Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Anagrams

I do love a good puzzle.
I wrote a poem out with each line, and used a website to find an anagram of each...

Its funny how the lines come out in a way that still makes enough sense....

Frilly he demon.
Chief spanker.
Tigerish lad.
Keen die heedless whoredom.
Well! I am the hard-core frightening.
Harmed, merrier handiness.
More shrewd self-hate.
I'm left why.
Savagely warm honest abhorrence.
Lose now honored athlete.
Heart-throb as mean sage.

and finally...the websites name...in anagram of course!
Win wet consents warm gems.

Compliments

Its as if you hide words
under your tongue
like a child hiding candy,
the wrapper deep in his pockets.

Your compliments come in strange boxes
They are in a rough paper
tied sometimes with twine
some times with ribbon
and have many layers of thin sheets veiling the intent.

Only when I get to the center
will I understand.
Perhaps, if ever...

Monday, October 27, 2008

Collections

I was reminded of a conversation that I had with a friend this last August. If I could collect anything...

I would collect interesting musical instruments...though I don't play any with any amount of skill.

I would collect hand-blown glass...specifically pipes...though I don't smoke.


What do I collect now?

I collect words like forgotten treasures.

I collect quotes and meditate on their meaning.

I collect interesting teas and sit smiling, eyes shut, with a steaming cup.

I collect antiques...antique rings...antique pill boxes...vintage clothing...anything that has a story.

I collect languages.

Stressful dreams...

I don't smoke pot. I don't smoke at all, actually. In this dream though...

I was at work, at the Foreign Language Lab in my University. For some reason I was smoking from one of those awesomely beautiful blown glass pipes, and just as I took the first drag...the head of the French department walked into the Lab. She is an intimidating French woman. She didn't see what I was doing, and I was able to hide in the back storage room, but she somehow figured out what I was doing and who was doing it at a later point.
Then it was required of me that I take a drug test.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

La Familia by Mirah

A song I have been stuck on for a long time.


Hey friends don't you think you better cool it down
You're always gettin' curious and leavin' town
You know i like it being in your family
I wonder what would happen if nobody left
We'd all stick around if we'd all stick around

And here's a question that's been tested:
Tell me, if we sleep together
Would it make it any better?
If we sleep together
Would you be my friend forever?

If we sleep together
Would it make it any better?
If we sleep together
Would you be my friend?

Hey friend listen up their playing our song
On the radio, do you have to go?
I really like it, this rock and roll
Makes me want a little sugar in my bowl
It's like the glory days, it's like a fortune sold

And here's a question that's been tested:
Tell me, if we sleep together
Would it make it any better?
If we sleep together
Would you be my friend forever?

If we sleep together
Would it make it any better?
If we sleep together
Would you be my friend?

Let's none of us forget about who we are
So choose a path and follow it
Take a pill and swallow it
None of us forget about who we are
It's not forever we can fool around in the dark

If we sleep together
Would it make it any better?
If we sleep together
Would you be my friend forever?

If we sleep together
Would it make it any better?
If we sleep together
Would you be my friend forever?
Forever (x8)

Saturday, October 25, 2008

My recent dreams...

I should preface this with the statement that my dreams are often long and complex, and I manage to remember them fairly well on a surprisingly regular basis. (Depending on how much sleep I get and whether or not an alarm wakes me up)

The most recent things I can think of then:

1) Yesterday I was going through my closet looking for shoes, when I pushed a long floor length orange dress from the 1970's that I must have gotten at a thrift shop at some point out of the way. When I touched the dress, a dream that I had forgotten from the night before flooded back into my mind:

I had just gotten home, and my family was having a garage sale. My boyfriend (I don't have one in reality just now...) had put my orange dress on a mannequin and was trying to sell it at the yard sale. I was FURIOUS!

2) I dreamed I was going to a party (tonight's party perhaps?) and I was running late. I somehow ended up in Santa Cruz instead of in San Jose, and then got stuck in traffic. I got out of the car, picked it up and put it on the other side of the road, facing the other direction. I got in the passenger side, stuck one foot out the window, and was driving from that side of the car over highway 152. Not a good idea in general, terrible idea on this highway. Curvy windy roads going up then down a mountain...I was stressing out!

Je sais que tu sais...I know that you know...

About so many different people and things in my life...recently and in the past...and the future, I'm sure.

Je sais que tu sais
que j'aime la folie, la nature, la beauté.

Je sais que tu sais
que j'aime le contrôle.
(Même si cela n'est qu'une illusion
que je nourris depuis des années)

Je sais que tu sais
que j'aimais des autres.
(Et je crois que tu sais que je sais
que tu aimerais figurer parmi eux)

Je sais que tu sais
que je sais
que tu pense à moi
mais
je ne sais pas quoi faire de cela.

Je sais que tu le sais.

A Choice

I lay so often half awake
under my feather blanket
Mixing the dream and reality
in a never-ending dance
blurring the edges of time and space
until I don't know which way will lead me to clarity
I hear someone talking
but is this the dream?
or is it the real?
I slip between asleep and awake
taking pleasure in my slow advance towards the day
reveling in the extra dream-time
All too soon I will take full responsibility and wake up.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Politics

I was out of the USA for eleven months, and I returned last July. I kept telling myself that I SHOULD inform myself and know more about the presidential candidates, who's backing them, what they really stand for. I never really did.

The media tells us what to think, and we buy it like we buy every other amazing marketing scheme that has been dropped on our heads in the recent past. Obama is not just a presidential candidate, he is a brand name. Like a cereal, an exercise machine, or an mp3 player. The analogy I came up with with a friend was the iPod. Ipods are pretty cool mp3 players. They have a sleek design, and are marketed well and everyone wants one. People forget there are other brands, they get so caught up in wanting what everyone else wants. What happened to thinking for ourselves? What happened to researching the candidates? I feel like the majoirty of people I know THINK that they are informed voters, but in fact they have been informed by the media. They have been told what they want to hear. They have seen campaign ads that don't even address the issues at hand, but that evoke an emotion or a feeling within.

I talked to my parents...who are McCain supporters in this election...just as they were Bush supporters before. (Don't crucify me for that, it's THEIR choice, not mine) I told them how jaded I was with the system, and how I felt that no matter who won the election, many things are going to be screwed over. New problems will arise...I found an article about Chomsky's stance on the election...he apparently feels the same as I do.

During my discussion with my parents, my dad jokingly mentioned a quiz he had taken online to see which candidate his views on the issues matched with best. McCain, go figure. I decided to find a few of these sites and play around with these quizzes. The results? Bob Barr. Every single time. Bob Barr is apparently my best match in what I want as far as the issues go.
I got onto his campaign webpage. I started reading the stances on issues. Wait...support for gunlaws and gay marriage? Cutting back on welfare programs and letting charitieshelp people...since they tend to do it more effectively anyway? America shouldn't be the world's policeman? More help for veterans? Less government regulation of education (Wouldn't it be AMAZING to get rid of No Child Left Behind??? Ask teachers, it doens't work)? The more I read the issues the more I realize why I feel so out of place in our political system these days.
We have forgotten that there are other parties. The media polarizes everything into Red and Blue, and we are fed the false choice between Republican or Democrat, Red or Blue, Conservative and Liberal. There are other choices.

In high school civics a few years ago, I remember vaguely talking about other parties. By the time we are seniors in high school, we have been so shaped and formed by the media we don't even consider the other parties. We don't look at their merits. They can't advertize to us, we don't care. They don't have the money to show us what we want. But they might have it.
According to a Gallup poll from a few years ago, there is a huge number of Americans that vote for one of the two poles, when in reality they don't agree with every issue. They make comprimises. And we have to do this.

But realize: the media likes the poles, the Red and the Blue, because it makes money...and the poles spend money. They are marketers selling a brand.
There are other options. And if enough of those voters that make important compromises that they don't have to make, and vote for a third party, they could potentially bring about REAL CHANGE in our government.

Who am I voting for in my first presidential election that I am of voting age? I have always thought it important to vote...but as an informed voter. I still don't understand this enough to make an informed decision. I think though, that if I do vote, it's not going to be a name brand. It'll be for a candidate that matches my beliefs and my views on the issues...on every count. Why vote for a candidate because everyone else will be? I've never been that much of a follower.

Funny thing. Didn't George Washington, upon leaving his office as President of the United States of America, tell us to avoid political parties? That they would be the downfall to such a great country as ours?

Thursday, October 23, 2008

There's something
In your calm and self control
That makes me uneasy, my friend.
Something
In the deliberateness of your actions and speech
That bothers me in some unusual way.
There's something
In your gaze, lacking any presuppositions,
That makes me unsure of myself

When I first met you
I had a strange impression
It marked me, I wrote it down.
I wasn't sure for awhile, I thought my impression was just another silly thought
That passed through my mind on a quiet day.
Now I'm not so sure.
Funny how that goes.

I sense I can trust you with my strange thoughts
And dreams
And ramblings.
I can tell them differently.
I can explain them fully.
Not be worried I might be taken for crazy.

Yet you make me uneasy.
In some strange and inexplicable way.

Golden Light Oct 22

Driving to the light-rail station this morning, I went past a field full of Canadian geese. I went past it at just the right moment, when the light illuminated the world and made everything shine golden. These moments only last a short time, and it's always just as impressive to see. Every feather, every blade of grass, every shining drop of dew, every spiderweb and every little detail of the world seems more vibrant...

I got past the field and drove through a copse of trees, and on the other side, everything was normal again. The golden light was gone, the heightened sense of the world was gone...until another time.

Dream Oct 22

I was in that place....the place where that is dark, but illuminated with a light that comes from nowhere. I've been there before in meditations...you walk down the stairs, counting down as you go into the deeper parts of your consciousness. Sometimes someone waits for me there. Last night no one was there. The ground I was on was glassy, and frozen over. I tried to melt the thin layer of ice on the floor with my hands. It would melt, then freeze back over. As my hands got colder and colder, my attempts became more and more fruitless. The ice stopped melting under my cold fingers. I started to try to scratch the ice off, but the scrapings would melt back into place, covering the ground.

Never before have I noticed any ground in the place(It is nameless, formless, shapeless...it is simply That Place). It was there, but never seen. There was always something invisible, intangible holding up the scene, holding me up, holding up whatever is present. Never has the ground been so important. It always just was, had always been, always would be.

Why is the ground freezing over? What has changed?

Oct 20

Today I went for a walk.

There is a wall on campus that is a fountain, and I heard it talking to me. I sat down on the bench for twenty minutes and let it tell me its secrets.

I let it take me away from here. It took me out to a place where burbling water can say meaningful things. It took me to a place where people don't think that's crazy. The fountains whispering gave me ideas, told me where to go, let me relax. My mind was clear of anything but the sound of water. That doesn't happen often.

I sat on the bench and shut my eyes and listened.

I haven't felt that beautiful in a long time.

I miss the rain.
we cherish our delusions dearly
hold them close
love them queerly

we believe their power is undying
oh they're lying

oh they're lying

keep every thing in its place
nail it down

don't take chase
let the world fall away
take the risk

take the risk

I am running...

Someone recently told me an analogy that made me think.
Telling people to stop searching and see what they have is like telling a runner looking for rest that they just have to stop running and they will find rest. They will answer that they can't stop because they are looking.

I don't like running. Physical running. The kind they make you do around a track in high school.
People that run like to run, or feel they have to run...they want to keep running. They like the adrenaline and the boost they get from it. They don't want to rest.

There is a mosquito in my room. It's distracting me from writing.

People that are looking for themselves keep looking. It's hard to stop and say: I have found myself.

Its hard to let yourself be free. Freedom is scary.

This entire post is based off the last few days of interesting discussion I suppose. Not much is new, except the mosquito. I've missed swatting him twice already. Third time's a charm.

Tonight on my way home, I stopped at a stop sign near the Library in Morgan Hill. A doe and two fawns picked that moment to cross the street in front of me.
I like how moments like that make me happy about life. They make me smile.