Thursday, April 29, 2010

Hair







This weekend my brother is getting married and among all the craziness that is the end of the semester, I've neglected to think much about what I'll do with my unruly mane come Saturday morning. Guess I better start throwing around some ideas.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Le Festin

Watching Ratatouille for the third time in two days.
No better movie to do homework to.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Let's Rip It Up

I can't remember which blog I found this through, but I think if dancing really came back, maybe I wouldn't need to go to the gym anymore.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Shades

Mourning the loss of Tyler's new sunglasses. He only bought them a week ago and someone sat on them. Here's an old photo of them, as sported by Chevy Chase in the grocery line.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Birthday Blues



This has not been such a fun birthday week so far. I'm feeling stressed out and burned out on my internship and school. I'm so ready for it to be summer so that I can really get going on my thesis and other projects I've been itching to work on.

I should've mentioned to the people making my life difficult this week that tomorrow is my birthday. Maybe then those certain people would have eased up on me and quit their negativity. Or maybe not.

Either way, I'm ready to get away from them and spend time with my family and friends the rest of this week.

Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts...


Friday, April 2, 2010

A Laugh






Avez-vous deja vu... gets me every time.

Grief in Magical Thinking


I'm reading Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking for my online literature class. I wish I had read it when Grandpa or Aunt Arlene died last year. Didion explains different episodes of how she grieved over the sudden death of her husband and how she relied on literature to help her to make sense of what happened. These are a few of my favorite passages she cites:


I remember her saying that she would stay the night, but I said no, I would be fine alone.

And I was.

Until the morning. When, only half awake, I tried to think why I was alone in the bed. There was a leaden feeling. It was the same leaden feeling with which I woke on mornings after John and I had fought. Had we had a fight? What about, how had it started, how could we fix it if I could not remember how it started?

Then I remembered.

For several weeks that would be the way I woke to the day.

"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day."
(A line of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry)
_________________________________________________

Dolphins, I learned from J. William Worden of the Harvard Child Bereavement Study at Massachusetts General Hospital, had been observed refusing to eat after the death of a mate. Geese had been observed reacting to such a death by flying and calling, searching until they themselves became disoriented and lost. Human beings, I read but did not need to learn, showed similar patterns of response. They searched. They stopped eating. They forgot to breathe. They grew faint from lowered oxygen, they clogged their sinuses with unshed tears and ended up in otolaryngologists' offices with obscure ear infections.

_________________________________________________

And a passage from Emily Post's 1922 book of etiquette, Chapter XXIV "Funerals":

Persons under the shock of genuine affliction are not only upset mentally but are all unbalanced physically. No matter how calm and controlled they seemingly may be, no one can under such circumstances be normal. Their disturbed circulation makes them cold, their distress makes them unstrung, sleepless. Persons they normally like, they often turn from. No one should ever be forced upon those in grief, and all over-emotional people, no matter how near or dear, should be barred absolutely. Although the knowledge that their friends love them and sorrow for them is a great solace, the nearest afflicted must be protected from any one or anything which is likely to overstrain nerves already at the threatening point, and none have the right to feel hurt if they are told they can neither be of use or be received. At such a time, to some people companionship is a comfort, others shrink from their dearest friends.



Thursday, April 1, 2010

Not a philosopher.


Let me start off by saying that no matter how much I search for the right words and sentiments I wish to express, there is no way that this post is going to come off with the same seriousness as the feelings that hit me last night. Also, if you're already in a sad mood or simply don't want to read about my crazy emotions, just stop here.

I watched a documentary last night that not only made me think, but made me have a 90 minute existential 'crisis.'

You know those scary little moments when you gasp and get that terrible feeling? In the span of a second, a million questions run through your head:
Why am I here?
What is the point of my life?
What is the point of the universe?

Well, usually it passes after about thirty seconds and I go on my merry way to whatever more pressing matter awaits me (having a cup of yogurt, facebooking, shredding paper, doing some laundry, schoolwork -- you know, the real important stuff). Last night, it took the end of the documentary, a hot shower, and journaling to get me back to normal. With the distraction of my internship and work all day, I've been fine but then the feeling hit me again a couple of hours ago.

I was talking with Tyler on the phone and got on this topic. I'm scared. I'm really scared of the future and am having a great deal of trouble understanding the reason I'm here. And part of me thinks that I'm just thinking about this because I'm so worried about my post-college life (Should I go to grad school right away and be long distance with Tyler? Should I try to move to France? Should I just settle down and get a teaching job? Should I get a teaching job and try to get into a creative writing Master's program? Should Tyler and I drop out of life, move to Washington, plant a garden, and do whatever we want until we run out of resources? Should I stop writing these things because they are too personal?).

This is the first time that the 'right answer' isn't built in for me. After high school, the obvious next step was college, but now I really don't know what I want to do with my life. It's a pretty lousy time to have this feeling. For one thing, my birthday is one week from tomorrow and I can hardly have a good birthday month if I start out all emo wondering about my purpose in life. Then again, maybe it's a good thing that I'm stepping back and trying to reevaluate my priorities and options. Who knows.

Usually finding happiness, beauty, and purpose in the everyday comes so naturally to me.
I want it back.