strange form of life

Humdrum. Wake late, sit in hot car, work, dally, snack, sit in hot car, hang out, sleep late.

I didn't realize how robotic I had become until today, when I came home, ate some food, and went through some more of my stuff to throw out (so that i don't have to move as much when i do move). I was about to trash one of Roz's screenprinted posters (which looks pretty neat but I am not in the business of collecting posters), but instead, I got out my scissors and cut it up into little rectangles. I somewhat pretended that I was a designer reusing my old prints as business cards. But really, there was nothing to it, no goal in mind, yet it wasn't mindless. I gave myself the task of finding the best patterns to isolate in a rectangle, excluding letters. Funny enough, it was satisfying work. More satisfying than anything I did at work-work today. Wow, how creatively inhibited my lifestyle has become. All the more reason to sign up for the wheel-throwing pottery class at Clayways starting in a few weeks. The final product is important, yes, but it's the process of shaping, perfecting and being in complete control that makes crafting worthwhile (if this is not your job). Wouldn't you agree?



This may be one of my more dull posts, but I seem to have forgotten that it is OK and good to express things for the sole purpose of expressing them. For myself. Life's not a stage. thankfully, And I can have Frances Time more and more these days. Relief! It's fun to do things with the boyfriend and friends too, but I do not require those times to be productive necessarily.

I only want to hear it in stories

Went to the David Sedaris reading yesterday. It was pleasant being read to and finding the stories funny. Sigh. It's just that I get so anxious thinking about all the good books I should be reading or have read, so much so that I freeze up and avoid it all together. Knowledge is a scary thing to confront as an individual. I think that maybe I should go back and get another liberal arts degree, in history or something similar, so that I could understand our past and why the world is the way it is today. I don't always care, because my comfortable life status never really forces me to, but I always feel a persistent nagging that I should, as a human being, and especially as an American. (Now that I've moved over to avoiding people, perhaps I should start confronting large-scale ideas and issues..)

At the end, Mr. Sedaris kindly recommended a few books and authors. I looked up one of them, Tobias Wolff, and have been covertly reading his memoir on Google Books at work since this morning. Here's a wonderfully written passage from it (Background: his mother had enrolled him in a Catholic school to spite her Protestant ex-husband, and his nun teacher is requiring all students to go through their first confession):

“I thought about what to confess, but I could not break my sense of being at fault down to its components. Trying to get a particular sin out of it was like fishing a swamp, where you feel the tug of something that at first seems promising and then resistant and finally hopeless as you realize that you’ve snagged the bottom, that you have the whole planet on the other end of your line.”

- This Boy's Life

So perceptive of a little boy. With a sad childhood.

the funeral in my brain

free until they cut me down
but no longer
done with dealing
disappearing act no more
no exit
but here
start

Something/ Someone Rises To Meet Me

Why am I scared of so many things? Sometimes, I wish I had more of a don't-give-a-fuck attitude about the little things. Offend people sometimes, do what I want. Surely that's a tad better than living in the fear of man. It's debilitating a lot of the times. I should live as if I am free, because.. I am. But I can't turn off emotions! They're not to be trusted sometimes. However, I can train myself to feel the right feelings at the appropriate time. Spending so much time around friends whose lives are driven by their emotions has made it difficult for me to do this, but I have to.

It's going to be a real challenge figuring out what I need to start controlling in my life, and what I need to relinquish to a higher power. Faith be turned to sight!

This whole finding housing ordeal is moderately stressful! I know that I won't be homeless come August, but the current mad rush is anxiety-inducing. I hope JJ and I won't have to pay more than we want to for a decent house, but I am willing to pay a good deal more for a comfortable home and peacefulness. Money has always been the top priority in finding a place to live, but I am allowing mental and emotional health to take precedence. Sometimes I want to purchase a house so bad.. Nevermind about that, since I plan on moving out of Austin within the next few years to see another part of the US or world. I don't want to become provincial, even though Texas is a great state. No better time to do it! And the only way I can determine my limits is to test them, right? Another scary idea. I suppose I must get over my irrational desire for a perfect and easy life, whatever that really means, because that's not my main goal in living anyway. Oh upbringing, the old rules I've learned from it I still apply, even though I am in an entirely new stage of life, because no new mindset has replaced it. Where is that mindset?? Give me! Maybe I'm not thinking enough about things.

On a musical note:
If you get to wear headphones at work, check out muxfind. It's a muxtape search engine, and probably a great way to get introduced to new music. Here's mine.