song of the week

so lately there have been several songs of the week... but there have been some good ones lately. the current favorite is "All I Need" by Mat Kearney (featured on Grey's Anatomy a while back).

Some others that are worth checking out...

9 crimes (Damien Rice)
Keep It There (the Weepies)
Paperweight (from the Last Kiss soundtrack)

All kind of downers, but hey, it's winter in Ohio now.

the stories we tell (introspection)

Disclaimer: i'm not usually introspective out loud, so if you are expecting a typical rant about one thing or another (i.e. Ohio weather or the Counting Crows), you'll have to wait for another post.

are we the sum of the stories we tell?

do the stories we choose to tell define who we are? are the stories we choose not to tell the summation of who we choose not to be? i think that the stories we choose not to tell are the ones that influence us more than any others.

When we tell our stories, we usually know the kind of response we want from the person we are telling. So we manipulate our stories, highlighting different parts to elicit a response from our audience. My friend Seth taught me the art of telling a good story. He could find the interesting in the mundane. For him, it seemed the goal of a good story was to engage the audience, and if you could make the reader/listener fall out of her chair from laughing after a horrific day, so much the better.
but sometimes we have to tell stories that aren't so funny. No one is sliding down a hill on her stomach after a rollerblading incident, no one is walking into street signs, or getting obsure diagnoses from the school nurse. sometimes the story we need to tell is about the person who isn't here anymore, or about the time we messed up, or the person we hurt, or the time we succeeded, or the time we just felt alive for no reason at all. these stories don't make people laugh. most of the time they don't elicit any reaction we would want from our audience. they are met with pity, laughter, scorn, or indifference. so we tuck these stories away, writing them in journals or typing them out on blogs when they will no longer be containted, but seldom saying them out loud.

stories stand for experiences

i've been thinking a lot about how our experiences shape us, regardless of whether or not we intend to let them. i've spent a lot of the last 6 years trying to remain the same, unimpacted by the joy or pain that i've experienced. i've believed that independence and validation are found in being untouchable and unchanged. when i had to tell my stories about loss, i had no answer to the question "how did that impact you?" except to say that i kept going, i tried not to forget and not to remember, i found new projects, new causes, new distractions, and new ways to stay the same, to not let anyone around me see the fractures or changes that were forming in me for better or for worse. if loss has changed me for the better, i've pushed that change aside, rejecting it on principle. if loss has changed me for the worse, i've denied its influnce, going on to be the person i thought everyone thought that i was.
the same goes for joy. as much as i've tried to deny the influence of negative experiences on who i am, i have also rejected the influence of happy or pleasurable experiences. to allow myself to be molded by the experience of being loved is as much a terror as to admit defeat and insecurity and loss in the deepest core of my being.

the importance of remembering

i think that we sometimes forget that we are creating new stories every day. next week, next month, next year, what are the stories we will be adding to our repitoire? if the stories i tell are about the stupid things i do, then i need to keep doing stupid things to make sure i have new stories. if my stories i tell are about the people i love, then i need to keep loving people. if my stories are about my successes, then i need to keep being successful.
i want my stories to be about living. living encompasses mistakes, successes, love and loss, failure, joy, and happiness and sadness. that's easier said that done. it's so easy to get caught up in everything and nothing. i know it's the right answer, but i don't know what it means.

ohio grey...

Sometime around 6:02 p.m. this evening, I realized that it was over. I came in from the cold, wet, ohio grey and into my cold, dark, apartment and realized: I will not be warm again until June. Sure, I can pile on the layers and the blankets, but somehow the cold gets into my bones. And once its there, I can't get rid of it. So, I realized it was over and promptly lost my will to live. I became apathetic and began spreading my "good cheer" to everyone I talked to.
I hate when I get like this. Usually, the loss of will doesn't take hold until sometime in January. It's too early for this crap. I noticed that my "I hate everything about the winter" blog post didn't show up until it was actually winter last year. I'm a few months ahead of schedule. I've got to derail this attitude this year... I'm not sure how... (barring a move to the caribbean)

adam duritz is old and fat but i still love him

So, it has been over six months since my last post... i guess you could say things have been busy. But what has prompted this most recent of posts? You guessed it... the Counting Crows concert last night.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love the Counting Crows. I admit that they are largely sentimental favorites; they haven't had a hit in years and really, things have gone down hill since Adam sobered up and got "un-depressed." Regardless of all that, they still put on an awesome show. Adam was obviously stoned and his attempts to promote the community service organizations that were at the ampitheater were amusing. The mostly did stuff from August and Everything After (they're best album) including an amazing rendition of Round Here. There was also the best version of Rain King that I have ever heard.

The whole concert was an emotional affair, with each song taking me down memory lane. "If dreams are like movies them memories are films about ghosts... the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings..." oh so true. It was bittersweet, remembering at time in my life when everything was exactly as I wanted it to be. Sitting on a couch on the side of the stage in a coffee shop with my friend Candace listing to my boyfriend's band covering Round Here while I drank my soy latte.... It's funny, but in those times you never think that it won't last. You are young and carefree; you think those people will always be there. The show ended with Long December, which makes me remember a time when everything was exactly as it shouldn't have been. Talk about ghosts... but "maybe this year will be better than the last."

enough of this winter wonderland crap...

If you couldn't tell from the title, I'm a big fan of winter. No, really, I mean freezing my ass off everytime I go outside, paying big heating bills, driving with morons on skating rinks, and driving to and from work in the dark are big perks of an Ohio winter. Seriously, every year I think I might die--first from hypothermia, then from depression.

This year, I thought might be different. The first couple days of snow I was actually kind of mesmerized by it. Big fluffy flakes, looking out the big window of my apartment at a snow-globe world... it was nice. But alas, the snow-globe look is getting old. All the grey and white and brown makes me sad. Even when it's pretty.

headache. packing. work. ugh.

I think the title of this post pretty much sums it up. i haven't posted for a while, but i'm having a really hard time being productive in my non-office time. that's no good. i need to be productive any time that i'm not sleeping to be on top of things this week. i haven't written anything for "fun" in ages, though i've had such a long spell of writer's block, that i'm becoming suspicious that my "writer-ness" is pretty far from the reality of myself. you know what they say... those who can't do... edit.

who needs sleep?

Apparently not me... today anyway. I've been in really good shape for sleeping less than 3 hours last night. I even went to the gym and ran today. freaky. oh well. we'll see how long this can go.

AHHHHH!

So, either I'm having a reaction to my poison ivy medicine or I'm having a panic attack. All I know is that I can't sleep, I can't stop moving, I could throw up at any moment, and it feels like someone is sitting on my chest. I'm guessing that I absorbed a large amount of the steriods in the cream I put on my poison ivy. I definitely should not have waited until night to put it on... As for my stomach, I drank coffee today, so that's probably par for the course.

Unfortunately, I'm so scattered I'm having a very hard time concentrating on reading for work, which is unfortunate because I'm so far behind. Well, it depends on what you call behind... I've managed to keep up with a normal amount of work, but have not been able to keep up with the 3 extra chapters I need to have ready by tomorrow. But enough complaining, I definitely have it better than some people. But I bet most of them are sleeping right now.

I hate not being able to sleep. It just gives my mind more fuel for worrying about how I'm going to be productive tomorrow, when I've wasted the night with insomnia (not even productive insomnia) and will likely be exhausted tomorrow. My brain needs a break!

"if you knew me... anyway..."

if you know me, this will not suprise you. either way, i hope you enjoy.

electrocution.

remember when your mom used to say: "don't put your fingers in the electrical outlet." and "sticking a knife in an electrical outlet is a bad idea." ?

well, maybe my mom should have added "don't reach blindly behind a piano to retrieve your keys and inadvertantly create a complete circuit with your hand, the keys, a plug, and an electrical outlet. " then i might have avoided losing feeling in a couple of my fingers and feeling like my arm was being crushed by the piano. also, doing all this while my safety minded, electrician grandfather was standing in the room telling me to use a yardstick was probably not the best option. i just hope the tingling feeling goes away (completely) by tomorrow morning...

i'm a smart girl... i swear!

there were so many fewer questions when stars were still just the holes to heaven.....

just finished "the great divorce." lewis is brilliant as usual. it is quite a challenge he presents to us--i wonder how the discussion with the group will go... if anyone shows up.

"If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest most intimate souvenirs of Hell."

What are the implications of this in the context of the Kingdom come to Earth? Are there any? On some level, I'm not even sure what question I mean to ask.