Spiders and I need to reach an understanding

I hate them. They should fear me. We're good. Except, I'm a total pussy. I scurried from the bathroom to go find the vacuum at midnight thirty so I could destroy a daddy long legs. Why? Because I can't actually bring myself to A: get that close enough to one and B: I can't kill something bigger than a quarter (this guy was a really long legged daddy long legs) without feeling somewhat guilty.

The kid is safe despite my threats.

I don't get it though-I have this like sixth sense about bugs and spiders in general. I can be minding my own business and all of a sudden I look up without any reason and there's a spider no one else can even spot immediately crawling on the ceiling.

It happens all. the. time.

I have only one solution: I'm turning into Spiderwoman.

Or I'm a paranoid.

I'll let the readers decide. Either way...no more stupid bugs for one day. Spent the day cleaning out and destroying Spider Valhalla in the garage (well...more like watching the woman of the house do the destroying while I stood just outside putting together moving boxes with my hood over my head in the heat to avoid getting grossness in my hair and whatever....trying to look busy and not freaked out and utterly disgusted.) and packing and repacking things into new boxes for the upcoming move.

And then, the ultimate reward...we drove to Oldenburg (just imagine two dots above the O and U respectively) and spent the entire day at the sauna. These God blessed, heaven sent little creations where you get to run around sans clothing in an entirely chill environment enjoying various scented baths, swimming pools etc. Not that people don't know what a sauna is but it's just cool. It's like a spa but affordable. And I have to get up, get dressed and play with the kids once every few hours. It was good stuff.

We spent the whole day there like I said...I collected the kid from the play area, brought him up to the main sauna area, he ate some ice cream, the parents and I drank a beer, hung out and then went back out for more punishment hehe.

Das kind was a bit hyper...ok a lot hyper...even a solid thwack on the head (not induced by me sadly) couldn't shut him up or get him to listen. One of these days I'll accidentally shove him front of something big and let him get the idea the hard (er) way. He's already been sentenced to do the dishes until February after every meal for smarting off...I'll start pulling computer time next.

Aren't I just a big ol' smelly foot. I ruin all the fun. Heh.

He's on this kick recently where he's decided he is God and is therefore the best and most clever at everything. Sort of makes me wonder why he's the one who ends up on his butt every time we play what he calls "karate". Hm. Perhaps the Master is letting his humble student (apparently me) win because I'm a girl. That's his reasoning.

I think it's because he's a good for nothing 11 year old ragamuffin hehe. I mean that nicely, he's a sweet kid. Sort of a stinker but whatever. He's 11. (c:

Nothing rocketing or particularly esoteric or philosophic or intelligent for this evening...I'm tired. (C: Lots of sun and playing and moving and yeah...good things today.

Met a guy who speaks 10 languages. Totally awesome. I'm aiming for 5 at the moment. I have about 1 and a half if you count English but whatever...I'm getting there. It looks like I'll be getting signed up for German lessons and French lessons in Stuttgart because I really want to learn and it's sort of required for that day whenever I decide if I'm going to pursue my art history degree.

Ooo...got some good news today too-there is a lady down in Weston, MO who wanted my jewelry in her store...my friend and business partner in crime brought it all down and she loved it. I guess there were some people looking things over before my friend even left. This could be good.

Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do about getting more merchandise to my friend in the States by the 1st of August hehe...that might be a bit of a problem. We'll see what happens.

I found some cool bead stores online in Germany that have good shipping prices and the such for inter-country stuffs so that could end up saving me some money. Also, one of them is in a port town so their prices are low. This is a good thing. :D

Off to do some searching and sleeping.

Riding the coattails and Standing on the shoulders as it were

Ok, so here's another random posting about something that Ello wrote about on her blog...it got me thinking. I seem to need other people for that now...and it's helpful that I stumbled across a group of inspiring people.

So-on to the musings-

Her post is discussing the different associations and conclusions people have or come to while reading different stories. This is something that has always interested me as well...I had a teacher tell me once that part of the attraction of specific genres is that the reader knows, sort of, what they're going to get. Which sounds obvious, however, it's also a good point. There's a certain level of expectation that happens within each genre. This is more true with genres than with writers I think...in the sense that a writer can change their voice and tone and style to suit each genre (some better than others) so that each book in each genre delivers something appropriate as it were. When I run out to buy a new book I tend to look at them like I do clothes or accessories sometimes-much in the way I wake up each morning and decide what style I'm in the mood for, I also have to decide what style of book I'm interested in reading. What feels right?

Now then-my question is, are we drawn to different books because they remind of us of such and such story or movie or whatever, is it because of the feeling we get when we read a certain type of story (are these the same thing just in different forms?)

There's a lot of answers and probably the answer is "yes to all" but how much control does the author have over the trains of thought the reader boards while reading his or her book? How many times have authors or authors-to-be shied away from writing a certain book or using certain scenes, characterizations, options, conflict resolution etc. because it reminded them too much of so and so or they felt that it had already been done.

The thing that I find so interesting, personally, is how many times I've done this. We all have an inner quest to be original. creative. snowflakes. However, when you look at things and at people's lives, I find quite often that I am not, despite the beliefs we held when we were younger, the only one to have gone through various conflicts (having to go to bed early, getting our hearts broken, all that good mushy hallmark stuff and others).

These things are cliche because they've happened over and over again. So what's to say that an author can't "copy" an idea...how much of this is ok? How much should be changed about a story or conflict or the approach to a conflict to make it more original, personal, more specific to that author's sensitivities.

I have a huge hang-up with my writing because of these questions. I find myself saying...literally all the time...oh so and and so already wrote something like that so I can't do it. And then other half of my brain goes "ok, but lots of people have had problems with their fathers or their mothers or have lost a love or have pined away secretly for years and been driving mad or...or...or..." so I argue with myself. A lot. Can I, Should I...I am consistently stuck between trying to reinvent the wheel and wade through all the damn wheels I already have lying around for my use.

"Beyond the Seven Seas' is idling right now because of this debate. I have the "easy" and "logical" choice that may be appropriate for the genre that I'm writing but I am refusing to use it because I feel like it's been done so many times and in so many different ways that I feel like a hack. Granted, it would probably put forward motion back into my vocabulary and let the story continue but I think that it would only do so because at that point I'd just be following in too many footsteps. Ok, so some of that is fine, I don't really believe that anyone can write a fantasy fiction novel without having some throw back to Tolkien or McCaffery or any of those.

And then there's the whole idea of influence. Of course (warning, blanket statement) people who have only read a certain type of book will most likely turn around and write that sort of book...it goes along with the idea of writing the type of book you would like to read I think (thanks again Tim)--which is really good advice and also really difficult for me. I want to write the kind of book I like to read but I want to make it original enough that I don't feel like a copy cat.

My influences are all over though-at times it's great because I feel like I have a decent sized bucket-o-junk or just-add-water options floating around in my head that I've snatched from the various science fiction, "modern literature" (I can't think of the actual genre heading at the moment so that will have to do), humor, fantasy and non-fiction historical that I've read....my instinct is to smash them together. Ok, so that's what I'm aiming to do with Beyond the Seven Seas because I believe that in a lot of ways that's how life works. We all have elements of magic and drama and humor and the such in our lives...and these experiences and examples are ours for the taking and so what if so and so got there first? Isn't there enough to go around?

And yet. And yet.

I sit here and I wonder what other angle, what new perspective, what different idea can I take that will make my idea (which seems to change by the minute) and my vision really come to life?

I knew going into this book that I was going to have problems because Neil Gaiman had, in essence, beaten me to the punch. Ok, so I'm not Neil Gaiman...I'm not trying to be-I also feel that he hasn't said everything that can be said about this specific type of writing but at the same time I'm not sure what it is I'm trying to say.

Someone please tell me...what is my point? hehe.

So far I've deduced that I want to write a book that I would like to read that gives me the feeling I get when I hear "Dante's Prayer" by Loreena McKennitt that evokes images and ideas of the magic in life that happens when we aren't really looking or expecting it, that ties us to a sense of our history and a sense of our Jungian group story, that pays homage to the idea of Myth and Mythology because those are our roots as storytellers I think and that touches people and that pushes their ideas about the way they interact with others. And that celebrates being an artist because those are the kind of characters I like to read. Maybe because I am striving to be like them.

I read books because I want to emulate all those wonderfully sensuous, meaty, creative, damn funny, cheeky characters I meet.

I write because I have this noise in my brain that needs an outlet and sometimes, verbal thinker or not, I need to give it form that I can see and revisit and god knows, edit.

So....where does this leave me.

Darkness

Is avoiding Germany. It's 10:30pm and it's not dark out yet. That is so not fair. I kicked the kid out to "go to bed" 'cause I had been hangin' out with him since 9am pretty much non-stop except when he made himself sparse while his mom and i were packing boxes...but yeah...now i wanna go outside and play. Stuttgart. Stuttgart. Must. Get. To. Stuttgart. There's actually things to do there. (c:

So here's something that's plagued me for years. Seriously. I have a strong aversion to old people. And I mean that in a few different ways. Mainly, people who have a mindset that for whatever reason, life is broken into segments-childhood, the good years and the dreaded rest.

Now then, keep in mind, this is in no direct reference to any of the people who read or who are part of this blogging community because you are all examples of really cool people who seem excited that tomorrow is another day, not concerned. (c:

That being said-people of all real ages can be old. You'll recognize it by the "well, when I was young I used to blah blah blah." Why'd they stop? Sometimes there are legit reasons but even things like injuries or a stressful job or whatever can be rehabilitated, worked around, changed, incorporated, something. Just because we hit a certain age doesn't mean we have to suddenly forget all the things that we were doing when we were X years old.

I remember a few months before I left for Europe Part 1 I thought I had really lost my wits...I couldn't think straight. At all. Short term memory was gone almost entirely, to the point where it was embarrassing. I couldn't remember what I was doing, why I was doing it, who I had talked to recently, you name it. I was living in a whole 'nother world. The worst part, I didn't know why. I had no idea if it was stress, hormones, whatever. For all I knew I had literally gone nuts. My cerebral cortex took a nap. And, I was all emotion. Think Phinaes Gage except I was missing the railroad tie. So I did what any normal human would do...I sucked it up, went to a doctor and told them what my problems were. I thought it was my thyroid or a severe hormonal imbalance due to something else or whatever...the doctor, a man of about 45, said to me "well, you are getting older..." Older? That's the reason my brain went to shit? because I turned 25? You've got to be kidding me....I can't imagine what he would tell a man who came in in his 50's or 60's complaining of a sore knee. Well, you know, you are going to die soon....heh.

I'm digressing a bit, but it remains that people have a preconceived notion of what is "supposed" to happen or not happen when they/others reach a certain age. I get that we aren't all Duracell Bunnies designed to live forever in perfect health. Fine. But there's certainly no reason that I can see to become so fixated on the idea of a number or whatever that we change our lives and our thinking.

Back to my digression-I decided after this laughable answer to go to a Neuro-Psych. Not cheap, them guys. But, I went, the day before I was scheduled to get on a plane and leave, to figure out if I was crazy or not. We talked. We did memory tests. I aced them. He told me to get on a plane and have a good time and not worry about it. I did. I still can't explain why what happened, happened, nor can I say that I feel like nothing ever happened at all...but I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with me being "older".

Maybe my intense relationship with all the ups and downs and whatevers coming to an end, maybe the weight of what I was anticipating to be one of the biggest choices I could make was stressing me out, maybe it was all the things going on rolled into one. It certainly wasn't worn out synapses and dendrites ready to shuffle off to buffalo.

And back to the point: I think the thing I get the most sick of hearing about is when people start griping about all the things they wished they'd learned when they were young. Well, what are you doing tomorrow? There's a junior college right down the street. I hear they have things called classes there. Or, better yet, if you're in KC (and probably elsewhere, i'm sort of ignorant sometimes), there's a thing called Communiversity, geared towards people who aren't probably going to quit everything for a second degree but would like to learn more or something new. Instead, people loaf around not learning anything-or worse, not reinforcing what they do know, and what happens? Their brains and their bodies tend to atrophy. I think I get especially pissed when I tell people that I'm learning other languages and they say "oh, well, it's too late for that. Study says you should do it between..." blah blah blah. Pardon me while my eardrums start to bleed.

You either want to learn or you don't. I argue that aside from some of the tonal languages because of the actual physiological and neurological things that have to happen from the beginning, any adult can re-route their thinking to that of when they were little to learn a language. Take away the pressures of day to day life, add complete and total patience of others to repeat and repeat and point and repeat and slow things down and associate action and pictures and objects with words over and over again like they did when we were little, and any adult can learn just as fast , as well and as thoroughly as any 3 year old.

I concede that I'm coming at this whole tirade from some very specific and privileged perches:

1. I'm 25. I'm sure everyone who's ever suffered later on thought life was ripe and for the picking when they were my age too

2. I have parents who are older than most-like my parents are basically the age of some people's grandparents, and or roughly the same age as people 20 years older than me-so this changes my perspective on what people can or cannot accomplish. My mom is amazing. I'm not disclosing ages but people think that she's a good 20 years younger than she is based on how she dresses, looks, acts, her interests, etc.

3. My grandmother on my mom's side turned 100 in January. Up until about...6 or 7 months ago, she lived by herself. In her own home. Taking care of herself. She's still going strong but she had some complications with glaucoma and the such that put a kink in the ways she does things. This is a woman who has not only had but recovered successfully from two falls-the kind that would kill most others. And she's funny. And lucid. And opinionated. I know where I get it from I guess.

I argue that all of these are due in part to good genes, ok fine, but also to the fact that most everyone in my life that others consider "old" are passionate about something. With my mom, it varies. With my grandma, it's religion. Whatever it takes to keep you interested, invested and active. I don't care. I'll put up with dogmas and getting huge envelopes stuffed with Good Housekeeping articles about gardening, eating natural and sun protection (thanks mom) if I have to if it means that the people in my life, who have shaped my life, continue to act in a way that keeps them plugged in.

I dunno, I just hope with everything that I am and with the motto of "actions must match intentions" that I can keep myself far away from the hypocritical side of this argument and look back when I'm however old and be truly confident that I did, learned, pushed and cared about everything and anything.

In Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood writes a character named Crake. Without busting any plot bubbles, there's one idea I think sums my opinions up beautifully. He turns to Jimmy and says "immortality is just the unawareness of the end of life." Or something akin to that...

What with all my wizened years, exact quotes tend to escape me. Or I read too much.

I wasn't kidding.

So unnecessary yet so funny.

I'd say...8 years old. The copyright lies.

Can I marry that Rives guy? He's awesome. :D

Great videos!

Speaking of 4 in the morning...it's creeping up on that here and since I slept 'til 11am and made poor Alex think I was dead or something, I should probably go to sleep.

I figured it would make a good post...

Ok, so this was sparked by my apparent need to ramble about this topic given the length of my comment on Lisa's blog. Ahem.

For those who haven't been there yet, you should read her post about poetry. And then come back and read mine.

I have issues. I'm picky. I'm opinionated. I am not comfortable with the general populace's idea of "creativity" nor am I comfortable with my own.

I have an excessive amount of sarcasm and cynicism coupled with a ridiculously loud inner child.

I hate people who claim to be "artists" and then make junk. I repeat: I'm opinionated. I'm not defining junk by your level of skill. Technique does not alone make one an artist. I know some really technically sound people who make junk art.

I'm also not talking about that wishy washy bullshit that the people I can't stand call "meaning". Art either reaches people or it doesn't. Images, words, all those things have a way to impact people. Technique is one of them, granted but I will argue until I die that even the crudest, most simplistic technique can have just as much impact on someone as anything done by the great artists of our time and before.

I have a friend who is an amazing photographer. This person has done some really great stuff. Problem is, this same person gets "talky" when they get going about their art. They are really intelligent and they are really good at talking about their work...to the point that they take any of the spirit the work possessed and kill it with a barage of nonsense and "art speak". It's sad. What's even sadder is that other people lap it up like it was milk dribbled from a golden breast. A lot of head nodding, mm-hmming and all that other stuff. Makes me wonder what they're really thinking.

Maybe I sound jealous. Or self-conscious. I might be. Probably. But really...at what point does it go from being a thoughtful explanation about what you were really thinking or feeling or wanting to express to filling the space to distract from the fact that maybe the piece just didn't manage to say what you thought it would so you feel like you have to say it yourself?

If anyone else managed to follow that overly complicated thought pattern, please, let me know. We'll have coffee.

I think the problem I have with most artists or poets or with myself is that crossing of the line from sincerity to bullshit. I hate it when people glamorize anything to the point that it just becomes another trinket to throw on the meaningless propaganda pile.

Poetry can be amazing. It can also suck. A lot. The same is true for art in general.

My greatest fear as a person who happens to accidentally be creative from time to time..I don't want to be one of those "fake artists" who end up doing all the talking for their work when it should be doing the talking for themselves. I think there's a level of spiritual comfort, trust, love, etc. that has to happen before the art we create can start talking for itself. I know that a lot of the time all the talking the artist does is a way to get there...I respect that. Just don't insult my intelligence or my ability to detect bullshit.

There are people out there who criticize abstract artists and classicists alike. I'm not talking about a specific genre here really...anything can be intellectualized to death.

I think it boils down to intention. Whether that's a known intention or not, if a person is capable of sitting down and capturing whatever it is they're doing with a pure enough intention, a sort of "art for art's sake" (blanking on the terminology for that thinking) but without all the hype, then the art will do what it's supposed to do. Communicate. Which, in my opinion, is a natural and completely unavoidable by-product of creating. Sorry to all you people out there who really wish you could make art about "not saying anything at all" That's actually saying something. I'm looking at it, I'm a conscious (most times...depends on how much free wine you've offered at your opening) viewer thinking about what I'm looking at and that, to me, is the basis for communication. Whether it goes any further than that, is irrelevant.

I've been guilty of being a over talky artist. I've "given" worth and merit to a piece that sucked and was laying quiet as a dead church mouse on the canvas because I was too afraid to admit that what I'd made was, well, a good effort and a valiant try and all those self-affirming things, but that really it just didn't work. My heart wasn't in it, my intention was to get attention instead of just make what I was feeling, something went wrong.

It's ok. It happens. I am blessed and honored to know some truly creative and artistic people. What I find interesting is that most of them, when asked about what they do or why or how, can give the basic answers but that's it. Their work really does speak for itself. It's an amazing thing.

Tim has a quote in his resource for writers that I'm going to (hopefully somewhat accurately) quote here: "Don't let the writing get in the way of the storytelling. It's just the method you're choosing to use to convey your story." I feel the same way about art.

Don't let your (insert media here) get in the way of what you're actually doing. It's just the method. Not the thing itself.

Arthur Dove has one of my favorite quotes "We cannot truly express the light in nature because we have not the sun. We can only express the light we have in ourselves."

Phew.

Ok. That's over with. Please, disagree with me. :D

3....2.....1...

Ok, so I just woke up from one of those naps that feel like you might as well have been asleep for weeks...serious stuff. (c:

heh...so everything I own smells like Herbal Essences. This isn't usually a bad thing, except that it's not mine. Turns out someone's stuff emptied near or onto my bag and the straps on my backpack and outside pockets smell really, really, intensely like shampoo now.

I'll have to avoid rainstorms.

So-dunno why but it struck my fancy to post one of my photos from switzerland on here....I put the rest onto www.flickr.com/photos/rissifish so if any of ya'll are interested, you can go check out the stuff there. One day, I will eventually get a full fledged account and you can look at all my random stuff instead of just the first 200.

So...enjoy.

I think I might die.

Seriously.

So. Fucking. Tired.

I left my house at 7am on the 14th. I sat in Cincinnati until 7:50pm...got on an 8 hour flight. Didn't really sleep though should have since I had the damn row to myself. And my headphones were broken so I only got to hear half the movie. Whine.

Arrived in London at 8am. Sat around going through customs until 9am. Got interogated by the daft lady at the counter..~if you don't have a return ticket, how can you tell me you're leaving in September?~ Because I can lady. Leave me the hell alone. She finally gave up and let me through. Augh.

Hung about London for the day, made it to my hotel which was awesome...was going to go to bed early...people were talking and laughing downstairs. It happens. They stopped...I still couldn't sleep. I had crossed into the "I might die zone" of being too tired to sleep.

Went to sleep at 10:30pm. Woke up to my phone ringing really loudly at 2:30am. Went back to sleep. Got up at 4:45am.

I am now sitting in the airport feeling like I'm about to fall over or pass out or throw up, I'm not sure which.

And I figured I would share because whining always makes things better. Heh. I know, it'll pass. I am just going to have to tell Alex and Carola that unless they want to deal with me literally hitting the deck, they'd better let me go to sleep when I get to the house for at least a few hours. Cause really. I can't function like this.

Ok...going to go drink my wimpy ass cappuccino and contemplate crying. (c:

Otherwise, first half of the journey has been great. More on the cutest little B and B in England when we return from these messages. Or I've slept. One or the other.

The Things I Do.

I have spent more time in this airport at the moment than I did working the entirety of last week.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I'm in Cincinnattucky...the blip on the map that is Cincinatti/Northern Kentucky Airport. I will be here until 7:50pm their time.

That's a strange phrase if you think about it...their time. Our time. We humans sure do like to claim things. I'm going to invent my own time zone to live in. One where layovers are never 8 hours long (though I did it to myself this time) and I can be in two places at the same "time".

So had a great day on Friday. I went down to the First Friday's in Downtown, did a little pimping of my artwork and had some success. It was good stuff. Really good stuff. I spent yesterday running around with friends in a sort of final hurrah before I leave for the wild blue until September. I don't know if I'm excited about going back or happy or what.

I'm sort of in the middle. Lots of opportunities in lots of different places.

I reserved a booth at the River Market Arts Festival too this weekend...it's in September and I"m planning on being back in town for it so that should be good. Hopefully that works out well in the end. I'd like to have some new pieces to show off but we'll see, it will depend on when I return and what I get done in Europe and how transportable it is.

I rocked the packing yesterday. Got everything washed, packed and stored (the stuff I wasn't taking) in record time. I could now effectively escape in the middle of the night if I ever had to hehe. Travelling is good practice for stuff like that. :D

So now that I'm going to be going back to Germany, I am planning on sitting down a writing more of the Dicken's Challenge stuff. I know...I know...I could buy lunch if I had a dollar for every time I've said that, but I swear I mean it this time because I'm not going to be distracted quite as much. Though, Stuttgart is going to be vastly more exciting than Wilhelmshaven I can guarantee it.

I need to find a post office type place somewhere in this airport. I don't know if they're equipped with one but here's hoping. If the airport were located anywhere near the city and I could reach it reasonably I would go explore a bit..the weather looks amazing outside. I took the shuttle back and forth a few times just for the sunshine dosage. I'm pathetic I know.

Crossing my fingers it won't be raining in London. I might have better luck of finding 300 dollars in my shoe magically but last time I was there it didn't rain at all so maybe it will be good just for me. I broke down and reserved an expensive (Debit card is still crying over it) hotel room about 3 minutes from the airport. Normally I wouldn't do it, but my flight leaves at 6:40am. I repeat, at 20 to the ungodly hour of 7am I have to be on a flight. I need to arrive at the airport by at least 5:30am. The bus from London proper takes 1 hour, 45 minutes to get there so yeah...to save myself having to get up and be on a bus at like, 3:30am I sucked it up and paid for a hotel room with a free transfer and a continental breakfast. I will just have to be really really good while I"m gone and not touch my bank account hehe. Otherwise, I won't get home.

Ok...going to go find a plug to power my laptop up again.

More once I reach the other side of the pond.

Mushy Brain Syndrome

Yes folks, that's the new terminology. I think I've got a severe case of it lately. I claim no responsibility for the nonsense that shall be spilled tonight but I seem to have a case of itchy fingers and I decided that I should get on here and put them to good use. I know...sounds sensible right? heh. We'll see.

So tonight has been the night for random thoughts.

Random Thought 1:

Why do people (ok, me and a few others I've noticed), apologize for using phrasing, terminology or language that puts an emotional or spiritual spin on something that usually isn't associated with being either? If that doesn't make sense, I'll dig around for an example. I'll use myself since I'm the easiest to pick on, though some of you out there do it too (c: I, for one, catch myself, no matter how many times I tell myself I'm not going to do it, giving a sort of disclaimer for saying things that some people may find new age-ish, hippy, woo woo (sorry to steal the phrase Tim), or whatever. At the moment I'm blanking on an explicit example but whatever. I'll think of something.

My question is, why? So what if we want to talk about something common and ordinary in a way that it isn't normally spoken about? If that's how it's making us feel and we are fortunate enough to be able to put words to it, then why shouldn't we? Personally, I think it's because I'm afraid that people will internally snicker and think "yah...whatever...crazy hippy." Whether that's because I've shamefully thought of other people that way myself or because I secretly think I'm a crazy hippy or if it's because I'm still harboring some latent guilt from being raised very, very opposite of "crazy hippy" I don't exactly know.

Perhaps we are afraid of being seen as irrational, insane, unhinged or without a strong sense of "reason and logic" anymore. I pride myself on occassionally being intelligent and interesting and I think I feel like going out on philosophical limbs can put those traits in jeopardy, even though I know that going out on those limbs is what allows me the luck of being occassionally intelligent and interesting. Snake why don't you try some tail.

I am looking forward to the day when I can openly, freely and confidently talk about or mention things like the power of attraction, the laws of intention, straightening out the lines of energy or giving my chakras a good spring cleaning without having to add disclaimers, excuses, apologies or warnings beforehand. My usual behavior goes something like this..."talk talk talk talk talk...well, I think (or, I just read, or I heard). Pause. I know this is going to sound a bit out there, new age-ish whatever but I don't care. Pause. Gather thoughts. I think...talk talk talk talk. Wait for snickers, arched eyebrows or damning."

I usually get good responses, unless it's my mother, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Random Thought 2.

Why is leaving equally easy and difficult? Don't things usually weigh a little more heavily one way or the other? For me, I find myself perpetually stuck in a push and pull between staying and not staying. Not exactly leaving, just not staying. At the moment, it's black and white. I am going back to Europe. I am excited. I also feel like I am leaving in the wrong mindset though. I faced struggles here with family and extended "family" that I was not anticipating. I get it, life is full of dissappointments. And one day, I'll learn to just buck up and take it but at the moment I am afflicted by some bruised feelings and it makes me angry. There was no reason for it whatsoever but it's happened and now there's not enough time to fix it. Except, that if I really believed that, I wouldn't care that I was leaving and it wouldn't be a big deal. So tomorrow is another day and I will try in the ways that I know how to fix whatever it is I broke. Though, as these things usually are, I think I walked into something that was already broken but had been hastily thrown together with chewing gum and desperation and am now taking the blame for it falling apart again.

I spend too much time wanting people to like me. Or wanting honesty. One or the other. Hm.

Random Thought 3

Meditation. The word itself puts me in a better mood. I love it. However, over the past few months I feel like I've got a short circuit between me and the ether. Or silence. However you prefer to think of it. I sit down, I get the music going, I count my breathing. And I wait for the familiar sense of something to happen and I get nada. It's like all the components are working but they aren't talking to each other. This has been representing itself in other areas of my life, so I suppose it makes sense. Whether it's the lack of successful reflection/meditation that's causing it or if it's the other way around, I haven't deciphered yet. But it's a bit frustrating at times.

I have know that mediation/reflection/reconnecting with silence can be done without having to "formalize" it but there is something really satisfying to me about sitting down and going through the process of getting centered. I should just do yoga instead maybe.

I have been getting some work done on new art pieces, which is awesome. And really fulfilling. Especially when things seem to be working. Shh...don't tell the pieces otherwise they'll change their mind and stop cooperating. I found some cool new dye stuffs that get the job done quick and nice and that allow me to get to the more time consuming part of direct application (fancy shmancy talk for using a brush and straight dye to color the fabric), embroidery, collage and all those other fun things. I am working towards the Germany Art Residence postmark deadline so the time it all consumes can't be too much longer but if I keep working I'll reach the end soon enough (I know...stunning logic there). I just have to keep going.

And finally,

Random Thought 4

I need to find a really cool gift for an 11 year old German boy before the 14th of July and I need it to be something relatively inexpensive, packable, durable (he's a bit careless at times) and as mentioned, ultimately cool. It would be nice if it were something his sister couldn't get her hands on either. Hm. Thoughts? Anyone? Bueller? I've never been an 11 year old boy (I think thankfully) so I don't quite know what objects qualify as what I've outlined. He likes Pokemon.

Quick! Hide the tea!

Happy 4th of July. (c: Though at this moment, it's technically not the 4th anymore. It's the 5th, which is less exciting.

Regardless, I hope everyone out there had a safe and fun holiday. Mine was decent this year...better than some, not quite as cool as some of the others but generally all good.

We watched things go boom, we made some things go bang and we lit really, really giant sparklers. Still the best toy ever. (c:

I spent the beautiful sunny day having a bike ride and painting at a friend's house and then came back and ate some dinner and enjoyed some fireworks.

There's a party tomorrow evening...going to go rock that out I do believe. Hopefully (c: Lots of insanity-though I'm only going to know two people so hopefully I can make some new friends.

There is an artist residence in Germany that pays you a monthly stipend so I am frantically trying to get my stuff together for that application. It sounds amazing. It is amazing.

1200 euros a month. Fully furnished apartment complex. A chance to spend 6 months working on art. uninterrupted. Cool. (c:

Alrighty...off to bed. G'night.