Ways to Know That I've Fallen In Love With You

Ways to know that I've fallen in love with you:

- For every text you send me, you get three texts back.
- Even at very odd hours of the night, I'm instantly accessible and readily available.
- I wanna pay for shit. Even if you don't want me to (especially if you don't want me to).
Note: this is chivalry, is standard for me, and only symptomatic when it's to an uncontrollable extent.
- I spend more on you in a week than I spend on me in a fortnight (often in vast multiples).
- When we talk I'm enraptured by you and am often stunned into lengthy silences (even over phone).

What you should do about it:

- Inform me firmly but gently that you're glad to be my friend, but nothing more.

Other options:

- I guess you could appreciate it and reciprocate if you really wanted to...
Note: this is not expected; that would be a dream.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you:

- Use me against myself, keeping me close so I will continue to pour all my resources out into you, then pretend that's normal and insist you didn't know what you were doing to me/didn't do anything.

Ode to Chapter Politics

Even in the pink of times
you walk a fine and dainty line
of what to give and what to keep
and as a chapter what to seek.
We turn to you in times of woe,
to guide us and your grace bestow,
yet wisdom we shall never know
upholds you now, you drunken ho.

The Invitation

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Like Cats and Dogs

I think the big difference between cats and dogs is the way they treat their environment. Cats are locals. It doesn't matter how long they've been in a place, they know the lay of the land, and are comfortable there. Dogs, on the other hand, are explorers. Even if they've been in a place their whole lives, they're always smelling new things, and having new encounters.

How can one even begin to describe the existential loneliness that originates in living with an experience that the majority of the population could never begin to imagine experiencing?

When I'm in that electrical moment there is no world, and when I lay there, unable to move afterward, all there exists for me is stoic, silent observation. There is no communicating, there is no expression, there is no connection to anything outside my own body. And I like it that way. I am in my own world, and I like it in there. It is quiet, and there is no one demanding anything of me. I am free to spend as much time as I wish focusing on what I am seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking. It truly is like meditation, and I think it is the therapeutic value of this exploration, both internal and external, that keeps me from being terrified of this sudden and complete loss of control over my body.

It seems to manifest in a way that provides me with some perverse kind of psychological release from any responsibility for what happens.

None of this is captured in the wikipedia article, or textbook definition of this, mostly because those are written by people who observe them form the outside, and have never actually experienced it. Also, it protects those who would idiotically attempt to reproduce the experience form this feeling.

This must be why there are support groups for this type of thing.

I don't know if I can really even connect with the people I used to revel in conversation with.

Jesus

Tonight I met a guy named Jesus. I had just finished my last final of the quarter, which I felt pretty good about, since I spent all day studying. I was sitting on a concrete pseudo-bench, waiting to be picked up, and he was walking by, smoking a cigarette, and changed his course to come over. I gave him some peanut butter M&M's, and he gave me a drag, and we introduced ourselves. He said that he had just broken up with his girlfriend, and had a rough day, and he was trying to keep himself occupied. He had drawn some tattoo art on commission, and was meeting up with the girl to get her approval. I told him I had just gotten out of class, and was going to go throw my little party, and extended him an invitation. We hung out for around three hours, with C, just smoking and talking, and showing each other our art, which looked eerily similar, captioned in handwriting that looked similar. We had everything to talk about, and there wasn't a moment of silence.

Then we went downtown, walked around and got Cold Stone, still talking about random experiences. And this whole other side of him came out. I was worried about the sketchiness of downtown (which smelled like shit, especially at the liquor store where he bought cigarettes), and he was so shocked by it that that's what preoccupied him for the next twenty minutes. He started telling stories about pulling a knife on his ex-girlfriend while breaking up with her, and she grabbed it and slashed his pinky (which was stupid on his part). Then there was a story about being banned from the boardwalk, and while still disallowed he got a job there and stole a bunch of money. Which, needless to say, didn't make me feel any less sketched out.

I have to say, I'm not that comfortable with how hardcore that is. But other than that, he seemed like someone I would get along with crazy well. We seem to be very similar people. :) C****'s only comment on him was that he "kept making eyes at her".... Frankly, I doubt that has the meaning she thinks. It had already been established they were both locals. If he was looking at her at all, he was probably just trying to place her. Or wondering why she wasn't adding to the conversation, cos she was just being silent a lot. Now that I know to look for that, I seem to be finding it in her an awful lot... Curious.

I know what i want from internet browsers next.

I want my browser and application windows to pop up in the order of when I last clicked them, not stay in the program I'm in. If a chat window is in between two firefox, it should come up. It can be dimmed like they do, but it should come up. That way you can find shit...

Re: "This bein broke thing is killing me"

I'm not sure how I should respond to you. I'm relatively certain you don't see or understand exactly the position that you've put me in on this one... Yes, I understand how it feels to be broke- I'm there too, remember? But I don't think you realize that the reason you're feeling like you have no money is because I'm no longer spending mine on you, so you're finally getting denied the things you don't have the means to get for yourself. And then there's this whole thing about how the reason I'm not spending money on you anymore is because I don't have any more. And why do I not have any more money? Because YOU spent it all.

So, yes, I get how hard it is to be broke, I'm right there with you. And what's more, I'm right there because of you.

You have my support, but I have no sympathy for you.

A Community Mental Health assignment on how to address a community in crisis

ways i would, as a communist, go about helping the tent people
-Focus on the prevention, and how with future planning, etc. this wouldn't've been so bad
-not much you can do about change of environment... unless it was about moving your tent to another town where you might be able to find work? Oh! move out of the country! That's it! relocate to somewhere there are jobs
-perspective is that you're in the dumps. if, instead, you think about how far you just came w/out loss of life or limb, outlook is much better (if you came this far without loss of life or limb)
-strengths : weaknesses as team/community/tent-setting-up-skills : financial power/financial-planning-skills
-different skills b/w ppl have different levels of importance
-offer confidential counseling to anyone who requests it

Peanut Butter and Jelly

If anyone has thought about it, this is a very sexy sandwich, starring the knife as cupid. One side of it brings the nuts, the other side brings the sweetness of the oozy jelly. Both are firmly affixed to the underbelly of a big tan end of spud in bread form. And when the nuts and the jelly are touching, and things are starting to get drippy, you put it in your mouth, and it's an explosion of fantastic-ness. The creamy nut butter slides over your tongue, and down the back of your throat, the divinely sweet, luscious jelly leaves the trace in your mouth that wants more.

Anything can be sexy. This paragraph was about lunch.

Circular logic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLxCxw5GnPM&NR=1

Explanation FAIL.

Epic, epic fail.

My new theme song.

So, you know how everyone wishes they had a theme song? I think I've found mine...
It's one of those things where when you hear it you have to go "Oh, my. This is truly how my personality should be expressed."


Nickel Creek: Doubting Thomas

What will be left when I've drawn my last breath,
Besides the folks I've met and the folks who know me,
Will I discover a soul saving love,
Or just the dirt above and below me,

I'm a doubting Thomas,
I took a promise,
But I do not feel safe,
Oh me of little faith,

Sometimes I pray for a slap in the face,
Then I beg to be spared 'cause I'm a coward,
If there's a master of death I'll bet he's holding his breath,
As I show the blind and tell the deaf about his power,
I'm a doubting Thomas,
I can't keep my promises,
'Cause i don't know what's safe,
oh me of little faith

Can I be used to help others find truth,
When I'm scared I'll find proof that its a lie,
Can I be lead down a trail dropping bread crumbs,
That prove I'm not ready to die,

Please give me time to decipher the signs,
Please forgive me for time that I've wasted,

I'm a doubting Thomas,
I'll take your promise,
Though I know nothin's safe,
Oh me of little faith...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eFe3net82s

"Not if T****'s coming home"

So, she's back in touch with her ex-boyfriend who is currently finishing up his tour of duty in Iraq. She says he's supposed to be home in March. She says they were together until he decided to join the military, and that's the only reason they broke up (she couldn't stand to see him sacrificing himself). She says now that they're talking they've decided they really do love each other, and she wants to get back together with him when he gets home.

The only thing is, I don't know him, but I do know her, and she's going to try to spend as much time with him as possible, which means I'll have so much less. Now she's saying that since he's coming home she's in no hurry to get out of Santa Cruz, even though the entire time I've known her she's been itching for bigger things. She's always wanted to get out of her parents' house, but before we were going to do it together. I was excited about living with her. I was looking at stuff on Craigslist, and planning finances and everything. Then I didn't think she was as into it as I was, and kind of stopped for a while, but then I found HER looking at listings. And that made me really happy. Cos I knew she wanted it too. Or, I thought she did. Maybe I was mistaken, and she was only driven by getting away from her parents. Either way, now she's saying when He comes home she might move into his house in Ben Lomond with him. And that hurts SO MUCH. I've not only been marginalized as a friend, I've been completely brushed aside and forgotten.

So I lied, there were two things. Also, I've been there when people show up randomly, and change the way a person sees the world. It's not going to be the same hanging out with her ever again. She's not going to be C****, she's going to be C**** and T****. She'll never be the same to hang out with because her personality will be influenced by who she's trying to be fore him. I don't want that. I like who she is now. I don't want to see her put on the mask of whoever's around, especially not if it's some aggressive, all-or-nothing, Fresh-out-of-the-Service Marine, who still thinks in terms of a strict hierarchy, and rules and regulations, and not the close interpersonal intimate gestures that comprise normal, day-to-day relationships. She's going to be trying to make him happy, and in the process, giving up who she truly is.








I really, truly am lost. If anyone in the world has any advice for me, good or otherwise, I'd really appreciate the extra point of view.

Already, every other word is about him. He's already changed our friendship, simply by having such a huge impact on her. We never talk about regular things anymore. It's always her telling me stories of the two of them from before. I mean, I'm ok with her reminiscing, especially since it seems to make her so happy to think of him in that capacity, but I get tired of hearing about boys, especially him, and I think it's simply because I realize that he's not going to be who she remembers him as, and she might get hurt trying to force him to be that guy again.