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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Monday, May 03, 2004
I love dynamic characters, the ones in movies who grow into a better person, find some epiphany and act on it. American Beauty, Broken Hearts Club, Living Out Loud, even Tootsie is really about Dustin Hoffman's growth as a person who finally understands someone else. I suppose I've always hoped to be one of those people, even consider myself one, because i have changed so much, hopefully for the better. it's not an easy thing to do, reorient your life that has been traveling so hard towards something else.
The first change I made happened the summer before i started seventh grade, my first time in a public school. I had a bad temper growing up, holding it all in until i couldn't take it and then lashing out at someone viciously, usually my brother but sometimes my friends, and even his. i was already a bit depressed because my only friend, Crystal, had ditched me - decided i was too young for her. I guess that's a common scenario, at least, Lynda Barry writes about doing it to someone else when she was young in her One Hundred Demons. maybe i figured i needed some changing. mostly, I felt guilty. I knew i was supposed to control my anger, I knew that I shouldn't lash out at my brother. it always embarrassed me, made me feel stupid and out of control. So i learned to control myself. My solution was to read I Corinthians 13 over and over again, every night, several times, until i memorized it (it's considered the love chapter, it describes love as not something you have but something you do, how to behave with love.) every month or so i would start trying to live a new verse - love is kind, love sufferes long, is patient, does not seek its own, etc. it worked - i became even nicer than i already was, and of course, got made fun of a bit for being so nice. but oh well, i was doing what i thought was right.
The biggest problem I ran into was football. my dad made me play football in seventh grade. I hated it, every second of it, and it tore me up inside - everything i was trying to do in order to be more like love, and therefore more like God, was against what I was supposed to do to be a good footbal player. you can't love someone and hit them, hoping to hurt them. I couldn't tell this to my parents or anyone - i knew they would laugh at me, but i was so shocked they would want me to be mean, to be angry, to want to hurt other people, when the Bible - something they taught me to be the absolute golden rule - taught me otherwise, very clearly.
Football is not the point though. I did succeed, by and large, in changing my life. almost too well. i haven't thrown my temper since then, in fact, i can't remember when i've ever acted out in rage since then. even in times when perhaps i should have . . . i was too young to realize that anger itself isn't necessarily wrong, it's uncontrolled anger, it's misdirected anger, etc. that hurt so much.
9:09 PM
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