do so love love her voice

sometimes it just hits the spot, don't it.

Botton Beliefs

WHY ISN'T BLOGSPOT LETTING ME BREAK THINGS DOWN INTO PARAGRAPHS?? YOU PLUCK AT THE NERVES, BLOGSPOT. PLUCK. PLUCK. PLUCK.

As I get myself back on the renegade path, a few gems of insight from the only tweeter i follow, sir alain de botton.... Great conversations are like beautiful squares in foreign cities one finds at night and then don't know how to get back to in daytime. Work only starts when the fear of doing nothing finally exceeds the fear of doing something badly. Who are we sad for when we cry over the death of a fictional character? Forgiveness depends on a sense that nastiness is an expression of suffering, not maliciousness. Adult love shouldn't be about remembering what it was like to be loved as a child, but imagining what it took for a parent to love us. Laziness in relationships endemic because our earliest experience of love was with people who disguised the work that went into it. Nagging: when we are too exhausted to be able to convince and charm others into recognising the legitimacy of our needs. Faith in man's generosity and open-mindedness rarely survives a scroll down the Guardian's Comments' logs. In 24 hrs, the true self peaks out only in the 10mins before and after sleep. The child smothers the passion from which it emerged; that made its existence possible. Getting to the top has a miraculous ability to persuade people that the system is OK. Hypochondria is just a form of wonder at how improbable it is to be alive. Fewer greater aphrodisiacs than for an attractive woman to say:'for a long time, I've been so lonely' A simple problem of arithmetic: there are far more ambitions than there are grand destinies available. Monogamy is a fine ideal but when someone says of their partner 'I trust them a 1000%,' it's hard not to feel a little depressed. Is that things are OK proof that it was ridiculous to worry - or are things OK only because one worried? So many relationships spoilt by our tendency to become mean when we are in fact hurt. The drugs we really need wouldn't make us high, rather reliably connect us with who we already are at our best. So different are their life experiences, beautiful women and ugly men might as well be classed as different species. When trying to decode weird behaviour of others, think of the simple explanations and basic emotions: fear, envy, guilt... Most projects take so long to work out, life becomes like a song in which someone constantly presses pause. oh Alain, you inspire me so. he's good. he's really really good. annoying that my first post in quite awhile can't get the damn formatting correct. i've only tried about 8 times to get these quotables on lines by themselves. to no avail. annoying. blogspot, this is not a warm welcome back.

hullo, strangers

hello hello to anyone out there who still stops in under the 'brella from time to time to see what's what. i'm obviously on a bit of a hiatus, getting my west coast life togethers and haven't had much time for postings. 7 weeks have sped by at a head-spinning speed. oddly and surprisingly enough, i kinda miss my renegade side, so i reckon things will pick back up soon around these parts. in the meantime, i've been settling into SF, working on making it mine (though this, i can tell, will take a lot of time), job searching, applying for the california bar exam (cringe), decorating the new abode (always a favorite past time, revived), cooking (lots of seafood, at that!), hitting the beaches, walking the dingo, and taking the shit out of some baths. wait, no, strike that. shit is in no way involved in my bathing. i mean that after 2 plus years without a bathtub, i have one again, and i didn't know how very much i missed it. but now i know, and it was a lot. i will never again go back to a stand-up shower only. am averaging 1.5 baths per day, and i don't see it slowing. not stay-in-so-long-i'm-pruny baths, mind you, but just a quick wade about is such a pleasant way to start and end the day... another simple pleasure, curtains blowing in the breeze. the windows are open nearly everyday, and the sun shines bright bright bright. the apartment is small and modest, but the view is f'amazing, and after years with zero-to-no natural light, it is like a rebirth. light switches aren't so much as touched until at least 5pm. she who is a bear in the morning has *almost* no trouble waking up every morn by 7 without looking back. life isn't perfect... there are missing pieces aplenty, there is the loneliness inherent in moving to a new place, and it's possible i've cried more in the last 2 months than the rest of the year combined.... but it's part of the process of starting anew, having time to think about things once removed from what was, in certain respects, becoming a mind-numbing cycle. so far i feel genuinely good about my decision. now it's all about making it truly worth it, which means figuring out how to use this as a catalyst to a more satisfying career and so on... it's going to take a lot of work. although i'm amidst a momentary respite of sorts, this isn't the path of least resistance, but here we go...

debate

things are about to change, significantly, and all at once. i, a woman of unwaivering indecision, have been thinking something over for several months now, talking here and there, internalizing others' advice and opinions, parsing through them all and mine. realizing it's me, myself and i who will, in the end, bear most of the consequences, i finally made up my mind. now the sandstorm of to-dos....it's in motion and happening so fast due to detail this and detail that, timing this and timing that and a little bit of "let's do this before I start blubbering all over myself." i'm moving. i'm leaving chicago. there i said it. oh man, i can't quite describe the swirl of emotions it gets going. many from within me... i'm in love with chicago, i was the moment i met it. i'm in love with my experiences here, my friends here, who have in all variety of ways come and gone and come again, the food, the character the cold has given me, the warmth of the people, the architecture, feeling genuinely at home here from the get go... and many emotions from outside too, both expected and somewhat unexpected. there are naysayers and yaysayers alike, both with very valid points, but there came a time i looked at what i'm working with and went with the voice inside. it's not always consistent, but there is one that rings a little truer than all the others. i'll be writing more about this soon, but there it is. i haven't even mentioned yet where i'm going and why because at the moment i'm in the grieving and romanticizing chicago stage... when i get to the next stop i'll start my slow embrace. i'll be taking care of moving bidness with chin tucked for the next couple weeks... there will be radio silence here under the umbrella... to be picked up again on the flipside. wish me luck, i'm going to need it!

olives

oh olives, you are straight from the heavens. you know how when you silently mouth "olive juice" it looks like "i love you." well, olive juice, olives.

"gonna take you for a ride..."

tomorrow, tomorrow

not a creature was stirring

...except an anthropomorphized nutcracker. this image brought a flood of nostalgia for my family's once-annual tradition of attending the nutcracker ballet at christmas. we haven't been in some time now, and i miss it. i know christmas is over, but i'm still in the holidaze.

peeps

pretty on a plate

or cutting board. rarely have i seen celery look so pretty... nor sliced meats so tasty. or maybe i'm just hungry after the stomach-stretching holidays and craving something that does not contain massive amounts of starch and/or sugar. did i mention i'm fat.

karate chop

i love roos.

dreamy

or are we? lately i have the strangest feeling that things are more real in my sleep and the second i wake up it all feels so surreal... cue the twilight zone tune.