Audrizzle

So, I'm writing this from the plane. I am 36,000 feet above the planet earth, and since I don't have internet access, I can't distract myself with anything.

Well, technically I could distract myself with plenty of things, but right now I'm choosing not to.

Anyway.
I haven't posted in a long time which is terrible.

Not really terrible for anyone who reads this website, if anyone reads this website. But terrible for me, just because I hate it when I go for long periods without writing.

Today I got very angry at a man on the bus to the plane… he asked me to move my backpack, and I just got so angry because there are certain times when you have to sacrifice your personal space so that the group as a whole may move forward.

The subway, for example. I could never understand how anyone who is very particular about having a "personal space bubble" could live in New York City. Whenever I was waiting for a train with a crowd of people and one came, a lot of people would get on, but then some other people would rather wait around until the next train than squeeze into the last spots available. So, being the efficient person that I am, I would always move past and squeeze in before the doors shut. If you want personal space, you don't live in NYC.

Somehow, in the rows in front of me, directly to my right, and behind me are infants.

The one right next to me just threw up all over his mom. I feel kind of bad for her, it must be really embarrassing. But at the same time it could be much worse. The kid in front of them was banging on the seat for a really long time earlier and the parents didn't do anything about it, and that also made me very angry.

I guess I always thought people found their own kids much more annoying than other people found them to be, which is why strangers ooh and aah over how cute babies are. I guess you get used to the cuteness, just like you get used to the annoyance. So even though it's completely rude and disrespectful to the dozens of people around you, you just don't care, you just let the kid scream or hit his toys against chairs or spit up on strangers. Because you certainly can't be expected to bother to take responsibility for yourself and what is essentially your creation.

I just feel sorry for the woman next to me. She's changing her baby's onesie now, because the green one with the dinosaur on it had vomit all over it.
Luckily I didn't smell any of it.

Now the baby is looking at me and saying Daddy and smiling laughing and reaching out his hand toward me. I guess that's the main reason I feel so sorry for his mom, because she's alone, no dad, no aunt, and my god - she's soaked in his vomit. I am amazed a baby could even hold that much liquid.

I don't mind this baby. The one in the row ahead of me is being quiet now, but both his parents are drinking alcohol. I wonder if you are allowed to bring a 3-oz container of booze onto the plane with you (provided that it is in a 1-quart plastic zip bag).

Captain says we're at 37,000 feet now.
It's kind of funny because his announcement keeps getting interrupted by other people radio-ing in. You'd think they'd plan ahead so that doesn't happen. Kind of looks unprofessional.

Also, I apologize right now for any and all grammatical errors in this document. I am being lazy, and it's very hard to move here. It is also impossible to google English rules.

So, what's going on in my life?

Oh. Well, I'm on a plane. I'm coming back from Key West, where I spent Christmas. Christmas was OK,
(the flight attendant - or maybe I should call her the flighty attendant - just gave the dad of the loud kid a free margarita. Not cool.)
for some reason my first instinct when I got there was to clean & organize my mom's entertainment center. I also made her up a nice little list of instructions for how to use it - which remote to use, which buttons to press, how to play Wii and listen to the stereo at the same time.

It's kind of funny that my mom can't figure this stuff out. I always figured that I got my "good at hooking up electronics" gene from her father, who owned a TV sale & repair business. I guess sometimes these things skip a generation.

I also think it's kind of funny how good I am at working with my hands and doing "labor" type things, I guess because everyone has always considered me so cerebral. If you grow up hearing over and over how smart you are it kind of gets ingrained in you and you end up believing (or at least I did) that intelligence is the only thing that matters and why should you need to know how to do anything physical, you're so smart you'll be a zillionaire and paying people to do things like clean out lint traps or rake leaves or carry boxes for you. Never work with your hands.

But I still have to admit, I do love manual labor. Mostly what I love is that I can get into it, I can focus on it and not think, or my mind can wander and do whatever. But it's straightforward, repetitive, and you can see a visible effect or outcome when it's complete. You can see the hole you dug, and think about how they can't teach how to dig a hole at college.

Maybe they can.

It's just that more and more, I think college is overrated. So much of college is learning things out of books, which is ridiculous. Why pay thousands of dollars to have the "privilege" to pay thousands more for books you could find at a library for free? I mean, I understand the desire to discuss literature with someone, but when I went to Webster, the majority of the students either didn't read the books assigned, didn't read them on time, or didn't want to talk about them.

It's amazing, but looking back, my experience in college classrooms was a very isolated one.

Oh. Here's something I wanted to bring up.

I finished reading The Magus at the airport.
It's one of those books I enjoyed so much while I was reading it that I stopped for a while to prolong the moment when it would have to come to an end.

The last time I did this was with The Idiot, which I finished about 5 years after I started it. I think that's because I was reading the David Magarshack translation, the new one by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is a lot easier to get through… yet I still think it loses some of the cute little oddities the language held before.

It's so interesting to think about translation. There are double meanings, alliteration, so much fun that just isn't translatable. And then you wonder whether you should translate to a sentence that is 100 % accurate in meaning, or one that sounds as artful in your language as it does in the original. Very difficult. I can spend hours trying to work one sentence, I imagine it would take ages to do a full book.

Anyway.
The Magus was great. Great isn't really even a good enough word to describe it. I want to say "magical" but that's not it. Intoxicating, in some ways, I suppose… but mere intoxication is such a bland, colorless state compared to the sensations this book arouses in the reader!

I almost don't want to talk this book up too much. Not many people have read it.
At first, I told everyone to read it. Everyone. But now I like it as my secret, as my treasure, it's not a sluttish piece of writing that everybody knows inside and out. It's special to me.

Of course I want to read it again, immediately.

I also want to give up the internet. Maybe I should only allow myself certain times of day to use it.

I guess I'd have to be careful with my phone then.

I think the concern is that we've become such a society of instant gratification gluttons. What was that movie with that guy? I have to know now.

It's really interesting to think about wanting to know something for more than an hour or two… how did people learn anything before the internet? How were they satisfied without being able to find out whatever they wanted whenever they wanted?

It's infuriating, really. When I was at Angelus House there was no internet. There was a large collection of reference books, however (many of which were mine) and trying to glean a specific piece of information from a book is very fun, in a way, especially if you are used to using the internet.

I think it would be a neat experiment for me to one day, instead of looking up words in the dictionary or googling this statistic or that, I want to just write down every single question that comes into my mind, then look them all up at the end of the day. I'll do that tomorrow.

I'll need to carry my big notebook around with me, probably.

I should start a chapter in it called "Internet Withdrawal".

There will be so many things I think I "can't do" without internet access. Can't contact my friends, can't write, can't do artwork, can't think about the bank, etc.

Who knows.

Anyway, it's 9:52 PM on Sunday, 12/27/2009.

The seatbelt sign is on and the babies are being quiet. I am exhausted and I hope the plane lands soon. This is going to be it for now.

Oh, one more thing….
on my personal/mental state.

Had been doing really quite well for a while except for occasional bouts of indorsiness, but the last couple weeks have brought on serious empathy attacks.
I have also been more loving and helpful, which is weird.

I think it's so funny that they make such a big deal about adults wearing seatbelts on the airplane but the kids just jump up and down on their laps. Incredible.

Plus. It seems like I see a lot more kids on planes these days than I used to.

I wonder when the captain is going to tell me to turn off my portable electronic device. I think it is very funny the way they are called "portable electronic devices"… like anyone could really bring a non-portable electronic device on an airplane. "Whaddaya mean I can't set up my surround sound? I bought all the seats in first class so I could! Do you know how much these speakers cost me?"


Sigh. We're descending, surely. I imagine what I see to my left is Chattanooga, that would make perfect sense. Planes go about 200 miles an hour, right? And we're about half an hour away, and the Chatty is about 100 miles away, right?

Oh boy, here it comes… I don't know why I don't just put away my damn laptop. It's not like I'm being extra creative or clever. This post is surely quantity over quality; please forgive me.

If we are flying over Chattanooga, though, has it always been this big, and where is Lookout Mountain?

I've got to say. Maybe it's just because it's the holiday season, but I think flying with Tennessee passengers is a lot less pleasant than flying with … well, I don't know. I just get the feeling the people on this plane don't travel a lot and so they want to make the most of it - get all the drinks, start all the conversations, ask all the questions, use all the lavatories, stand in all the ways they can.

It kind of sucks that I won't be flying over Knoxville. The airport here is about 10 miles south or so of the city, and since we're coming up from the south I won't be able to see the city lights at all. I bet Knoxville is bigger than Chattanooga, but if this is Chattanooga on my left, Chattanooga is a lot bigger than I thought it was.

Oh, suburban sprawl! I like the suburban sprawl in Knoxville because it seems like Farragut, Oak Ridge, Maryville, etc. are all spaced out enough that you're not expected to roam through all of east Tennessee. Boy, I was not fond of Connecticut, where all my friends lived a half hour away - in different directions.

I want to see the movie of The Magus but I can't imagine it could possibly be any good. So much of the book is internal monologue.

The drunk people's child is being really annoying. I didn't mean to, but I gave the dad a look and they tried to quiet their child a bit. Basically he is still making all the noises he was before, but now he is sitting down on his mother's lap instead of standing with his hands on the back of her chair.

What else is going on in my life…

I play Wii a lot. Dave has made me clean the apartment. I have good ideas occasionally but I don't always write them down. I haven't been going out or spending money as much.

The child in the row behind me has now started shrieking, the one in front of me is repeating "Ayyy yii yii yii yaaa…" over and over. The one that threw up earlier is somehow sleeping through all of this.

I think the weirdest experience ever on a plan was once when there was a screaming child in the row behind me, and I couldn't see it, but then after a while the screaming sounded really muffled, like they were smothering the baby or something. And then it stopped. I mean, I'm sure they didn't kill or drug their baby right there on the plane, but still… just one of those very eerie situations.

I cannot get over how rude the people in front of me are.

Money is still a major issue, of course. I'm knitting quite a bit since it is winter. I made a hat and I look like a mushroom head when I wear it. So i am going to make another hat, where I will look like an alien instead.

I need to stop at Walgreens on the way home. Also an ATM.

Also, here's something I don't know very much about: When you want to buy a gun there's some kind of waiting period, where they check up and make sure you're not a confirmed homicidal maniac or whatever, but if you buy a gun at a gun show they waive the waiting period.

How does that make any sense? I mean, do the gun sellers check up on the people they sold guns to once the gun show is over? Or do they just not take any identification at all?

Again, you'd think that by now the whole system would be digital, but this country is just too big for that.

"Ayy yiii yiii yaaa".

Now I can't see anything. Clouds, I guess. I wonder why they put the seatbelt sign on 20 minutes ago, don't they usually only do it right before they're about to land? I guess I don't know.

Well, NOW it's time to prepare for landing. 10:16. Going to put up my laptop and hope that I don't have to wait too long at the baggage claim.

SEEYAZ

Labels: books, children, emotions, hateful people, knoxville, language, rambling, reading, the internet, translation, travel, writing

We all know I have a tendency to become obsessed with things.

Here's a new one.



Dear god.

I have always been a fan of Kool Keith (or "Special Keith" as some confused baby boomers are prone to call him) but I watched the "Livin' Astro" video again yesterday for the first time in about 4 years and fell in love with it.

Sigh.



I guess I first saw it in fall of 2005 on GTV, which I will admit to watching. I will also admit to hosting a show on GTV, but that's as far as I will go.

So, technically I can say that I fit into the following categories:

* Award winning writer
* Published photographer
* Museum-featured artist
* Former TV show host

On top of many other things.

Or alongside of them.

Whatever.

all of A sudden is the proper way to write it. I have been wrong for YEARS, thinking it was "all of the sudden." I can't tell you what an idiot I feel like for this. I can't even begin to bring it up.

Also, the other day...
this is getting a bit personal, OH NO! ... Well, the other day, J apologized. I'm not going to say for what, but the fact of the matter is that I had been waiting for J to apologize for 7 weeks, and a couple of days ago he finally did.

Now, I had been waiting and waiting and expecting and HOPING that the moment J expressed his remorse would come along, but when it finally did, something interesting struck me.

Everything that he was going to say I already knew.

Seeing as we had not discussed the incident, I can't say how I knew it... people often assume things and most likely they are wrong. I guess I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and came to my assumption which turned out to be right. And though I think the old me would have been ready to rub his face in it, would have preferred he lick my boots in addition to saying he was sorry, would have laughed as he groveled at my feet... well, the present me just felt sorry for him. I mean, getting to the root of the issue, I realized that his problem was his inability to react to things as a mature adult. He had felt uneasy the entire time about it whereas I was able to get over it after a very short time.

I felt horrible to think that two people could go through the same experience and come out of it so differently. I mean, I'm sure he wasn't agonizing over it, but the depth of his apology to me was so genuinely heartbreaking I fear that it was almost as bad.

What really struck me about the situation was this: J caused me to suffer, so in the past I would have wanted to see him suffer. BUT when faced with the actual front of his suffering, I realized that he had already suffered much more than I had as a result of his actions, and whatever petty need for revenge I'd had was long gone. I just wanted him to be my friend again.

So, I accepted his apology, I halted his pathetic pleas for forgiveness, and I told him it was alright, to stop fretting.

Anyway.

I guess my ultimate point is this.

There is something that I know the old me would have done. The bad me. The hateful, mean me. And I couldn't do it.

So many times when confronted with a situation, I have thought to myself...

A) This thing is bad but it's the only thing I can do.
B) This thing is bad, and I know I should do the good thing, but I'll do the bad thing anyway.
C) I want do to the bad thing, but I know I should do the good thing, so I'll pretend to be good even though I really don't want to.

This occasion brought me face-to-face with a new course of action.

D) In the past I may have wanted to do the bad thing, but now I can't bear the thought of it, so I must, i WANT to do the good thing. It's the only thing.

Result:

I am "getting better, becoming human".

Becoming a decent human at least. There are plenty of humans out there who are juvenile and oblivious and all the more unhappy because of it.

And I guess I'm not unhappy.
Saying so is really a giant leap for me.

In other news, some friends and I were going to go see The Goonies at Market Square in Knoxville this evening, but it ended up storming like crazy, so I stayed in and did artwork.

Soo, that brings us to the Friday Night Art Roundup!

If I wasn't super lazy, I would make a cool graphic for that. Who knows, maybe I will later!
(ha yeah right)

Anyway, here's what we've got:


First was the top left, then the bottom left, then the top right, and finally the bottom right.

The bottom right is very different from the other three, obviously, though you can still see some light dripage in the middle.

Anyway, I am pleased with the one on the top right less than I am with the other three, but oh well.

I think the one on the bottom right is interesting because it's obviously very intricate and took me longer to complete than all the other three (plus cleanup & setup time) put together.
Anyway, what's interesting is that I didn't notice while I was painting it, but am noticing now, 4 feet away, the lines through the bumps on the "enclosures" around the shape. If you look where the encircling lines go down (especially around the middle part of the right side) you notice some non-lines are formed in the pattern just by the shape of the painted lines. It's hard to explain, and if you can't see it already, it's probably not worth it to you or me to continue explaining.

Anyway, it is interesting, was unexpected, and like I said, I didn't even see it until after I was finished.

Another "discovery" that I will try to put to more use at a later date.

Sigh.

Wish I could sleep. Apparently I don't have any desire to stop writing.

It's been a long day, filled with terrible dreams about monsters and conspiracy.

And then some painting and some music and I'm feeling better now. But not tired, not tired at all.

Oy.

Well, I guess that's it for now. I'm out. PEACE!

Labels: art, knoxville, life, mental illness, music, obsession, people, rambling, relationships, self-improvement

Well, today is Tuesday - or was. Now it's 1:59 AM on Wednesday.

Amazingly, I slept all day Tuesday. ALL DAY!

Everyone says "Oh, Amanda, the reason you sleep all day is because you go to bed so late! If you're going to bed at 8 AM of course you're going to sleep all day! You should go to bed earlier!"

So last night, I did. I took some melatonin and was asleep by 2:30 AM (Monday night/Tuesday morning).
I woke up Tuesday at 7:30 PM.
That's 17 hours. SEVENTEEN HOURS.
TOTALLY unnecessary.

Also, I was just thinking that I have won a lot of scholarships and awards. And I just realized that I can (legitimately) call myself an "award winning writer". I am!
Not as in "I guess I like to write some, and on a side note I happened to win an award, which happened to be for best 80's hairdo," or something, but I won an actual writing award.

I have a plaque! And I'm not talking about on my teeth, either!

Also, if you go to the website for the Webster freshman writing awards page, I am in the damn picture! So is Brian Gordon Kennelly, but unfortunately he is vignetted out. Boo! He was a great teacher (probably still is) and had more impact on my thought process anyone in post-high school education.

Here's the image, so you don't have to click on the link (I know how hard that kind of thing can be).



I gave that blazer to Sadie a couple years ago, but I still have that t-shirt. And considering that I have reduced my t-shirt ownage (ha ha, ownage) from that point in time by over 90%, that's really saying something. The t-shirt features a quote from Twin Peaks, a subject about which people often (though not often enough) have something to say.

Also, it says "Twin Peaks" on the "chestal area" (props to anyone getting that reference) so people who don't even know what Twin Peaks is can also find a reason to comment. Sigh.

Looking at that picture again (as in 5 minutes later) makes me wonder why people always wear subdued colors. I mean, not that I'm not guilty of it, but I think I only wear "quiet" attire because it isn't always easy to find clothes that are as loud as I am. I mean, not that I want to look ugly, but I'd rather stand out due to people's ... mild displeasure ... than just blend in.

Sometimes. Sometimes I don't want anyone to see me at all. I know how to be invisible, by the way, but I'm not telling any of you.

My dad had a book passed down to him by his grandfather, which had been passed to him by HIS grandfather. I think it was published in the 1850's or 1860's... had all sorts of "miracles" in it, cures for scurvy and the like.

Also, here's a subject that I wonder about:

Who was sitting there eating some ground up meat and was like "Mmm, this is good, but it would be even better if it were more "contained" some how, packed tightly together in some way... I know! Pig intestines! Just the thing!"

The other way I picture it is a person just sitting there playing around with pig intestines and thinking "Mmm, this is fun, but it would be even MORE fun to fill these with ground up meat, twist them into phallic oblongs, and eat them! What a great idea!"

I really hope it was the former.

It's probably a bad idea to look up "intestines" on youtube. I didn't try it, but after looking up "tapeworm" on youtube, I have decided to think more carefully about what I search for there.

Oh! Speaking of YouTube!

I just put up videos from when I did neurofeedback in Key West with Monica. you can see them here on youtube. Watch them all at once, one at a time, or (though I would hope this isn't your choice) none of them.
Or you can watch it here if you realllly want to. Haven't tried embedding a playlist before, but here goes...
.

Also, the movie "Neu Wave Hookers" is a pretty good movie, and worth a watch, if only for the "video" for Dirty Sanchez's "I Dig It". If I didn't think it'd get removed from youtube (along with the fact that on principle I only post my own content on my account) I'd totally upload it.

Oh my, look, some youtube newcomer did it for me! How awesome!
I'll link to it, as it's only like 80% SFW...

Also, I am OK, considering the recent 2-year anniversary of an event that was really devastating, and is always really hard to think about.

Annnyway. This is one of those middle-of-the-night aimless posts that doesn't really go anywhere, and if it HAS gone anywhere, it's reached its "destination" and definitely puttered out of gas

Labels: rambling, random, youtube