too much?

twenty years old and i'm tired/you say it's sad, but it's true/two decades behind me, and five to the future/how am i supposed to get through?/(is this all there is?)

probably going to cut that. writing a song for a deadline is hard, anyway, and adding to much dramatic angst isn't going to help my case.

had a bad weekend. would rather not talk about it, but also would love to tell stories. you know that feeling? where something embarrassing but funny but maybe a little sad happened? yeah, one of those.



i'm not even twenty - who am i trying to fool?

wild thing

temporarily obsessed with chris mccandless, climbing mountains, and living without constraint.

also fully aware that i am not physically or mentally capable of doing anything like that.

watch

there have been more fictional characters than real-life interactions in my life the past couple of days.
this is not how break should be going.

but oh, well. storytelling is such an important facet of society, and humor is altogether necessary when i'm so preoccupied with very unfunny things.

maybe i need less tv shows, though.
this weekend will be good. a visit to the old stomping grounds. (i spent two years there. how odd, to think about it now. two whole years. i'm so much older now than i was at the beginning. i will be much, much older in two more years.)

time to go mother my mother, record a song, and write a little.



[also, i've decided i don't like the fat-acceptance movement in its totality.
and i'm finally going to get myself in shape, after 7 years of procrastination.]

run, stretch, eat, sleep.

oh! i do like exercise. i'm just so lazy up to the point i get on the treadmill. i've got to remember how good endorphins feel to remind myself to do this all the time. i couldn't get through my whole yoga video yesterday, though, and that made me upset. my muscles just didn't feel like working. i don't know, i don't know.

also, i constantly contemplate veganism, even though it's been a bit hard to even stick with vegetarianism sometimes. (my family is beginning to warm up to the idea of semi-vegetarianism at home, so that makes things easier.) i guess i'll be a lacto-ovo-veg until i get over my intense love for yogurt. (seriously, that's the one thing that would hold me back. hot damn, i love yogurt.)

well, actually, there's a lot i have to think about here. i know for sure i don't want to consume meat. i've gotten a little crazy about factory farming, but really, shouldn't we all be? (there are some people - some everyday citizens, i should say - that actively support factory farming. that blows my mind. the only good argument for it is that it provides a lot of food, but there are other ways to do that.) i guess my worries about veganism are selfish, in a way, but really - i know myself. i know i wouldn't remember to take b-12 supplements, and i probably wouldn't get enough protein and other important stuff. i'm not a good meal planner. (but maybe this would force me to be? ugh. i'm so indecisive.)

anyway.

this is all a lot of stuff about things you might not care about. it's just here. if you have suggestions on vegetarian eating, let me know. vegetarianism for a lazy cook - that's a book i'd like.

song and dance

written a while ago, copy-and-pasted to the blog to add some poetry to this old thing.

The sweetest sort of pain is waiting on my lips
An angular refrain of tightly-woven hips,
A song and dance, a song and dance.
I think we might belong here.

An echo of your words floats like a friendly ghost.
He's telling me you've heard my whispers and you know
The song and dance, the song and dance.
I think we might belong here.

I have found a confidant for secrets I can't tell.
I have found a ringer when I wanted a new bell.
It comes and goes, it comes and goes,
You tell me I belong here.

These empty rooms are naked, but I am not consumed
By what is left unshaken. The stark and pretty tune -
Our song and dance, our song and dance.
I know that I belong here.

bodies, and other cliches

http://www.rmichelson.com/Artist_Pages/Nimoy/pages/MaxBeaut.htm

these women intimidate me.
i have mixed feelings on the fat-acceptance movement. part of me thinks it's unhealthy, that it encourages an embrace of bad lifestyles, that it says it's okay to be lazy. the other part of me loves people loving themselves.
i guess the real problem is the fact that i think fat equates to ugly. i am afraid of it. i don't want to ever look like these women. their bodies are scary to me because i am scared of looking like that.

but i feel like i look like that, sometimes.

in fact, i often feel like the women here:



when, in reality, i guess i am more like the woman here:



(although, in reality, i am not airbrushed)
of course, like many women, i'd rather look like this:



it's just that these big ladies look so happy in what would make me (and so many other people) feel so bad - their big bodies. but is that bad? if they love themselves, and if they are happy, should anyone try to change that?

what does any of this mean? i don't know. i'm not one of those people who is going to blame any generation's messed-up body image on the media and how all of our young girls are going to get eating disorders from the fashion industry. women have been feeling like this for decades without the realm of high-fashion models. i will say that finding out about crystal renn has made me feel like i can be just as beautiful if i try, but that girls in movies often make me feel like i will never be thin enough to qualify as beautiful.

this subject often makes people feel uncomfortable, but i needed to say something (even if just in this nearly-unread blog). i don't know how i feel in my own skin, if i like my body or not. i don't know what beautiful is. i don't know if i don't like the fat acceptance movement because i think it's unhealthy, or simply because i don't like myself. i am not asking for your compliments or for you to tell me anything about my appearance. i want to figure out how i feel about fat acceptance, about body image, about plus sized models and the idea of "plus sized" and so many other things. i want to know what other people think, too. i just want to learn about bodies.

i want to know where men are in all of this, too. women's body image is constantly discussed, but men are often ignored. i'm not only curious about what men think of women's opinions of themselves, but what pressures men face. they are assaulted, too, with an ideal to obtain. do men feel as badly about themselves as so many women do?

if this is all too personal, you can let me know. i'm having second thoughts about this post, but...ah, well. here goes.

(also....leonard nimoy photography? what?)

can't sleep

consumed by:
guilt
a. family
b. food
c. phones
restlessness
a. legs
b. lights
c. loneliness

(put in outline format, per high school speech class requirements.
i'm feeling odd these days.)

watching movies

i always want a love like someone else's love;
i always want a love that is uniquely my love;
i always want love.

merry christmas.
celebrate it by reading books,
by hugging people,
by eating sugar and cholesterol (and not caring),
by watching the history channel,
by watching a christmas story,
by going to grandma's,
by staying at home.
celebrate something - there are things to be happy about somewhere, i'm sure, and we ought to take advantage of that.

holidays on ice

okay;
ready for st. paul now.

(i ate too many cookies, and it's so hard to motivate myself to work out at home. excuses, excuses. i set an alarm for tomorrow morning and i'm going to start making better decisions. i'm all mixed up.)

half-centennial

this is my 500th post.

i had other words to post when i came here,
but none of them seemed important enough.

more later - i must go put on pants.

zoo animals

the birds
that have forgotten to fly south
are outside my window
they are outside my window
asking for trouble and
getting used to the cold



(car for 10 hours tomorrow,
then i'm back in the mitten)

off the beaten path

"musicians lead extraordinary lives. you have to prepare yourself to lead a life that is extraordinary."

i've just got to get through finals week. get through this project i don't care about, this song i am not confident in, these piano lessons that make me feel incompetent (yet i am taking again), this whole debacle of wanting things i can't have and not getting enough hours at work and feeling so strange all the time.

i'll start preparing myself for an extraordinary life after the mundane quits hanging around...but i guess that's never going to really stop, is it?

(i'm always going to have to do the dishes, aren't i?)

writer

i'm having one of those weeks where i convince myself i really can't do this for a living.
seriously, who do i think i am?
i don't practice piano enough, my voice is ordinary, my songs either feel too similar to each other, or like they lack consistency. i have too much jazz, or not enough. i have too many words, or not enough. i don't know. i don't know if i'd buy my music. (really, honestly, i probably wouldn't.)

so, uh...welcome to december, blog. it's gonna be an angst-y month.
the smell of snow makes me sad.

eating animals

i'd really like to stay dedicated to vegetarianism this time. it's something i really believe in for so many reasons.

i just have a really hard time sticking to it, with so many people close to me so adamantly pro-meat. it was easier last year, with so many fellow veggies to go to for support.

am i the only one here?

romantic yogurt

life is full of silly, silly things.

and sometimes that word is the only accurate descriptor.

hello; i'm a cliche.

it's two in the morning and i'm reading bukowski.

my roommate is sleeping and i'm not going to bed partly out of insomnia, and partly out of not wanting to find pajamas in the dark.

i miss having my own tiny room sometimes, but only once in a while.
having other people is really, really nice.

actually, now that i think about it, i am tired. i bid you adieu. until tomorrow.

balance.

there is this little twitch in my legs and this little thought in my head that keeps telling me to start running. and you know what? i kind of want to. (okay, i really want to.) but this means i have to buy running shoes, and a new sports bra, and, fear of all fears, it means i have to use the treadmill in the workout room, which is potentially in front of other people. and that...that is no good.

but man, oh man. the control freak in me is really excited about the potential for goals and pushing myself.
of course, this is juxtaposed with yoga, to keep the calm in me happy.

small and alive.

and then i bent over and set it on top of the water, thin but not weak. it drifted like a leaf, like i was the tree that wrote that letter. the current was reversed, so close to the island, and so my words went backwards for a while, until they were swept up in the mighty mississippi, unable to strain any longer against its pull. i cried. i began to pick up rocks to throw into the river, one by one, making loud splashes, feeling an angry and relieved strain in my arm over and over. but then, finally, i looked back up and it had gone. i don't know if it sank, or just floated out of my view. in any case, it is gone.

well, the paper is gone.

the problem is not.

but somehow, this is easier, now.

devastated.

personal goals:

ASAP, begin making higher quality recordings to put online.

by next semester at the latest, gig at least bi-weekly.
buy a gig bag and a small PA system.

by next year, play at least once a week.
become a familiar face in the coffee-house scene.
set up a track list to prepare for an album.
have a decent size fan base.



i am overwhelmed, a little bit.
oh, world - please, please like me.
(if only gigs would come to me.
but life could never be that easy.)

shoulder stands.

today on my yoga video:

"for this pose, you will need a chair, several blankets, a belt, and a small towel."

and what, pray tell, are you planning to do, rodney yee?

i would like to

be your favorite.

secret sisterhood.

in my dreams last night, i was in a paper house in the rain; i also got inducted into a society in which i had to share secrets and learn secrets and do a secret handshake.

i wish that dreams had playback once we were awake.

never-ending sunday.

it is hard to make friends here, and easy to write letters.

maybe things would feel easier if i had another job, but that requires me doing even more job searching, and i'm sick of that. really. and having time to myself is nice (although i'm not quite sure what to do with this much of it.)

creativity is becoming this strange creature lately that i can barely see. songs are not rolling out of me, but are in this cycle of trickle, trickle, pour; trickle, trickle, pour. nothing's gushing. i don't even feel like writing poetry. i don't even feel like singing sometimes.

i think it's time to take things in halves. it's easier to handle that way.

the funny guy.

i want this to be dialogue in a sitcom:
"my weight loss goal? well, um, i've never told anyone this, but i'd always hoped that at least one person in the world would automatically picture me when they heard the first verse of 'faith' by george michael."

je me souviens.

hopefully i will work my way out of this writer's block.
chords are just hard, right now, which is weird, but maybe good. i worked too hard to be complicated, to be difficult and intelligent. i wanted to be interesting and smart, but interesting doesn't have to be a mess of difficult patterns. interesting is often simple and elegant. (it's strange, because that's the kind of art i really enjoy, yet rarely produce.)

i am going to write songs as other people.
i am going to pretend to be other people and let them write my songs through me.

first - an old woman.
next - who knows.

je me souviens
la guerre, la guerre
l'amour, l'amour
la guerre d'amour
(oh, love's a war.)