words, words, words
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If I begin to detail myself here, will you understand?
P. I am me
Q. I don't always know exactly who that is
R. I am Quaker
S. I like words and playing with them
T. I like genmaicha tea
U. I like the word napkin more than most others
V. I spend time walking my neighborhood
W. I cook rice often
X. I sleep well most every night
Y. I eat large amounts of fruit and vegetables
Z. I munch, sleep, write, create, cook, bike, watch, walk, listen, hope, learn, drink, live, breathe, touch, know, question, taste, copy, read, stare, carry, talk, dance, finger, try.
raisin@gmail.com
albums:
Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs
Erasure: I Say, I Say, I Say
Depeche Mode: Black Celebration
The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On?
David Bowie: Hunky Dory
George Michael: Listen without Prejudice
George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
songs:
Wild is the Wind: Nina Simone
Come Undone: Duran Duran
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini: Rachmaninov
My Funny Valentine: Chet Baker
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate: The Flaming Lips
This Must Be the Place: The Talking Heads
Hyperballad: Bjork
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Wednesday, August 27, 2003
i've been concentrating on music so much lately, i seem to have too many new songs to listen to. which of course is call for a road trip where you're forced to listen to music in a contained area. the music is great, but there are times when you have to slow down and actually pay attention to the music you just added to your collection instead of running out to get the new new new! addictive, isn't it? like all good things. new stuff i've gathered: the tindersticks, tom Ze, natalie merchant's Motherland, de la soul, herbert, pulp, robbie williams, joan baez, stan getz, the beta band, Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg, more Don Lennon, the Kronos quartet, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. none of it is particularly new, but i'm like that, usually finding music several years after it came out, too difficult to find them all right away. so much fun, must move my head around to fit all the new songs.
10:36 PM
oh, friendster is bad, friendster is bad. all these things i should be doing, all these words i should be writing. but no, i'm looking at so many handsome guys. so many.
2:33 PM
Monday, August 25, 2003
I know, this sounds atrocious, people praying over a little boy until he dies. I know, it seems absurd that people would believe that the boy's autism could be demons, that the people would have to pray to God to deliver the boy and cast out the spirits. It is absurd, just as much as trying to relieve your problems by drinking yourself until you puke or using drugs to get out of your daily life. every once in a while, someone dies from the absurdity, a guy in his car hit by a drunk driver, an ecstasy dancer who drinks herself to death. I remember praying over people who were sick, I remember the idea of casting out demons, of people passing out during church services. I grew up in a Pentacostal world, the charismatic movement my family was very much a part of. I'm not sure what to think of it now. I know the great problems the fundamentalist church provides, but I also know the great temptation, that if you follow these rules, everything (everything) will be allright. You can let snakes bite you and you won't die; you can drink unhealthy water and not get sick. Think of it, an answer to all your problems, if you'll just believe. all you're surrendering is the heartache of trying to figure things out for yourself. If everyone's doing it around you, how much easier is it to hope in it?
I'm sure these churchgoers had no intention of killing the little boy. I'm sure some of them honestly believed the boy had demons in him. Maybe he did. if we call the disease of autism by the name of demon, isn't it the same problem? call it religious fantacism or call it semantics, the people just wanted to help the boy. They were misguided, they worked too hard, pressed their hopes on him too much, hoping the extra pressure might actually relieve him. It didn't work this time; they suffocated him in their desire to heal him.
I remember wanting to believe, too, wanting it all to be right, so easily understood. I also remember fearing those who were different, thinking evil of those who didn't agree, feeling like an outsider at school, and sometimes in church where the kids often didn't quite stomach it all but just played along to not stick out. Faith doesn't quite work that way. true faith isn't so easy, isn't so obvious.
I don't know though. the little boy loses his life from their overzealousness. they may just explain it away, say God took the boy back, claim no culpability for his death. It's hard to admit that the faith you have built your life around killed a helpless boy. I dont' know if I want to gather pity and understanding for them or teach them a lesson. I think, instead, I'll learn the lesson for myself. don't take good ideas so far that they kill someone. Pray and hope for the healing of people, but don't try to force the disease out of them; drink, but be careful of how much you consume, aware of what you could do under the influence. Live, but dont' live in such a way that it endangers the lives of others. Claim responsibility for your actions.
11:11 PM
I've added rob's silliness site to my links, just so you know.
i think i'm looking for a job now. i'm not quite sure. i do have a resume though, which is a good start. i'm also looking for an apartment. basically, i need a whole new life. except, i already have friends, which is a good place to be.
otherwise, my task mode has taken over my thinking mode. i don't like myself too well when i'm in this state, but i can't seem to get anything done while thinking. well, except for thinking. and playing, and all those wonderful parts of life. so i guess i'll focus on my tasks for a little while, just until i settle a few and then get back to my thinking. boy, these library chairs are comfy.
4:35 PM
Thursday, August 21, 2003
People die every day. We know that, always have. You see it in the news, some people get to see it in their streets. Sometimes they're people you know, most of the time, strangers you don't know how to care about. So why do we care? often, we don't. we don't know how to process the information, can't start our emotions for everything that dies, it's too much a part of life. i remember when i didn't care at all, never thought about caring, even if it was the guy in my squadron, the guy who had borrowed my car and left a small dent in the front reflector. sure, i drove up to denver for the ceremony his family couldn't attend because they lived in Pakistan. i wanted to feel for him, but couldn't. I suppose then I wasn't even feeling for myself. 2001 changed my emotional awareness. I fell in love with an incredible man, a man that could meet every crazy idea with his own, spinning around outside the Getty museum because I grabbed him and pulled, him making me sing in his car because he didn't have a radio, me jumping in a shopping cart in San Diego and him pushing me down the street. I couldn't hold onto the love i had for him; it seemed to escape me, escape my understanding, and even though I reached for it, it was too high, and maybe I didn't want to jump quite that high. and then i woke up that morning and watched the twin towers falling down, falling down like a repetitive nursery rhyme that makes no sense in our heads, all those people running from it, towards us it seemed, as we watched through the camera. and having had love, to the point that i was jumping up and down in love, so excited for our futute together, i couldn't have my usual apathy at all the death around me in september. i couldn't help but think of the firemen rushing in the building to save who they could and having the ceilings collapse on top of them. how i wished i had been one of them, someone who wouldn't wake up september 12th and face the mad world, who wouldn't wake up september 11th, 2002 and face the angry angry americans. but i wasn't a fireman, and although i toyed with suicide, planned a jump off of my favorite bridge in time to hit a semi to make sure i died and didn't just lose a leg, although I looked up at the sky hoping an airplane would fall on me, too, nothing happened, and i had to deal with all the crazy emotion, the lost love, the death everywhere, and all those petty feelings, the loneliness of being in a new town, working the midnight shift, having my pet bird scream at me every time i came home.
so, with all that behind me, death weighs a bit more on me, whether it's the most recent american soldier to die in iraq, the journalist shot by american soldiers, or tomorrow's victim of any number of diseases. But still, what do i do with it? do i turn it off again, pretend I don't notice? do i start tearing up even at movies when you see people killing other people, enjoying the death around them? or do i just get angry, at everything around me, live the cynic's life of bitterness and rejection? i do it all, i suppose, walk away from news stories complaining about how hot it is outside, squirm in my seat during action movies watching the massive death counts, knowing that people will misunderstand my tears if i actually cry whilethe bad guy dies (is anyone that bad that we can't cry at his or her death?), and i often just get angry, think that hating our president will solve our problems, that he's all to blame, even though he's only a tiny reason for all that death out there, that it's none of our faults in a way, and yet all of our responsibility to fix it. even random strangers at bars argue with my respect for all people, tell me that war is necessary and good, that we have to stand up for ourselves with our deadly weapons. i can't even get the words out half the time, can't tell you face to face why it hurts so much to hear about death, because i don't know how to stand behind my emotions, don't know what words to use to justify them, wish i could just say, this is the way i feel. i prefer to feel as much compassion as i can, to try to love everyone i see, even though i do a miserable job at it, even though i find myself acting so aggressively while driving, as if i have the right to everything over the rest of the world until i look at myself and ask why? why can't you treat them with respect, why can't you respect your own feelings enough so that you can look everyone in the eye and tell them how you feel? i've believed in our society for too long, one that creates packs of trading cards to celebrate the death-hunt of iraqis we hate this month, one that spits on emotions, calls them weak and womanly, something no man should ever exhibit. and yet, i'm proud of my tears, proud that i actually do care, that i miss the people i love, that i miss the people that i thought loved me at one time but now can't stand who i have become, proud that I even try to fight the war machinery. it isn't much, and i can do more. i suppose that's the only answer, to work towards goals that will reduce people's suffering, reduce the anger against others that causes so much death. it doesn't seem enough, but it's more than i'm doing now, more than I've ever done.
3:43 PM
Sunday, August 17, 2003
we talk so much about freedom in america, but do we have any idea what it is? is freedom a boat to sail into the sea, like captain jack sparrow wants? is freedom the ability to think for oneself, to laugh at whatever pleases, like R.P. MacMurphy in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest? is freedom the ability to vote and hope that your vote counts, that nobody's cheating or lying? is freedom living in the countryside where there aren't too many lawmakers, where you just live how you choose, not needing much law because there aren't many people?
what keeps us from doing the things we want? is it law, is it morals, is it fear, is it society? would we all end up like Lord of the Flies if left on our own? with all these contradictions and possibilities, i can't seem to see what freedom is at all. sure, it's not having to practice a particular religion, but doesn't our free country try to get us to do that anyway? how can we have freedom of assembly but laws against loitering? i still can't marry the man i love, which seems a pretty basic freedom. ok, so i don't want to fall into bare cynicism about this country. i'm asking something deeper than politics.
I feel the most free when i'm doing something in front of people, that many people would not. like dancing a saturday night or two ago, dancing and laughing and jumping and singing along, with every part of my body, not caring who was or wasn't looking, just stepping with the music, stretching my abilities, feeling like i was cheating gravity and social responsibility. like when I'm biking and singing at the top of my lungs on a city street, exercising my legs, my lungs, and my freedom to yell.
I feel the most caged when I agree to conditions I don't agree with, when I cage myself willingly. nobody has ever caged me as much as myself; and yet, sometimes I feel trapped by others, by their lies, by their insistence that this is the best way, and so i delude myself into believing them, and want to blame them, too. maybe it is their fault, and maybe it's my fault for shrinking in front of them, for diminishing my own power to serve theirs.
then freedom is more mental than anything, and i am bigger than i ever thought I could be. in order to grow to that height, i have to practice this freedom, act and intend, not stumble and lay around. then i will be free.
10:37 PM
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
How much of our parents do we become? how much of their influence can we shed; what parts trap us? how do we stand up to years of lies and pretense? no, no, i don't like to tell stories about other people. that's their business, and i'm not interested in sharing gossip. but me, yes, i'll tell about me, i'll tell about how i realize every day things i learned from them that i shouldn't have, forgetting all too easily those good lessons i picked up and pride myself for. i'll tell how i can't make sense of it yet, can't talk to them as if they are humans, can't hardly stand up after the subservience they demanded out of me. As much as i want them to help me let go of so many problems, I know this is my responsibility, and I can't expect them to even understand what's going on. few people can see themselves well enough to know how they might have affected someone else. i know I am miserable at seeing myself. but how? how do i see so well into myself, how do i gather up this courage that i have lacked for such a long time? or is this just a case of moving, because i have to, not because i know how to do it? yes, i think that's it. i will have to gain the knowledge by the experience. no preparation, no test, just learning by doing. and realizing that my parents are people too. full of mistakes and talents, full of awareness and blindness. i can't hate them for the problems they created in me, but I hope to help them understand and therefore receive their help in forgiveness and understanding of who they are. seems i've been talking about this for a long time, but I feel closer to realizing what I have to do. I have to do, not sit around and wait for them to do. I have to do.
9:30 PM
Some people who read the Bible find slavery; you must do this, you must do that. The message I have found has been freedom, freedom from all the crazy laws of Leviticus, freedom from depravity, freedom from the fear of death. One Episcopal priest sees this expression of freedom being embraced by their church:
"I could argue that the overwhelming emphasis on inclusion in the New Testament trumps the two or three passages from St. Paul that may condemn homosexuality; just as his sublime passages on freedom trump his support of slavery. "
Unfortunately, the Bible is confusing enough to let many people find different understanding within it. As is the trouble in every freedom-oriented society, we must accept those who find that different understanding. although, we do not have to be bound by it.
8:53 AM
Sunday, August 10, 2003
Change is existence. the only stillness we can find is in death. Even during sleep, the little death, our heart twitches, moving blood through our body, our eyes flit through REM. those who resist change lose their will to live, can no longer see outside of themselves to incorporate newness into their lives. how can you live without growing? even the rocks around us change through time, weatherbeaten, slowly so that we cannot sense it. we change much more frequently, must change to survive. our senses lose their sense without change, touching something so long that you cease to notice its nearness, a lover who stays too close, a smell, the most wonderful or the most horrible scent, fades as you sit in a room, still. our society tells us to stay as we are, don't move too much, you can't handle it, it's frightening. yes, life is frightening sometimes, but moving against the fear gives us life, courage, and breath.
12:18 PM
Saturday, August 09, 2003
esther phillips, suzanne vega, patti page, and sam cooke. ursula rucker, annie lennox, sarah vaghan, and the temptations. music is all around me, swirling in my head as i sleep, singing out my mouth when i drive. hard to block it out even if i wanted to, i've spent so much of my life listening to it. i love it, like a second part of me, constant friend, suspenseful mystery. a friend of mine told me there ought to be music playing everywhere, so there's a constant soundtrack to our lives. there is. just try to find some silence. pay attention to the music around you, whether the cars driving by, or your own footsteps, the sounds mixing in ways nobody intended, but have simply happened. try to enjoy it; it might take your mind off your own blues.
7:30 PM
Tuesday, August 05, 2003
I have never studied latter twentieth century history. I have a huge gap of knowledge between the end of WWII and 1998, when i first started actually caring about the news and world events. I have been hoping I would simply absorb the information from others, but it hasn't happened, so i think I'm going to have to research it myself, gather my own information. already, just having read a short history of the sixties, I'm astonished at how much happened in that decade compared to others. However, I get the feeling that the oughts (is that an appropriate way to describe 2000-2009?), is so far just as event crammed. great things happened in the sixties; certainly, the advances in the civil rights and women's liberation movement improved the nation, but what did the Vietnam war and the assassinations of JF Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy do to us? how similar is this decade to that, and what good does it do us to compare? this is why history is important, because so much behind us will help us deal with today and tomorrow. the most difficult part may be applying old lessons creatively enough so that they help us to solve new problems and not copy what has already happened.
5:01 PM
Monday, August 04, 2003
how much do you want to belong? how much do you sacrifice of yourself in order to normalize? i can't say it's as dangerous as it sounds. humans are social beings; how else would we form communities without normalizing? Still, there must be a balance, a way to know how much to express yourself and how much to remain dumb about. not having a place of my own at the moment, staying with friends and family, i am spending more time ignoring parts of myself i might otherwise express. of course, as is everybody, i am still finding parts of myself to express, especially after having recently left the air force. so maybe i am a bit more resistant right now to cutting off that expression, since this is the first chance in my life where i don't have parents or the military giving me strict guidelines to follow. i remember the time when i wore the clothes they gave me with satisfaction; i focused my life on other things. i've taken that clothing off, but now i feel unsure; what do i wear when around my parents? what do i wear when I'm around my friends? i want to belong; i want to feel common ground between myself and others, but i don't want to sacrifice. maybe sacrifice is still a necessary part of the equation, like sacrificing the last ding dong for a flat stomach. which is being more true to myself, taking care of my body or letting myself go? i know, i complicate my life, and tie ideas together that probably don't belong in the same category. still, the more i synthesize bits of life together, the more people i find i understand, and therefore the better a person i am. it's just these in between times that feel so odd.
8:04 PM
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