable and independent
+Have a good job
That's all I can think of for now...
I suppose travel satisfies some need in me to feel new. New places, people, things. Change. It is my greatest friend, but unfortunately, a friend that I don't see often enough...
Things on the bucket list that I have done
+Go skydiving
+Run a 5K
+Act in a play as someone truly inspirational (For me, this was Millie in Picnic)
+Work at a theatre (I will count both Vintage and Arvada Center in this list)
+Write something wonderful
Things yet to do
+Write a full-length something (play, book, ect...)
+Travel to distant lands and take loads of pictures and meet lots of people
+Help places and people in need with hands-on work
+Find a place to call home
+Marry a man who loves God
+Become financially stable and independent
+Have a good job
That's all I can think of for now...
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Reasons why I am crazy PART UNO
A writer writes what he knows. This is what I know: I am absolutely crazy, which is probably the reason my life parallels some sort of absurdist play. Thus I bring to you Reasons why I am crazy PART UNO:
1. About two weeks ago, I came home from a long day of work and utterly convinced myself that I was going to die from skin cancer in the immediate future. I googled stage four melanoma. I sat examining my body for oddly shaped moles. I lay in bed tossing and turning over the list of all the times I had ever been sunburned. WHY did I let myself get so tan in Mexico, I demanded of myself. Why did I not bathe in SPF 50 daily? Why had I let myself become so susceptible to such a grotesque and ugly disease? Whether my worry was unfounded or not has no matter. I do have rather fair skin and melanoma is one of the most common cancers among adults. What is crazy is that I woke up the next morning completely unconcerned about the matter and went about my day.
2. I am completely unsatisfied with everything that I do. If I am working, I wish I had a day off. When I have a day off, I think my time would better be spent working. If I'm with friends, I wish I were alone. When I'm alone, I wonder why I don't go out more. You can see what a dangerous and difficult cycle this is. Thus, the absurdity.
3. When I am particularly annoyed with the way my life is going, I always imagine that I am going to move to some exotic and exciting place within the year. Or that I'll invent something. Or that I'll finally finish that novel. Or that I'll fall in love one day, and none of this will even matter then.
4. Speaking of over active imaginations, here's another story. My freshman year of college, I had to perform a monologue as a final assignment that determined whether I would be allowed back to the acting program for another semester. I rehearsed the crap out of that thing, wondering if my inflictions were right, making sure I wouldn't trip in my heels as I walked into the room, mulling over the monologue selection itself. Then I thought, what if, while I'm performing my monologue, someone shoots a gun at the window? Should I just go on with my monologue? Should I duck? Or run from the room? What if I hit the floor and land on a piece of glass? Would they make me do my monologue again? "Calm down, Anna," I had to assure myself. Nobody is going to shoot a gun through the window. And if they do, just act like how a normal person would act if a gun were being shot at them....
Thus concludes Reasons why I am crazy Part UNO. Look out for Part II.
1. About two weeks ago, I came home from a long day of work and utterly convinced myself that I was going to die from skin cancer in the immediate future. I googled stage four melanoma. I sat examining my body for oddly shaped moles. I lay in bed tossing and turning over the list of all the times I had ever been sunburned. WHY did I let myself get so tan in Mexico, I demanded of myself. Why did I not bathe in SPF 50 daily? Why had I let myself become so susceptible to such a grotesque and ugly disease? Whether my worry was unfounded or not has no matter. I do have rather fair skin and melanoma is one of the most common cancers among adults. What is crazy is that I woke up the next morning completely unconcerned about the matter and went about my day.
2. I am completely unsatisfied with everything that I do. If I am working, I wish I had a day off. When I have a day off, I think my time would better be spent working. If I'm with friends, I wish I were alone. When I'm alone, I wonder why I don't go out more. You can see what a dangerous and difficult cycle this is. Thus, the absurdity.
3. When I am particularly annoyed with the way my life is going, I always imagine that I am going to move to some exotic and exciting place within the year. Or that I'll invent something. Or that I'll finally finish that novel. Or that I'll fall in love one day, and none of this will even matter then.
4. Speaking of over active imaginations, here's another story. My freshman year of college, I had to perform a monologue as a final assignment that determined whether I would be allowed back to the acting program for another semester. I rehearsed the crap out of that thing, wondering if my inflictions were right, making sure I wouldn't trip in my heels as I walked into the room, mulling over the monologue selection itself. Then I thought, what if, while I'm performing my monologue, someone shoots a gun at the window? Should I just go on with my monologue? Should I duck? Or run from the room? What if I hit the floor and land on a piece of glass? Would they make me do my monologue again? "Calm down, Anna," I had to assure myself. Nobody is going to shoot a gun through the window. And if they do, just act like how a normal person would act if a gun were being shot at them....
Thus concludes Reasons why I am crazy Part UNO. Look out for Part II.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Fast Food Nation
It is true that our country has an obesity problem and everybody seems to have a quick solution. Diet pills, tummy wrapping, liposuction. But perhaps our problems go alot deeper than food. How can they not, when our lives have become like fast food.
Never talk to someone longer than it takes than to figure out what they want. Give the customer what they want, whatever they want. Give them a product that looks great on the outside, but contains no real substance when you really get inside of it. Get in. Get out.
Is this not how we sometimes treat our relationships? Our money? Our religions? Our selves? Life is not a burger joint. If you really want to get to the heart of the problem, you have to be willing to cut out the fat.
Never talk to someone longer than it takes than to figure out what they want. Give the customer what they want, whatever they want. Give them a product that looks great on the outside, but contains no real substance when you really get inside of it. Get in. Get out.
Is this not how we sometimes treat our relationships? Our money? Our religions? Our selves? Life is not a burger joint. If you really want to get to the heart of the problem, you have to be willing to cut out the fat.
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