I. Busstop Conversation
a.) Left house 15 minutes behind schedule eating pasta and raspberry brownie
b.) Sat down chewing on fork after discarding disposible food containers
c.) 30 year old Hispanic man tells me that nobody's perfect, he likes smoking pot while watching movies, he has had two strikes against him (minority status, former inmate) but now has a job walking dogs and that he can tell i have a beautiful corazon
d.) i tell him the only reason i can have a beautiful heart is because of Jesus
e.) he kisses my hand
f.) i pray for him without knowing his name or if anything he said was true
II. Facial Features Recognition Theory
a.) Think of three people you talked to today that you'd say you know well
b.) Picture their faces.... concentrate
c.) Now, focus your mind's eye on their noses
d.) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.... I bet you can't picture their noses
e.) Allow that to drive you insane
although i'm sure free-writing does some people a lot of good, i myself am a proponent of free-TYPING
it's faster, it's cleaner, it's better for the environment and it looks a lot nicer when it's finished
and plus, you might run across something interesting in your random typing folder later
and it might go like this:
The stiff smell of cigarette smoke lingers in the air
Humming computers soak up the air conditioning
Each cubicle is personalized with pictures of smiling children
Lists of projects sit unattended to in in-boxes
All of them worth only their thickness in gold
Banter about customers and strategy echoes
Over half walls and off the high ceilings
Rows of doors, completely uniform
Facilitate lostness with perfect efficiency
Overflowing trash cans bulge with wastefulness
Red eyes propped open with caffeine highs trudge onward
Coping with this malignant reality by remembering
Eventually, these days of half humanity will be over
and you might think yourself mighty clever
and then you might go put your sheets in the dryer because you have to leave your house for work in 7 hours and 55 minutes
posted by renee 9:57 PM
Sunday, October 26, 2003
an overflow
i allow a waterfall to unleash its fury
and this "perforated sphere" heaves and surges
as i cry and i cry
to fill oceans that keep me from you
keep you from me
won't you cross the deep sea i've populated?
or have my indiscretions swallowed the key to my cell?
or would you cross even without these obstacles...
the sacrifice i beg of you is great
i am a wild one
likely to fall into passions
likely to get caught up in a cause and run with it
longing for an avenue to effectiveness in my life
longing for someone to challenge me without discouraging me
for someone to be always WITH me but not always agree
i am willing to bring my feet back to the ground next to you
if you get tired of holding the kitestring
but there will always be something in me that longs to fly
i cry every day
but i'm not sad
last week a wrote about a girl who feels the weight of the world pressing in on her every moment. i wonder if it is as histrionic as it feels to understand that. sometimes i'll start thinking of all the people and things i could be investing my life into and just get frantic. there are probably a dozen people i am feeling guilty about not contacting as much as i'd like. it remains that i have no resume stuffers, no exciting internships waiting for me, not even a few hours of community service. but i know a bunch of gloria record lyrics and by the time i graduate i hope that my mess of a lovelife has come to a peaceful end.
i know that if i am not keeping God as my first priority, none of the rest of it will be worth anything. seems i'm still not skipping class enough.
i am not as existentialist as vanilla sky wants me to be. this is no lucid dream. this is no test. welcome to the real world, guys. the only trick is that it's even more real than we know.
i am not amelie and i don't get to be her when i grow up.
posted by renee 2:27 PM
thousands of hours and tears and miles and dollars SHALL NOT BE IN VAIN
in other news: do NOT go to weddings by yourself. it's no fun
posted by renee 8:35 PM
Friday, October 17, 2003
i wonder if i really am capable of love as i long for it
it could be that it is humanly impossible
or maybe just impossible for me
and as my heart fails to comply with my wishes
i think again that someday my inconsistancies will end
aldous huxley says that the only truly consistant person is a dead one
and jenny lewis says "i've got my best shoes on, i'm ready to run"
but i am not going to live my life anxious for what comes after
i must forge ahead
even on days when i don't want to do what i know is right
even on days when i feel like i'm talking to thin air instead of God
even on days when i am tired of trying
because even on those days, i know joy
not happiness
joy
and it will sustain me
push me toward a truly meaningful life
i wish socrates had never said "the unexamined life is not worth living"
m is right... sometimes it's better to ask about the overexamined life
because too much analysis over too little content is usually risky
and my life is all reading, writing, thinking and talking
words words words words
sometimes it starts to feel like there's no foundation for them to stand on
i'm tired and rambling
posted by renee 1:00 AM
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
oh, and i feel really sorry for rush... talk about an awkward confession. recovered pot addicts everywhere are cheering for ya, man... or maybe they're not.
posted by renee 1:49 PM
and last night i went to see michael moore speak at the u
anyone that politically influencial makes me nervous
he has the power to make an auditorium full of people
prouder than ever of their liberal stronghold
want nothing more than to change the world
and identify completely with a cause
and i believe him most of the time, too
but something in me wonders if he's full of crap
who knows
i just think when you get caught making up statistics it should make you less bold
posted by renee 10:21 PM
Friday, October 10, 2003
a boy with long greasy hair and tattoos on his neck did me a little favor
three little favors
as a result, a long haired beauty and a curly haired thinker and i found ourselves inhaling the indie smoke at 1st ave
and ben gibbard crooned the night into a mere memory
he said:
the atlantic was born today and i'll tell you how:
the clouds above opened up and let it out.
i was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
when the water filled every hole.
and thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
making islands where no island should go.
oh no.
those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
i thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
the rhythm of my footsteps crossing flood lands to your door have been silenced forever more.
the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
it seems farther than ever before
oh no.
i need you so much closer
i need you so much closer
i need you so much closer
i need you so much closer
i need you so much closer
i need you so much closer
i need you so much closer
i need you so much closer
i need you so much closer
i need you so much closer
i need you so much closer
i need you so much closer
so come on, come on
so come on, come on
so come on, come on
so come on, come on
and i let a tear fall
and i missed your breath on the back of my neck
and then too much honesty resulted in hurt and this time sobs instead of the quiet type....
sigh
i'm drained
ben gibbard, will you marry me?
posted by renee 10:55 PM
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
usually i start caring when my homework is due in 11 hours, a few of which i hope to be sleeping through. today, no. maybe the mass media undermines democracy. maybe it doesn't. the only thing that i know for sure at this moment is that it certainly doesn't matter to me.
posted by renee 10:03 PM
my body hates me
it says "for a week now i have made you attracted to those funny hairy smelly creatures, no easy task, mind you, and you have yet to comply with my singular wish. because there is still no baby growing inside me, i am going to make you miserable in the most effective way possible, by making you think that you are being logical. i will make you hate yourself and everyone around you and cry all day long. and you will think that it is all real. then, as if that's not enough, i will put you in extreme physical pain. you will barely be able to function. take this as a warning. if you fail again, i will be even more spiteful than before. i will continue to punish you until you obey me."
so basically i'm worthless three weeks out of every four.
seriously. don't even talk to me.
no wonder women are so fickle.
posted by renee 4:20 PM
Monday, October 06, 2003
the self destructing hedonist
the self denying martyr
we offer up our bodies
first for pleasure then for slaughter
this morning i saw a perfectly preserved squirrel on the sidewalk in the archetype squirrel pose, flat on his back with his little front feet drawn up to his chin. apparently that expresses nearly the breadth of all squirrel emotion: curiosity, hunger, fear, boredom, deadness. i almost stepped on him. eww.
i slept for forty five minutes in class today while my chinese professor explained the dewey decimal system and the downsides of google searches. in one of the few moments i was awake, she warned that we cannot trust everything we read on the internet, and that, despite popular opinion, not everything you would want to know can be found there. umm... snore...
speaking of snoring, i have lots of homework. i'm going to bed.
posted by renee 10:45 PM
Sunday, October 05, 2003
my idol is other people's opinions
my vice is a superb image maintainance
my weakness is obvious when criticizm surfaces
my penchant for compliments is borderline obsessive
if i can please the people around me
if i can convince those around me that i am acceptable
then my inner monologue... dialogue?... must not be true
then maybe i am not a failure and a disappointment
"we carry on a whole series of different relationships to different people. we are one thing to one man and another thing to another. there are parts of the self which exist only for the self in relationship to itself. we divide ourselves up in all sorts of different selves with reference to our acquaintances. we discuss politics with one and religion with another. there are all sorts of different selves answering to all sorts of different social reactions. it is the social process itself that is responsible for the appearance of the self; it is not there as a self apart from this type of experience... [and]... the individual experiences himself as such, not directly, but only indirectly, from the particular standpoints of other individual member of the same social group or from the generalized standpoint of the social group as a whole to which he belongs." --george herbert mead
so maybe we exist as projections and reflections- putting a self out to the world and reviewing its success by the response of our audience. children do this every day. testing out the limits of acceptability in the world. but we learn, we adapt, our presentation of ourselves becomes more seamless and less transparent. then we all end up living based on a false set of standards, because everyone else is merely projecting a self that they think will be responded to positively.
maybe i'm in exactly the WRONG major.
posted by renee 12:58 PM
early in the reign of zedekiah son of josiah king of judah, this word came to jeremiah from the Lord: This is what the Lord said to me: "make a yoke of out straps and crossbars and put it on your neck. then send word to the kings of edom, moab, ammon, tyre and sidon through the envoys who have come to jerusalem to zedekiah king of judah. give them a message for their masters and say, "this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of israel, says: "tell this to your master: with my great power and oustretched arm i made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and i give it to anyone i please. now i will hand all your countries over to my servant nebuchadnezzar king of babylon; i will make even the wild animals subject to him. all nations will serve him and his son and his grandson until the time for his land comes; then many nations and great kings will subjugate him. if, however, any nation or kingdom will not serve nebuchadnezzar king of babylon or bow its neck under his yoke, i will punish than nation with the sword, famine and plague, declares the Lord, until i destroy it by his hand. so do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums or your sorcerers who tell you, 'you will not serve the king of babylon.' they prophesy lies to you that will only serve to remove you far from your lands; i will banish you and you will perish. but if any nation will bow its neck under the yoke of the king of babylon and serve him, i will let that nation remain in its own land to till it and to live there, declares the Lord"'"
in the fifth month of that same year, the fourth year, early in the reign of zedekiah king of judah, the prophet hananiah son of azzur, who was from gibbeon, said to me in the house of the Lord in the presence of the priests and all the people: "this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of israel, says: 'i will break the yoke of the king of babylon.... then the prophet jeremiah replied to the prophet hanahiah before the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the Lord. he said, "amen! may the Lord do so! may the Lord fulfill the words you have prophesied
jeremiah 27 and 28 exerpts
at exactly the right time
acts 17 says that the place and time for me have been determined
this is no accident
posted by renee 1:15 AM
Friday, October 03, 2003
i always think harder about things that make me upset than things that make me happy. today was a happy day. my advisor encouraged me to go for the australia idea, and to do the BS in sociology, which means i have 22 classes left. perfect. i got to work early, so i sat and read the paper and drank a chocolate latte... really just a weak mocha... and ate an asiago cheese bagel. mmm.... then i went to my last class of the day, in a painful 3:35-4:25 timeslot for a friday, but got the giggles with a girl i've never really talked to before and laughed all the way through it. then i came home and made a huge pot of soup and bruscetta to share with my roommates and neighbor girls. we all sat around the dining room table (a first) and had soup and merlot and a grand old time. now i'm watching them play dominoes.
why is it that when i'm content, i don't ever feel the need to question myself? i suppose God knows that, and that's why he places us in the crossfire at times. to wake us up. but i don't feel it's necessary to doubt my joy. today was a good day.
posted by renee 8:51 PM
