five things

1. I think infinitely less of people who say hello, and then ask "how are you?" as they're walking away.  Stop it.  While you may consider that the equivalent to a greeting - it's not the same.  And by so obviously not giving a shit - you sound like a complete asshole.  Enough with the bullshit filler.

2. Not many things drive me crazier than when someone fails to do something, apologizes profusely, then says something along the lines of "I feel absolutely terrible..." and then continues to blow off said task.  My sentiment on the matter is that if one felt genuinely terrible, they'd be sure as hell to accomplish said task.  More bullshit.

3. I can't stand the negativity (I'm at my wit's end, folks).  It seems as though more and more people are focusing less on the heart of the matter and more on the potential repercussions.  Isn't that dumb?  It hasn't even happened yet.  Relax.  An example, you ask?  Months ago, a popular blogger endorsed her mother's online store of handmade goods.  In an attempt at supporting her (I think) a friend and fellow blogger posted about the store as well.  Here are the differences between the messages:

• "My mom has an Etsy shop!  Her products are really beautiful and I'm so proud of her.  Check it out of you get a chance :)"
• "Check out this cool new Etsy shop and buy some of [her] handmade [goods] before a bunch of wannabes start making cheap knock offs!"

4. And worse!  When someone knocks someone else's work.  It's disgraceful how much this happens in the photography industry - but I'm sure it happens in other fields just as much.  Big names in photography knock the "newbie" as they call them.  They focus so much (SO MUCH) time and energy talking about how these "newbies" ruin the photography industry.  While the most common contradictory response I've seen is "we were all newbies at one point!" I have a little something to add to that: no one's career is ruined by "newbies."  They're ruined because established professionals are devoting their energy to knocking newcomers instead of improving their craft.  Get over it.  Focus on your own shit.

5.  I am a fair person, but I feel that everyone is entitled to one irrational qualm.  This is probably just because of my greater than average height, but how annoying is it when you see a guy who is tall and all great looking and he's with a girl who is eye level with his belly button.  For some reason this really pisses me off.  I think it has less to do with the superficial reasoning (um, hello! find a tall girl (like me!)) and more to do with the practicality of it.  Loud bar.  Attempted conversation.  There is a lot of leaning on his part.  I'll be honest - being a tall girl, I have to lean kind of often in crowded bars to talk to my shorter friends and, as much as I love them, it's really freaking annoying sometimes.  For that reason, I cannot wrap my head around why any dude is so attracted to leaning.


End rant.

five things.

If I ever lost this phone, I would be devastated.  Not because it's expensive.  Not because I have a badass wooden cover on it that I am completely obsessed with.  It's not the phone itself at all, really.  It's the voicemail box, which contains the last five messages that my sweet friend left for me.  It's not often that I can bring myself to listen to them.  His voice can deduce me to a weepy, broken mess if I'm not feeling normal.  Or like myself, I should say.

I haven't been able to listen to them lately.  I've been so unpredictable and thus, I'm unsure of how I might be affected by the familiar "hullo Jacqueliiine."

I miss his laugh.

Still, having them there - knowing I can hear his voice whenever I want - makes me incredibly happy.

Other things that make me happy:

being barefoot.  I love feeling the grass between my toes.

the sound of fabric waving in the wind.

listening to the wind and the forest and the sounds of my home.

laying beneath the sky.  feeling fresh air on my skin.  breathing Spring into my lungs.

Things that piss me off: Volume I

I'm a patient person.  It takes a lot to piss me off.

Over winter break, a guy I was dating accidentally text me something that was meant for his ex girlfriend. Then he proceeded to ask for my advice about getting back together with her.  Did I break?  Nope.

I didn't even get mad when another guy told me (via text) that he had just started dating another girl (who looks like a stripper) despite the fact that he had actually started seeing her months prior (the night after our first date, to be exact).

I kept my cool back in the day when my (now ex-) boyfriend used to sit me down on the couch with a "we need to talk."  He'd tell me things weren't working out, that it was time to end this thing we had going on.  I would look him straight in the eyes and say "if that's how you feel." Then I would stand, turn and walk toward the door.  I didn't even get angry when he got upset at my lack of reaction over his "joke."  So funny.

I wasn't pissed off when one of my best local friends slept through my going away party.  Or when she didn't contact me for two weeks after I moved back.  And when she did, I wasn't pissed that it was just because she was trying to get dirt for the guy I left behind.

I congratulated them when they told me they were dating.  Three months after they started.

I congratulated them when they got married.  And when they were expecting.  I took the high road.

And I didn't say a word to them when they blew me off, ignored me, continue to do so when we inevitable run into each other.

(Now that I'm reading this, I'm thinking I have pretty shitty taste in dudes).

My point, of course, is that it takes a lot to set me off.  I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's rare.

There was that one time I got so angry with my sisters that I slammed the gate at the top of the stairs only to have it fall off the hinges and tumble deafeningly down the stairs (oops).

And that other time that I grew so frustrated that I threw branches of the Christmas tree that I was assembling.  At a person.

And there was the time that I screamed at the driver of my little Saturn when he stupidly stopped in a 55mph zone on a blind turn.  It was the first time he had seen me so angry.  It certainly wasn't the last.

Lately, I haven't been so patient.  Little things have been causing me to fume.  I've always been a fan of my level-headedness, so I'm surprised to find myself so content in this furious state - but god, it feels good to give someone a piece of your mind.  To be honest.  To just let it out.

It's a little bit freeing.

An explanation of excerpts, of sorts. Mostly babbling.

For the first time in two weeks, I feel like I have a moment to breathe.  As a creature of habit, my mind keeps drifting to work before I force it back.  Tomorrow I will think of work - today, I am breathing.

Breathing for the first time in two weeks.  Two insanely crazy weeks have woken me up to their preceding month, season, year, years.

I feel as though I'm breathing for the first time in years.

It's the first time in so long that I'm neither in a constant state of the natural darkness that plagues me at times, nor the medicinal fog that I've come to notice and resent.

I feel free.  I feel like I can breathe.

With that does not come a state of rainbows and butterflies and loveliness everlasting.

With my freedom comes the sadness and mourning that the darkness eclipsed, and that the chemicals masked.

With my freedom comes the natural emotions that can only be brought about by love.

Beautiful sadness.  Glorious, freeing mourning.  My heart is purging, and I'm basking in it.

Love lost to lives ended.  The worry that comes with loving another.  The pain of missing someone.

I've loved. I love. I've lost.

After reading through the pages I wrote years ago, on the verge of my first romantic love - paper I touched and held and ink marks I shaped - I wonder if that kind of love will ever feel as good as it did before the love was lost.  I wonder if I will ever feel as safe in love as I did then - or if it will change into something darker, as I have.

I wonder.

Excerpts: May 17, 2006

K,

I really think I was more serious than I ever thought or would admit to myself with him.  I think I just refuse to acknowledge and accept that it's over because it meant so much more to me than anyone ever knew.  And I think that I'm still holding on to a big part of him so tightly that no one else looks as great, because I don't feel with any of them like I did with him.  I keept telling myself that in the beginning, I didn't l;ike him that much either, but then I remember the way he looked at me.  How I was the only girl in his eyes and he admired me so much.  How persistent he was, because he wanted me that much.  I remember leaving his room at 3am to write an essay and him, so tired, barely able to move.  I kissed him on the forehead and went back to my room.  Not ten minutes into my essay, he text me, "come lay with me."  He kept texting me for the next two hours, until it was time for class.

I want that again.  I want someone who can't sleep when I'm not there.  You know, maybe I'm holding out for nothing, but I know that some part of him still thinks about me every day and wonders.  How are you supposed to let go of that?  I don't even know.  Time, I guess.  I'm afraid time away from him will create this idol in my mind, and then just make it worse.  I'm sorry I write about him so much - you have to be getting sick of it by now, so I'm sorry.  And thanks.  I miss you so much. - J.

Excerpts: May 9, 2006

K,

...If you can't hang out with a girl due to conflicting plans, and the conflicting plans are cancelled, don't make plans with the girl that tortured, killed and continually beat the relationship you had with the first said girl.  I did nothing on Sunday.  I left my family and my friends the night before I moved so that you could say your "goodbyes."  So that we could watch the shittiest movie I have ever seen and you could stare at me with those big blue eyes like it actually meant something to you.

Amazinghow two minutes could make me question every word he's ever said.  I'm starting to think his "I think you're a great girl, but it's just not right right now" break up speech was the same one he used on every other girl he's ditched.  Hell, he probably used it on V. two days after he used it on me.

I'm not angry with him.  It seems like I am because of those little things, but something once minor becomes a whole ordeal once it's discussed.  I'm really glad he and I got the chance to hang out on my grounds.  I was comfortable there, where, in his domain, I walked on egg shells.  It was like I didn't belong - begging pathetically for acceptance, thinking "oh, you should laugh at this" and "don't call him out on that."

Driving around home with him was like I was in control; he was the outsider and our conversation grew from that.

He'll miss me.
I hugged him three times in his driveway.  Mid-hug, I realized the differences in our embraces.  Mine was because I didn't want to let go.  I wanted to remember the pressure of his hands on my back and the exact weight of his arms.  I wanted to take his smell and wear it everywhere I went - bury my face in it and feel whole.

Other times over the past few months when we would have those rare emotional discussions that left me in his arms, he held me like I've always held him: like we never wanted to let go.

This time was different.  It was his duty to hug me and anything he felt, he hid behind a brick wall.  His arms were strong around me but I knew that it was my own strength keeping them there.  The hug was for me, and when I was ready to let go, his arms would fall.

I don't want that, though.

I want to be able to relax, to stop putting so much into something and still feel those arms wrapped tight around me.  Isn't that what love's about?  To let go and know you're secure?  Who knows?

Then, he stood at the door, holding it open and watched leave.  I wonder what he'd been thinking?  "What an idiot I am for letting her go." or "She's finally out of my life." - maybe he was thinking "poor, foolish girl."  For all I know, he could have been thinking, "I need to paint that fence."

Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.

These movie lives we lead <3

I love you.  - J.

Excerpts: June 2, 2006

He tells me about his first love.  It sounds like an indie movie.  She worked the graveyard shift at Winn Dixie.  He still had a ponytail.  He bought something, came back the next night and just stayed for three hours talking.  "We used to just sit around and talk about anything," he said, looking down at his feet in the water, "a lot like this.  It felt just like this."

I told him about the guy I had left back home.  We spoke about our siblings and our parents, past jobs, and our giant dreams.  He told me about [a girl he knew growing up] and how there had always seemed to be something between them.  How they spoke about life and how much he loved that.  How much our talks here at the pool reminded him of that.

"The clouds are gone," I said, looking up at the stars.  He glanced up for a moment and then looked back down into the water, staring at something intangible.  It was quiet for a moment then.

"Wow," he breathed.
I glanced over at him and then followed his gaze into the water, "what are you wow-ing?"
He was quiet for a moment, eyes fixed on the spot beneath the surface.  "A secret," he said.
"Ooh," I teased, " a secret wow."
He smiled a little then, gesturing toward the water. "It's at the bottom of the pool."  He slowly shifted his gaze to meet my eyes and narrowed his own eyes, reading me with the ease of a soup label.  "Your secret's right there next to it."