Happiness #22 : In a day

Today was a day of:

sleeping in,
extreme humidity,
forgotten wallets,
lost earbuds,
swamp ass,
excellent friends,
no cash,
GIFT CARDS!!
mediocre chinese food,
6000 calories,
nonstop eatage,
technological failure,
more eatage,
philosophical mind rape,
more eatage,
phone chats,
dehydration,
and surprise packages!

all in all, a good day to lead into tomorrow, coming in about 7 hours~

whew!

Recipe #1 : Idaho Sunrise

Yum and yum again!!

So, finally beginning with the recipes aspect of this bucketlist, I have created a monster!! A delicious monster! It is eggs, potato, brocoflower, tomatoes, onions, feta, and best of all~~ butter!

As I write this, I await what will be a best brunner ever. You heard right, "brunner." That means breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Now, a photo will be uploaded when I publish this post, but be aware that I am writing this before the yolk has fully cooked in its nice little nest of veggies and spud.  My stomach is awarbling, my mind is aflutter, and my fingers are jittery from the anticipation.  Thank goodness I figured out how to work the stupid gas oven.  Well, since I have a few minutes I may as well tell all.

I had some potatoes, sprouting grossness out of its eyes from much neglect by my old roommate.  However amidst the monstrosities, I found two beautiful Idaho potatoes.  Twinkling as they angelically breathed my name.  Now, of course I don't need two potatoes, for I am a small asian girl with a teeny stomach on shy days and only half a man's appetite on my more tenacious days.  However tell me this! How can I accessorize and beautify and bring to the prime of existence ONE spud and not its sister?!  That is like splitting twins and birth and never telling them that they are not one but two.  No, that is like splitting twins after ten years and never telling them where the other is!! I could never. No, sir. Two spuds it is - if for decency I must sacrifice my tummy, heh heh.

The recipe requires baked potatoes and done the right way that would take three hours.  Your humble narrator has neither the time nor the patience at this present state of hunger to do anything the proper way quite at the moment so please forgive my lack of decorum as I recall to your horror that I threw these magnificent spuds straight into the old microwave and called it a hard night's work.  When finished, I casually sliced off a thin layer off the top, gutted the beauties and dropped into the little nest, some butter, chopped onions, diced broccoli, split cherry tomatoes, a whole egg in each, with a garnish of some feta cheese.  Into the oven it goes for about ten minutes as I wait for the egg to become tender and nutritious, all the while preparing my dish of leftover gutted potato (for I am never wasteful) and a nice little salad to go with the fancy tots.   I peak in the oven and what do I see??  The feta has browned, the egg has colored and the veggies have the flushed color of joy.  Heaven awaits.

And now? I eat. The only thing that comes to mind is.... MMmmmmmm. Not in the Campbell's way, but in the way of a night well spent in a bathtub surrounded by soft music, candles and that really great book you never seem to fall out of love with.



Thank god I made two! Recipe #1 = success.

Happiness #21 : A couple of days again

Slacking. Yes, well.  Here's a question: At what point in a friend's bad attitude is it ok to ask what's wrong without seeming to pry in something that's none of your business, or walk away? This is a dilemma for caring people, I should think.  You would like to help them if they need to talk about something and the attitude is just a need for attention manifesting itself in a different form.  But if they really don't want to talk about it, and have opted to take the less productive route of sulking (and I am guilty of this so I can understand) then really, you are just putting yourself on their blacklist for being nosy- when in fact you just want to care and help.  Maybe it's a case by case kind of thing but it seems to me like it's always better to err on the side of caring too much, than walking away and being misunderstood as not caring at all.  Who knows.

Today, I was told that I've made an impact in a friend's life.  This is not the first I have heard this but today, I decided to believe them.  Needless to say I was very honored for them to have come out and said, "Thanks for what you told me.  I really thought about it a lot and now I am definitely much happier taking the steps to change certain things about my life."  I hope I get to have such an impact on many more peoples' lives.
One of my bosses always says, "Don't get involved because you never know what's going on in their lives.  What will you do if they go and commit suicide after speaking to you because they didn't hear what they wanted to hear from you?"  I vehemently believe that no advice I would ever give to a willing listener would be in the direction of causing them to feel worse about their life.  I understand where the caution is coming from because regardless of good intentions, the constructive criticism may be just what the listener was dreading which in turn causes them to decide that they no longer want to live.  However, at that point I have to be realistic and ask if I was the cause of their decision or if I was just the last person to not tell them what they had hoped to hear in a long string of similar people.  Either way, it's an awful situation that I hope to avoid by always giving positive advice and making sure people know where it is coming from and with what intentions.
I choose to believe that caring and giving a damn will always trump minding your own business because if not for making connections, what is the point of life on an earth with so many different people and circumstances in which to meet them?  If not to make connections, why would we be put on an earth that is quickly being described as becoming over populated?  I think my boss is wrong.  I think not noticing what's right in front of your face, not addressing something or someone that needs help, not reaching out, is what drives people to suicide - not meaningful words of advice from someone who wants to help.

Happiness #20 : Been a couple of days

There are just some songs that take you away from everything.  How little we know about our senses.  Sometimes you hear a song that you have never heard before but in your mind you are sure - absolutely sure that you have heard it all of your life.
In the sixth grade my best friend and I would loiter in her (freezing) living room and turn the tv to the music channel while we hung around and spent the day away just being. One day after the giant release of Audioslave's "Like a Stone" I went over to her house, threw down my backpack and sprawled on the ground.  She asked if I had heard this amazing new song and played it for me.  I remember this day so clearly because certain songs impact you in a way that you cannot explain.  As I listened to the song, I could feel my heart slowly float a little.  There was a flutter of a wing and a wisp of a breeze.  I was somewhere else in the world, doing something the body at my friend's house had no idea about.  I immediately said of course I knew what song it was.  I had heard it a million times!  It was not until years later when I happened upon more information that I realized there is no way I could have heard that song a million times because the reality is that I had never heard it before as it did not exist before.  But I was so sure...  I still listen to the song and over the years, never have I felt an urge to change the track, if anything I'll repeat it once more before I move on.  I still have that feeling of nostalgia as if this song has been with me for years.  But by now, it has been.

Recently I have had the luck of running into another such song.  It is by a band I had never heard before but as I listened to the song, I was captivated.  I was more than captivated, I was transported.  I was suddenly back to when I was young enough to not understand financial embarrassment or the concept of "impossible."  I was walking around the inside walls of a giant flea market in Packwood? Federal Way? People bustling about shopping for used items and bargains.  This was my island and forgotten trinkets, my uncovered treasure.  A paperclip there, a stray bead here, a shiny piece of glass broken from an antique mirror - not that I knew what antique even meant.  Carefully and tenderly carrying these treasures in my pocket, I would be filled with a sense of possibility.  What will I make with these?  Looking back at myself, I imagine a tiny little street rat dirty and wandering.  Suspiciously poking around on the ground and getting into nooks everywhere.  From here, the flashbacks are laced in a honeyed orange color that tints my mind and everything I see in my memory of those days.  Just like I see when I listen to this song.  What do you see?  Maybe nothing.

Pre-emptive Strike

So, in the midst of studying for my last unwilling exam, I shall take a moment to commemorate my time with poetry.  Was it awful?  Sometimes.  Yet many times it was insightful and inspirational.  Like now.
Study break - - 


"Untitled"
To hear about poetry- 
      kill parts of the soul,
      preserve another's soul.


To talk about poetry-
      discover new eyes:
      destroy stale eyes.


To write poetry-
          breathe,
          paint,


                         see,
 birth idea.


And while we're on the topic of poetry, I guess I'll post an old one as well... a sort of farewell it seems:

A Journey Through Eden

Drizzling showers reveal to skeptic minds

A vision of Eden: Slated and abusive- not meant for christened eyes.

Two mighty oaks tower amidst the Bolwing green

As twins, 

casting shadow on trafficking creatures.

Golden apples changing hands, silver leaves exchanged

for rubies. Difference neglected in the shade of the legendary Wall.

Beyond, a counterfeit canal littered through time with cast iron.

Flowing, brimming with goldfish-

Precious in name only. Discounted

but shiny just the same.

A decayed homage to heroic Delancey, his import but half-forgotten.

Haphazardly divided by a cultured bowery,

Lands of the same blood become mirrored faces across time.

Gathering and trading sharp minds and troubled souls across the heavy rent.

Painted normalcy in daylight; teeming glow worms

and amber spirits in Luna’s bohemian rays.

A hidden meadow; a timeless square.

Sylphs perform rituals atop imaginary stages of Broad.

Transcending life along the Great White Way-

Off, off and off, it does not matter to them.

Adjoining with scorn, indifference,

elitist guardians of stiff culture protect the borders of an illusory garden.

A dwelling place of peace keepers;

the soil fertilized by dreams and gold along the fifth.

Hillsides of ugly pastoral living aspire to descend. 

Vast fields of hundreds mundane,

but for walks through rescued Cloisters.

Vulgar Latin is heard through the blurring rain.

Happiness #19 : Hero or Zero?

"All I have to do is swing and I'm a hero.  But I'm a zero."

This line floated into my consciousness as I was listening to music and typing away a useless paper like a madwoman.  I don't know how many songs have passed through my ears, in and out of my consciousness during the several hours I have been sitting in Think Coffee. It is so interesting to think that your consciousness must still be hyper aware of more than you are at any given moment.  Even though I wasn't thinking about that age old question "What am i going to do for the rest of my life?" clearly my deep consciousness has my back and is thinking about it for me.  Anybody else have a busybody brain?

Here I am, vigorously making an argument about how Thoreau likens the futility of government to the futility of writing, when this melodious psychoanalytic piece of lyric comes floating in the breeze of the ether waves of the universe to lodge itself firmly into my brain- right before the end of one written paragraph and the formulations of the next paragraph.  It lodged itself like a spike mic thrown at the side of criminal headquarters.  The infiltration was so much so that I felt compelled to choose its instigation as the topic of my blog entry for the day.

Oh Weezer, how you affect my life so.  What does the line mean?  Where does it come from?  Actually, the line is from a love song called "Perfect Situation" outlining the torment of a less than forthcoming boy that is in love with a girl who he cannot seem to hold onto.  His shortcomings lead to her eventual disinterest. The saddest part is that he asks "can you blame her?" as if he has already beat himself up over his failures enough to decide that she has every right to wander.  Poor guy.  The line refers to a particular instance where he had the perfect opportunity to be the hero if he only acts- but he doesn't, and his tendency for inaction is what makes him a "zero."

Now what does this have to do with me?  Well my incredibly rude mental faculty has seen fit to remind me of MY shortcomings in life.  Could I have done more? Absolutely.  When? Always.  Where? Everywhere. And that's why regardless of what I have actually accomplished, that marginal "more" that could have been done, but can now never be done due to my past inaction, is what makes me a zero.  Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets and my self-esteem hasn't dropped all of a sudden (that would be oh-so-very-uncharacteristic of me) but I have gotten to thinking.  At how many points could I have been a hero and opted to be a zero?  Because that's what it is- it is a choice to be a zero, not a forced will.  There are poignant moments where I definitely opted to be a hero but how many of those moments does it take to offset that one time I chose to be a zero instead?  In my book, one moment of deliberate "zero-ness" cannot be made up by even ten instances of "hero-ness."  Why so harsh?  Because everyone should always opt to be a hero in every situation when given the option.  What kind of person wouldn't?  Whatever the answer is, I don't want to be that person.

Everyone was born with a bat, and from now on, I will make every effort to swing at every opportunity, even if it means being struck out.  Because being struck out is so much more of a real feeling than any false sense of accomplishment that can be derived from walking.  Hell no, I'd rather swing the bat until it splinters with how many times I've tried to be a hero, than lay it off in a corner in the pristine condition of un-use.  Forget it.

Thanks brain, for being the caring asshole that I know you always are.

Mystery

I was learning mystery tactics.  Remember bucketlist #3?  Yes, I asked some co-workers.  So i'm building my toolbox to become the mysterious individual I've always wanted to be!

1) You must not talk much
2) You have to act like you don't give a fuck
3) You have to have a little sass... like you don't give a fuck
4) You must keep answers to a minimum... like, "Sure" or "Don't worry about it."
5) Keep your opinions to yourself, but if asked, see rule #4
6) When given attention and asked questions from prying individuals, you must remember #5, then implement #4, adding in #3, all the while maintaining #2.  Sadly, if you're doing #1, most times friendly individuals will try to get to know you, in which case, the sequence outlined in #6 begins.

Ugh. I will never be mysterious.  Dammit!  There has to be a different way!! I shall not give up, I'll NEVER give up!

Happiness #18 : Silliness

Happiness #17 : Currents

It's strange to think that days have scents of action.  No, not the scent of garbage on the street or the whiff of urine a bum from the night before.  The scent I am talking about is that of action.  The scent of anticipation.  The scent of serenity.  Am I alone in this observation?

Happiness #16 : Creation story

Expose #1 : The Environmental Kids by MGMT

General update for my reader(s)

So I'm getting the hang of this thing I think.  This blogging thing, I mean.  For instance, I will have to go back on what I said a while back and make separate posts for each and every category because now that I've added my tag list on the left side.. observe:

<------------

it will be much easier for those who only want to read about specific bucket list progress.

On that note: there is no progress. Sadly, I have come to a stop for a while, but hopefully today I will pick all that back up and keep going with this blogging business.

Challenge postponement

The Challenge Master has granted a raincheck for the week as finals continue to bulldoze my life into scattered bits of broken scheduling.  For the record, what would have been Challenge 4 has been received, but unfulfilled:

Teach one person one skill
- Skill can be physical or otherwise
- Person must have full mastery of the skill
- Difficulty level: 2/5

Will this challenge be reused?  It remains to be seen as the decision rests with the CM.

Until then..

Happiness #15 : Daydreams and Tea

Today I have had this strange recurring daydream about traveling to England.  Two things. 1) I usually don't daydream: I actually dream, and by that I mean I'm usually unconscious in a state of sleeping and not wake-sleeping, if you know what I mean.  2) I have never really wanted to go to England before.  Seriously, I may be a strange one compared to many, but I have honestly never wanted to visit England, or France for that matter.  Mostly because I feel as though those countries are a little too.... how should I put this delicately?... they're a bit too "white" for me.  I always felt as if I would get there and feel like I was still in America but surrounded by people who speak English strangely, if at all.

And yet.  Today despite my multiple freak-outs and first-time computer crash where data was not retrievable, I found myself randomly interrupted with thoughts of traveling to England.  It must have something to do with two of my classes revolving around British Literature and Modern Poetry in America influenced by British poets.  However I could just be very tired and as such, highly susceptible to poisonous thoughts.  If that is so, perhaps I need to go back to dreaming, and not daydreaming.

Taking a moment to calm down, have a freakishly large cup of tea, and breath in for a moment while I type away my thoughts, is undoubtedly my moment of happiness for the day.  I only wish I had some sunlight streaming in, but alas, the scent of cinnamon floating up from my mug will have to suffice.

Fail, and Fail again

Happiness #14 : Speculation
Today I had a very nice chat with someone very important to me, and it was really nice to speculate about things.  Nothing serious, really.  Just think about things that were and that could be... That was definitely the highlight of my day today.

On the other hand of speculation, I've got a few very sinister speculations of the global kind.  Today, just a few hours ago in fact, it was announced that Osama bin Laden is finally dead.  It was reported that he was killed by a special force of U.S. military, ordered by the president based on information from counter terrorism intelligence obtained by the U.S. and Pakistan.  President Obama made a really touching speech but I must say, I have my doubts.  Gut instinct tells me that it was not the U.S. that actually killed bin Laden, or it was not the U.S. that found the evidence to track down where he was hiding.  The killing of bin Laden comes at an extremely convenient time when the president must make great strides to justify his re-election, and a critical time to send a message to the American citizens that anti-governmental sentiments are wrong because see! it truly is good for something: all those hundreds of thousands of dollars lives were not spent in vain.  It is also a critical time to send a message to all of those thinking to oppose American power, i.e. Gaddafi for one, to consider what happens to those who challenge America, even if the punishment comes late.

My harsh judgement is this: It is embarrassing to see the American people, especially college students who very apparently have very little idea about what is actually going on, cheering in front of the White House and celebrating as if it were the end of the war.  Because it is not.  And really, where is the sense of decorum, because seriously, the world is watching.  In fact, while I think that America deserves a conclusion to the horror that was Osama bin Laden and his cruel and violent plots, I do not think it is a cause for celebration. What has changed?  Is Al Qaeda now just going to disappear?  Is there suddenly clarity about what is going on?  Will our men finally come home because there is no pretense of needing to be in a hostile country in order to "search for and sniff out" this man?  No, nothing has changed.  Al Qaeda is still there and now, mourning somebody who to them, was a hero.  Al Qaeda is most likely even more justified, in their minds, to strike back because America has murdered a man who was extremely successful, and the exemplar of a true and noble jihadist for a holy cause.  Will there be a counter-attack- a backlash?  Our troops should not even be in Afghanistan still in order for an immediate backlash to be possible.  If anything at all, the death of Osama bin Laden is a cause for closure and relief for the families of his victims, and a solemn moment of introspection for what the future holds in the lives of the American people- one that comes a little too late.

Finally, I believe it is a grave insult and injustice for the president to have included in his speech, calls for sentimentality bringing up imagery of "families who suffer the pain of seeing the empty seat at the dinner table" and the "3000 senseless deaths" that occurred at the hands of bin Laden.  For, not only does the number 3000 not include the men who were killed in order to avenge those deaths (by order of Bush and later the current president himself), but it does not include the thousands upon thousands of deaths suffered by the Afghani civilians and Iraqi civilians at the hands of the U.S. in order to get to this celebratory? monumental? Historic? sobering day.  How many families, in those other countries, who do not have white faces or speak English, must suffer the pain of empty seats at their dinner tables?  Or is that a pain only American families can feel?  What is the true number of senseless deaths, military and civilian alike, which we were told was necessary to bring this one man down? And how much of those were caused by the call for "liberty and justice" as prescribed by the U.S.?  How much of the total money, time, and emotional trauma caused by the September 11 attacks were appropriated not by Al Qaeda, but by the U.S.?  Why are our troops still abroad perpetuating the terror? These celebratory young people should attempt to answer these questions and reflect on the actual implications of the words "Osama bin Laden is Dead," before waving around the American flag in the faces of those who were stomped on, beat, and killed by men wearing that same flag.  Because in another country, to another family, the U.S. is a country of terror and America is a word to fear.

** update: (May 2) **
Apparently I'm not the only one thinking that the American government is slipping up on their deception execution. I read a brief article from another skeptic who has similar thoughts:

"No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool’s error of restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching." - Paul Craig Roberts

Now that the curtains have been dropped on the ten-year production of "Osama bin Laden: America's enemy #1" it's looking like the final Act is only a spectacular staging of the U.S. government's "unlimited belief in the gullibility" of its citizens. And if the scenes in Times Square and WTC were any indications, the score says: government = 1, dumb citizens = 0. Fail, and fail again indeed.

Challenge #3 : Abrasive failure
My challenge today was extremely difficult for one with colorful language such as myself.  For it was this:
Do not use abrasive language for today's entire 24 hours
-Even one word would mean the failure of the challenge
-No place or situation serves as immunity
-Difficulty level: 2/5 (but in actuality it is more like 9/5)

So this morning, I had to work at 8 am with some very colorfully languaged individuals like myself.  I lasted all of one hour and fifty minutes.  Approximately 9:50 am was my first slip and until then, I had successfully refrained from usage by consciously choosing my words, however in a moment of incredulity a little one slipped out and BOOM! challenge OVER. FAIL. DONE. K.O. yup....

and that's the way the cookie crumbles.  Another day, I shall be challenged again, and then I will prevail.  However today, total failure.  I am ashamed.  However to my credit, the conscientious language censor stayed with me and I swore about one tenth of my average.  Woot woot?  Well, not quite.