“If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It's very important to be aware of them every time they come up.”

got a roll of film that I used through parts of first semester and the summer. Will probably never go back to digital.

honey honey honey

BRENDAN today. Estoy muy emocionada!

Still don't have my spanish grade but WOULD LOVE IT IF I PASSED (knockonwoodthreetimes)

I must clean and shower and wash a load of clothes before FOUR which is when I have to leave and go get him from the train station although I probably won't leave until 4 20.

Ok. This post had little point but I wrote it.

Before I shower

Too often I find myself lost in the future. Whole days gone by daydreaming of things yet to come. My imagination gets the best of me cause it's so good that I forget you're not supposed to live there.

The tile on the kitchen floor isn't ideal for winter weather in a house this big this old this cold this empty. When the snow comes and the attic's breezy everyone shuts themselves into their own rooms so we go long whiles not realizing that we're not alone here. My family is odd because it's so large yet unbearably easy to feel lonely.

And who likes to feel lonely? I like the feeling of being alone, but being alone is only fun when you know that there's someone you can call or someone else who's awaiting your arrival so that they can share a warm bed with you, otherwise it feels like you're trying to trick yourself into happiness. It feels, sometimes, as if we walk by one another with millions of secrets tattooed on our limbs the same color as our skin so that the summer time seems to bleed the truth from our veins, you know?

And I forget what it feels like to settle down, sit still, make a home in a place. I've been living in a continual state of packing and unpacking, never fully achieving one or the other, and home's only in this heart of mine and the hearts of others. I haven't felt home in a place in the longest time, only with people. I don't have to have known them for long, and it's not a feeling that tends to stay with many, it comes and goes as it sees fit but for the time that it's there it's right and it's Home.

So I suppose you can take my theres but it's the thems I'll always need. With the temporary (right?) loss of my facebook, and my dislike of IMing (unless it's with Brendan as I've found that not many people know how to carry a proper conversation over IMs. I prefer words spelled out and long winded paragraphs with every depression of Enter.), I've got a yearning for just-saying-hey telephone calls and text messages. Participate. I'm sure you have my number.

I somehow locked myself out of my fuhbuh on Friday. I don't remember my password and it won't send me the reset email, so it's been a few days without (meaning one and a half, two if you factor in that it's noon but I'll admit to sleeping for some of those hours) and the results:

-went to Swarthmore yesterday, learned that I actually forgot a bunch in my hasty packing on Wednesday. It was nice, I forgot how much I adored my neighborhood, so the walk to the station did me some good.
-started The Terminal Man by M. Crichton and White Noise by Don D.
-may have convinced SO to read White Teeth. Everyone should read White Teeth. I wish my English class was reading it next semester, but I will absolutely settle for what we are reading
-kicked ass in Astro and Theatre, wrote a fantastic final paper for Film (they were due Friday), and, of course, worried about Spanish. Still worrying. Will worry until those grades are posted.

I'd like to make a movie about the details of people, there's this great quote in Memento (what I wrote the paper on) about the details: "You can just feel the details. The bits and pieces you never bothered to put into words. And you can feel these extreme moments... even if you don't want to. You put these together, and you get the feel of a person."

Oh! And this other one by Stephen King that pretty much sums up that feeling of not wanting to tell someone something, even if you know that you trust them wholly:

"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear"

Last night I realized that I only like to shoot the breeze about movies and books. Any other small talk can go to hell.

I think that there's a certain power in fiction and art and things like that, music, movies, whatever. Think of all the good that Toni Morrison novels have done for the world, or Lauryn Hill's music, or Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison over those who assume the identity of an entire group of people and take liberties that they have no right to take and assume and bash and act holier-than-thou. That does nothing for me. It doesn't change my life and really only serves to piss me off, but the unreal has a certain power because the unreal can stand for anyone in any time anywhere, nothing beats that. The most powerful real things I've ever read were the life stories of people who didn't act holier-than-thou. That's why I like Malcolm X so much, actually. Because he had his share of fuck ups, he did some dumb shit in his life and he made mistakes and had ideas that were pretty bad at times but he always admitted to all of it. He was honest with us, and honesty is so incredibly hard to come by in a public figure. He was human and will remain such so long as people remember to not assume about his person and read and discover the truth for themselves.

Samuel L Jackson is such a badass. So's Muhammad Ali. If ever you doubt your awesomeness and ability to be the greatest, just listen to Ali.

I prefer a goode psychological thriller

To Do:
-Get invited to TED (bring Brendan)
-Get invited to Diddy's White Party (bring Brendan)
-Join Jay-Z's entourage (with Brendan)

Home for break today. The break looks like this:

• spending this weekend/the beginning of next week floating around philadelphia with my video camera compiling footage of the true lovers of the skateboard and the teens after school aching to be on break and of course hitting up the used bookstore loves and blowing my money on fiction which is the only real thing to blow money on
  
• family time til next weekend meaning filming (finally) the short with the brothers
  
• people had better be coming to Philadelphia the week of the new year. perhaps the weekend before it or something.
  
• want to film philadelphia for the new year
• JERSEY. mostly just central jersey. visiting.
• home again home again. editing footage, general chilling, finishing up the leisurely activity

of course, all of this depends on whether I passed my classes from first semester. knockonwood but hey, there's only so much you can do right now yes? yes, degga.

30 Days of Night is a terrible movie. The semester ended well. What an odd beginning to college. Today I admitted that I am a saboteur. It's goode to tell people these things that way they know and thus can call you out when it's happening.

I am going to watch movies until I fall asleep on the couch and wake up and watch movies until I leave for the Illadelph. The only thing that could make this moment better would be a can of cranberry sauce. I'll pick some up tomorrow. Also, Brendan got his girl. Oh! I meant to ask him how they interact in public. Damnation

For a moment there I wasn't sure how I was going to do this.

Then I figured out that really all you can do is It. Some things work well when applied to a formula, but other stuff just requires doing. Deciding and doing. I must decide, then do, a wonderfully sketched two step process for something resembling success or its fifth cousin three times removed.

Decide, then do.

I found an old journal from 2006, the summer of it, and I read the entire thing before I considered burning it, decided that I'd probably somehow end up burning down all of Lincoln University, and settled for throwing it in the kitchen trash can.

I was the sort of person in terms of my love life--which seemed to have consumed me but that's partially I think because I didn't really like my friends that summer--who I've spent the past couple of years making fun of, ya dig?

I couldn't find the girl who knew who she was and it freaked me out until I realized that it's okay, I just had no idea who I was then so I kept looking for me in others.

BLAG BLAG BLAG

xkcd.com

BLAG


In other delicious news: Brendan is just as badass as before. Bri and Sha are still together (knockonwoodthreetimes). Break starts tomorrow soon as Theatre's over at 4. 365 was goode. I'm attempting to work out this Swarthmore money business because I think I'd like to stay. Things are better with salamander the second time around, ridiculously so. Kanye is a sick beat maker and rapper but 808s & Heartbreaks let me down, even though I think it's the truest thing he's done since Through the Wire or his verse in This Way or on Def Poetry in Bittersweet.



I've been Rory Gilmoreing all my work and whatnot, but it's mostly been in a catching up kind of way in preperation for taking a deep breath, getting ahead over the break, and coming back to Rory Gilmore everything til the term is over.

I HAVE to film something when we're back from break because I'm gonna need to keep myself busy over winter break and I wanna get at least as familiar with Vegas as I am with Adobe dig?

MORE LATER. for now: paper writing (meaning procrastinating til 2:45 by youtubing slam poetry THEN finishing the paper)

I'm about to spend several consecutive hours on film and spanish homework SO

before I begin, I figured I'd update the blag as it is indeed SNOWING. Honest to god, winter wonderland, fat flurries, go to sleep to nothing and awaken to a blanketed world, blinding snow. This morning I woke up groggy after only about three hours of sleep and exclaimed (loudly) in excitement.

Maybe it's partially because I think snow looks best on trees and there's so many trees here.
Maybe it's because snow is a perfect metaphor for starting over and I've been doing alot of that in the past week

BUT I think that it's as simple as every season brings its memories. The first whispered hush of wind through newly grown leaves in the spring will forever remind me of spring term, peddie, all of them. snow falls will make me think of snowball fights and the blizzard of way back when and headmaster's holidays.

summer and fall don't do much for me. seasons are coolest in their birth and their death.

Show opens tonight.
Brendan tomorrow.
Homework now.
Things to work on in the meantime: Speaking up.

I don't like looking through Post Secret usually because it's depressing, but I love when the secrets are happy ones:

Dreaming.

Late last night, after I didn't do my Astro problem set, I relapsed into my "I don't know if I should be here I'm not even excited about classes" stage and had to redecide if I was really going to stay after the first year.

Of course it all came down to I'm going to stay, but something's gotta give. Give Give Give.

Then I tried falling asleep and maybe it was because the bed was crowded and maybe it was because I was still pretty sick and maybe it was because it was so late and it'd been a long day and the room was hallucinationinducing kind of hot but whatever the reason, the moment I fell asleep led to a fitful night with dream after dream of one on one interactions with people who I've met and haven't yet met and maybe who don't exist at all telling me that I've changed and I used to be this and I used to be that but all the things that I used to be were the good things. I used to care about classes, I used to care about my health, I used to care about school, I used to care about where I was.

So I woke up, groggily, to my alarm of Q-Tip's "Gettin Up" and decided that today had to be the day where I did what I've been saying I was going to do and I get my life back. In a completely nondramatic way. All that I can think of is that I used to be a fucking good student but I barely study here and usually do the homework. No matter what I would put in the most effort though, except for in Precalc, but whatevs, that was Junior year man. SENIOR YEAR I had a D at midterm, spring term, in Stat, yet turned it into a friggin A by the end. All A's at the end of that year. I had so much gotdamn drive. I loved my classes. I loved my teachers. I loved discussion.

Honestly, what this is coming down to is that my love for the institution of school (which I've always loved. Always. I was bred to love school.) suffers when I stupidly stupidly stupidly decide to not take a class with discussion and books and metaphors and similes and fiction! Dear gods I miss fiction like no other! Last week my fingers stumbled upon an old copy of Cane in the library and I got painfully nostalgic for discussing Cane in Onion's class.

Perhaps I've just been spoiled. Peddie spoiled me with English teachers.

Either way, I'm sick of not liking the school part of school. Sure, I had the ideal set up at the end of last school year (video production, creative writing, africanamerican literature and culture, statistics, theatre) but the ideal set up isn't always guaranteed, particularly when I've got these stupid requirements to get through before the end of Sophomore year.



I hereby reclaim my love for learning and schooling and kicking ass scholastically speaking (and also I reclaim that feeling you get after eating something healthy) as complacency isn't really doing it for me.


also: bro'conn, saturday

Things that are More Difficult when your nose is stuffed

1. Kissing
2. Eating sandwiches
3. Eating fruit
4. Hardcore snuggling
5. Sleeping
6. Hanging upside down

True Blood. Sickness. Home

Woke up (for some reason at 6:57 AM) sick on Saturday, went to rehearsal, got back at noon, collapsed on my bed, steeped in sickness. My mom picked me up and took me to Lincoln house though so I was able to spend the day in a NyQuil coma, waking only to have more ecchinacia and water and faintly tell my parents that I had to be back to school by Saturday night.

Luckily, however, my 'rents aren't in the habit of letting me always decide what's best and so I spent the night at home, in my bed, with many blankets, sleeping. It was glorious. I'm so glad my parents are my parents and just let me sleep it off all day.

AND I got pepperoni yesterday AND there's a can of cranberry sauce for me in the fridge AND my mom's currently making several loaves of banana bread. I love banana bread.

AND there's a grand possibility that I'm going to Namibia in June. More on that later.

"When i get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome again. True story."

The best thing about BrO'Conn is that I never have to preface my bitchy opinions and statements to him, and I don't feel judged in any way. Sometimes what you really need to snap out of it are some simply stated words from someone you trust to be brutally honest with you no matter what, such as all bffls should be, and the realization that you've got to be kidding me this is unbelievably not worth my time.

In other news, other news has made other other news no longer feel like a papercut that won't heal and more like when you crack your back after waking up in the morning and feel ridiculously refreshed. Like working kinks from your bones with a simple twist of your figure.

In wordly news: Obama's new chief of staff hates Palestine.
In Ohio news: Brendan: GET SOME knockonwoodtimesthree
In PA news that pertains to me: re-finding my motivation. holding audtions for short film (fifteen-twenty minutes of complete awesome) after 365 is over. Got cast as Juliet, Tybalt, and Balthasar in Romeo and Juliet next semester, excited because it means I kill myself over Romeo, am killed by Romeo, and am kind of the cause of Romeo's death.

In Weather news: Sure is cold out.
In wishthisexisted news: This school needs more skateboarders and skaters.
In thingstoworkon news: Expansion.

In thingstolookforwardto news: Thanksgiving break in two weeks and a day which means brrrrrendan in less than that and WINTER BREAK shortly after. Sigh. Yis. Spring term holds many goode things.

Of Rest for the Weary
Superhero conversations
that lead to books I've read and
movies you've watched and I've watched and
I've loved and you've hated and
snarky responses but really we
just want to love each other alot
beneath the sesame street
blanket
that
we got
from the box in my closet.
It's got the alphabet on it so to pass time
between kissing i mean
we have backwards saying contests.

It's difficult to fall asleep with her in the bed,
but not because he's nervous like usual,
there's just so much to say.
We'll sleep when we're dead.

Poetry and Time

I've been finding myself wallowing outside of the periods set aside for such a thing so to help in the process I've taken to filling my time. Got cast as Juliet, Tybalt, and Balthasar in the play next semester, got a movie to make before the fall is done, books to read, classes to ace, poetry to write (see later), and I'm thinking that it's a good idea to go into Philly a bit more often. Spend some time with the brothers, roam a little in my city, etc. Meeting up with Mayte if she ever picks up her phone.

The arrival of Illiteracy last Friday made me finally hear what Tarit's been saying for a while now and ignited my want to do the Poetrizz group thing with him.

Rita's writing the script for my short right now

365 goes up next weekend

I want to reread the Time Traveler's Wife

I feel like I get now what Frost is saying in Stopping by Woods. The woods aren't a period of daydreaming and some place of a goode sort of comfort. They're more that place of comfortable misery that you can drift into if you let yourself. It's like a gigantic tempurpedic matress of sadness with a comforter of regret. Those are the woods. The promises he's got to keep aren't just to others but to himself. Promises to move on. You've got to keep moving or else you'll end up frozen to death in the middle of the woods.

It's interesting how long periods of happy Woods are just as bad as the misery Woods cause both remove you from the world. Stay in the world.



Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

(Break ups are like when you have a cut on your cuticle, and it's in the winter, so the cut takes longer to heal cause it's so dry out and so it hurts more than a regular cut)

ill

Big Fish is this story about a guy who knows what he wants to do and does it. All of it.

Things That Are Ill
-Hello Saferide
-Writing poetry and performing it
-Ill-Literacy
-Meeting Adriel Luis
-Recognizing when things aren't right
-Righting them
-Telling the truth to yourself
-Brendan as a bffl
-Meeting new people, expanding
-Differentiating
-Change

Things That Are Not Ill
-Not knowing where my Egypt necklace is (plus the mdw ntr on it and the ring liv got me in Bolivia)
-Recognizing when things aren't right and then righting them but wishing that you hadn't even though you know it's right
-Telling the truth to yourself
-Having miles to go before you sleep
-Lying to yourself
-Not having enough Ella Fitzgerald to listen to
-Falling into old habits and not realizing it until it's already happened
-Feeling like I'm a Realist was written just for you
-Emo blog posts

My mom sent us photos of she and my dad and their friends in college.
























moms on the left

pops with the cool lean


They met in 1979 and got married in 1980 and then had five kids and stayed married and are still in such a state of union.

My grandparents got married when they were 13 and fourteen, in 1952, had six kids, and were married for more than fifty years til' my grandpa passed away in 2004.

So it's because of my parents and my grandparents that I've no problem with people being in love young, it seems feasible to me and I've been incredibly lucky to live in today's society, where divorce is as common as the flu in December, to have these two examples of love and marriage existing together.

Whenever I get down and out and lose trust in relationships, I do remember these folks because, I mean gees, talk about growing old together, my grandparents grew up together and everything. They moved to the other side of the country had all these kids, Grandpa was a Reverend, their kids got married, had all these grandkids, we learned from them. I sometimes forget to be amazed at my family. As I get older I forget less, though.

I'm sensing a poem. Which is goode, because I'm signed up to do stuff this Friday. It's sortof a really odd feeling to think that I'm going to be doing slam poetry the same night as Dahlak Braithwaite and ill-Literacy, mostly cause the closest I've come to something like that is meeting Paul Graham sophomore year.

Along with moviemaking, joining the ranks of slam poets that those in the know know is my dream, sadly it's loads more difficult since Def Poetry Jam isn't back.

MISSION ONE: get word to Russell Simmons and Mos Def that Def Poetry Jam has to come back because it exposes people to poetry worldwide.

Anyways, the point of the whole post is to say that life can be maddening but if I were doing that thing where I let my mp3 being on shuffle decide for me what I should do, then my decisions would simply be reinforced.

And I think Molly just climbed through the window.

Yep, she did.




"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."--Trotsky

It's really mostly a topic of ethics

Since yesterday I've had three wicked movie ideas and then this morning I had another, for a stand alone short piece. I've got inspiration shooting out of the ends of mis los dedos del los pies (spanish quiz soon, don't know if i said that right) and I'm happy-dance-itching to get started this weekend.

Shakespeare had it right with his "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players." It's like one gigantic movie unfolding minute by minute and can you really be at fault if you document some of it in its original form? Not at all. I think. I'm not sure yet, but that would make a really goode story too. It definitely exists already in some form, but most of the ideas you'll encounter aren't original ones, merely recycled. It's all in the presentation, which is going to change from person to person, so don't worry if you think the idea itself has happened before, because Neil Gaiman once wrote the most genius sentence ever:

"There was a girl, and her uncle sold her, wrote Mr Ibis in his perfect copper-plate handwriting. That is the tale; the rest is detail."

It's really the detail that we're responsible for presenting from out of our own selves.

Of all the feelings, it feels best to have ideas again. I haven't used my writing sketchbooks this much since the summer

edit//

"GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying;
And the same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying. "


KEATING
Meeks. Another unusual name. Seize the
day. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
Why does the writer use these lines?

CHARLIE
Because he's in a hurry.

KEATING
No, ding!

Keating slams his hand down on an imaginary buzzer.

KEATING
Thank you for playing anyway. Because we
are food for worms lads. Because, believe
it or not, each and every one of us in
this room is one day going to stop
breathing, turn cold, and die.



Dead Poets Society, definitely the best movie to watch in times like these. Earlier this morning I thought again about the different kinds of intelligence and how one is no less important than the other and how terrifyingly necessary it is to remember that.

But back to DPS, it can't be stressed enough, if you know what you want, then go for it. Do not wait. And if you're mulling it over with an 'Oh blah dee blah but what if this goes wrong?[interrobang]" then think back to the only worthwhile thing that's ever come from that ridiculously terrible show Grey's Anatomy:

"A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don't know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I'd have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you're wrong? What if you're making a mistake you can't undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can't pretend we hadn't been told. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying."

I write about it because it's so oft forgot.

Why I am going to be friends with them for a long time knockonwood:

Because upon learning about the forming of the E-F Intramural basketball team, the Frozen Eddies, inspiration forced me from my chair and I declared that a mockumentary must be made about their rise to fame.

The ideas flowed around the table and the plan is set, we start filming this weekend.


edit
Coincidence gunned down Happenstance in a drive by through Destiny's neighborhood last week. Now everything just kind of happens. We don't know what to call it. The world's thrown itself into chaos but I guess it was meant to happen this way.

--

Spooky Noises

The kind that have to be investigated by
moms and dads and
the same big brother that you were a total
lameass to this morning when you wouldn't give him any of your extra cookies.
Yes.
The very same.

And they'll all tell you the same thing,
that monsters under beds are
figments of imaginations
and if you ask them,
say,
"It's ok.
The jig is up!
I know they're there,
just...
tell me...
how big are they?"
And of course they laugh
"Same size of the unicorn in our sugar jar
and the leprechauns in your
breakfast charms."

What honesty brings:

Ideas. I suppose that's also what not paying attention in seminar brings. But either way, ideas, I have them. For filmstuffs. Two different ones. Both which I am itching to do but will run them past my mutual idea checker, Tarit, and see which one will be best for the now.

Election Day is like Christmas, but there's still the chance of waking up with coal in your stocking and somebody burned down your tree and the mafia shot your little brother in the shoulder as he was doing a line of coke off of a hooker in your parent's bathroom while Rudolph lies dead in your fireplace. So it could go well, but then of course it could not.

Either way I plan to not do work on the 4th and simply fret about Taking Back the American Dream. Yong Jun mentioned last night how disgusting it is that our generation now has its own perverse form of hatred, that prejudice that is and will be held against the entire Islamic world. And it's ridiculous how it's going to take all of us dying and our kids growing up to get rid of that, but undoubtedly another group will be subject to extreme prejudice. I'm wondering though if maybe that's just the way that any society must structure itself. Can a rational mind with a group mentality (even though I know that's a contradiction right there) stand the idea of total and complete equality? If it's not the Muslims its the Jews or the Browns or the Poor or the Liberals or the Conservatives or the Blondes the Hobbits the Orcs the Muggles. There's always been something or someone.

Have been listening to Kimya Dawson radio on Pandora since last night. Speaking of last night, I didn't start my astronomy problem set until about 10.30 PM and finished it around 2:30AM, so at about 2.45 I borrowed Corin's bike to ride over to the science center.

It was cold and quiet all across campus and the air had that quality of briskness that makes everything clearer than it can be in the daytime. Perhaps because the only thing I heard besides the bike wheel rolling over partially crunchy leaves was the rustling of the wind through the still-not-bare trees and the late-night freight train passing through the Swarthmore train station. I've missed freight trains. There's one that passes by at random hours of the late night-early morning near my house in Lincoln and it makes you wonder if the cars still hold weary travelers or if the only ones aboard are the conducter and some coal. When I was seven I took the change that I'd saved up, tied it up in a handkerchief and attached it to the end of a stick. Threw it over my left shoulder and declared that I was running away. Then it was time for dinner though, so I stayed, but you'd better believe that had dinner not smelled so delicious that night I would be on those freight trains and Rives would've written Hobo with me in mind.

When you know what you want to do in life, from something as miniscule as knowing that you want to eat cheese fries instead of a salad for dinner tonight to knowing that you want to make movies for the rest of your time on earth, you should do it. Always.

And Do The November Project

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanuatu)

Why I love public transportation

So I'm on the way to Simone's and the subway chair is hard and cold and I've got the brilliant tunes of Louis Armstrong filling my soul when I look up and see this:


Amazing. The most truthful ads I've ever seen.

"Make Face Time

The message is simple and strong: make time for the real world; make time to disconnect. Turn off your computers, shut down your cell phones and make the time to meet people in person.

"People are spending more and more time online, and less and less time face to face, together," says Craig Marcus, an executive creative director at McCann Erickson who orchestrated the campaign. "We're not saying technology is bad. It's great, but there are still some things it lacks -- it can't replicate what happens when people are in front of each other. Certain things can't happen online through social networking… All we're saying is be with other people."

http://www.threeminutewebsite.com/index.php?cat=ads&ad=tv

I am in need of serious facetime. PEACE

edit

molly i miss you alot. why is this odd.

these are some of my astronomy notes on star formation.

(early on in class)

• Massive stars storm first, most massive clumps contract more quickly. They are the O and B type stars (those stars radiate most of their energy out in the ultraviolet). The UV light/these stars dump loads of energy into the nebula around them. Sometimes the ionized gas breaks out of the nebula and they inhibit the formation of smaller stars. Goode fuckin job, O and B type stars.

(later)

Plabet Frnatuion

1. Planets forms in discs surrounding the stars

Protostars

2. Highly contracted clou of gas befofor tbermonuclear ignition
3. A lot larger and cooler than man sequence stars
4. What makes prorostars luminous
5. They are hot enough to glow

(even later)

The Protoplanetary disk:

1. All star-forming clumps of gas are rotating
2. 
   

Forming Earth in the Propotoplanetary MuhL Theata

this is a filler post meant to pass the time as i wonder why i'm not asleep

My favorite thing is when I've had a song but never listen to it and then I do and it's perfect.

You've gotta learn to live nearsighted in one eye and far in the other. Can't waste time not doing what's goode for the soul. Life is both too short and too long for that, it wouldn't make any sense. You'd be trying to do the right thing but only end up murdering time.

"To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered where this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus and a clown killed my dad."

Anyways, the song is "Sing you a love you song" by Of Montreal:

Before the laughter and the cheer dissolves into his memory, taste of vodka on his lips, and thoughts of murder and doom, her eyes appeared to bloom, he wanted to touch them but was afraid she taken aback then what would he say?

They walked to the garden in the park when it was empty after dark then spread out a blanket and laid down and a voice said, "No one else could hear." He whispered in her ear, "Although I can't sing it now, be still..some day baby I will.. sing you a love you song."

She rolled over and a kiss laid softly on his chin and said, "You know maybe there's a chance that your feelings you've mistook or have presently overlooked... You say you don't love me, but yet perhaps you just forget that you do."

He said that, "I love you please believe the only matter of concern is that your love will one day fade. If that should happen I would die, and that's the reason why I know I can't sing it now but be still cos some day baby I will sing you a love you song...."

She said, "How could you question when the root of my affection is so plain and obvious? It grew from the overwhelming pleasure of just being near you and now bring in doubts and they are smothering our love!"

//Edit

I'm going into Philly shortly, for the day, and woke up this morning elated and for some reason particularly excited to fix things. Looked outside at the torrential downpour and trees, gusty from the gales of wind, wasn't fazed, and am actually looking forward to Philly in the rain as I like it just as much as Philly in the spring.

I've been thinking about taking back the American Dream, only because Brendan mentioned it in passing and I think it's doable but I've a train to catch, so more on that later.

on the real

The November Project
cause Guy Fawkes was right

November's big this year:

• Elections on the 4th
• Guy Fawkes day on the 5th
• Brother's birthday on the 5th (has nothing to do with anything else I'll say this post, but maybe if I write it here then I won't forget to call him)

Whatever happens at the start of the month is going to change the world (except maybe for my brother turning 21. Well, that'll change his world), so it seems right that you do something simple that reminds you to open your eyes a little wider than before and soak up what the world is doing around you and in places that you can't see.

If you like to think of yourself as a creator of some sort, any sort, art math science music words stories information thoughts whatever's clever, if you're a creator, then do this Project

For every day of the month of November (there's 31 of them), create something.


Por ejemplo:

• poem a day
• short short story a day
• play a day (suzan lori parks yes?)
• film something every day
• take a picture every day
• write a song
• make a beat
• listen to something you never would have and write about it
• dance
• build a Lego version of the Eiffel Tower
• write someone a note who you don't know, every day, some new, something powerful.
• leave a message
  

All of the above. None of the above. Anything can happen, cause you'll be back in November. And it doesn't matter if it's all pretty awful for awhile, cause the point is that at some point something might come to you, it might elude you all month (but hey, you may decide that thirty one days of doing something needs to be stretched out to threesixtyfive and keep going), or it might creep out the sides of your imagination at four AM when you're sleepin and it'll be one of those things you wake up for.

Do it and share it with the world, even if that only means posting it in a comment or conforming and making a blog or using facebook or posting updates outside your bedroom door every morning. I'd love to see what you do if you do it.

Do it. I'm doing it. Everyone's life could use a bit of creation. Maybe it'll make something about the world a little bit closer to your grasp and understanding. Or maybe it'll just make you think. Honestly, Shel Silverstein says it best:

Draw a crazy picture,

Write a nutty poem,

Sing a mumble-gumble song,

Whistle through your comb.

Do a loony-goony dance

‘Cross the kitchen floor,

Put something in the world

That ain’t been there been there before.

It's necessary. Sometimes you can't start a revolution without revolting against the routine you might be stuck in. Do something that takes you out of your Self on a daily basis for a bit. And for the Bros, The Brovember Project

And remember the 5th, for in the words of the shrunken head at the beginning of the 3rd Harry Potter movie, this is going to be a bumpy ride.

With the same breath that is me neglecting my Spanish homework, I decide to stay at Swarthmore

For now, at least, I've no plans of peacing post first year. For now.

And I reread The Missing Piece today and thought about how that just might be in the top ten most terrible things you can feel. As if a piece of you is missing, like you're not whole. I used to think that people claiming that everyone's got a soul mate who completes them was a reasonable idea, but eventually you figure out that it's been years since Hedwig's The Origin of Love took place, we've the capacity to complete ourselves. Everyone else adds on.

Think of it as if we're all white dwarf stars in the sky. There's a chance that we're part of a binary or even a tertiary star system and that our gravity is affecting them, and our orbits are so close that the giant star we're in this celestial tango with gives some of its own mass to this white dwarf form. That's great, but the point is, since it's one AM thus making it completely okay to make ridiculous analogies, the white dwarf is a white dwarf even without the added mass from the giant star. Other people don't complete you, they supplement the whole. Which is just as important! Don't get me wrong! After all, if we never had giant stars giving mass to white dwarfs then we'd never have novae and novae are the coolest second only to supernovae (supernovae are the people who live their lives to make the world a better place) and nebulae (which is of course the goode that the supernovae leave the world with). So be a white dwarf, but be a nova too.





(helix nebula)
If Astronomy was all about applying stuff we learn to different analogous situations then I'd ace this biz.

Scaling the Cliffs of Insanity, Battling Rodents of Unusual Size, Facing torture in the Pit of Despair.

what an odd night last night was. had goode conversation with two goode guys which saved the evening from disaster.


Been thinkin a lot lately about Africa, partially because I spent a lot of time catching up on sleep, and as I let my mind wander while lying in bed my eyes tend to fly over my Bob Marley hangup thing that says "AFRICA UNITE" and it's got all the flags around and Marley in the middle next to the continent and almost everyone who's ever seen it asks me why Bob Marley cared about Africa Uniting (and clearly that can't be avid listeners in the first place since Africa Unite's a really well known Bob Marley song, but besides that). So then I go into a mini-rant about how the Rastafari understoof the connection to Africa no matter where they were in the world and how Bob Marley yearned for a United Africa, much like many of the African revolutionaries during the times of African countries gaining their independence from the conquistadors.

That will of course prompt the second part of my miniangerrant which is anger at African-Americans seperating themselves from Africa and not seeing why there's a need to not do that. Or the danger that comes with seperating "Africans" from "African-Americans"

When I was a kid my parents never referred to any of us as anything other than African and that helped me more than I realized but it's constantly been a source of confusion for people I talk to about it. It's kinda odd to not know the ancestral connection, because you can't claim a country like second generation kids can. I try not to look at that as a downside, because whenever I think about Africa as a whole I see it all as a place where I'm from, but it's not the same thing as kids who are Ghanian or Nigerian or Egyptian, etc.

And so then you're left with claiming America, which I've really never had any sort of desire to. I was talking to Bryce about that the other day, national pride, and my opinion of America's unaffected by the rest of the world's views, but has merely formed as a result of disagreeing with the way that the country is run, has been run, its history of action towards others, and ultimately everything that it's built upon. So I'm not quick to claim.

But but but, what does any of this have to do with anything I've sort of forgotten what I was ultimately talking about. Maybe it was this idea of a united Africa and how that's necessary. Or perhaps the notion that I consider myself African even if that's as specific as I can be. Or that the hall smells really bad when the rugby guys get back after their games. I'm not sure.

Maybe the point is that I wish Brown people of all shades and ethnicities were more united. The other day Tarit asked me why Deshi doesn't do things with SOCA or SASS or SASA on campus since India has more in common with eastern Africa than the rest of Asia.

Thinking about India always makes me think about the ridiculous nomer of "the Indian subcontinent"which then makes me remember the completely political move to seperate Africa into 'North Africa' and 'Sub-Saharan Africa'. It's so quiet and so unheard of but it means so much and it's going to mean more down the road.

So Africa is a continent, and "scholars" tend to focus on "North" Africa for "culture" and "history" of early civilizations. I use so many quotation marks because it's all absurd and bullshit and I'll never understand why everyone in The Prince of Egypt looked like they were British people who'd spent the day tanning on the beach.

Anyway, so that's the first seperation. THEN the clever move was made to ever so quietly re-define the "White" race and declare (on census forms and all sorts of applications) that "White" includes people of "Middle Eastern and North African descent"

WHAT. Since we know that the concept of race has nothing to do with our genetics and everything to do with it being a social construct then it's safesafesafe to assume that such a move has been made not because North Africans all of a sudden look more like the Nordics than the Nubians but because people credit so much to the region of Africa called 'North' and now everything in that region will no longer be part of a Black History because it's all White. Even Black and White should be in quotation marks but I've gotten sick of pressing the shift key.

And of course Sub-Saharan Africa keeps Africa mysterious, stupid, and unable to save itself. At least, that's the implication. And I'm sick of the color hierachy. Even in Africa. In Egypt, you'd try to ask the tour guide if skin color was ever an issue and he claimed no but then why was it that everyone who worked on the boat just so happened to be Nubian while all the tour guides I saw in the country were clearly more of Middle Eastern desent.

For Bob Marley's 60th birthday, there was this hugenormous celebration in Ethiopia and his kids came and all these people performed and celebrated his ideas and hopes for the continent and there's a documentary about it called Africa Unite and I think everyone should watch it.

I'd like to make a documentary about that seperation within the race, and what do Afro-Latinos think? and Afro-Caribbeans. etc..


My people need another Bob Marley.

If I stay in one place I lose my mind. I'm a pretty impossible lady to be with.

Have been listening to the Juno soundtrack on repeat since three, because that is when I laid down to sleep (with much success. It was my favorite kind of sleep, where you block out everything around you and you're just in the cocoon that is your mind wrapping your body in relaxation yet you're still aware that you're kinda awake.)

Point is, Shane asked if I would be his speechwriter when he's President/ruler of the world/something and I agreed without hesitation because it's always been a Job-For-A-Day pick of mine to be a speechwriter of some sort. Preferably for something that requires convincing large groups of people to trust you and do stuff for you. Writing speeches is one of my favorite things to do, I'm thinkin about running for stuff just so that I can write speeches for it, but then drop from the races because I don't actually feel like running anything unless a film society gets started because--hey, why isn't there a filmmaking society at this blasted school? There's a Drama Board. Imagine if the Drama Board and all of its resources were made available to a group of 10 or more kids who really like making movies. That would be glorious.

To Do

• start Film Society
• Make kool-aid
• Throw away old banana

I actually think that maybe I already threw the banana away.

I've been on a tie streak, this is my second day. Can that be called a streak? Let us say yes, even if the answer is no. I also cracked open the complete volume of Narnia books that I borrowed from Mjumbe. I'm very glad to say that they're in chronological (Narnia time) order and thus I started rereading The Magician's Nephew today and it's just as goode, if not better, as I remember it to be.

Anyways, about the tie streak. In high school I gained an appreciation from the original prep style that grew from 1920s Ivy League I suppose, but even before that it existed in the world. Said appreciation came as a result of the nouveau prep in bright pinks and cotton candy blues and ridiculously short lengthed plaid skirts worn with mid-calf Ugg boots. It was a depressing fad that I hope never comes back as full force as it was. Right, so, classic prep. And at the same time, I've always hated Ralph Lauren for various reasons. CONFLICT AROSE when Molly told me about Ralph Lauren Rugby which is attempting to embody that 1920s ivy league look to the fullest, and doing so quite well (even if all of their models look so disillusioned and disconnected from the world that you wonder if they've been given glassy-eyed contacts or something of a similar vein). I wouldn't buy anything from them because it's ridiculously and unnecessarily expensive, but I am feeling the style.

This has been a substance free post and I am going to do homework now.

"I don't think I'm going to change my last name, cause it's like your identity, so that's weird. Although if I was in a porno I'd have to take my husband's last name to protect my identity. Hmm. But I'm pretty sure I won't be in a porno." molly

"I love Zach Wiener's face, it's so delicate" molly

wtf molly

since now most guys have gotten into saying 'no homo' after complimenting or admitting feelings of love or appreciation for another man because they're slightly insecure in their sexuality, and before that sort of showing of feelings or compliments was completely taboo amongst heterosexual males who, again, aren't secure with their sexuality, does this maybe mean that soon enough men can compliment each other and have feelings and show them without tacking on any sort of homophobic qualifier with it?

operating on slim sleep and a growly stomach

yet maintaining an air of contentedness.


EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT

Saw Jean-Luc Godard's film Une Femme Est Une Femme tonight and now have a new favorite to add to the short list that is my favorites. It was amazing. Adorable, funny, romantic, weird, and goode stuff. I just like the way it was made! The cuts! The breaking of the fourth wall! I love it.

(side note: watch this. it's good for cults. good for businesses.)

(side side note: If someone overs you a time machine, it's usually best to turn it down, but sometimes it's best to use it, but maybe first you should see if that someone is a genie. If yes, then ask instead for a glimpse of what life would be had you chosen a different path, a la It's a Wonderful Life. But I bet that's not allowed cause it's along the 'having cake and eating it too' vein. Which if you think about it, is ridiculous, because what fool doesn't want to eat the cake she's just gotten? A stupid one. Always want to have your cake and eat it to.)

(side side side note: (12:06:24 PM) cyphertoast: the weather isn't necessarily bad up here, just angry and spiteful -- if it's snowing and you begin to walk, snow is blowing in your face, if you turn your head to the right or left, snow is still blowing in your face -- if you look down, fluid dynamics be damned, the snow is still blowing in your face)

Quite early this morning, on the tail end of six AM during my walk back to my dorm, I was engulfed in a surprise sunrise. It was gorgeous, and I was juuuuust delirious enough from no sleep to stand there for a few moments and Thoreau the world, for "Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me"

possibly my favorite line from all of Walden.

And as I sat for a bit inside, loving the blades of frosted glass, I took a deep breath in of O Me, O Life! and let out a 42. Was good.

O ME! O life!…of the questions of these recurring;

Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill'd with the foolish;

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean —of the struggle ever renew'd;

Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;

Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;

That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute
a verse.

Lookit that. "That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse". The very definition of spittin hot fire is in that sentence.

And I've signed on to doing ten minutes of poetry at this Class thing I'm not sure what it is really, but I've been writing things down and my white blood cells have been engaging in slam battles with their red brethren whenever I drift off in Astronomy lecture (with the organs themselves providing the necessary 'OHHHHHHHHHHH's for hella nice lines), so I'm pretty much diggin the opportunity to perform again.

Started writing that old man poem, did you know he sold his soul to the devil?

i haven't been angry about nothing in particular in a long time. sometimes it's goode to feel that way for a day. just a day.

i'm writing a poem about that guy in the picture.

The Future

So I got this email from one of my three favorite teachers in the entire universe

(Side Note: I truly lucked out at Peddie, for the three years that I was there I had four of the best English teachers that exist in the world, Rodrigue, Hiebert, Onion, and LeighWood. I still keep in more touch with all of them than I do with almost everyone in the class of '08. Rodrigue was the one who told me that I overextend myself too much and that keeps me from greatness, Hiebert taught me how to appreciate every single word of a book AND he's kind of the coolest person alive but in such a way where he can be like 'Hey, I'm awesome, but I think you're awesome too, and I'm just as dedicated to being more awesome and I am to you being more awesome." And Onion kicked my ass senior year by telling me when he knew I was coasting in class and pointing out what he knew I put h&s into. LWood made me want to write and then go back and rewrite it. THAT is impressive.)

Anyways, Hiebs sent me this email:

> Great news, Tayarisha!
>
> I'm looking forward to checking it out.
>
> Other musical things of note:
>
> 1. Working on getting a show for PUC.
> 2. Working on getting the Blue Scholars back this spring.
> 3. If/when #2 is happening, think you might be interested in doing some
> spoken word stuff to open?
>
> Be well,
>
> Nick


Sure, he sent this a few weeks ago but I didn't remember about it until yesterday when I was vimeoing all of Zia Mohajerjasbi's videos

(Side Note: CLICK THIS BUSINESS. Mockumentary, short, called Manoj, directed by Zia M. and written (and starring) Hari Kondabalu. Hilarity.)

and rereading the BlueScholars Tour of Queens with Hari K. blog thing: CLICK

friggin genius.

And then just listening to the Blue Scholars in general and that got me thinking about how cool it is that Sabzi's brother makes their videos and they do their thing and then they work within their community to make stuff better and they go around and perform and all this stuff. Right. So then I started thinking about how they're doing what they want to do, and Sabzi's brother (that's Zia) is doing what he wants to do, and how that's brilliant. Then I remembered how the Blue Scholars came to Peddie my junior year and how I wish I'd been

a) cooler
b) less awestruck (so that I'd say morrrre)

at the time. BUT THAT is when I remembered the email.

See, the Blue Scholars (and really, the whole Mass Line Media crew) and thinking about them has made me remember that I used to stand strong for some things, and that I used to not be as cynical and disillusioned about the world. My beliefs in what humans can do weren't as strongly shaken by what humans have done. I didn't realize how selfish my world-views were becoming until I reread that Blue Scholars Tour of Queens thing, then it was sorta this wave of understanding what I've been doing (and not doing).

See, Neil Gaiman said this thing about there being alllll of these tiny worlds within every single person, no matter how big or small, exciting or dull, we all had so much inside of us. Which means that everyone has the ability to change something. I used to wanna change stuff, then I just wanted to get into college, now I just wanna write this essay about this play and this other essay about Psycho so that I can not think about them anymore. And Mark Twain said this other thing 'I never let school get in the way of my education'. I've never been big on sitting on a street corner, sandwich boarded up, nor blind protesting, but it's be a mistake to think that that's what changing means.

The world's a big place. Props to the Blue Scholars for doin their part.

I've got plenty of vices, but the one that keeps getting to me is my lack of patience. However, I think that if you give a school a year and by the end of it you still don't like it then deciding to look elsewhere isn't a lack of patience but simply a goode idea.

And I know that if I don't want to continue at Swatmo' after this year then I'm not gonna look into going to Lincoln or another smallliberalartscollege, because all I want to do is make movies, write stuff, learn about other people's histories and discuss the present with those who are in it, and I can do that for a lot less money by taking classes around Philly and working at the library or something like that.

Oh man, I'm watching Spiderman right now and Peter Parker TOTALLY just let the guy who he thinks kills his Uncle go. So sad.

Anyways, but I'm sure that this is mostly just the I-really-friggin-am-not-into-my-selection-of-courses-for-the-semester blues and that things will be on the rise, particularly since I'm a huge fan of the socialstuff at the school and there's all this business I wanna do (ok, Peter Parker is crying because Uncle Ben just died and I never realized how terrible T. McGuire looks with a fake cry).

K, I'm over it. That was only a small part of my oomph moment tonight.

THE LARGER PART came from checkin out Phil's blog for his clothing line. theawardtour.com go there now. Show some love. So the kid's at art school because he's hella goode at designing stuff to the point where he's got his own clothing line and it's gotten big enough for Pharrell to be in a picture with someone wearing it. Phil's basically been doin his own thing since high school and I respect that.

I have an unwaveringly high amount of respect for people who wear things, think things, read things, say things, for the reason that it grooves most spectacularly with the rhythms of their own soul. People who not only march to the beat of their own drum but have called up an entire friggin New Orleans band to accompany said drum.

And you can always tell the difference between someone who dresses the way that they do because of a certain style that's in and someone who does it because it's them. People who are consistently themselves have this look in their eye and a certain swag to their walk that doesn't necessarily mean a higher level of happiness, but more so that that person has something in them that they're sure of, something large that rests in the center of their soul. Something that no one can touch unless that person decides to let them do so. And that's beautiful and it's brave and it's what I look for in the people I choose to keep close.

(xkcd.com)

(everyone who's read the ender series knows he's right)

Peter's fake crying again. It just doesn't get better.

I want to go to bed, but my deep love for superhero movies is physically preventing me from turning off the television which probably means I'll doze off to the sounds of the Green Goblin dying and wake up to somethin hella creepster like Pee-Wee's playhouse or the Teletubbies or a talk show. Once I woke up to QVC and I just didn't understand how or why. That messed up my whole day..

Shooting a short this weekend, nothing too plot heavy but also not a friggin compilation of footage set to some indie pop song. Starring the Poe children (some of em, whichever are at the house), Jennifer (if she's around) and Yugioh the Cat. I haven't told the bros about this yet, but I'm hoping to plead sadness and get some free actors.

Mitch Hedberg was hilarious.

Yugioh the Cat does exist.

Also, have been trying this doing things differently in life thing since a conversation I had with Tarit yesterday and it's working out quite nicely. I don't regret what I wasn't sure about a few days ago. You know you know no big you know, haven't been in a wouldacouldashoulda mood in a long time.