Beauty in simplicity

One day at the beach, I felt like an intruder observing the interactions of a family nearby. I couldn't help but admire how cinematic the scene was. I forgot that such embodiment of happiness actually happened in real life. You can tell that the kid was having the time of his life getting as close to the "lava" as possible, and then running away from each incoming wave. His dad came running at him, picked him up, and ran into the water.

I love watching kids amuse themselves with nothing. Things as simple as peek-a-boo or shadows on the wall. My mom used to yell at me for using the laundry basket as a toboggan, and the stairs as my snowy hill. She also didn't like how the dog was a pony.

It takes too much to amuse us now. We complain of boredom too often. I believe that our imagination has been replaced by logic and rigidness. Imagination is now called a "hypothetical situation." Of course, it'd be silly to see a fully grown adult hide under a laundry basket pretending to be a turtle or sit on a magic carpet towel.

I'm waiting for impending doom, but it can't be on my mind right now.

January 11

I hate to be Benjamin Franklin, but I'd like to think that I am a good person to talk to. I can offer my advice in sincereity or simply just lend an ear. I enjoy being that person. It lets me excerise the values of trust and insight.

That's probably why my ex-boyfriends (and their family members) still keep in contact with me. Even the ones that broke my heart. A lot of people tell me how strange it is to still talk with them, but I don't really mind. Well, I lied. Sometimes I do mind.

Last night, I was in a situation that could be posted on a combination of FML and Texts from Last Night, but this blog would suffice. He started out with small talk, but being as "snappy" as I am with him, I just cut to the chase.

"So what's the occasion for the text?"

"Nothing. Just wanted to check up on an old buddy. Do you have a boyfriend?"

"I'm still with John. How's the place and the girlfriend?

"Wow you guy's have dated a long time. Girlfriend's good. We got married. Oh yea! And having a baby due on your birthday. I thought that was amusing."

"Well I usually don't just date around. Well I'm glad you think you can take care of the kid. Don't fuck it up. It doesn't deserve it."

I still think I'm a good person to talk to. I've been harsher with him, yet he still talks to me, right? The last time we talked was after his admittance into the psychiatric ward due to a suicide attempt. I told him that it obviously failed and to try and try again.

I said that I offer sincere advice and I delivered. Oh wow! On my birthday!? We should have a dual celebration or something! How fucking amusing!

Hey! Idiot down in front!

Test anxiety again. It's a real problem for me. I guess it plays into how I'm borderline masochistic with stress and worry. But summer session goes so fast. We covered a story a day, and there are only 2 exams. Not much chance for recovery.

Today was the TA led review session, and they started by telling us the structure of the test, study strategy, and grading. Yet people still asked silly sundry questions. It wasted the chance we had to discuss the stories, interpretations, and analysis.

A lot of people were getting frustrated, but boy in front, who apparently thought he was da shit, got a little fussy and out right rude to the TAs.

Look.

Dude.

This is college, not grade school. The reviews only go as deep as the questions asked. The TAs aren't going to give you everything on a lunch tray next to your juice box. Instead of bitching at the TAs in front of the class, acting obnoxiously exasperated, and then storming off, why don't you ask your own damn questions? Don't bitch at people smarter than you and not take initiative.

Idiot down in front, your demeanor, lack of courtesy, and hyprocrisy really pissed me off.

No patience for realism.

I've concluded that men are so much needier than they seem. They require more attention than many women can handle. Maybe it's a change in times, and a slow occurrence of role reversals. Or maybe not. Maybe everyone has just grown to be more selfish, and the self-interests clash. How inconvenient.

It's sad to say, but I really crave romance. I mean the everyday little things rather than presents and a dinner for Christmas or my birthday. There's just not enough of that going around anymore. I'm not exactly old fashioned, but I always am impressed when a man opens a door or gets my bags for me. But it's the same old argument.


Humans are too hard to depict, but I tried. I consulted a friend who loves drawing people and is amazing at capturing emotion. His artwork is barely distinguishable from photographs. He said he goes excruciatingly slow, and draws minute detail. Every strand of eyebrow hair. Every wrinkle of the lips. Well I got as far as the wrinkly lips. It's not exactly a photograph, but it's a picture.

Not at all discrediting him, but I figured that if you want a picture that looks exactly like a photograph, why not just have the photograph? It's like when people say that frog legs taste like chicken. Why not just eat chicken?

Casting shadows.

I'm sorry you're having to deal with so much hassle with them, but I had to go through the same, just in different ways. You just gotta deal.

There's always a catch-22 with both the older and younger child. And it's even worse for a girl and boy. I was pressured to set high standards for you to follow, but they've come to learn it's not just the tangible standards. It's more than test scores and school activity. It's character, etiquette, integrity....You'll learn that's what it takes to be a stable human being. I know I never had to do what they're making you do, but I was pro-active at that age. I never waited for a "go out and..." line from them. I just did. And now they're expecting you to do the same.

Don't forget that the first child is also the experimental dummy. You now have more privileges compared to me. New car, more out time, no curfew. Their mistakes were one me, and they saw how I rebelled those few years, before the better years. Maybe that could have had a bearing on who I am today. I get phone calls frequently requesting advice on how to push you to where I am, but here's not much I can say. I went through this myself. Growing up and living your life has nothing to do with me.

No shame.

It can be a lot like stage fright. They expect so much of me. If I mess up, it'll mean I didn't deliver. What will people think?

It's hard asking for help. It's like you're admitting weakness. Helplessness. But I've come to admire humbleness. I don't see it as weakness, but rather a strength of integrity. It's admitting that there are people more knowledgeable than you, not that you're weak. Pretending to be someone you're not justified to be will surely eventually crumble. I'm proud of him.


I finally went to Hobby Lobby for some paintbrushes, and stumbled upon a book about scratchboard art. I remember I had gotten a sample from the Co-op before, and was inspired to go home and try it out. It was bizarre and opposite. I had to leave the dark and shadows alone where I usually would lay on paint.

I'm wasting so much time with what I enjoy doing, I forget that I'm supposed to be doing something worthwhile.

Cheezy rain.

Tonight's heavy rain made me reminisce.

A friend's mom did a gig at Dunn Bros. that night and we came to support her. We stayed until the coffee shop kicked us out but still didn't want to go our separate ways just yet. Time was dwindling and we'd be thrown out of the comforts of Saginaw too soon. So we decided to go to the park and sit on the swings to complain about life some more. We sat around daring the rain to come, and when it did, we didn't even rush back to the shelter of my car. It poured by the time we got back to his house and we ended up spending hours on his front porch because it was 'unsafe to drive in this heavy rain.' It was mostly me complaining and him with, "oh come on... You'll be fine...It's going to be no problem..."

"But you're full of confidence and I...I...reek of estrogen."

I'm at that state of panic yet again. It feels like time is moving too slow, but the years are going too fast. Last week I was asked what year of college I was in. I replied, "Oh, I'm second...uh,..er..third year." I'm supposed to be graduating next year. I really rather be back under a porch during a downpour. It was more comfortable and fun pretending to be living behind a waterfall with a good friend.

Melons

"You volunteer in NICU? I'm headed there right now to baptize one of the babies." He showed me a nifty shortcut to the NICU ward, scanned us in, and went off to one of the bays.

Bay 4 in the back right corner was a baby with the most severe case of cleft palette this NICU has seen. But this was not the underlying cause for concern. Upon laying down, the baby's head would not retain it's round shape but would slightly flatten with surface contact. The nurse had described the softness of its head like an over-ripe cantaloupe. The baby had been constantly streamed with pain medication for internal bleeding in its brain.

Just one incubation over was just another Preemie like the majority of newborns in NICU. Until her MRIs came in. Turns out she only developed her brain stem and a small portion of her cerebellum. The rest of her cranium is fluid. I was able to talk to the mother. She seemed okay, and I didn't understand how she was still able to give me a smile. Her baby was baptized today and will be transported to hospice on Wednesday to die.

I thought about how these babies 'need' the anesthetics and hospice provisions. What can they feel or know as a newborn? It was like this principle of ethics hit me square in the face and I decided you don't need to put a memory or thought to pain to suffer.

Get him fired and deported.

She was my age, bleached blonde, about 34B, wearing a Texas State shirt with short shorts and preoccupied with texting on her phone. She had no idea what was going on with her car and probably was only there because Daddy told her she needs to maintain her new Mitsubitchy. We were all standing in the shade and she was about 2 feet from us. "Penzoil, okay?"

"Um...yea, whatever's fine. I wouldn't know," she replied without looking up from her phone.

He dropped his voice, "I'd like to give you a discount today, also."

"Oh thank you!" and she flashed him a smile.

"You are very welcome. Sign here for me." I don't think they knew we heard their transaction.

We were up next. He checked the pin number on my car and such, and came back with his little digital thingymabob. In a haughty voice, my dad goes, "So what discount to I get today?!"

"Aww no, I can't just give discounts."

"Oh, no? Why not?"

"Well, I'm not a manager."

I did not hear him wrong. Absolutely disgusting.

He just doesn't get it.

"We're you bored?"

I shrugged. "They're your friends and I'm not allowed to drink, so I dunno."

"Oh, you could've drank with them."

"Oh really? I remember your words before as 'if you had even one beer, I'd break up with you in a heartbeat.'"

"Well these were my friends. I know them."

I could drink with his friends but not mine. I only have friends who are his friends. I pointed this out and he convoluted it to at least 3 completely different irrelevant arguments. "It seems like all the times you drank, it ends up bad...I thought you grew up from this...What's the point anyway?"

"It's not about drinking. It's about not being able to have friends who aren't your friends." It bounced back and forth a few more times and he brought up her again. The past again. Priorities again.

Later that night, still both grumpy, he shoved me off the bed into my desk/ chair to get to the bathroom. I snapped. "When I try to get around you, you don't have the fucking courtesy to make an effort to move or make it easier for me! But you shove me off my own damn bed?!" He realized what happened and apologized immediately in a small awkward voice. I wasn't sure what to do next, so I left the room and made some food.

I've never had so many complications with a boyfriend, and never to these magnitudes, but we're still together. We talked about how we've been together for a year and 7 months and how it's going on to 2 years. After deliberation, I still love him. It's strange, and I confuse myself about this many a times. I've heard before that arguments build strong relationships, but...they're so....tiresome.

Worst week evarrr.

One hot summer when I was about 8, my dad put some soda on ice cream and offered it to me while I was jumping on the trampoline. It looked frothy and weird, but was really really good and refreshing. That was my first ice cream float, and I thought he was a genius. I wonder if the original guy that poured soda on ice cream did that on accident. He probably had a good day afterwards.

We had a strange circular argument about luck and things "happening for a reason." I know that it's common in religion to believe that a divine figure has set and laid out everything in our life, and an accident only looked like so to human eyes. But to a guy in the sky, your broken leg was next up on your life schedule. Then that means there are no "wrong/right place at the wrong/ right time" scenarios. No "coincidences." That can't be right.

Putting religion aside, if you find a Jefferson on the floor during a walk in the park, a lot of people would say it's your good luck, someone else's bad luck. But he blamed it on that person's ignorance/ stupidity. Not luck. Same with car 'accidents'. Some will say that it was terrible luck that you happened to be the car nearby, but you can still blame it on someone else's stupidity. But isn't it bad coincidence that you were at the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time?

It's been somewhat bothering me. Everything makes sense, but the argument is circular.

Anyway, people have been complaining of a terrible week, whether it be bad luck, stupidity, Karma, or the hand of God(s). Well....I know at least one thing can clearly be blamed on stupidity. It's been really bumming him out. He's been completely bummed since the result of his test, and it's strange to see him like that. He started worrying about the future and probable failure, etc. I told him perhaps it's a slice of humble pie, but he wouldn't have any of it. Oh well. I can only try, I suppose. Am I terrible to think he deserved this last week?