Ramblings...

So today was a better day. Not quite the 'pink cloud' I was on the other day, but at least it's quite a bit less gloomy. I went to work, was productive, touched base with a couple cool people via company-supplied e-mail, got some news about the job situation (which might actually be good news), got dinner at Targgette, saw a friend on the bus ride home, made dinner, put in 'Buffy' and am just chillin. I'm gellin. Bingeing on Icecream and Pizza. Not a lot to say tonight.

Outlook: Explosive, too much Icecream and Pizza. Other than that, I'm doin Ok.

Attitude: Resolved. Some thing I just don't have any control over. I'm getting OK with that. It sux, but it's OK. It really would be a lot easier if I were in charge, but with power comes responsibility. Enough of that coming soon enough. Ish.

Anywho, time to put away the Icecream, Light a candle, get my thoughts in order and go to bed.

It's all five by five B.

JD

Balloons deflate too quickly...

I remember when I was growing up playing with balloons. I loved trying to balance them on my fingertips, balancing one on top of another, hitting them as high in the air as I could and running to catch them before they hit the ground, trying to make baleen animals out of the long skinny ones (I was really REALLY good at making snakes)... I really believed I could pull a "Muppets" and tie a bunch of helium balloons to a chair and float away above the treetops in my back yard. Balloons were fun.

The sad part about balloons is that no matter how good of care I took of my balloons, they would eventually deflate and be just a limp piece of rubber. I kinda feel that way tonight.

Something I saw tonight brought on a flash-back to something that happened when I was a kid. Something I had no control over, but something that I'm never going to forget, no matter how much I would like to and it put a little hole in my balloon so it started to deflate.

Imagine standing in the doorway of an old wooden shack, empty and dusty. The only light is a beam of sunlight slanting in from a window. Dust motes lazily floating in the beam as it spills onto the floor. In the corner is this little, lost kid. Dirt on his face, unkempt hair, filthy clothes, crouching, ready to run at the slightest provocation. His eyes are locked on you, full of fear. The pool of sunlight on the floor is just a few inches from his dirty shoes and he's cowering from it, knowing that if he steps into the light, you will be able to see him. That frightens him because he doesn't know what you are going to do...

So tonight I didn't want to say anything to anyone I saw because I knew that whatever came out might well be a lie. I'm in this self-preservation mode that I really need to break out of.

My mind won't freakin settle tonight. Nothing new. I'll stay up until my body starts to shut down from exhaustion then crawl into bed and try to stop thinking for a bit so I can sleep. Things that are out of my controls. I've been stuck on them. I really need to just turn them over and I try, but then something else comes up with work or with friends and everything comes back full force. I don't know where my job is going or if I want to go where it's taking me, I've been foolishly letting myself think about relationships, I've been worrying about my health and not doing anything about it. I. I. I. I gotta let it go. What I really need to do is stop cowering in the corner, afraid of the light, and look out the window to see the beautiful, color-filled people standing just on the other side. They are all parts of a power greater than myself.

Outlook: Ask me tomorrow. Tonight I would just shoot back "Fine" if you asked me how I was doing. All the images and positive things that have been happening have really been scaring me.

So, I'm going to light a candle, meditate and try to turn this all over. I know that tomorrow is a new day and I probably won't feel like this tomorrow. I hope the sun is shining tomorrow. Part of me really misses how it feels.

Peace.
JD

Images...

I don't even know where to start tonight. Words are failing me as I try to think of everything that's been going on since my last post. This has been an amazing week for me. I've met with many people, had several great conversations, learned a lot about myself... It's been an eye-opening week. I'm not talking just about the eyes in my head, but my inner eye has been opened and the images flooding my soul have been breathtaking.

Ok. That may not have made a lot of sense, but the images are key to understanding. I'm an artist, or at least I try to be one, and I'm finding that images can portray my thoughts a lot better than words but I'm going to attempt to use words to describe what I see in my head.

One Image. Imagine looking out onto a sea of grey faces trudging down a street. All shades of grey. Grey buildings hemming them in as they trudge down their paths, a colorless sky in the background. Everyone is complacent, apathetic, mundane. Then something changes. Someone walks towards you out of the crowd. This person is different, they are color. Not like a colorized black and white image, but pure color, no distinguishable features except vibrant color in the form of a person.

As this figure approaches you the colors move and you realize that the color isn't IN the figure, the color is what is seen THROUGH the figure. You can still see the grey people walking down the grey street between the grey buildings under the colorless sky, but as this figure approaches to the point that a solid form would be blocking out much of the mundane view you have, you see through this form into a world of color. A blue lake shimmering in the distance, green trees and plants stretching out before you full of life, Birds aflight in a sky full of the colors of the sunrise. The center of the figure is the sun coming up on the horizon of the lake, the pinks, oranges, purples of the sky blending beautifully. Tranquility in the figure before you. Peace. Serenity.

I've been seeing a lot of those people lately. So many different scenes. Some a new sunrise, some a brightly lit summer day, some a troubled sky over a storm tossed ocean waiting for the calmness that eventually will come... All very beautiful.

Another image familiar to many... A pebble tossed into a mirror-calm lake creating a ripple effect. The ring of ripples expands from the point the pebble broke the surface to the very edges of the lake. One simple act, throwing a pebble in a lake produces a huge effect on surrounding body of water. You don't know how far the ripples can expand. One thing you do can and will affect everything around you. The effects of the action can't be anticipated until the action is done. Even when the waters have calmed again, you have changed the lake because your pebble now is in the lake.

These are just two of the images that I've been seeing everywhere lately. The first is one I'm working on painting, the second is just one I'm noticing and am amazed by.

Outlook: Very positive.
Attitude: Sitting here just smiling in bewildered awe at the wonders happening around me.

On my mind: The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be love loved in return. ~Moulin Rouge!~

New Project...

Oooooh. Chocolate is good. I've had lots of chocolate today and therefore am in a GREAT mood at the moment. I keep having all these eye-opening experiences, not all of which are exactly good/easy at the time, but I'm learning all kinds of things. Getting to know myself better. I've got a few things to do today, so I'm going to keep this brief, just wanted to say that I'm proud to be bringing myself into the 20th century finally. Yesterday I was journaling and thinking of my blog at the same time. I like Journaling even though I don't do it much and I like Blogging, just sitting at my computer and typing my thoughts out. Well, I really like composing at the keyboard rather than on paper for some things, so I decided to transferr my old journals into electronic form. It's kinda fun reading through some of my entries from YEARS ago and seeing how the things that worried me then really weren't such a big deal. Plus, I can put all the Blog entries I've done and not published into my new journal. Kinda cool.

Anywho, that's what I"ve been doing lately, I'm thinking of getting a scanner too so I can scan some of the drawings I have in my journal into my system.

Things going through my head: Love. Something I'm still beginning to understand. Love is not using something/someone up and discarding the rest. I've been thinking of the possibilities of dating again, but I know I'm not ready for that. I am still having a hard time loving myself and sometimes still even liking myself, but that's getting better. Until I can honestly say that I love myself, I won't be ready to attempt trying to love anyone else. I'm not dwelling on it though, I just keep meeting these people who I would consider if I was in any way ready. Anywho. S'OK.

Nothing happens by coicidence. "To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven..." Ecc 3:1

Catalysts.... redone.

So, am redoing a post from Tuesday night. Too much personal info in it. Here's the last part of that post, then continuing on to today's random thoughts. =c)

Begin re-post:

I took another stab at a Myers-Briggs based survey on my personality type. Reading a friend's online journal inspired me towards it. (Thanks Joel! Good to hear from you!) I took the actual Myers-Briggs test my freshman year of college in 1994 as part of an honors colloquia and with everything that has happened in my life and how I've developed as a human being since then, I was wondering if it would have changed. It didn't. I am still classified as an INFJ (Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging). I found a couple articles concerning INFJ's and they're surprisingly accurate. If you want to know what makes me tick, read them. Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging by Joe Butt and The Portrait of the Counselor Idealist (iNFj) from KEIRSEY.COM. I was surprised by the Kiersey one, calling my type a counselor and citing that's there's little more than two percent of the population with my personality type.

If you want to find your type, try this: HUMANMETRICS Jung Typology Test. I'm curious about what my friends are. Mine was very accurate. Will theirs be?

Outlook: Cake, Ice Cream, meditation and getting my thoughts organized here have helped, so things are starting to look up again.

Currently Listening to: Bjork, Nickelback and a CD from a White Party I never went to.

End of re-post.

Yep. Looks good. Yesterday and Today were better days. I met friends for lunch both days, time at work passed quickly, it's Thursday night, Tomorrow is pay-day Friday, Looking forward to the weekend.

Tonight I went out with a group of people and had a great time. I was very severely insulted though and I'm sure it'll take me YEARS of therapy to get over it. One of my new friends was noting my snide comments to others in the group and he told me I was "too butch to be a bitch." CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? WHAT AN INSULT! Other people stood up for me though, so I may get over it. I think he was just jealous that I had German-Chocolate cake when he's on a no-carb-no-sugar diet. Silly boy. LOL

Mood: Fabulous!

"Enough about me, let's talk about you. What do you think of me?"
NAME THAT MOVIE!

Listening to: nothing, very peaceful sitting here in the dark. Thinking I may get to bed before 1:00am for once this week.

=^._.^=

JD

Today was just an odd day...

I woke up this morning, hit snooze a couple times, rolled out of bed, stumbled into the bathroom, smoked a couple cigs while reading my meditation book, showered, finished getting ready and hurried out the door. All routine. The sidewalks were glassy with ice due to freezing rain so I slid most of the way towards my bus stop. I was just kinda zoning out watching a white van coming down 26th St. towards me, realized the light had been green for a while so I should probably get moving across the street but was distracted by a white car coming down Lyndale towards me. I was still kinda zoning and not quite ready to actually move to cross the street and was thinking, "Huh. I wonder if that car realizes it's got a red light." My brain was moving kinda slow because in the time it took me see the white van, realize I should be crossing the street and ask myself that question, the white car hadn't stopped and the white van hadn't stopped and I hadn't started moving. It was like slow motion watching the two vehicles trying to occupy the same space at the same time. Laws of Physics, Inertia, Transfer of energy... Like pool balls, the two objects collided and ricocheted. Suddenly the car was going up 26th St taking out a light pole and the van was heading down Lyndale. I was like, "Huh. That's odd, oh, the light's green, I should walk." So I crossed the street to my bus stop.

I did wake up at that point and realize what had actually happened and called 9-1-1, made sure everyone was OK for the most part and waited for the emergency personnel to come, gave them my info and recounted what I had seen. Then on the bus I was replaying it all in my head and realized that if I had been watching the light and had started walking when I should have, I would have been in the middle of the two vehicles when they collided. I wonder how that would have affected the inertia transfer.

Thus started my day. Kinda put some things into perspective about life and choices made. Made me pensive and appreciative all day.

Things on my mind: Life is not a given.
Also, the song Wig in a Box from "Hedwig and the Angry Inch."

Outlook: Ok. Kinda in a slump that cake and ice cream didn't help much, thinking I need to get some sleep.

Still looking forward to getting together with people this week to get to know them better and to talk out some of this stuff bouncing around in my cranium. Ready to be open, honest and willing with them, gotta remember to temper it and avoid extremes which would probably just scare the bejezus outta them. hehe.

OK. In the 10 minutes it took to spellcheck and add the last paragraph I've started laughing. Darn mood swings. I really am looking forward to this week. I will be getting/giving LOTS of hugs tomorrow. That makes me feel all warm and squishy inside, like oatmeal, but better. hehe =c)

Yep, I need sleep.

JD.

New goals.

Tonight I went to a meeting where the reading was discussing setting goals for life. I'm a great one for making New Year Resolutions. Every year in the past I've made a list of 5-10 things I wanted to do in the new year: Quit Smoking, Excercise more, have a more balanced diet, pay off debt, get a car, get a boyfriend... Invariably I would start with a great attitude about these things then one-by-one would start to loose interest. Either I didn't feel I had enough time to devote to achieving these resolutions, I'd get rejected, or I would think, "I'll start on that next week (no, the next...well, maybe next month)." Point is, I would never actually keep any of the resolutions I made.

Tonight's discussion reccommended setting goals (not resolutions) for my life, writing them down and turn them over to my higher power. Sounded kinda odd. I mean, what good was it to take the time to write down the goals I have then just forget about them. Then I realized, I'm not supposed to forget about them (that's why I need to write them down) but in the goals I've set there is only so much that I can do about them. If I am to succeed in my goals (which are huge ones) I can only do so much, the rest depends on a lot of outside circumstances lining up just right so my goals can happen. I don't have control over that. I can't rig the lottery so I win a million bucks to pay off debt, get a new car, pay for schooling, etc. (especially since I don't ever buy tickets), but I can pay my bills as they come in and try to save money so that when the time for these goals comes around I may be able to afford them. I can do that, but I can't controll the outside circumstances that always seem to happen that prevent me from doing it. I have no control over my health, my job, my acceptance into school, a car dealer being kind enough to overlook marks on my credit...

Anywho, There's just a lot I am realizing I don't have control over. I don't like it, but I'm starting to be OK with that. It would be really nice if the world would just work according to my thought process, but then again with how messed up my thought process is, it probably wouldn't be such a pretty sight. So, Goals. One goal I have is to be more Honest, Open and Willng (that's HOW it works). Honesty is something I'm working on already and it's getting easier (my life is actually full of intersting things, so I don't need to make up any drama to glamorize it). Willingness seems to be the easiest for me since I like to be one of those supporters in the background. Openness on the other hand is very difficult and it's something I need to work on. I have a tendency to just sit back and listen to other people talk, think about what they say, internalize it and let it pass. Doesn't really help me or anyone around me because I am not sharing my viewpoint and letting them get to know me. I've said in many differet ways here how I don't like letting people get to know me. Hiding behind a mask, building walls... It's comfortable. Anywho, in the meeting I was sitting there listening to people share their views and not saying anything myself. Towards the end of it, I realized I had stuff I wanted to say about how the topic affected me in my life, but I didn't. I'm kicking myself for it. I need to just get over it. Point is, I have thoughts on a lot of things, valid viewpoints that I can share which might help someone else understand the topic in a different light or might help them understand me better. If I just sit there, it doesn't help me or anyone else.

So, one goal for the new me:

Be more Honest, Open and Willing in everything I do.

That's just one I'm starting off with. Something that I have controll over. Getting into school, getting my debt paid, getting a boyfriend (a GOOD one which I realize I will need to be ready myself to BE a good one BEFORE I can think about getting one, so not for a long while). These things are out of my controll. They're goals I can start heading towards, but it'll take a lot of circumstances lining up for them to happen. I gotta make my goals then "Let go and let God*." (*As we understand god.)

On my mind: Articles I've read recently that I wish more people would read about Protease Inhibitors and Meth addiction. (Great article Johnny!!)

Outlook: Pretty darn good. I'm Looking forward to the service opportunities I have this week and getting together with friends.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

I just got home from an amazing night cheering in the new year. I have to say that this was one of the BEST New Year celebrations I've ever been to. There were lots of people, lots of good food, great conversations, I got to dance to some great music (Yeah! I got my dancing fix in!!) This was just an amazing night. I got lots of hugs, a couple kisses, some numbers, met new people, made new friends... By all standards it was a good night. =c)

Best part about it is that I'll remember it all tomorrow and I didn't make a fool of myself tonight (well, except a dancing fool, but that's all good). Oh. Yeah, no alcohol at the party. Weird eh?

The oddest part was dancing. It's been a LONG time since I've danced that much, especially since I danced sober, so it took a bit for me to start to feel the groove and let go and just have fun but it was well worth it. I'm sure my body will be sore tomorrow, but that's just the price I pay for bustin' a move at my age. (kidding)

It was crazy, there were people standing around busy being bored (just like at the bar) who I overheard making comments about the people who were having fun, saying they were making fools of themselves on the dance floor or that the people playing those "stupid" games needed to get a life and complaining about how bored they were (again, just like at the bar). You know what though, the people making the comments stayed bored while the people actually doing stuff were having fun. Made me think up an Acronym.

F.U.N.= Forget Unhealthy Notions.

So many times I see people just "bored to death" standing around doing nothing about it. Either they're too concerned about how they look, are waiting for someone else to do something for them to amuse them or (god help us) are concerned about someone else commenting that they (the bored people) are doing something stupid. Unhealthy notions. Stuck in themselves and unwilling to get out of it. Made me laugh. I could have joined them making the comments about other people because I was very nervous about being in a place where I didn't know many people and I had a lot on my mind today that put me in a precarious mind-set (probably will post about it later) but instead, I decided to Forget my Unhealthy Notions about myself and my insecurities and just have fun. It was great.

On my mind:

"Show me what a man envies the least in others and I will show you what he has got the most of himself." ~Josh Billings

Lately I've been seeing qualities in other people that I'm envious of. It's good because it helps me to see areas of my life I need to work on. I am grateful that I can be more envious of personality qualities than I am of peoples' possessions.

Good way to start off a new year, with a new paradigm on life.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!