As a conclusion to my previous post, I opted for the early sleep to night so the nap was scratched. I did take my mother’s usual advice for when I’m cold: do dishes, which relieved some of the messy problem.
While doing dishes I made up my new rule: I’m not allowed to post anything to my site unless it is accompanied by a picture. This is an effort to decrease words but increase meaning.
One of the greatest comforts: laying on the floor.
The first time in quite a while. Well, not including hangovers. Genuinely feeling a wee bit sick. It might be that I’m pushing myself harder lately, wanting to get things done and see results. That and the stress of knowing there are deadlines to those results.
But it is hard when I’m researching or coding and my fingers are so icy cold I just don’t want to take my hands from my pockets. I sit in the lab wearing sweater and jacket and I AM Chhiiiillled. So I picked up some hot chocolate on the way home from school to warm me up. I think I might even take a nap…screw being worried about my sleeping patterns.
I want cozy. I want someone to take care of me. I usually never want that because I like feeling free and independent but right now I want that. When I was sick my mom would set up camp for me on the family room couch. She would spread out a comforter and I would lay on it. Then she would wrap the free half around me and tuck it in tightly. I would lay there all day, drifting in and out of sleep. People would come and go and I would hear them upstairs. Comfort was when someone came down to see how I was doing. To sit on the couch almost on top of my legs. The extra weight magnified cozy, in my feverish states I would think it was a heavenly presence. Comfort was knowing you could let all go because your homework would be brought home and it would be okay to miss a piano lesson.
I hope I don’t get sick because I will only want someone here to care for me. No, I need to take care of things. My apartment is a mess and still smells like dinner cooked 3 nights ago. I have things to mail, things to sell. That and I think I will be moving out of here by December 1st. Looking for roommates if you know anyone in Vancouver. Yeah, after the messy apartment comment…hehehe. No really, normally I am very very clean. My focus has been elsewhere lately though. That and most of the mess is due to “gutting” my place - bringing out everything I want to get rid of. Reducing.
I hope I dream of sunshine tonight…will maybe sleep with a lamp at my face.
That’s not really the title.
It is Saturday afternoon. Today is a day of talking, cleaning, organizing, doing, productivity, errands, etc. I’m trying to swing an impromptu yard sale tomorrow. Meghan is downsizing, reducing, minimalizing.
I’m going through my books, picking out the shelf candy. I have a very fat book of assorted Poe. I actually have 2 very fat books of assorted Poe and can never seem to rid myself of either. One has everything in it, the other was a gift from Julian.
I just opened up the former and went through the assorted papers stuffed inside. Memories are so great when they are saved in books. They surprise you more later.
What I found in that book was a print out of 2 poems sent to me by an old flame. A flame that burned fiercely bright in me at the time. I read them, not with a sadness of something lost which would be quite ordinary for me, but with a happiness that those writings came into existence and it just so happened that he sent them to me. A feeling of luck, a smile because I was fortunate to be an audience to someone’s personal expression. At the time, those poems had been pure ecstasy for me, they had been from him! Now they are a beautiful reminder of rapture’s possibility.
I found another poem. I think from the same person but you know what, I cannot remember. I really cannot. There is something satisfying in that too.
Aargh, I started reading this Wired Article with interest. They are researching the “bits” leftover after bird-plane collisions. Snarge is what they call it. By determining what kind of bird, when, and where, they can hopefully make guesses on flight paths that will avoid bird collisions.
This is good, considering the environmental impact our transportation methods have in the sky, it’s easy for us to forget about that. But no it is not about that. In the news it’s never about anything but what negative impact it has on humans.
I thought I would continue to read about the number of plane related deaths per bird species. No, I read about the amount of money the birds are causing in aircraft damage. I read that they test a jet engines indurance to ingest an 8-pound waterfowl by “firing a chicken from a cannon at point-blank range”.
God I feel so sorry for chickens. Nature’s most abused species. We call someone a chicken because they are a coward but today I think it means so much more than that.
Thinking about the blogs I read. They most interest me when the author either: 1) Finds cool things, references them, adds opinions with a spin or 2) Has an interesting, busy, and unique life, and has something remarkable or from the heart to tell the world each day. I try to be inspired by those I really enjoy.
Unfortunately I can fall into a writing rut when: 1) I’m working a lot and actually not spending that time finding nifty flash projects ;) 2) My life is clinically boring (I try not to let that happen though and can’t remember the last time I was in that state any longer then the time it takes me to say “I’m bored”) 3) Things are really happening but they overwhelm me so much that I cannot process them into a precise, concise, entry. I’m currently in #3 and it is less external, activity based and more internally based. We all create a certain energy for ourselves and I had found that mine was not enough, or it needed to change. I am in the process of doing that and the doing is good. Still, it is hard to write about.
Luckily, when I do fall into these ruts, I have my dreams to fall back on. There’s always something happening when I sleep. Last night was a lot, so much I cannot remember so maybe it was like #3 above of dreamland. I do remember moving into a new apartment and I thought that purple walls in the bedroom + wood paneling was pretty dope. I remember having visitors, wandering the Vancouver streets at 3am though it was actually Regina, having and old UofR classmate flirting me and wondering why, and playing a keyboard and I was damn good.
I think I had a bad hair in my dream, telling me I need a cut. Last time was in April or May…can’t remember. Mike performed miracles with me, shaping my hair perfectly so that I could make a graceful transition between short bob to long hair. Now I’m here and I feel the mop is not representing the mind beneath. If hair could speak mine would have few things to say. So what to do with it? My constraints are: no dye job (I’m still in love with my recently born again natural colour), not shorter again (I am tempted to at times but it rounds out my face so much that I look like a forest animal), minimal hair product (sculpting and shaping must be in the cut itself), and finally, I should be able to wash and walk out if need be. Hmmm…
Things you are not supposed to do on Project Day.
I think I fall victim to at least 50% of that list’s items everyday. Having projects on the go is the only way I get non-project related things done.
ferrets seldom ask bad riddles
avoid trial’s sorrow cake
they flew
other yawned
straight footsteps written
Big decisions to make this week. BIG ones.
Is it just coincidence? I always ask myself that. Constantly calculating the variables, mapping out patterns. Determining accident versus arranged. No it must be a coincidence but then this must mean something. Is it a coincidence that she knew him through a brother of a friend? Was this rain meant for me? etc.
I’m writing this and my head starts to hurt, thinking about random versus predetermined. It winds my mind…I try to remain on the surface. Then I read this article Wired News article: My IPod for a Random Playlist. Does it seem like your playlist is not really random? I feel like that…I feel like it’s choosy with the artists it picks. But I still always hit shuffle…like surprises.
The problem, it turns out, isn’t that the programs aren’t randomizing my playlists. They are. According to Jeff Lait, a mathematician and author of randomm3u, it’s what’s happening between my ears, specifically, in my expectations of what it means for something to be random.
To illustrate his point, Lait referred to a phenomenon statisticians call the birthday paradox. Roughly stated, it holds that if there are 23 randomly selected people in a room, there is a better than 50-50 chance that at least two of them will have the same birthday. The point: Mathematical randomness often contradicts our intuitive expectations of randomness.
Is it my expectations of randomness that make me feel unfulfilled by my player’s shuffle or is it that I constantly anticipate a non-random pattern to emerge. In the same way that I try to connect events, people, words constantly. It cannot ever appear random because I will not let it. So why do I do that? What benefit exists in this seemingly wired in mechanism? I suppose the ability to find patterns and connections is important to learning, creating, solving. Even if it works overtime and the connections are not always there, at least the mind is trying. The important being that it does not try to fabricate a nonexistant connection Another benefit is that it give me reason. Reason is important for survival.
…I feel really good right now. My energy is quite high but not in a restless way that it can often be. I feel capable of doing, outputting which I will as soon as I finish this post. I am happy that I saw a variety of people this weekend so thank you all for spending time that you did with me it was really great. I hope the greatness carries over into tomorrow and the coming week as well. It should. I feel like I have experienced enough in the past 24 hours that I can now buckle down and finish this application. I will work on that tomorrow as well and then off for an afternoon at the art gallery with Andrew after which we may meandre down main. I feel in tune to a little life soundtrack. Thank you Chris so much for an introduction to Your Ex-Lover is Dead. I’ve been singing it everywhere. Sometimes I have a hard time leaving my apartment because I have to listen to it one more time. That’s why I need an ipod hehe. My other current daily soundtrack tune: Born On The Cusp by The American Analog Set (October 26th @ The Media Club).
It is easier to be scared and doubting then to take charge. It is easier to phrase life in “I thinks…” and “I believes…” and “…but don’t quote me on that”. If you are never sure you never have to be truly wrong. Though if you are never wrong how right can your right be? If you cannot be sure in the statements you make, how are you ever sure of yourself and then how can you ever ever get what you want?
I sat back and made myself think of something I am absolutely certain about. Anything. It’s hard. We always try to keep everything open, in the air, out there…it’s protection from ever being hurt. I am sure that I love sleep. That’s one.
A synonym for sure is confident.
When the unpredictable happens we can lose our confidence. So is being sure in inevitable uncertainty a way to avoid losing that confidence?
I laugh that I feel more confident with “right tracks” which include getting up early in the morning, taking daily vitamins, and reading about current world issues. Yeah man, I’m doing good…I’m exercising, I remember to floss, I have a book of spare stamps ready to mail letters in time and I smiled at 3 strangers while I was out today. Spreading the love and good feeling. Confidence should be without lists and checkmarks, without mental reminders.
I smile the days that without thought I hold my shoulders back, my head high, and laugh from deep in my belly.
Needed string paper clips will do.
Lizard attached - good.
Toss #1 a little unsuccessful. Lizard gets caught onto light fixture.
some readjustment necessary
add a lizard friend
and tada!
5 points for either one
Had the weirdest dream last night, possibly from a gravol hangover. I was a bridesmaid for some girl’s wedding. I have no clue who she was, but other people I knew came around at various points in my dream. It started out in her bedroom which was huuge, warehouse sized, big tall windows and vines crawling up all walls on the inside. It was constantly hailing outside but really bright and sunny. I was asking the other girls there whether I should wear my regular clothes or a dress to the wedding. The bride was in jeans. Then they were all gone. I had one of those lasting forever dream sequences where you need to leave some place but can’t make some important decision needed to do so. Usually I’m naked or scantily clad or in pyjamas and my decision is to get dressed but I just can’t. I think eventually I left and went to find the wedding. I was wandering around a building that seemed like a highschool, sometimes elementary school because the ceilings were much lower. Later I was to learn that the buildings were all part of a vast, endless campus. Maybe there was a number of buildings for every year of school that I have attended. A maze of school houses, classrooms, janitor rooms, pipes and showers and gymnasiums. A labyrinth I would never get out of (similar feeling to how I currently feel with school :P) Anyway, back to the dream. I was finding elements of the wedding everywhere. People with decorations. A cake in some classroom, surrounded by family members of the bride. Little wedding parades. I was asking people where the actual wedding was. People were all crazy and drunk and couldn’t tell me. I continued to walk, thinking that maybe I was in the wrong building. Suddenly I was back in a room similar in design to the bride’s room, sitting around a board game with a few other people. It was my turn. My objective was to find the bride’s room. I rolled the die, or whatever was needed to take my turn, and was suddenly in another building. I knew this was totally the wrong one. There were maps of the floor plan on the wall and it was all wrong. It was damp and moldy inside. The ceiling was covered in piping and grates. An old man appeared and beckoned me to follow him. I did…we could hear/see another figure shuffling around but I couldn’t see who it was thus couldn’t tell if it was someone I should avoid or not. We went into one room and the old man wanted me to continue to follow him but he was climbing up a ladder and motioning towards a pipe or shaft or something that was seemingly impossible for me to get into. I shook my head “no” and watched as he started to squeeze in. I think that he was able to deform his body to fit through the air system. I also think it was a cooling system because the shaft was icy and frosty. I left the room, still looking up at the ceiling, trying to gauge where the old man was squeezing himself to. Then I saw the other figure dash into the room we had just been in. I watched him. He had a dinosaur head…like, you know that old tv show Dinosaurs? He looked like one of those guys. In a suit. I thought, woah this is too screwed up, so I turned around and decided to leave, and I was back at the game board. I must have been waiting for the other players to take their turns, I was looking at the game board, trying to figure my way out. I’m not sure whether I marked that way out as “winning” or “losing”. In stories the protagonist always has to win to get out of some perilous situation. In my dreams I usually also consider where I might get if I lose, like I know that it may be the better solution. Back to the dream…I was looking at the game board and suddenly I understood where I was in relation to the bride’s room. I could see the room on the board and other rooms around it that made sense given the context of my dream. On that moment of “aha!”, I woke up. I sat up, remembering that I had a revelation but I totally don’t know what that was.
This is fun. It’s a great simulation for those of us who cannot control our streams like that. Though Tony made a good point…when peeing in one spot for a while, a lot of the snow should start to melt. It reminds me of Saskatchewan :)
