New

New Years Eve. It's traditionally about a fresh start, a new beginning, a reason to make some sort of positive change in your life with well-ment, but rarely kept resolutions. I stopped making new years resolutions years ago. What's the point? I still haven't quit smoking, and the only reason I'm sticking to my budget these days is b/c I really don't have a choice. I find the things that I promise myself on just any other regular day seem to stick a whole lot better than the things I promise out of some sort of weird tradition. On those regular days, when I decide it's time to make a change, or stick to a plan, it means more. It means I've reached the point of thinking about it enough to make a decision for the sake of the decision itself, not b/c it's what I'm supposed to do. Maybe that's just me.

I do like the whole "fresh start" thing though. It's nice to think that you can wipe the slate clean and start from the beginning with the wisdom of hindsight to guide you this time around. So far I've spent my time off from work this week re-arranging my apartment. Cleaned out the closets, moved the furniture, all in an effort to 1) Keep myself busy and distracted, 2) Wipe away old memories and make room for new ones. It's odd how just the placement of furniture can hold the ghosts of the past. It's still the same couch, the same chair, the same bed, each with their own memories that don't disappear by simply moving them to the other side of the room. But somehow, by re-arranging things physically, you can do a little mental/emotional house cleaning too. Somehow, pushing the couch across the room also pushes the ghosts of the past, the ones that hurt too much to remember right now, a little farther away to the back of my memory, where they can't do so much damage. Hell, if I hadn't just painted a few months ago I'd probably be knee deep in a bucket of "eggshell" or some other food related color right now, all in the name of new beginnings. To try to make my physical surroundings different, to match the feeling of difference and change that I feel inside.

I've already made my decisions and resolutions and today is just another day that I have to try to stick by them. Tomorrow will be the same. And every day after can offer the same new beginning.


"Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other path, no other way, no day but today."

Happy New Year.

Done jumping

As Annie (check out the "Think Big" link on the right) was so kind to point out, it's been a whole week since I posted something here. I've been a little distracted with the most insane breakup ever. Seriously, the friends I told about it yesterday couldn't believe the shit she pulled. Thank god we were all a little stoned for the storytelling session. It made at least some parts comical...



True love is having the willingness to jump off a bridge for someone if they need you to. But true love is also never asking the person you love to jump. I dove headfirst off countless bridges for her for the last year and a half and it was never good enough. There was always another, higher precipice for me to fall from waiting around the corner. Now I'm floating in the river below, stunned, broken and bruised. I'm just floating around down here, trying to clear my head from the fall I knew was coming but still didn't anticipate. I'm overwhelmed with disappointment; in her, in myself for letting it go so far, in life for being so unfair.



You don't realize the girl of your dreams is really an emotionally unstable crazy bitch until it's too late and you're already in love with her. By the end, the girl I fell in love with was so buried under all the layers of her 20-something years of anger and abandonment issues that I could barely detect her behind her eyes the last time I saw her, and that was the most painful thing of all. Her emotional baggage splits her down the middle. There's the amazing, beautiful, intelligent, inspiring, talented person I knew in the beginning, that I gave my all to, and then there's the scared 8yr old inside, who feels so backed into a corner, that all traces of rationality disapear. It's going to take an army of therapists to sort out all that baggage, and I hope for her sake, she starts soon, because despite all the painful drama she caused me, and all the anger I feel right now, I want to know that she'll be ok, find some sort of peace in herself and happiness. Maybe that optimism is what got me in trouble in the first place (I really have to learn that whole you can't fix people thing), but that optimism is what's going to pull me out of my river of painful disappointment. And next time, I'll be more careful around bridges.




Awesome quote I found/am borrowing from a myspace page:



"Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it's better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together"

why do fools fall in love?

It seems to be the season for breaking up. Those of you who know me well (or have come across me very drunk and lose-lipped at a party) might say that I seem to be in a perpetual state of breaking up. Well, love is complicated, what can I say. Judging by all the other people now in states of breaking up, at least I know I'm not alone.


Breaking up during the holiday season is awful. It's the time of year when you are suppossed to be happy and sharing things with the people you love. Well, what if thinking fondly on the person you love fills you with so much heartache and painful sadness that you want to drown yourself in a big bowl of eggnog? My advice; get angry. Don't think about the good times that you're now mourning the loss of, think about all the really bad shitty times, when they were bitchy, mean, said/did things to hurt you. Nothing drowns out those soul-tearing feelings of gut wrentching pain and heart break like anger and if you're lucky, you can make youself mad enough to forget why you ever loved them in the first place. This will last until you hear a cheesey but classic holiday song ("Baby come home for Christmas", "All I want for Christmas is you") that reminds you of them, and floods the tears and sadness right back in. But a temporary relief is better than no relief at all. Music can work in your favor too. There are plenty of songs about love gone wrong to help bring out your anger or just make you feel less alone.


My old roommate and I used to sit around drinking and smoking into the early hours of the morning lamenting over the current romantic complications in our lives and listening to what we deemed our "cigarette songs". So if you're also in the middle of breaking up w/someone, here's an extensive list of good songs, w/some good lyrics to get you through it. (Send me your favorite breakup songs, god knows I'll need them this week).



"My feel for you, boy, is decaying in front of me
Like the carrion of murdered prey
And all I want is to save you, honey
Or the strength to walk away"
Carrion, Fiona Apple


"Am I more than you bargained for yet
I've been dying to tell you anything you want to hear...
... We're going down, down in an earlier round
And Sugar, we're going down swinging
I'll be your number one with a bullet
A loaded God complex, cock it and pull it"
Sugar We're Going Down, Fall Out Boy


"It doesn’t even matter how hard you try, keep that in mind
I designed this rhyme, to explain in due time
I tried so hard
In spite of the way you were mocking me
Acting like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I'm surprised it got so (far) "
In the End, Lincoln Park


"It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
For handing you a heart worth breakin' "
How you Remind Me Nickelback


"I feel betrayed
Stuck in your ways
And you rip me apart
With the brutal things you say
I can't deal with shit anymore
I just look away

Cause you can't feel my anger
You can't feel my pain
You can't feel my torment
Driving me insane
I can't fight these feelings they bring only pain
You can't take away
Make me whole again "
Mudshovel Staind


"These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
And I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me"
My Immortal Evanescence


For more of a sad, not so much angry effect:

"oh how i miss, substituting the conclusion to confrontation with a kiss
and oh, how i miss
walking up to the edge and jumping in
like i could feel the future on your skin"
Fire Door Ani Difranco (basically any ani song will do the trick)


"But, I believe in you so much
I could die from the words that you say

But, you’re chasin’ the ghost of a good thing
Haunting yourself as the real thing
It’s getting away from you again
While you’re chasin’ ghosts

Just bend the pieces ‘till they fit
Like they were made for it
But, they weren’t meant for this
No, they weren’t meant for this "
Ghost of a Good Thing Dashboard Confessional



"what are we coming to?
what are we gonna do?

blame it on the black star
blame it on the falling sky
blame it on the satellite that beams me home....

i get on the train and i just stand about now that i don't think of you.
i keep falling over i keep passing out when i see a face like you.
what am i coming to?
i'm gonna melt down"
Blackstar Radiohead


"Been thinking about you, your records are here,
your eyes are on my wall, your teeth are over there. ....
... Been thinking about you, and there's no rest,
shit I still love you, still see you in bed. "
Thinking About You Radiohead (most Radiohead works well)


"I can’t live
With or without you"
With or Without you U2


"You do something to me
that I can't explain
so would I be out of line, if I said
I miss you"
I miss you Incubus



Out of line or not, I miss her something fierce.

Why Swandive?

She is my hero, her lyrics always seem to come right out of my heart. You can check out the whole song here: http://www.danah.org/Ani/LittlePlasticCastle/Swandive.html

"i've got a lack of inhibition
i've got a loss of perspective
i've had a little bit to drink
and it's making me think
that i can jump ship and swim
that the ocean will hold me
that there's got to be more
than this boat i'm in

'cuz they can call me crazy if i fail
all the chance that i need
is one-in-a-million
and they can call me brilliant
if i succeed
gravity is nothing to me, moving at the speed of sound
i'm just going to get my feet wet
until i drown"

Love

love ( P ) Pronunciation Key (lv)
n.

1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.

All I do is act on my passions and they call it sin.
All I do is tell the truth and they call me a hypocrite.
All feel is pain and sorrow and they call it love.
All I do is pour my heart out to empty pages and they call it poetry.

Benito Behar

Sweet is love when all is sane
Sweet is death to rid the pain
Cruel is death when all is well
Cruel is love when all is hell

Author unkown

Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and opens your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so no one can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life.... You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like 'maybe we should just be friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the mind. It's a soul hurt, a body hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

Neil Gaiman

Perception

Dictionary.com:

perception

n 1: the representation of what is perceived; basic component in the formation of a concept [syn: percept, perceptual experience] 2: a way of conceiving something; "Luther had a new perception of the Bible" 3: the process of perceiving 4: knowledge gained by perceiving; "a man admired for the depth of his perception" 5: becoming aware of something via the senses [syn: sensing]

Me:
Perception is like a snowflake. It's the way we see the world, the things in it, each other...everything. And it's different for everyone. This difference can be stimulating and exciting - it's always interesting to see the world from someone else's point of view - but it can also be destructive. Perception is the building block of every relationship. Your own perception determines how you see others; even as you pass people on the street, you divide them into categories: appealing, not appealing, no comment. When you perceive someone as "appealing" it can lead to a new friendship or romantic relationship if they also perceive you as appealing. Then, your perception of each other and the world around you, the things you experience together, all effect your interaction with each other, which is then in turn filtered through your individual perceptions, which change and grow based on your experiences and the cycle continues. We're often attracted to people who have had different experiences and therefore different perceptions than ourselves. These people offer us a new look at life, and a chance to widen our own perception. But when two people who are too far on opposite ends of the spectrum about too many things team up, communication can get complicated. Everything gets misunderstood and misread. Insecurity, sensitivity, frustration and over-thinking take over and everything can fall apart...and you long for the days when your untainted perception of each other was still full of love and possibility.

Don't Fall In

When I thought about doing this, I wondered if starting a blog was a bit narcissistic. It makes the assumption that not only my friends, (who already have to listen to me prattle on as it is) but complete strangers, would find anything I thought/had to say interesting enough to sit and read it. Then I realized that if that's how I was going to think about it, my career choice is also a bit narcissistc. I became a filmmaker because I had things to say and I wanted a platform to say them from. I wanted to make people feel and think. If people don't want to read something as simple as a blog, what makes me think they'll want to watch one of my films? This was not a very confidence boosting line of thought. So I stopped thinking and started writing.