Gratuitious foolishness, telling my friends how fabulous they are, Ella Bella, Princess of Faraway (no, not mine)
I've got a thing for cathedrals
and PIRATES!
road trips,
big impromptu group meals, picnics, carnivals at night,
entertaining (and generally going over the top),
rocking 80s eye makeup like it's my job,
being crafty,
treehugging,
and pretty much everything in between.
Music
Music is like people. If you hang out enough, everything grows on you.
Movies
"I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all. No, not the artful postures of love - not playful and poetical games of love for the amusement of an evening, but love that overthrows life. Unbiddable, ungovernable... like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture. Love like there has never been in a play."
"It can't rain all the time."
"The world moves. for. love. It kneels before it in awe."
"I can't seem to stop singing wherever I am. And what's worse, I can't seem to stop saying things - anything and everything I think and feel."
"Can the soul be really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn - to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Heloise..."
"When I was your age, television was called books."
"That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs but what a ship is... what the Black Pearl really is... is freedom." BLADE RUNNER
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."
"But kind people find out that they are cruel. Brave men discover that they are really cowards! Confronted by their true selves, most men run away screaming!"
"They call this war 'a cloud over the land.' But they make the weather and then they stand in the rain and say, 'Shit, it's rainin'!'"
"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is ...all around."
"Carpe, carpe diem; seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary."
"Is Rome worth one good man's life? We believed it once; make us believe it again."
"Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president."
"Have you ever transcended space and time?"
"Yes. No. Time, not space. No, I dunno what you're talking about."
"I'm not here because I'm bored or... wicked. I'm here because, in the East, between one person and another there is only light."
"This place holds more magic for me than any palace in the world. You live a very rich life, Nell."
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return."
"I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much; my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid. little. life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday."
"You know what the first rule of flyin' is? Love. You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, and she'll shake you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home."
Television
I do not watch TV. Okay, I take that back. I do not watch current TV. I do watch old episodes of Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Prison Break, and the limited-running-but-immortally-brilliant Firefly.
Books
"Am I beautiful? It is for you alone. Say that you love me, for without you I cannot live."
"If I act as my conscience admonishes me, I am aware of affirming myself in a certain way, of willing my deepest human integrity. And if I act against my conscience I am aware of radically compromising myself."
"This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."
"Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortions of reality which language brings."
"But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue."
"Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way."
"I realized that when someone goes through a terrible experience, one of three things can happen. He can become embittered by it and be angry; can be defeated by it and be depressed; or can learn from it and grow. Growing from pain is definitely the hardest route to follow, and it is the one I chose....
My classroom is my courtroom. I am going to lose more than I win. There are many times when, despite my efforts, I will lose children to poverty, ignorance, and, most tragically, a society that embraces mediocrity. But that doesn't paralyze me anymore. I have a code, as any good teacher or parent must have. It doesn't matter if I lost a battle yesterday. It doesn't matter if the odds are against me. It doesn't matter if I'm just one fellow trying to fight television, corporations, and a society that hasn't yet achieved Dr. Martin Luther King's dream of judging someone by the content of his character. I knew I had to be the person I wanted the kids to be. I never want my kids to be depressed or despairing about any bad breaks or failures that they've had. Well, that had to apply to me as well. I now knew that if I wanted the kids to work hard, then I'd better be the hardest-working person they'd ever known. If I wanted them to be kind, I'd better be the kindest human being they'd ever met. Teaching must be by example, not by lecture."
AND...
Julian May's Pliocene series, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Ender's Game, and many many more.
Heroes
Alexander the Great, Rafe Esquith, Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, my sisters and parents and friends
Bring me that horizon's Details
Status:
Single
Here for:
Friends
Orientation:
Straight
Body type:
5' 10" / Athletic
Religion:
Other
Zodiac Sign:
Libra
Smoke / Drink:
No / Yes
Children:
Someday
Education:
College graduate
Occupation:
Making the world a better place
Bring me that horizon's Schools
Oxford University
Oxford, S
Graduated: N/A
Student status: Alumni
Major: Shakespeare and James Joyce
Clubs: Hertford College rowing
2002 to 2002
Suny College At Geneseo
Geneseo, NY
Graduated: 2003
Student status: Alumni
Degree: Bachelor's Degree
Major: Business Administration and English
Clubs: Just about everything.
I am in Seoul, South Korea at the moment. Tomorrow -- who knows?
QUOTES OF THE MOMENT
"Some days I'm like, 'This is the greatest life ever.' And some days I'm like, 'Where is my fucking cartographer?!'"
~ Lacey Root
"They [self-help books] play on our fears, make us feel as though we are incapable of dealing with our own problems, and promising that if we read the book (obey the commandments), then our problems will be solved (entry to heaven)... so is the Bible the original self help book and god is a flambouyant Dale Carnegie?????"
~ Mark Angelides
"It's the cat's bananas!"
~ Gareth Davies
"You must help the students experience euphoria in oral practice."
~ Course syllabus, my uni class in China (no, not the one I wrote)
"I called you stupid, you idiot!"
~ Eric, my 9 year old student
"Being a good person is a lot like peeing on yourself when you're wearing dark clothing - you get a warm feeling but not everyone notices."
~ Dad
"My mother sent me a purse that looks like a murdered Fraggle."
~ Red
~~~~~~~My friends/family are hysterical~~~~~~~~
I have a self-imposed and poorly (i.e. un-) paid second job of blogging about my travels. Support my addiction - visit http://thegrassyroad.livejournal.com.
I have a tendency to take myself a little too seriously. Which is really a shame because I cock up a lot and it's damn funny. Luckily I have lots of good friends who are more than willing to laugh at ... with... me.
I do a lot of things. None of them expertly. All of them with ridiculously high expectations and an inordinate amount of passion. My heart is monumentally idiotic sometimes, but somehow we get along.
I stay up really late not doing much of anything. It's not that I can't sleep, just that I'd rather do ... something else. But I never know quite what that something is. It's rather like when you get hungry and you open the fridge and stare at it but nothing really looks appetizing, so eventually you just give up and starve.
"To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts... but to love wisdom [enough] as to live according to its dictates: a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust."
~ Thoreau ~
ANCORA IMPARO: I AM STILL LEARNING: http://sevenevenstar.livejournal.com
Song Lyric of the Day:
"This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath
No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again."
~ "On the Radio" Regina Spektor ~
Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Poetry:
1. Beauty is truth, truth beauty; - that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know. (Keats)
2. Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned by those who are not entirely beautiful. (Yeats)
3. Ah, love, let us be true to one another! (Arnold)
4. Time held me, green and dying, though I sang in my chains like the sea. (Arnold)
5. Do not go gently to that good night. (Thomas)
6. To follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought. (Tennyson)
7. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. (Ehrmann)
8. Love is not love which alters when its alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. (Shakespeare)
9. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep; and miles to go before I sleep. (Frost)
10. In the prison of his days, teach the free man how to praise. (Auden)
A few essential things you should know about me:
1. I frolic:
Preferably in sundappled woods on spring days in long white dresses... but pretty much everywhere else, too, from hills to vales to streets of DC's Chinatown at 2 AM in the rain. While I'm a thinker and a dreamer, I'm also just a kid at heart. I like to laugh. And be silly. I am well practiced at public humiliation.
2. If you love me, never protect me from my mistakes. Though it may pain you to watch, let me suffer so that I might learn and become better. The moment I am content to justify, excuse, or merely laugh off the consequences of my actions is the moment I cease to be accountable, and the moment I cease to be me.
That's for remembrance.
3. I live a ridiculously overanalyzed life. There is nothing in my heart or mind that is not thoroughly and gravely examined, considered and constantly re-evaluated to ensure validity. Sometimes I act without thinking, but when I do I always try to figure it out in retrospect. Sometimes this way of life is ponderous and exhausting, but in the end it's worth it, because my every moment is incandescent with meaning and purpose.
4. I love individuals. (This term must be differentiated from "people" which refers to many individuals collectively.) "People" consistently disappoint me and I am always prepared for the worst. Individuals, on the other hand, overwhelmingly delight me, and I give them the benefit of the doubt at all times. If you've made a favorable impression on me, you can pretty much rest assured that I'll think you hung the moon until you give me no choice but to think otherwise. When I love you I do not hesitate to tell you... though you should keep in mind that "love" to me does not exclusively mean romantic love. If you've made an unfavorable impression on me, you can rest assured I'll withhold judgement until I know you well enough to judge rightly. At least... that's how I try to operate.
5. I like words. (I bet you could never guess...) Many times I find I don't have words equal to the moment, so I borrow someone else's; I have a quote for pretty much every occasion. I have my own vocabulary, and in most cases you have to know me fairly well to get my full meaning. Things like "the entitlement complex" crop up all the time in my quirky vernacular, and sometimes you have to be able to understand to what degree and in what context I use a word; it isn't always in the conventional sense. As William Gass once wrote, "Words are the supreme objects. They are minded things." You can tell a lot about a person by how he/she speaks and writes.
... that said I cannot spell to save my life.
Who I'd like to meet: I generally only talk to people I already know.
It isn't because I'm closed off or cynical about the basic nature of people, it's just that I have limited resources and if I'm going to be a friend to the friends I already have, I can't devote a lot of time to acquaintences. But if there's something about me that makes you think, hope, dream, or just laugh and you want to know me better -- of course I will never turn you away. You've just got to prove to me that you want to add me for a better reason than to increase your friends count.
C.S. Lewis said it best, "I am at a loss to understand why any [wo]man should care to know more people than [s]he can make real friends of."
And if I knew you in the past but we haven't talked in AGES -- bring it on. I always like to reconnect and marvel at how on earth we managed to survive our childhoods and become (comparatively) functional adults.
People who make me do this:
(No, not change colors -- LAUGH!)
and, of course...
Willy Wonka!
"See children? Everything in this room is eatable. Even I'm eatable! But that my dear children, is called cannibalism and is frowned upon in most societies."
I'm sure I don't know anything about this person you are talking about or anything that the two of you may have done together. All I will say is that I have at least one bottle of Whiskey and a Chevy Tahoe on hold for when you return to the States. The Good Doctor and Nen can ride again...
it will be the thing to have done back then if we speak like this now. clear? i can spell when it counts. written testimonies, things like that. tell me some stories.
Who cares if anyone actually "exists" anymore. I'm through with any attempt at philosophical originality or psychological debate. I just want some time for me!....or a good roll in the sack. Wait... do they need to be mutually exclusive?
