Tag: rambling

plane people

I generally feel neutral or indifferent towards strangers until I am on a plane, and then I realize I actually carry a deep hatred of two specific types of Plane People:

The Touchy Couple

You know when you purchase an aisle seat to get those two more inches of extra room, but then you’re sat next to Kat and Kameron Kissface? Why does the man always sit in the middle and why does he spread both his arms over the arm rests and open his legs out so you have to awkwardly scoot your legs into the aisle to avoid touching him when we all know it’s common courtesy to keep your hands and feet inside the middle seat. And Kat won’t stop touching him, can’t keep her hands off Kameron, and if they don’t play with each others hair and hands and faces every 30 seconds they might die. And every time Kat adjusts in her seat and complains, Kameron bumps you again and you want to flush them both down the airplane power toilet.

The Awful Family

  • Arrives late
  • Don’t know how to put a carry on in the top compartment
  • Spills water down the aisle
  • Screaming baby
  • The baby is still screaming
  • Makes me never want kids
  • Also babies should not be allowed on flights where do they need to go that badly, keep them low to the ground until they’re 7.

Everyone else is fine.

Exit Music (For A Film)

I am so many things, always inspired by a song or a book or a movie or the way someone said something or the way they didn’t or the things I want to do or the things I do not. I follow the beauty in life and look for symbols everywhere and find myself in them. I like that there are words that describe things in other languages that we do not have in English, so I learn them. I love the way people with different accents place their lips and tongues in foreign places to speak, and that it sounds differently from how I say the same words, and I find myself absently and not-so-absently memorizing those placements to recreate their sounds. I don’t like candles or perfumes that smell like flowers, but I could inhale a gallon of vanilla extract, and I would drink every drop if it didn’t taste like poison. I do like sunflowers, and feel the need to point them out if I see them. I like cold weather and blankets and fireplaces and trying to get my cat to talk to me. And you know what, he does most of the time. Not anything discernible but there are definitely inflections to his meows and mmmphs. I like to fill up shopping carts online and then exit out, but I do not like walking around the mall or going through rack after rack after rack of clothes at the store. I like to listen to one song on repeat sometimes when it really speaks to me, and I love lyrics maybe more than I love melodies, but sometimes I listen to music in different languages and so then I guess that doesn’t really apply. Today I woke up and listened to opera for two hours, and yes it made me cry. Today even though I really just wanted to lay in bed all day, and I could have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for my rotten fear of wasting my day, I still did an hour on my stationary bike and I tried not to feel bad about not eating as well as I should have yesterday. I have a disposition to look forward or back, and not entirely be in the moment so when I remember to stop and be HERE and NOW, I feel better. When I reign myself in from looking at what I have to do this week, this month, this quarter, and instead just focus on taking on today, I am happier. I am not the best at reminding myself, but lately I have been putting in much more effort to ground myself in the now now now. If I think about working out five times this week it seems daunting, but if I think about how I have 7 to 8:15 p.m. tonight to hop on the bike while I watch Arrested Development, I can do it. I am working on it. When I do not overwhelm myself, I think I am good to know. I am at my best when I am more careless instead of so fixated on perfecting things that are not entirely in my control. I want to find more moments of myself in that state of mind, and be able to rely on my responsible and serious self when I need to. I should show my love more.

I guess really barring some out-of-the-blue event, what’s going to happen and what is happening will do so whether I find ways to enjoy it or not, so why on earth would I not want to make the best of it all?

the act of unraveling

So much of my time is spent photographing others, writing on behalf of others, and using a different voice to portray a certain message. I have found it hard to really know myself because I focus so much on everyone else.

It is easy for me to pick someone apart by listening carefully and paying attention to their responses and the things they say and do not say. I am an expert understander.

It is not easy for me to put into words how I feel about things, maybe because I am not often asked. I am the asker.

Lately I’ve been asking myself how I can open up more and trying to mirror the vulnerability of others. I write so much, and sometimes feel so in tune with myself, but I don’t know if I have ever truly shared that with someone else. I don’t think I’ve ever voiced my deepest darkest thoughts and hopes and dreams and fears, and I don’t remember ever wanting in such a precise way before.

I have kept me close to me, worn my emotions and complexities like a tight second skin. I wrap myself around myself around myself around myself like a snake coiling and ready to strike in case someone tries to get too close.

But what am I protecting myself from? Where did I learn this behavior?

How do I put the fangs away and unravel myself, now that I want to let someone really know me?

This is what I’ve been trying to do, I am currently in the pursuit of being known by someone that I want so badly to know me. To like me for me, and isn’t that all that anybody has ever asked for?

passionately, not reasonably

Do you really love me? Much?

Passionately, not reasonably?

Virginia Woolf, letter to Vita Sackville-West
December 29, 1928

I have been working so hard to better myself this year, in just about every way. I am working toward things I don’t want to jinx by writing out.

I’m trying to stay in the present as much as possible and not focus too much on outcomes. I want to enjoy the things that are good now, and not be impatient. I am happy, now.

I am not yet where I want to be, and I believe by the end of July I will be. I think in 6 weeks I will be much better than I am now. In 9 weeks I will be even better.

By the time I’m 24 I think my life will be a lot different, with more to balance. But more is good, it means my life is fuller.

I know it because I’m working so hard towards it all. It’s inevitable, unless something that I can’t plan against happens. If you put in the work you will get the reward, and I refuse to listen to people who say otherwise.

It is both passionate and reasonable to chase after everything I want and earn it all and love the moments in between the beginning and the goal.

more good things

Another list of really good things:

  • Sharpie fine point marker pens that let you write small and precisely and remind you of getting shitty Circle K coffee with your friend Chicago because it’s what we deserved
  • Putting plans into your calendar at the beginning of the month and knowing you have something to look forward to at the end of the month
  • Listening to someone talk and coming up with the perfect response that makes them feel heard and understood
  • Ultra-precisioned writing that leaves no doubts or questions
  • Hearing your mom talk about her day and knowing that she is smiling because it was good
  • Taking things one day at a time and doing your best each day, so at the end of the day you feel truly satisfied
  • Getting one minute of full uncertainty and pouring all of your hope into those 60 seconds and then getting what you hoped for
  • FMSP (Fat Man Starfish Position) – when you eat too much so you Just sprawl out like a starfish on a flat surface and let the tides of your tummy take you where you need to go
  • Knowing someone misses you as much as you miss them, and knowing you will see eachother again
  • Being proud of your friends for achieving their goals and reaching new stages in life
  • Picking out little baby clothes for your first pregnant friend even though you can’t believe she is cultivating a human being in her body, that you will be amazed by when it enters the world
  • Eating ice cold watermelon like you are four years old and not giving a single care about being sticky

fix me or conflict me

Have you ever been very cold and someone gives you a hot drink? You know, the sensation of warming up from the inside. It feels like it starts like a lit firework in your chest, sharp and hot and burning as the liquid makes its way down. While it travels it doesn’t hurt nearly as much or feel nearly as warm.

I can’t even take a deep breath when I think about it, I am treading shallow air and my fingertips cannot get warm no matter how many times I sit on my hands or tuck them between my thighs. I have purple fingertips, when I think about it.

I thought I was supposed to feel like the monarch girl in that story I wrote over a year ago. There are no wings in this story though, are there?

I have baked this lovely cake to only discover that, yet again, it is composed entirely of crunchy cockroaches. And I didn’t even look properly before I bit in so now I’m just left with this taste in my mouth. And I’m humiliated that I thought I could bake in the first place. The worst part is the bits and bobs in my teeth.

old man sickness voice

I have a love/hate relationship with my voice in the morning. I can’t tell if it’s a very hot and sexy phone sex haver voice or if it’s an old man with a chronic illness voice. Probably somewhere in between.

For the first hour after I wake up I am either a raspy goddess or an old man who isn’t exactly surprised he woke up to another day on the earth but not happy about it either.

I very seldom speak for that first hour to make sure no one tells me I am the latter. It’s my secret chameleon voice that only lasts 60 minutes before it disappears.

wind and roses

I love my old cardigan that’s too stretched out to fit my shoulders and that has the huge hole in the right pocket. It isn’t white any more, but has turned into this cream color.

I like that now the sky isn’t immediately dark, but stays light enough that you can see the clouds at 8 p.m.

I can see the velvety roses and watch the wind blow the flag across the street and listen to the quiet. I’m always surprised that my street is so quiet because it’s so close to such a loud scene.

I love when the sprinklers come on when I walk by, and it feels silly but I smile every time my heels just make it across before a puddle forms behind me. Like I am this untouchable thing, a mini sun that cannot be washed away by the sprinkling rain. Maybe since it’s at night I’m instead a mini moon and my phone is the glow.

I wonder if there are still rainbows forming in the moonlight but we just can’t see them. There are probably little rainbows all over but the cones and rods in our eyes are too dumb to see them.

I want to run through sprinklers holding sparklers and not get itchy from the grass at all.

I would walk very far without my phone if I wasn’t so bad with directions. I love to leave my phone behind places so I don’t have to talk to anyone but I would never find my way back to it.

multitasking

Being a girl is sitting in the salon chair every two weeks crisscrossing your arms for the fill and hoping that the movement from the massage chair doesn’t move the drill and burn your nail beds while trying not to kick the nail tech scrubbing the soles of your feet with a pumice that tickles and hoping you picked the right color.

It’s wanting an iced americano but without sugar so you can be skinny and thinking about when you’ll squeeze in 45 minutes of cardio before your plans tonight and how your concealer is running out so you can only put on makeup after the gym but before plans and you need to wash your hair today and style it and you really just want to stay in and read a book and not go out at all.

But that guy you almost went on a date with but ended up being actually still married even though he’s 25 is going to be there tonight so you want to go out so he sees you even though you won’t date him because ew and either way you don’t want to date anyone but maybe one person but that’s complicated for no real reason except for some very real reasons involving the future and time and space.

Being a girl is exhausting and full of multitasking and caring about everything and never feeling like you’re caring about the right things but not being able to make yourself care any less anyway.

thick as thieves

I want to convince you to design a smile just for me. Yes, I do want to be your friend. I want to be your best friend in the entire world.

Unravel Me

It feels like cold water around my ankles, and I am playing the violin and hoping I do not notice the cold anymore when it envelops me. That I am not shocked.

Not to make a love metaphor out of the whole titanic incident, we are not that big. We are something very small.

I wish I had the type of self control to be a pusher awayer but I am self indulgent when it comes to making myself happy.

I wish I knew it wasn’t going to hurt so much when you leave, sooner or later. Because you will, and it will suck and I will miss you and I wish I could flick a switch that makes me not care about you at all. I care enough that I will happily spend whatever time you will be around, being your friend and enjoying it all, even when it’s boring.

I want to be able to put it into words to explain to you how I feel but I can’t yet, not well. Not perfectly.

All I know is you make me happy in this unique way, and that I am not ready to let go of it. It might develop into something more but it also might never and regardless, it is special.

Is it? Are these pandemic thoughts? Do I see you through pandemic eyes? Am I seeing myself through pandy eyes?

I kind of want to stop talking to you for a week just to see if I make it. If I could do it. I don’t think I could.