Knots!

I keep on searching to buy an Algerian Love Knot, which was featured in the latest Bond movie. The official necklace is about $2,000 - so not happening. So far there are no decent imitations that I can find through froogle, eBay, or google. Very annoying. It's such a gorgeous necklace, and I'd like to buy some version of it for myself. No way in hell of course any guy is gonna get it for me. I think I'm going to become a nun. A very nunny nun.

Anyway, the idea of a love knot is rather interesting. Knots pervade history - don't tie your panties in a knot, gordian knot. So many cultures (European, Algerian ie, Irish) have combined the idea of a knot with love. I suppose a knot symbolizes something unbreakable - something you can't untie. A bond that is intertwined, part of both people, and a combination of two individuals through their relationships with others - in that, they present an intertwined front to others, thereby affirming their identity to their social group as intertwined. And the social group merges around the two people who are tied in this knot. It's funny too, because a knot can be a terribly difficult thing to get out of if you want to.

I saw "Premonition" last night. Besides not being the best movie ever, the lack of a happy ending thoroughly annoyed me. I don't go to the movies to see a crappy ending - I have enough of that in my own life. I go to the movies to see an incalculable and unlikely happy ending to inspire me that the possibility of something good happening in my life isn't completely implausible. Alas, last night I was further presented with the reality of having to cope with whatever fate metes out to us. I think the main message of the movie was that it's how we face the crappy things in life that most matters. Maybe we can't change what is going to happen, but we can change how we treasure the things that are important to us, and how we face a hardship is of paramount importance. It's sort of going into a situation with your head held high, with some sort of hope, as opposed to going in with your feet dragging and depressed. So whatever the odds, we're supposed to have some kind of medieval faith in something better, whether in this life or the next. Or that everything happens for a reason, there are no coincidences.

I'm not so sure of that. When something really good happens, I like to think everything happens for a reason. When something awful happens, I'm left bewildered, frustrated, and angry. I'm not good at just accepting fate - I feel like I want to do something about it, desperately. I feel that we make our lives. Hope exists as a tool - something to cling to while we suffer and struggle, but it is we who make the difference for ourselves. All this "meant to be" babble is confusing and annoying. People seem to feel that when tough things happen in life, you just accept them as the will of a supernatural being or something. I can't, I just feel like I want to fight and change something when an unfortunate event happens. Take something away from it - just no matter what, not be resigned to the situation. Probably this stems from my complete lack of patience in general.

The movie also brought up some rather disturbing ideas. I've always wanted to believe in a happy ever after, that I can have one. Of course with all the ups and downs in life - people die, people get sick. Things you can't avoid. But that overall, we all have a chance for happiness - for the good things to outweigh the bad. Maybe I'm just a hopeless idealist, for all the pessimism I seem to exude on a regular basis. You can't grow up on Disney movies and reading Little Women and not have hope that somehow, things will turn out all right.

But the movie last night brought up unpleasant realities. People, when in love, get rather excited about getting married and starting a family together, buying a home. And in the end, after children and hard work, time takes its toll. Married people change, and the everyday burdens of a job, mortgage, etc become heavy and they fall out of love. They don't appreciate each other. Is this really the norm? Does life really suck this much? I've never really thought about getting married - I'm not the type to want the white gown, a huge ceremony. When I've ever thought about it, I think about how Anne from the "Anne of Green Gables" books most wanted to get married, at dawn in the woods, with only her groom and the pastor (I guess rabbi for me?) present, maybe a couple of friends. She'd slip out very early, through the dew when everything is still in the morning - the same kind of feeling you get looking at the night sky - the world is still, and really quiet, and animals aren't really awake yet either. The world is sort of paused, like time isn't flowing normally. And in that interim, she'd say her vows. And then time would resume, as if there was a special sort of time for promising to love someone for your whole life. Even Anne, at certain points, doubts Gilbert's love for her. But her fears are unfounded. However, L.M. Montgomery, who wrote the books, did not have a pleasant marriage or life for that matter. She suffered from severe depression, even though Anne and Emily and other characters always hope for the best. And they bring out this hope in the most crotchety, curmudgeonish, and negative characters who have lost their hope as a product of age.

But it seems that our society may be finally coming to grips with the reality of marriage - it's dewy and fresh at the beginning, but the society we live in takes its toll and ruins love. Or maybe time does. But 50% of all marriages fail, men cheat on their wives, wives cheat on their husbands - and not even after being married very long. Even a few years can bring a marriage to its end, or at least result in adultery.

Men feel emasculated by the prospect of being a husband and father. Women feel burnt out having to balance a career and being supermoms. It's like for men, your masculinity and life ends once you get married. For women, your life ends once you are held down with children and cease to be pretty and attractive. The vows become chains and neither person wants to grow old with each other - they can't stand each other. Is this what marriage is in our society? Is the idea of romantic love, for a lifetime, really absurd? In most of the past of human history, marriage was a contract. You didn't fall in love - you married based upon status. Romantic love was written about, but it was not the norm and not even a realistic expectation.

In our culture, men are more masculine when they fear marriage. It's a trap that women lure them into. And women realize into the marriage what the trap is, that they've lost themselves in an outdated gender role that demands impossible perfection. Neither men nor women can survive the implications and consequences of what marriage is without wanting to escape the agreement, or break it in dishonest means. And then, these crazy people try to find love again, wiser about what they want and need. I think second marriages in general work out longer than first ones, but is that only because people don't want to deal with the hurt, expense, stigma, and complications of a second divorce?

It sounds better and better to just be a wise old spinster with a couple of cats. A COUPLE of cats. 2. Two. Not many cats!!!

Currently, I have a very negative view of men. I don't believe that they have any desire to be devoted to one woman - it's a trap to them, a horrible prison. They'd rather play around, focus on a job, or be alone. According to a book I'm very fond of, "The Velveteen Principles" based upon the idea of being Real as opposed to the fluff that our culture contrives for us, in the 1950's young people surveyed wanted meaningful or satisfying work and a healthy family life. Starting in the 1970's, young people wanted money and fame, in that order. What happened to caring about the people in your life, and making them the center of your world? It's outdated. People, men and women, are more concerned with their careers and financial goals (credit card debt - needing and wanting more technology to buy has absolutely increased the use of buying items on credit) rather than spending time or energy cultivating bonds with their families and friends, much less with a significant other. How often to we talk online to our friends, as opposed to seeing them in person? Or over the phone? It takes less time now than in the history of humanity to travel far distances, yet we don't do it as much - we call or e-mail. I don't think that humans have ever been as close and yet completely separated from each other as we are today. And people expect a highly interactive interpersonal relationship like marriage to work when time is money, the main point of life is to succeed in status and finances, and we talk more via technological mediums than face to face?

In any case, I'll keep on looking for my Algerian Love Knot, to buy for myself. The way men are encultured today, I doubt any of them want half a second with a girl who views a personal education as the height of life accomplishment. Oh, of course, I want my career; I wouldn't be able to be happy without my own kind of success, without a graduate degree and doing something challenging every day. I could never ever be a stay at home mom - I'd go crazy, be resentful - it would never ever work out. But it seems that we are more desperate, all of us, even me, to succeed than we are to pay attention to the people in our lives, and what we already have. We're so focused on the next goal, on achieving a goal, not on the struggle that lies therein. It's not getting a degree, or a raise, or being promoted that matters the most - it's the struggle to get there. And people lose sight of that. Life is not a time-sensitive race to get the most accomplished in the least amount of time. At least, not to me. It's a developing process of learning who you are, and balancing your self development with keeping the people who matter in your life on the same page and close to you. People go back to school at all ages - I've been told by some people that at 26, I'm taking too much time to get somewhere, to implement my plans. Others have accomplished far more than I have in the same amount of time, and I'm just as intelligent and capable as those people. Living life like a race, in this way, seems dreadful to me. It's so stressful - to always focus on what you could be doing, pushing, pushing yourself. You don't enjoy anything. How can you grow and get to know yourself if you're constantly only pushing yourself - what are you focusing upon? Only the goal in front of you.

Psychological studies have shown that most people feel some kind of let down or depression after achieving a goal - that's because I think what's most important to people is the striving, not actually achieving the goal. Because then what do you do? The panic of having to find another goal is rather daunting and draining.

I've always been a late bloomer, I always do things a bit after everyone else my age does. But so be it. It will make me a kinder and better person, a more compassionate person, a wiser person. Possibly a better doctor or researcher. My goal isn't to get to where I want to get in the least amount of time; it's to get there in the best quality, in the best state of mind, with the most wisdom and understanding. I wan to get to my goals, and strive for them, and become the best person that I can possibly be - the best form of me that I can be. And that can't be accomplished at the ticking of a clock. It has to develop organically on its own.

In any case, I guess I could join this all together by suggesting that the goals we make for ourselves, the judgments that we place on others - they're all knots also. It's so hard to change one's opinion, one's mind. It's so hard to open our eyes and admit that we might be wrong.
And those are knots we tie in our minds, in our lives, that can't be undone. They isolate us, and push other people away. Instead of trying to accomplish the most I can in the shortest amount of time possible, I want to focus more upon living without making these knots - the kind that are harmful. Possibly love is one of those knots, although deep down I can't really believe that. I guess love is a positive knot. But the kind of pressures that we put on ourselves, that society puts upon us, that we put upon each other to succeed and move forward, at the expense of so many important things in life - putting off enjoying ourselves until retirement or until we get that promotion, have that money in the bank and are secure - only then can we really live and make time for living - these are knots that just intrinsically feel wrong to me.

It's late - I should go to bed, or I won't at all want to unknot myself from warm blankets in the morning for the daily commute.

Because there are a thousand reasons

They say that playing "Let's Pretend" ends when you're still a kid, but I think it goes on for life. Every day people pretend, and smile to each other acting completely differently from how they feel. When you aski someone "How are you?" they will invariably respond, "Fine, how are you?"

Their mother may be dying, they may be going through a divorce, or might just be having a bad day. But everyone does it. We live in a culture where pretending keeps the world around us real and tangible.

The people who we love most in life are the ones for whom we don't have to keep on playing the game of "everything's all right." Because it's not. It almost never is "all right."

One of the most special and rare things I've ever known is the feeling of relief when you don't have to tell someone that everything is fine - you can act angry, frustrated, defeated, tired, and just plain cranky and that is all right. Letting all pretenses, all of the games go because the truth is fine and good.

We spend all of our lives doing what is expected of us, what we have to do. Everyone tries their best to be something - whether it's just to get by every day, succeed brilliantly, or just coast the comfortable feeling of satisfaction.

While we pretend, every day, to ourselves and everyone else, it's rare when we take a minute to really think about what we're really looking for in life. I'm not very old, or very wise, or very pithy, but I do think that everyone is looking for medicine. For the perfect combination of people, circumstances, and tasks that will make each of us feel whole again. There aren't any happy shiny people, not really. Everyone has problems, everyone is missing some part of themself. No one likes to admit it, and no one wants to even consider the possibility that we're all searching constantly for something to make us feel that the pretending isn't really pretending, that we really are happy and content.

Everyone has a different medicine, a different holy grail that they are seeking in order to feel like they're in control, like whatever might be making them pretend rather than live the truth is within reach.

Some people grew up poor, and they use money and the pursuit of material goals, respect, esteem and "success" to make them feel like they're not pretending. Others seek knowledge. Sometimes clothes, appearance, beauty - we're all searching for that one thing that means that we're projecting the same truth to the world that we really feel inside.

And sometimes we are happy in life and what we feel inside really is the complete honest reflection of our inner workings.

I've always searched for love and knowledge. I've never been good at parties, or wanting money. I've never viewed success as something that I desperately need, mostly because I'm not sure I'll ever be successful in a conventional way. It's easier to talk down what I'll never have than try to reach it.

Out of everything I could possibly do with my life, I'm focused on wanting what's hardest for me to do. I have no idea why. And I'm frozen trying to push myself to try to become who I want to be, and at the same time pretending that everything is okay.

There are a thousand reasons why I shouldn't try, why I'll never make it. But none of those reasons, none of those hesitations, will ever let me have a chance to grab the happiness that everyone pretends to have. So I just have to find some way to rally and make a run for it, to get what I want. I'll have to change along the way of course. Drop bad habits, drop conceptions of myself. In a way, I have to completely change who and what I am in order to even try to get my happines. And my happiness, ironically, involves helping people who aren't pretending, who openly admit something is wrong.

This whole idea can twist in and around itself, because more than anything else, I do like pretending. I love to read about different people and cultures and places, some of which have never existed. And somehow what I'm going to work hardest on - or try to - is to stop pretending every day that everything is fine - so that I won't have to live anywhere but in the reality of this awful wage-economy driven world.

Some people think that they know what will keep them from pretending, and they focus all of their time and energy on trying to obtain their own kind of success. Even if it means that they lose out on enjoying what is right in front of them. Are the people who think that money is the answer to finding their own truth, who think money and success are their medicine, their ticket to stability, pretending any more than I am?

I think they are. But then why are they so much more damned happier than I am?

Bye bye Green 1999 Saturn SL2

I don't know why, but this year seems more than any year I can remember to be one of having to say goodbye to things that I love. Boy problems, and now my car.

For those of you who know me well, you know how much my car means to me. When I first started college I wasn't so happy, and my car was my first step towards independence - I could leave whenever I wanted, go wherever I wanted. She was all mine, and if I wanted to go visit a friend far away, I just went.

She's not the best car, being an "economy" car, but I always loved her more than I would have loved any Lexus, because she was mine, because when I was going uphill with the air conditioner on, she went more slowly, because to fill her up with gas when I got her was only $13, because somehow I could cram unbelieveable amount of stuff home and back to school with her - a television, monitor, computer, clothes, books, pillows, blankets - even an EZ Bake oven once to top it off. My brother would always borrow her without asking me when his car was being serviced and say that if he crashed her it would be okay because he could just buy me another rather easily.

I liked her because she suits my personality - a cute car that was not flashy, I wasn't sending out some message about having to proclaim that I'm cool or something, she wasn't expensive which made me feel better about having her because I didn't have a job in college and I didn't have to feel too bad that my dad paid for her, excellent gas mileage, a very comfy interior - something useable and comfortable, down to earth.

When I transferred colleges, I was really nervous and scared, but I had my car with me, something that was all mine and that went with me to a new place. I have great memories with my friends in my car, like Kate puking everywhere, then having to get the car cleaned after said pukage, then days of leaving Bounce dryer sheets in an attempt (very successful one) to have my car smell inoffensive, and finally smell good, after an IHOP disaster.

My dad's lease ended last year, so he took my car, as I live in the City and there's no reason for me to use it right now. At 84,000 miles, she now has about $3,600 of repairs she needs, including a new transmission warranty. My dad called me last night and very gently and kindly told me that she's sick, and that he's leaving the decision up to me - we can fix her, or let her go. It seems like all I'm doing this year is letting things go, when I don't want to - my dad isn't forcing me, but I know that the adult decision, the right decision, is not to spend that kind of money when he could get trade-in money, and when she'll probably just have more problems as time goes on. I just am not dealing well with having to say goodbye to something else - in my own silly oversentimental and oversensitive way, someone else.

So I'm sitting here at work crying, and I already made the excuse to a coworker that I just am sneezing for some other reason. I tend to sneeze when I cry, so at least I can pass it off as allergies.

I remember all the parking tickets I got at Binghamton, and just countless memories of driving all my friends around...when I packed up to go to Binghamton, and I was so scared, so nervous - it was the first time in my life I ever felt really like I was finally getting to strike out on my own, I was on my own, and it was one of the best feelings I've ever had. And I had her with me. I remember how proud I was when I put the Binghamton sticker on the back window and knew that I had worked really hard to get accepted to a great college, that I was doing the right thing by going to the best school for the best money, one of the top schools in the US for Anthropology, especially Biological Anthropology - rated higher than almost all the Ivys for what I wanted to study - that I was going to a place where my mind was finally going to really be challenged.

Darwinfish on her tooshie, I got so many notes in Bingo from creationists - saved in the glove box. My dad promised he'll remember to take them out, and my TLC Harry Potter sticker, and my Binghamton sticker on the back window also. I hope he can get her Darwinfish off. My dad said he liked driving around with that on the car, he thought it was awesome.

I tend to get really attached to things, both people and inanimate objects. I love how when most people think it's absurd and immature, my dad respects it and it's important to him. It's because to my dad, my feelings are okay, no matter how silly they are. I guess it's part of being a psychiatrist - also part of having to raise a very very oversensitive little girl who had an extremely overactive imagination and was usually caught up in imaginary worlds and books rather than paying attention to anything that was going on around her. It's just another thing about how awesome and kind my dad is, and why I look up to him so much. If I had wanted to keep her, he would have made it happen. But I don't want him to have to do that, when it's easier and better for him to get trade in value for her.

I'm not even going to really be able to say goodbye - I don't think I could, and my dad has to trade her in today when he gets his new car. My dad offered to wait, and use a rental, but I can't let him do that. Sort of knowing how much he respects my feelings and how much it means to him that I feel comfortable, and that it matters to him and it's okay for me to be silly makes it a lot easier for me. It's absurd, I know. Common sense is telling me that it's absurd for me to be attached to an inanimate object, I need to and should stop feeling this way. And I know that certain people, including one boy I had to say goodbye to this year - or rather who didn't want me anymore - would never understand that I feel this way, would only criticize me, and would just add it as another one of my egregious flaws to his list (along with my liking stuffed animals, the fact that he doesn't think I'll be a good wife or mother, I'm not ambitious enough, that dating me now would be throwing his career away, etc).

I just really didn't want to have to say goodbye to something else that mattered to me, when I have no choice, so soon again. Maybe that's why this is bothering me so much.

Cutting away the past

I got a haircut today. I'm really bad at getting haircuts, because when I was in 8th grade on a cruise with my family my mom couldn't stand my below the waist hair, and demanded that I get a trim. I acquiesced, and the lady who cut my hair didn't listen to me, and cut it above my shoulders. To say the least this was incredibly traumatic. Since then, I get pretty anxious before and during a haircut. However, I really trust the chick I have at the salon down the street from my apartment, so now instead of anxiety, I usually sit there happily awaiting the final look after the dryer shuts off.

So, sitting there reading fashion magazines, I thought about how fast my hair grows - about an inch a month. I've given up on trying to keep it a decent and grown-up Manhattan shoulder-length, it's just way too expensive. There were about 16 inches at the longest part before my haircut. I sat there thinking, "Who was I then? Who am I now?"

I watched pieces and bunches of black wet curls fall down into my lap and travel along the roller coaster ride that my shoulders and knees created along the plastic salon smock. Each piece fell with a harsh snip, slid along my lap and landed without a sound onto the floor. Of course this is not the most uplifting way to spend 35 minutes. But I just couldn't help it. There went my birthday last year, 2005, so many memories. Cut away, to make room for more to grow in, to make room for new memories, new experiences, and new people. Inches of the past, of who I was, and inches of cells that my body worked hard to code to form proteins that of course had to be in a frizzy and untameable quartenary structure. Bye bye, gone away, to make me look decent and something like a sophisticated New Yorker. Which of course I'm not. However, I can look somewhat like the part. I felt like all I was doing was sitting there, participating in another example of giving in, not getting what I want. If I had my way, my hair would be unhighlighted, left curly without any serum or silicone in it, and down to at least my knees. Like the chick from Braveheart.

But because this is unacceptable, I cut my hair, put in silicone gel just like the girls who get boob implants, and leave my apartment with choppy bangs that never reach into a ponytail. I wear dark, somber, serious colors that belie how I feel about life, and even about my job. I wear heels that hurt and keep me from running or walking quickly. I carry a purse that costs more than a month's worth of books. I do all this willingly, and I do get some enjoyment out of my feminine costume. But it isn't really me. It isn't really anyone - it's the anonymous garb of the 21st Century, I'm a worker, I'm unidentifiable, I'm one of the masses going to work. Just like I have a company ID number. I am more of the grey cloth to the outside world than a spectrum of personality, conflicts, desires, opinions, and faults. I'm not allowed to be myself, in all of the stupidity and cleverness that I'm capable of. I have to pretend to the outside world to be someone else, every day. Sometimes I can sit at my desk and be sad, wearing grey and black. Sometimes I sit there and laugh at Homestar Runner, and again the tight and tailored outfit just doesn't fit, no matter how much I look just as I should.

Hopefully Keysa cut away part of the hurt that has happened to me, along with the curls. I did feel lighter leaving the salon today, having lost about 5 inches of hair, and hopefully some of the weight from more unpleasant black clouds that I've had around me recently.

Sleepy wage economy ramblings

So it's been over a year since I updated this. I completely forgot about this blog, and only remembered by clicking on a link from Sergi's blog.

I suppose I'll try to update this in some sort of fashion, albeit not so regularly as some people who blog.

I have a new job at a hospital where I help to fundraise - I've been exposed to both the positive aspects of people trying to make a difference, as well as the side of a non-profit using very very high salaries (unfortunately not for me, although I'm rather satisfied) in order to garner the attention of high end VPs to run the administrative side of the hospital.

In other news, I've discovered troubling issues of morality, or an unpleasant lack thereof, in someone close to me. I find it fascinating and disturbing how logic and reasoning can be used exclusively in place of feelings in order to justify doing something immoral. I'm being very vague, intentionally. I suppose that even at the ripe old age of 25, I find it unexpected and disappointing when someone chooses the practicality and cold lure of money, position, and ambition to be more important than just plain old fashioned love. I'm simplifying the situation, and leaving out any and all particulars, but I feel that if my ideals and beliefs that pertain to love and romance cannot be present in a relationship, that the guy quite plainly isn't for me. Part of what love is, I think, is a dream combined with the prudence and humdrum of daily life. However, once the humdrum becomes more important than the dream, than making someone else important and giving of yourself, then I'm not interested anymore. People are made up of all kinds of things, tendencies, morals, and the shades of grey that one can possess are as unlimited as the many kinds of people it takes to make up the world. I question myself for having feelings and being interested in someone who chooses mercenary pursuits over me.

Perhaps I am not flexible when it comes to morals and what I am told is the inevitability of human nature. But that lack of flexibility, I am sure, and I will try my best to believe, is one of my core strengths, and one of the best things about me.

That and you are never, ever, ever too old to play with a stuffed animal and create a whole little world about one. Ever.

Coffee and headaches

No, not me. I am so addicted to coffee at this point that merely smelling it makes me get an idiotic grin on my face.
This morning at the 'Bucks, a lady was asking the Coffee Dude about espresso, because she's noticed she gets headaches from coffee but not from espresso. They discussed the differences, and held up the line a tad, and at one point as I was standing right next to them I said, "Oh, but put in more water if you're going to use espresso beans, to dilute them, they are really strong". And as I went to pick up my drinks and we talked for a second or two about espresso and delicious coffee, the lady said, "Thanks so much, I guess this is just part of getting older, it sucks" (she looked about 50something) and then I replied with a smile, "It's just the price of wisdom". The lady looked at me, surprised, smiled back, and said, "I like that! Wow you really know about life!" to which I replied, "I don't know ANYTHING about life!!" and she laughed and said, "What do you you do for a living?" and I said I worked at a museum, and she answered, "Oh good, I wanted to make sure you weren't a lawyer or something corporate". I laughed again and pointed to my tshirt and jeans and said, "Not in this outfit!".

I don't know a damned thing about life. The wisdom comment is just something I thought was funny and true. I am terrified of growing older, but maybe (hopefully) things will grow less confusing and scary as I experience more; that's the only payoff I can think of for physical aging.

This all made me think about the new Batman movie that I saw last night with movie buddy Russell (who it was GREAT to see). At one point, a cheesy line in the movie (rather predictibly) made tears sting my eyes, "Why do we fall? To pick ourselves back up". This was said by Bruce Wayne's father, and although it is a cheesy snippet from a movie, that is exactly how I want to raise my children when I have them. The thought that falling and making mistakes is okay, that it is natural and something that is supposed to happen, makes me feel so relieved and lighter. I've made so many mistakes in my life, and I just keep on making more, thinking that I'm not doing it right, that the mistakes are blunders that don't belong that only I make. So many "successful" people that I know went from high school to amazing college to amazing grad school and maturity with seemingly no problems whatsoever. I've always been a late bloomer, and I've always felt that my mistakes define me as something bad. Now the more I think about it, the more I can accept and feel comfortable (and happy) with the idea that mistakes are natural, and that they are teaching tools that enrich your life and create personality and depth. Can that really be true? Are we *supposed* to fall down? Is it more important how we pick ourselves up from the falls than all of our successes, all of our positive points on the scorecard of life? Would I really rather prefer to keep my past and all of my mistakes, hurts, and stupid actions even if I could erase them or replace them with a better history filled with more A's?

The more I think about it, the more important every fall in my life has been. The falls have taught my to have sympathy and empathy for others, to always try very very hard to put myself in someone else's shoes whenever I can because things haven't always gone right for me, usally due to my own actions (or inactions). Is it true that there is just as much worth, capability, and potential possible from someone who doesn't always do something right the first time as there is from someone who always does it right the first try? Is there really something to gain from making mistakes and failing? While I find it morally attractive to act in this way, it also seems natural to me because I feel that despite all the pressures and expectations our wage economy culture has, there is always someone, somewhere, who is willing to understand and hold out a hand to someone else. Those are the moments that I feel the mistakes seem less important than what other people will do to help their friends and strangers look on the mistake as a learning experience, rather than an end.

Maybe one of the best realizations of my life has been about my mistakes; despite all the horrendous ones I've made, I've nearly always been satisfied with the way I fought back and picked myself back up again. Perhaps that is one of the most enriching feelings I'll ever experience, and considering my history, it's one that I'm sure I'll be feeling over and over again for many years to come. :)

Books and things

Well, I've been meaning to start one of these in earnest for a while. I don't really know who would be interested in reading about my musings on life or purses, or whatever it is that I think about at work or on the subway, so I suppose only my friends will be reading this. But here goes.

Sergi had this up on his blog, a survey about books you own and that mean something to you. Considering that I'm such a bibliophile, and he mentioned that he wanted to see me fill out the survey, here are my responses wayy below.

Do I read too much? I dunno. Certainly it's relaxing and I love to delve into other worlds. Somehow our wage economy and busy busy busy world does not appeal to me enough that I don't need or crave fiction to fill the voids I feel in my life. Reading enriches my life, makes me feel fulfilled, and expands my mind to other possibilities and other worlds.

Admittedly, sometimes I'd rather be reading than go to a party with people I don't know, and if I could I might choose to live in a book rather than our world. That's why one of my favorite writers is Nabokov - I first read "Invitation To A Beheading" senior year at Binghamton, and while it's not on my book list below, it fundamentally changed how I view literature. I've read more of Nabokov since, and he articulates with elegance and fervor what I've always felt about fiction in a way that inspires me to hide in my books. I also love nonfiction; reading about the past for me is just as enthralling as fantasy.

Without fantasy and the ability to dream, humanity is locked within a prision. We need fiction to open up our hearts and minds to different realities, different emotions, and speculations that relieve the doldrums and horrors that we as a species have created through our "civilization".

I also heartily recommend "Reading Lolita in Tehran" - I read it about a week ago, and it is fast climbing to be one of my favorite books. I have to get Nafisi's work about "Invitation to a Beheading" because I think she is brilliant - she makes me unashamed to find Nabokov's message of fiction being vital to our lives so pertinent and necessary in my own life. Like Cincinnatus in "Beheading", I've always felt that I suffer or thrive upon his crime of gnostic turpitude.

What is gnostic turpitude? Amazingly, I Googled and Yahooed it, and there isn't some nice easy page I can link to - basically it is the crime that Cincinnatus is "guilty" of, but the meaning of GT (ha ha that sounds like it is an STD) isn't explained to him - basically by extrapolation, I believe Nabokov is explaining Cincinnatus as a person who does not fit in with everyone else on his planet, who wants explanations and reasons and what we as readers would consider normal parts of life, but that Cincinnatus is denied. Dreams are denied, any inclination to disregard the world at its total literal value is not allowed, and to want something more (like an escape into fiction) is considered a crime. In effect, Cincinnatus escapes his "prison" through his mind; by considering other realities and in a way coming to the conclusion that the prison only exists if he allows it to. It's wooly stuff, but it hits a huge chord within me - the book is a series of spouts of pure consciousness and description, perhaps the most brilliant thing I've ever read. Although it's not on my list below, I definitely rate it as a life-changing book. I don't give descriptions as good as Matt's, but reading and the books I read are very private to me and I have a hard time talking about them.

But I digress. Here are my responses to the book thingie:

Number of books I own:
~1000, did a count a few months ago while looking for "The Hobbit". Where are they? A bunch are under my bed in my apartment, on my bookcase there, and the rest are at my mom's house in the basement, my room, and all over the house.

Last book I bought:
"Rubicon : The Last Years of the Roman Republic"
by Tom Holland

Last book I read:
"Sex With Kings: Five Hundred Years Of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, And Revenge"
by Eleanor Herman

Last book I finished:
see above, Sex With Kings

Five books that mean a lot to me:
1. All Harry Potter
2. My copy of Little Women that was my mom's, published in 1938, coincidentally the same year my dad was born
3. My copy of Jane Eyre that I first read in 7th grade and had to put scotch tape over because it is so loved
4. My Human Osteology textbook, because I can pick up any part, flip through, and always be fascinated
5. Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever! by Richard Scarry because that's the book that I learned how to read from.

Addendum:
Two Books I bought yesterday, I have begun the "Red" book, it's fascinating:

A Perfect Red : Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire
by Amy Butler Greenfield


Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
by Jared Diamond


P.S. I'm usually not at all this serious, as will be seen in subsequent posts that show how silly I really am.