Thanks for Dept. of Eagles!

Today. Okay. Positive. Okay. I went to a Bible study and good things came of that.

I don’t want to be a rational architect.

Wishful thinking is symptomatic of anxiety. okay. I think I’m ruining everyone’s life. No. Stop generalizing just so that you don’t have to make any particular person feel any particular way. I might have ruined my family. No. More specific. Today I called my mom, because a woman at the Bible study talked about her daughter who had Aspergers’ Syndrome (high-functioning autism–trouble reading social cues or understanding social behavior), and I had thought, when I met this woman’s daughter… She reminds me of my mom and my mom’s family! Probably more along the lines of.. Aunt Annette? And sometimes my mom, I dunno, she gets so fixated on houses, building things, productivity… And I got inspired that maybe if my mom figured out that she needed help with social things… or that maybe I wouldn’t feel like I was the crazy one for thinking people’s behavior abrupt/rude/abrasive… So I called her, but I chickened out in saying that I thought she might have it, so I said “your family” and she said, “No.” And I kept prodding around, mentioning Aunt Theresa and Aunt Annette, and she said, “No, you don’t get to find diseases.” Then I was like, “What do you mean by that?” And she was like, “I don’t know” kind of coyly. Then I was confused and halted, and I felt like she’s got this thing built up around me that I’m a hypochondriac. Her and Russ: it’s in your head! Well, you know what I thought of saying after I had hung up and my altruisitc attempt had failed:

Hey Mom, remember that time I thought I had lice and you kept saying “No, you don’t. You’re just imagining it. You’re a hypochondriac.” And then you finally believed me when my entire head was itching and you saw a bug run across my hairbrush???

That’s because I was RIGHT. I was good at deciphering what was happening to me. I’m not a hypochondriac. And admitting that something is a problem is not DEFEAT. Such tight denial.

 

I sat on a builder on the premises of The Yoga Hut and some thoughts breezily unfurled.

Acknowledge that her words led to me feel hurt, manipulated, and misunderstood. The misunderstanding of my intentions perhaps hurts the most, being treated like my curiosity needs to be extinguished.

Don’t suppress the feelings, but now… the most freedom comes from knowing my own freedom of choice, that I don’t have to let pain ripple through my cells and out into my actions against others.

 

I dunno how I feel about blogs and the internet now. It seems like the maximum in social scrutiny. Maybe I could check out of all of this. Maybe that’s avoidant. Hey!

 

But I think my big push away from people is because I’m not setting identity boundaries. Meaning: whoever I’m around, I feel at their mercy, whatever they believe, whatever they’re doing, whatever their opinion about a CD or a shirt we passed in a window, well, disagreeing can’t be as important as our relationship, so I don’t need voice it! Or I chatter incessantly, I say things outside the realm of my good discretion, projecting other people’s opinions because mine aren’t sharply and quickly formulated. and Silence is not. allowed.

BLECHG so much garbage in my mind. Who’s operating the gas grill beneath me? Maybe this is what they mean by Hell. Oh yeah! My theory of God. The kingdom of God is within you. The Bible is a metaphor for the entire inner, emotional/spiritual journey of a single person, and each of us can use it to exquisitely calibrate our inner lives with the richness of wisdom. The infinity stretching out before us is within us. Right now.

Congrats! You get to read my most intimate, on-the-verge-of-tears realizations! If you make fun of me, you’re a douche.

Oh my god, she does want me to be happy… She does…. I thought she hated my fancifulness… But all she wants to do is help me put ideas into actions… Ah what have I done… I’ve believed for so long that she hated me but she doesn’t…… ah Mom               She loves me

She looks so tired and worn sometimes but she helps me in any way that she can, I never saw her actions for what they were, she just didn’t say the words I wanted, she’s a regular Clint Eastwood……. I can love her, I can.

When I was four, I drew a comic of me hugging her saying “I love you Mommy” and her saying “I hate you Angela”, not because she did or does, but because she isn’t emotionally “effusive” as the personalitypage.com ISTJ description said. I had a talk with myself after I drew that comic.

“Hey, Angela.”

“Yea?”

“I don’t think she hates you.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” I thought through her actions toward me in images in my four year old mind. “She doesn’t hate me.”

It’s valuable, it’s inextricable to living truthfully and interacting truthfully and not as a snapping funhousemirror, to remember this.

The re-realization started while we were in the car traveling to Houston today. Initially, it was talkless rainfall as I looked out the window and felt collapsed resgination to get the evening over with. The popcorn shouting match lingered between us.

Then not every ounce was resigned… I repeated to myself what Russell had told me, and I doubted it: “She wants me to be happy, she hates that our relationship is bad as much as I do.”

Mom said aloud, “So how’s school?”

I gave an answer about it being fine and research projects.

Thoughts: “Try.”

“How’s your work?” The first time I mumbled and she said what, so I repeated it.

She gave a real answer, analyzing the current state at Shell of tolerating incompetent contractors. As she spoke, I noticed the gleaming areas of her expertise: impersonal, practical analysis; the simple formation of sentences, each word chosen in a string from her working mind, necessary but not florid; behind it, her earnest desire to serve the asker with her answer without glorifying herself. And nervousness that toughens into an exterior what-can-be-misconstrued-as arrogance.

“Work is… kind of weird. They’ve gotten into this habit of… Well. They bring on these contractors, but they aren’t what we need. But instead of getting rid of them, they just… Work with them. And I guess they haven’t officially started lay-offs. But.” Each word measured with staid knowledge and conservativism. Her sense of humor is where she can cast off prudence.

Like after the whole evening, when we had “warmed up” as I put forth conscious if sometimes weary effort to really interact and not just recline in my shell, we stopped at McDonald’s to try their cheaper espresso drinks. Cheap is the new cool. And we were waiting at the window for caramel and hazelnut lattes when she looked over at a white thing in the backseat of a parked car and said, “Doesn’t that look like a headless person?”

I was like hahahah that’s weird. a little uncomfortable. haha.

Fyi: People of the primary function Introverted Sensing (ISTJs and ISFJs) can be very idiosyncratic without realizing it. They want to do necessary things for society, which makes them solid SJs (the pillars of society, a major chunk of the population, hard workers who uphold the status quo)(not me, and probably not you if you’re reading this). But they do this by aligning the outer, concrete world with their inner conceptions of what elements of the concrete world “should” be like… Which may lead to peculiar expressions, depending on what they’ve internalized as their standards. Their troubles can occur when they sacrifice everything to their inner conceptions, like rejecting a child who violates a standard… To balance, they need to learn that there is another way to do the right thing, relationally. I say this, because I realized today while wandering around the house that Mom is underdeveloped in this area. She still grits her teeth to Chance, whose choices she cannot grasp. I also realized that I learned this inner-sticking-toughness from her and can recoil from things that seem out of my immediate values, missing the dimensions of real life… Especially with my values, which are people-centered, rejecting relationships too quickly because they seem violating is just bogus. 

Relationships are where it’s at.

My mind was full. I wrote it out. M83 seeps into it.

 

Love from

Angela

The Hours

I want to walk my dog and go to Mass, but I might just take a nap. I feel so worn out. I don’t want to disappoint the priest, who seemed hopeful that such a young person was at Mass. Maybe I could make a habit of going on Mondays.  I am just beginning all this, aren’t I? I could gradually increase my attendance. The words and the ethereal music, with modal tones major and minor glancing off each other, and the burning incense…. They contributed to a feeling that I became seamless, or a star. Calm happiness.

Today, I want to go again, but I have a study sheet for my Learning & Cognition exam tomorrow that is going to take hours, no joke, plus some Logic & Critical Thinking premises and conclusions to abstractijectify into formal logic symbols and truth tables or something… That involves reading the chapter. Yep. No mas mass cuando…escuela…obscuro it. Veritas.

Also, Joan of Arc words to memorize so I can be free of papers when we rehearse tomorrow, as I’m sure Joan was when she lived and spoke. haha

How old are you? Millenia, sir.

I wish that actors lived in caves, emerged to act, and then went subterranean again, never revealing their names or actual identities. Or that they walked around in disguises most of the time (or acted in costume and make-up that made them look drastically different). Something where nobody knew who they really were. I guess this idea is the banishment of celebrities. I suppose I can’t really enforce this to the entire earth, but I thought of it today like, “If I were an actor, this is what I would do…” I would be a mysterious woman, invested in the study of life and its people, embodying that beauty in pieces (plays, films, whatever…), and preserving my art, my self, from the public eye. This is to say, “Hey, you, you who watches me… This art is about you, not me.” So I would shun fame.

~and unrelate~

My Counseling professor (Counseling is a course, I’m not being personally instructed in one hour weekly sessions)  makes the priority of his lessons self-reflection. I like that partially because I could use that in deciding what I do with my life next, and also because it makes it, well, an easier class… Last Wednesday, he commenced the class by asking us to imagine where we would be in 2013. I wondered what he thought looking at us as we all sat there with our eyes closed.

I first registered slight surprise that I would have a future. (see: slightly faulty serotonin receptors.) After moving past that, I started to imagine myself living in a flat in London with Waffle. Flannery lived nearby somewhere. In the morning, I worked at counseling practice, overall part-time. I would be out by the afternoon to grab lunch in Covent Garden with Flann and then go to band practice. Walking home from band practice, I’d pick up Indian for dinner and be greeted by a tail-thomping Waffle at my flat. I’d take him out for a walk in a park. Back home, darkness falling, I would work on writing and drawing up graphic novels. A few hours later, after a soak in the tub, Waffle and I would curl up and fall asleep in an enormously cooshy bed. The bed was a real luxury imagined in there, since I’ve mainly slept on rather monastic things throughout my life. I imagined more forward into that life, where Bible studies and gigs and ballet classes would reside. I could suddenly tack on a conclusion to this… But I just made some brownies from scratch for the first time ever, frosting included in the ‘from scratch’, so I want to leave. I guess I mentioned the imaginal exercise, because it joined in the tide of my restarting. I’m going to keep consciously imagining happy futures instead of settling into the faulty serotonin receptor wasteland. And it’s not that I ever lost optimism that the entire universe would work out okay… It’s specifically myself deemed purposeless in a world full of purpose… so in fighting, I want to imagine specific futures for myself.

Studious

It’s a quiet night here at the Crescent  House, and I’m going to make myself study.  I bought some chocolate chips, popcorn, and ginseng soda at The Cupboard.  Now to switch off the messenger programs, switch on the TheloniousMonkJohnColtrane/ThumbsuckerOST, and immerse my mind.

Make Small Music Talk With Me

On a totally different note, I’ve noticed that on The Decemberists’ The Crane Wife the songs alternate pretty consistently between beautiful/pleasing and repulsing/grating.  Currently investigating whether or not this trend is true of the other albums, that I really enjoy half the songs and actively dislike and question their musical judgment on the other half.  A band that I half like?

 

Update: Her Majesty is doing better.

Slowly A Moment Goes

I just checked my stats and whooooa I got thirteen views yesterday.  It was a huge spike in the charts.  And it’s funny, the post with the most views is Family Estrangement Pros and Cons.

I feel sorry for my roommate’s cat, Charlotte.  She’s left alone most of the time, wandering around the house or outside, emotionally eating.  I know that she wants attention, but I really don’t like her, because she purposefully antagonizes my dogs and she’s whiny.  Furthermore, I don’t really enjoy petting cats.  There’s not enough to them.  I don’t know what to do.  And I just want her to leave me alone because of all these annoying qualities, so I don’t want to be the giver of attention.  Buuuuuuut I still feel sorry for her.  Wandering around an empty house… a dull, unloved life.  Things will soon get better for Charlotte, though.  Michelle found an old lady who I think can take her in and give her all the doting she needs.

Meanwhile, she sits, staring venomously at me as I pet Tahoe.

Anything to write?  Anything?

I picked a bushel of observations at work but I must have misplaced them right now.

Oh, tonight was open mic night with a full list of aspiring singer-songwriters.  There were alot of, well, mediocre people.  I guess they were taking the opportunity of an open mic to have an audience when they otherwise normally wouldn’t draw one.  A few pretty solid people… A few people who needed voice lessons, and I felt the collective sense of charity that arose from all of us for them.  They played all the way up till 9:50 (we close at 10), and then afterwards there was this immovable crowd of chatty people at some tables.  I started putting chairs on the tabletops at 10:06 as a subtle social signal that it was time for them to leave.  They didn’t even look at me uneasily and the din of their talking continued until I had all the chairs up except the ones on which they sat…  this produced a small flame of anger.  Just a small one.  I don’t like when people are oblivious, especially to workers in food service jobs.  Be polite.  Tip.  And pay attention to closing time!  I remember one time I ordered a sundae at Fuddruckers I think after closing time… I think it was, because the lady made it like every walnut killed her, and then I felt so terrible that I couldn’t even eat it or enjoy it. I wish she would’ve said something.  I would’ve accepted a simple, “Sorry, we’re all cleaned up for the night.”  So my oblivious crowd of gregarious yuppies decided that since their conversations were bubbling unstoppably, Opening Bell Coffee would merrily keep its doors swinging for them… Actually, we don’t have doors but… You get the picture.  It was then that I turned to Pandora and turned Pandora to the Magnetic Fields station, and tonight I acquired one more reason to love them.  The first song to pop up was called “It’s Only Time”.  I cranked up the volume with the reasoning that maybe they would notice that they couldn’t hear each other, and then maybe they would suddenly awaken to their surroundings and realize that they were no longer welcome.  I took out the trash while Stephen Merritt’s sardonic bass washed over the sitters, “It’s oooonly tiiiiiiiiiime…. you fucking obliviouuuus dopessssssss….”  Coming back from the dumpster, the Magnetic Fields amplified into the hallway as I glimpsed the last of the train of lingerers disappearing.

Yes!  It worked!

On the way home in the car, which is prime thoughtscape time, I contemplated in a broader sense how I like the idea of planting secret messages and also figuring out secret messages that have been planted.  And I hate just asking people to leave.

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more…

No I ain’t, no I ain’t, no I ain’t…

Recently discovered that Bob Dylan’s songs ARE great.  And they feel like Beethoven… like open for everyone to try out and lend their own interpretation to them.  Which I will do.

 

I might quit my job at BB&B and work at the coffeeplace in Uncle Paul’s loft.  This part-time job got worn out quickly.  I at least see more and more clearly how I can’t do oh just any job lying around for the rest of my life.  It distresses me when I’m too tired the rest of the day to play music or when I get an idea while I’m at work and I can’t leave right then to do it. 

 

I really am an artist.  I guess I felt insecure for awhile about that, well, for quite awhile….  I felt like I was dodging some other more practical calling that I should fulfill, but if I really examine my values, I always value my artistic pursuits over everything else.  Like even above food, above sleep, if I don’t check myself.  I don’t want to sound silly and dramatic about it, but when I get an idea for something at work, everything around me becomes banal.  I just can’t believe that a schedule holds me there performing menial tasks when there is a GRAND CHARGE OF LIFE CALLING!  Practical things don’t hold the sort of weight in my mind that they seem to in others’ minds.  If I drew a picture where aspects of reality were represented in magnitudinal correspondence to significance… okay: work schedules, appointments, math homework (which I will NEVER have to do AGAIN!  WOOHOO!): small figures.  Ideas for films, stories, photos, drawings, songs, making those ideas concrete: big figures.  Get it?  That’s what goes on in my head, and even though a skeptical part of me is like, “Nuh uh, you could be more responsibly-minded…” and yes I could I could I could, because there is potential for everything everything everything,

I JUST DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT OTHER STUFF!

Let’s accept that and use the gifts that make holding down a silly little job difficult.

:: weeping ::

NOOOOO

I just deleted my My Music folder from my computer, thinking that I had it all transferred to my new removable hardrive, but whatever I have purchased from iTunes in the past was apparently not backed up in that.  Nooooooooo  Damien RIce…. the opera Dido and Aeneas… White Stripes, Elephant….. Optiganally Yours….. The Shins… The Radio Dept…… that one Neil Diamond song I didn’t just buy……

No, no! Nnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooo….. waahhhhh whyyyy this is not that big of a deal, I know, but at the same time….  There’s a small hole in my heart now.

This is a journal, one visited consistently by only one person even, so I can whine here!

I WANT THAT MUSIC BACK!

 

Oh my goodness.  A little bubble just popped up saying “Neil Diamond: Essentials has just finished downloading”.  Oh my.  This is like the time I was sitting out in a marsh with my dad in his boat, and it was mostly a nice day except it was very cloudy, and I thought, “This is a nice day, God, and I appreciate it, but if the sun were shining, that would make me so happy.”  And then the breeze started blowing and the clouds rolled along and the sun warmed my face.  The song currently stuck in my head, that would have made me craziest being without, has been returned almost immediately at loss’s touch.

 

Cool!  Thanks!

“I Will Possess Your Heart”

Reminds me of Soren Kierkegaard’s ensnaring, hyper-observant romancing of Regina Olsen.

Also, slightly creepy.

In my hyper-idealistic world, people walk equal distances and meet on a hill.