Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Aquascaping: Underwater Gardening
I have a new obsession. I have combed through hundred of pictures from contest sites, perused tags on tumblr, researched articles, and even dedicated hours to writing a blog post about a new type of craft: aquascaping. It is gorgeous, slightly surreal, and scientific, and it even sort-of satisfies my craving for both pets and travel by giving me fish and scenery. Now, I can't wait until I have the resources to grow my own underwater garden!
Secondhand
Instead of any sort of personal update, I'm just going to tell you a funny story: Once upon a time (several weeks ago), in a faraway land (the apartment next door, with which I share a boarded-up doorway) there was a party.
Now, when I say party I mean music and a few people who sounded like they were enjoying themselves, and my laid-back self was not particularly bothered. I might have tossed a little bit longer than usual in my bed against our shared wall, but I have ninja sleeping skills and was soon unconscious.
The fire alarm went off.
I found myself upright and awake, in that order, with images of myself outside in midnight Maine winter skating through my suddenly despairing mind. Then I stopped, and I listened.
"BEEEEEEEP!"
"I just blacked out!"
"Shut it off!"
"BEEEEEEEP!"
Now, when I say party I mean music and a few people who sounded like they were enjoying themselves, and my laid-back self was not particularly bothered. I might have tossed a little bit longer than usual in my bed against our shared wall, but I have ninja sleeping skills and was soon unconscious.
The fire alarm went off.
I found myself upright and awake, in that order, with images of myself outside in midnight Maine winter skating through my suddenly despairing mind. Then I stopped, and I listened.
"BEEEEEEEP!"
"I just blacked out!"
"Shut it off!"
"BEEEEEEEP!"
"[expletive]"
"Turn it off!"
"BEEEEEEEP!"
"I'm trying!"
"Oh my God!"
"[more expletives]"
"BEEEEEEEP!"
I considered the atmosphere. Neon city lights streaked through the window and informed me that, yes, my apartment was full of smoke. I sniffed: smoke, but strangely sweet smelling smoke.
Oh.
I groaned internally and collapsed, dragging the covers up over my head. Knuckleheads.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
I Don't Understand About Me and Books
I've been reading books that I don't understand.
I've been hearing the words and seeing the imagery, watching as people run and speak and sit and stretch out their hands for things that they don't believe in, but I won't sit with them. I'm too restless to wait for the feelings to align and tell me a truth other than this is what people feel, sometimes.
I hate it. It is as if the truth is buzzing past my ear, the harsh, physical whine making me cringe away and swat at empty space. I should know! I should understand! If only I could grab myself by the hair and drag her back over to the storyteller's feet, make her stay put until she found the truth in the storyteller's voice, the listeners' eyes, the space between them. Instead I'm stuffing pretty poetry into a mouth that wants something completely different.
At least I'm reading again. At least I am back, translating ink into words. Hopefully soon I will find myself translating the images into reality, and when the time comes, Future Self, seriously, re-read Sula, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I know that they are talking about the same things but I can't... I can't put my finger on it and I don't have the patience to sit and steady my aim.
They both tell stories of toil in the face of misery, opposites actually being the same, segregation, infidelity... Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep delves into religion and artifice while Sula lingers over friendship and sexual femininity, but the two works resonate.
...Or maybe I'm insane. This is driving me insane!
I've been hearing the words and seeing the imagery, watching as people run and speak and sit and stretch out their hands for things that they don't believe in, but I won't sit with them. I'm too restless to wait for the feelings to align and tell me a truth other than this is what people feel, sometimes.
I hate it. It is as if the truth is buzzing past my ear, the harsh, physical whine making me cringe away and swat at empty space. I should know! I should understand! If only I could grab myself by the hair and drag her back over to the storyteller's feet, make her stay put until she found the truth in the storyteller's voice, the listeners' eyes, the space between them. Instead I'm stuffing pretty poetry into a mouth that wants something completely different.
At least I'm reading again. At least I am back, translating ink into words. Hopefully soon I will find myself translating the images into reality, and when the time comes, Future Self, seriously, re-read Sula, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I know that they are talking about the same things but I can't... I can't put my finger on it and I don't have the patience to sit and steady my aim.
They both tell stories of toil in the face of misery, opposites actually being the same, segregation, infidelity... Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep delves into religion and artifice while Sula lingers over friendship and sexual femininity, but the two works resonate.
...Or maybe I'm insane. This is driving me insane!
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
I Think About 'Adulthood'
It looks like a clique, but it's not.
It looks like a club, a collection of people who know things and do things and are a certain way that others can't put a finger on; but then suddenly you are on the other side of eighteen, or twenty-one, or twenty-five and you don't actually know those things or do those things or feel any different.
You've graduated without having to pass the class, without realizing it was a class.
You've felt the mantle drop over your head without ever proving you had the qualifications.
You've gotten into the room, and realized that you actually just got out of one. This isn't the place where everyone knows and does and is a certain way. That was the place. That was blissful, ignorant childhood; and things that felt important but really weren't; and a few years of parental structure. This is a million choices, a billion outcomes, seven billion distinct universes that may or may not have anything in common. This is where people scramble to make sense of where/who/why they are, and what they are going to do in the decades that stretch before them.
This is the real world.
I read "coming of age" stories for fifteen years, and I never fully understood them. They are not about navigating something adult, like death or hardship; they are about seeing the world differently, as something that you are a part of. I guess that once you have experienced death, or love, or some other construct of these, you realize that you have touched the edges of human existence, that no adult has done any more, and that you have to make your own answers. You look up from yourself, and you see the world differently, as if you've passed through some barrier and are looking back. You realize that you are the world.
Of course, not everyone goes to war or loves an ill-fated pet at just the right age for sudden illumination. Most people just get older, and then find themselves doing adult things, and then realize that if they want adulthood to be any different they are going to have to make it so themselves.
I'm just going to have to make it so myself.
It looks like a club, a collection of people who know things and do things and are a certain way that others can't put a finger on; but then suddenly you are on the other side of eighteen, or twenty-one, or twenty-five and you don't actually know those things or do those things or feel any different.
You've graduated without having to pass the class, without realizing it was a class.
You've felt the mantle drop over your head without ever proving you had the qualifications.
You've gotten into the room, and realized that you actually just got out of one. This isn't the place where everyone knows and does and is a certain way. That was the place. That was blissful, ignorant childhood; and things that felt important but really weren't; and a few years of parental structure. This is a million choices, a billion outcomes, seven billion distinct universes that may or may not have anything in common. This is where people scramble to make sense of where/who/why they are, and what they are going to do in the decades that stretch before them.
This is the real world.
I read "coming of age" stories for fifteen years, and I never fully understood them. They are not about navigating something adult, like death or hardship; they are about seeing the world differently, as something that you are a part of. I guess that once you have experienced death, or love, or some other construct of these, you realize that you have touched the edges of human existence, that no adult has done any more, and that you have to make your own answers. You look up from yourself, and you see the world differently, as if you've passed through some barrier and are looking back. You realize that you are the world.
Of course, not everyone goes to war or loves an ill-fated pet at just the right age for sudden illumination. Most people just get older, and then find themselves doing adult things, and then realize that if they want adulthood to be any different they are going to have to make it so themselves.
I'm just going to have to make it so myself.
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