Monday, December 25, 2006

merry christmas and all that!!!

my first buy (almost) nothing christmas

hey there! hope your holiday is awesome. santa is good to you. time with your loved ones is relatively stress-free. and that there are lots of those little joy-filled moments one on top of another so that it seems like one big long joy-filled moment. that's what it's been like for me. a week with my mom, meeting her friends, playing jeopardy with her boyfriend (and kicking his ass everytime), an amazing party (night) with friends, watching it's a wonderful life with grandpa on christmas eve - damn I love that movie, I cry every time george finds zuzu's petals, and when he marries mary, and when he has to make one more sacrifice to help someone else or his town altogether... I hope there never comes a time when that movie doesn't reach me. It's so good because it's just honest about the despair a man can feel when his dreams don't come true and it seems like his life has been nothing.

waiting now for dad to come pick me up for breakfast and gift opening at home (I have nothing for anybody... and they all understand). I really haven't had to worry about shopping which has made a ridiculous difference in stress levels, let me tell you. But I do have gifts for people that I actually put a lot of work into and I think they'll really be appreciated. Just be patient... on boxing day I will go pick up the "packaging" and then you'll see!

so have an awesome day and I will talk to you soon!

Friday, December 15, 2006

what a nice boy - 2006

Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a ball of anger in her belly. this ball was big and radioactive and it made her sick. all kinds of sick; her heart hurt, her mind hurt, her head hurt, her toes hurt, even her fingers and her earlobes hurt. she also had a very big heart, but this radioactive ball sent out poisons that kept everything from working properly, especially her heart. So she didn't show love the way she felt it, she didn't know how to be happy and trust when someone loved her. Some people that she loved more than anything else didn't even know how much she loved them!

This girl wasn't born with the ball in her belly. It started when she was young and somebody taught her to feel hurt. But it grew and grew from all of the times she was afraid or sad or hurt, and she buried those feelings deep inside of her and they became this bad bad ball. So you see, the ball wasn't anger on the inside, it only became anger around the shell. For a long time, there was nobody to help the girl to see that she didn't need to be afraid or sad or angry. because everyone around her had their own fears and balls of anger to deal with. And they all thought it was normal! But one day, a kind boy was became the girl's very good friend and he told her something nobody had ever told her before. That there's no need for all that pain! He said there is a God whose love is stronger, more resilient than any poison, and that love can cut through any darkness. he can take that anger, fear, and sadness from you and make you like you never had it. You can be a new person, all you have to do is rest in God. Trust in him for everything.

He taught her just like what a prophet said, Who is among you that feareth (which is more like respecting and loving) the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. (Isaiah 50:10)

And so she did what that boy said. She trusted that God did not want her to have all that pain and that he was big enough to take it all away from her. And her life became perfect!!! Noooo... But! From that moment on, any pain, hurt, sadness, strife that came her way could not destroy the peace she found. And people began to learn how much she loved them, and they all came to be able to help each other heal. And so it goes, not a perfect paradise but pretty darn beautiful.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

The I and the Me (Sociology study notes part two)

George Herbert Mead's socialization and self theory

am I me? is me who I really am? when I say I, I am talking about a person who exists without reference to any people around me or any perceived potential fallout to action I take, or things I say. When I say me, I'm talking about others and how they see me. You see? I can't say me without thinking of the others because there is no me without you!

the game (Sociology study notes)

hey steve this is for you

"I imagine your mind, and especially what your mind thinks about my mind, and what your mind thinks about what my mind thinks about your mind. I dress my mind before yours and expect that you will dress yours before mine. Whoever cannot or will not perform these feats is not properly in the game." --- Charles Horton Cooley, 1902

Cooley was a sociologist who was concerned with socialization and the self. his main theory was called the looking glass self. he figured the self developed as the individual concerns himself with how he wanted others to see him. he saw our socialization as performance. anyhoooooo i just thought you might dig the quote but figured I should give you some background. that's all.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

if i think about it hard enough, I'm back there...

I'm in that green green room. the walls sponge painted that dark green on lime green. the moulding the dark green. the subsistent leafy plant on the window sill next to the oscillating fan and the guiness glass of pennies. just to the right of centre, dan is sitting on the floor resting on the futon playing star wars: jedi knights on his computer. I am curled up against the side of the futon, kind of watching, kind of just there. As I remember it now, there is a playlist playing with the soundtrack from the end of the affair mixed in with radiohead. I know that's not true. Because he's playing video games on his computer so there can't be music playing. if anything, there is the sound of the video game which does include music.

we're not talking. every once in a while he'll explain something about the game, or show me something really cool. but I don't really want to talk because I am not here to bother him. Being around him makes things better without needing to talk. And I know he's way too polite to tell me to shut the fuck up, even if he wanted to. Because sometimes when I talk, I talk way more than I mean to. It's been a rough week. I'm stressed. Home is actually a sanctuary again. My two awesome roommates are a sanctuary. We have overcome all of the cleaning/chores bullshit... (because I finally realized that everyone was doing their part but with 3 people and our insane cat it's never going to be the same as my place with Elisabeth. We kept that place clean, because she really cared about that stuff. Got me to care too, which caused so much crap when I moved in here with dan and steve. poor guys... I can laugh about it now and I hope they do too... but I digress.) Now I absolutely love being here with them all of the time, instead of just pockets of time when I can manage to not be stupid, like before. The talks, the debates, the coffee, the silence. So back to the green room and the Jedi Knights. Dan demonstrating the choosing of the character and the gear and the store, like he's 12 he gets so excited. And I just feel so happy. So at peace. My thoughts are all quiet ones for the first time since the latest family drama/trauma. But I spent hours talking about that with Steve last night, and now I just need to not. We joke a bit about his buddy Jesse, and about how I think he's superhot. But then, back to the game. Dan gets into a great lightsabre fight, and I confess, I am riveted. It is like watching a movie, except your buddy beside you is in it. crazy.

I didn't blog much those days, even though I was happy and stuff, just not inspired. My job, the future stretching out before me looking exactly the same as today, the dreams I can barely remember, the sense that I'm losing my voice. That's before I applied to school. I'm afraid that all the great experiences with these guys will get lost, that's why I'm here again. That's why I came back to this crazy-painted apartment with the teeny tiny kitchen with the beatles poster on the wall, with the giant dinosaur microwave acting as microwave stand for the little microwave. To the guys I took for granted way too much. To the peace and patience and friendship Dan gave me without even thinking about it. So these days I don't see him much and I talk to him less, not like Steve who I still kind of talk to every day, one way or the other. That's why I'm back here in this green room watching Dan play Jedi Knights. The purple comforter bunched up in the corner still kind of smells like cat pee, smoke is in the air because this is before Dan quit and we just both had a cigarette. He usually doesn't mind sharing with me even though I am not a smoker. Oh, I remember the times we used to go out in the cold to get him smokes... the time that the convenience store beside that Chinese Food place (what was that called???) AND the gas station were closed and we had to walk to the other side of the mall... woooow. so cold. sorry, did it again. So. Every few minutes I space out and start looking at his books again. Absentmindedly pick one up off the floor and start thumbing through it. The fight didn't go the way he wanted it to so he has just reset the game. that'll probably happen a few times. And I'll just sit here, curled up against the railing of the futon, happier than anyone should ever be in a green green room.

...and all this is to whom?

My thoughts on Blogging

this one is atleast partially inspired by marieseda ---- as I mentioned over at her blog, I am in love with blogging. it's not always a perfect relationship, but it's cool cause I dictate it. It's my sanctuary. My voice. Me. Bruises, blemishes, flaws and all. Where's my heart? As always, right out there sitting on my sleeve for all to see. Full disclosure has always been my policy, because I don't really know who else reads it except my friends to whom I gave the link. If some random cat in manitoba reads it and digs it, that's cool. no harm. I have been told by some I am too honest. I've also been told by other's that there's nothing wrong with that. Well, for good or for ill, my policy stands. Full disclosure. Take me or leave me, love me or hate me, dig me or ditch me...

this is kristin.