15.11.10

Tearing down the walls.

Been gone a while. No blog posts. Not sure why. Guess I have Facebook Updates to substitute for these longer rants and raves, taking all of my thoughts and packaging them into little 32-character snippets that get tossed into the wild winds of the Internet. Come to think of it, that's how my thoughts appear nowadays. Hard to tell if I'm losing focus as I age and can't think about one thing long enough to form a cohesive thought about it, or if FB has shaped the way I think to spit out only small half-formed witticisms and bits of randomness.

Anyway. I've spent a lot of time in the last year walling myself in. Trying to figure out things for myself and in the process attempting to force everything around me to fit into my picture of how things should be. Did not realize I was doing this until tonight, and as the realization washed over me, it caused a small emotional breakdown. Felt good, actually. I hadn't allowed myself to feel emotions for a while because they didn't fit into that perfect picture. Emotions had taken such a backseat to the point where I'd convinced myself they weren't worth feeling; I didn't care enough about them to let them work their way out. To be more precise, my general apathy towards most things had extended to the little things that are, when you face them, big things. In ignoring the little things, I ignored the feelings too. Wish it were easy to tear down the walls. I know it's not, but I want to start trying.

For a while, I was thinking of ways to escape the country. Nothing worked out, and I'm still here, albeit with a different job. But I think that's about to change. Looking to head out to Berlin for a little while in the springtime. Not sure why, but it's something I feel I need to do. Haven't been to Germany since 2008 and I'm starting to really feel it. I've been doing some traveling stateside, which is all well and good, but my passport is begging me to dust it off and take it on a ride. I'm more than happy to oblige.

19.9.10

BACK.

Haven't written on this thing for quite a while. Feeling pretty prolific today as far as my thoughts in my head go, so I thought I'd do a quick burst of blog entry. (Happened to be walking by the library, and am at a 15-minute internet terminal, so it'll be short-lived.) If it's any good, maybe I'll republish onto Facebook for more to see.

This morning was spent walking through the park with a good friend, conversing about this and that, and really getting to some good points on important issues. At the first and foremost in my mind this weekend has been the American obsession with the automobile, and all the problems it creates. People can live so much more pleasantly and efficiently when they don't have to worry about safely driving vehicle, parking it, keeping it running and fueled, etc. Many might see the lack of a vehicle as a constraint, but I see it largely as a freedom. When I'm out exploring a city or neighborhood, I don't want to worry about where I parked the car, how much I have to pay for the parking vs. finding a free, cramped spot on the street, whether the car is being broken into while I'm gone, and limiting my distance traveled so I don't end up too far away from the vehicle. I'm much happier stepping off a bus. That way, I can wander to my heart's content. When I'm ready to go home, often miles from my original point of entry, I find another bus stop and take a different route home. Or I can cycle my way through the city, and not have to worry about parking, while at the same time getting my exercise for the day. The typical American might view a city as being cramped, which is all the more reason to move to the suburbs. Free parking! You can drive where ever you want, whenever you want! No citations! Great. C'mon, guys. The problem is not the city; the problem is the car. You're attempting to fit something large into a space that cannot accommodate it. The solution: don't drive. Simple as that.

Oftentimes, when walking over the bridge that spans the girth of I-5 at rush hour, the sheer amount of machinery crawling slowly below makes me sad. This happens every day, Monday through Friday. Wasteful machines, each propelling a ton of metal, each guzzling gallons of gas and tearing up the concrete, all just to get one or two hundred pounds of human a little further up the road. It's disgusting.

Out of time for now, but I'm sure I'll write more on this in the future, as I do think about it pretty much constantly.

17.2.10

Musings on a Brighter Future

This is ridiculous. I'm in the library with hours of access to a great, high-speed desktop computer. I ventured here for the express purpose of preparing for my interview in two days. Instead of researching and taking notes, I have been looking at all sorts of other stuff on the Internet: information about nursing programs, my pregnant cousin's pictures on her blog, job postings on the UW website, salary information for various career pathways. Of course, Facebook and Gmail factor highly on the list, as well. But back in college, I used to procrastinate using solely those two websites as my distractions, plus the occasional joke website or cute Lolzcat picture. Now, after spending 2 hours on a computer without having tackled my interview prep, I feel that though I'm putting off my main goal, it's not a waste of time because I have not merely been browsing but actively researching. Thinking about things like the future, which in college my brain simply did not have time to process. I was too busy looking at the trees to notice the forest, too preoccupied with waiting for everything to slow down to wonder if I would hate it when it finally did.

And I'm there now. I'm working and it's boring. I have held the same weekly volunteer position for nearly 3 years. I live in the same house as last year. All my life, my circumstances have changed every fall, and I accepted it as frenzied but normal. All of a sudden, normal has become this feeling of treading water. Not regular water, either. Something thicker that inhibits movement. Oatmeal, perhaps?

Perhaps this is what settling down feels like. I'm not ready for it. Will I ever be? I can't answer that now, but I can set myself back on the track I used to ride, and see where it takes me. And that's exactly what I intend on doing.

5.2.10

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

—Langston Hughes