suffering is the balm that eases the burden of happiness

my life is slowly changing. this change is so gradual, that even i have a hard time noticing it. and i'm not just talking about my situation. it's more like a change in outlook or perception. i'm seeing people differently. i'm getting more sleep, even if my whole sleep schedule is shifted by a few hours. i'm eating healthier. i want to make things. i want to get back into photography. i want to improve myself. i miss my childhood. i remember when i used to write and draw and "invent" things. i'd forgotten how much i used to read until i went to barnes & noble the other day and realized how many books i'd already read and how many more there were waiting to be read. it was somewhat overwhelming, but what i mostly felt was nostalgia.

i'm reading a book right now called "shantaram" (yes, still...). i started reading it last summer, but got distracted and didn't get past the 11th chapter. it's a fantastic book however, and i'd highly recommend it to anyone. it's by gregory david roberts. he's an ex-convict who escaped from a 20-yr sentence in a maximum security prison in australia. he made his way to bombay, india and lived there for 10 years. he lived in the slums, acting as a doctor of sorts to the slum-dwellers. he also got involved with the indian mafia as a gunrunner, smuggler, etc. however, he eventually went to germany where he was captured and was forced to finish carrying out the rest of his sentence. the book is based on his life. so as you can imagine, it's quite an interesting read. very philosophical and profound as well, in my opinion.

i'm hoping to add more to my photography and poetry this summer, so stay tuned. ciao for now...

i dream in color.

disclaimer: i'm hoping this will make me feel better--not you.

while falling down this mountain, i've somehow managed to grab onto a branch. but it's breaking... ever so slowly. many things could happen between now and the point at which the branch breaks, but the branch will break.

good thing it's not too far to the bottom...


somehow, i'm trapped in another circle of hopelessness. i'm "depressed," so they gave me pills. the pills supposedly keep me from being depressed (which is not to be confused with making me happy)--and it's working. but i haven't been really happy for a while now, in case you haven't noticed. and now when i want to cry, i can't. so here i am: not happy; not sad... in fact, i'm quite numb. really the only emotions i feel anymore are anger and frustration--two emotions i don't care for very much.

depressing, isn't it? haha...

i don't sleep very much these days, but when i do, i have the most incredible dreams. they linger as i wake up, slowly drifting in and out of my consciousness. by the time i've gotten on with the day they're pretty much gone leaving only vague remnants in my memory. it's strange though--the feeling i have when i first wake up. it's like i can't quite tell which reality i'm in. my dreams make me nostalgic. many will take place in the same location, sometimes with the same people. some people are people i know, others i don't. it's really the places that i remember more than anything. i can't even begin to describe them. they're all amazingly vivid to me. sometimes my dreams happen in this massive building. it's more like a complex of some sort because there are several different sections that are connected. in every dream i have involving this building, i discover a part of it that i'd never been to before. it's so unearthly though. i don't see how anything like it could ever exist in this world. and yet, it's so real and practical in my dream. i've seen both the inside and the outside of this building. part of the building's exterior is covered in those mirror-like tiles. i remember seeing the blue sky reflected in them. and i was walking through this wheat field that lined one side of the building. i remember thinking in my dream that the golden wheat contrasting with the blue reflection of the sky was so beautiful.

other times, i'm in a school that closely resembles the campus of science and math, but there are some major differences. like whole buildings or wings that never existed. and the interior is different and the people living in it are people i've never met. there's a whole floor that i remember walking through. it was a girls' hall. what was so cool about it were the rooms. all the doors were open and inside i could see these incredible tapestries and drapes that were like stained glass. and the beds were wrought iron and painted white.

lately, however, i've been having recurring dreams about tornados. weird, huh? and in each of them, i'm never afraid. in one dream, i'm standing on a small road that stretches across a plain. you could look in any direction and see nothing except dry grass. but the sky--the sky is filling quickly with dark clouds, though as you near the horizon, you can still see the sun which creates this incredible effect with the clouds. then as i'm looking up at the clouds, i watch them swirl to a point. the birth of the tornado... the point will slowly move down and once it touches the ground, it steadily accumulates more cloud, growing fatter and fatter right before my eyes. it doesn't wobble at all. it just keeps spiraling downwards until it takes up nearly all my vision. i remember feeling the force of it, even though it didn't move me at all. most distinctly, i remember watching it and seeing these pastel swirls of color mixed in with the gray of the spiraling clouds. it was the most beautiful and awesome thing i've ever seen--even in life.

it's all so vivid. what scares me is that sometimes the memories i have from my dreams are more clear than my "real-life" memories. it seems so unlikely, but i often wonder if perhaps these vivid dreams are simply a link to another reality entirely. my life as a different person in different places, in different worlds, with different people. there are times where my dreams really aren't that different from reality. then things get really confusing. i'll remember something and can't tell if the memory is from a dream or not. perhaps deja-vu is where your dreams and reality meet. anyways, now that i've convinced everyone that i'm insane, i've also successfully distracted myself. and damn, the room is dark. when the hell did that happen?

life is a trip.

i suppose now is as good a time as any to update this shit. i'm kinda sorta drunk so this might be interesting. it's also 3:05 a.m. as of right now. tonight was fun. thursday nights are always fun on the hill =) let me cover the day... just for the hell of it.

my day starts at 1 p.m. when i have french class. french class was a bore as usual. then after french class i got a message from henry who wanted to eat lunch with me. but i already had a lunch date with some couple who wants a threesome with me (story of my life =P). so i went to lenoir and had stale pasta and cereal while henry tried (and failed) to catch the bus. eventually henry caught the bus and reached campus successfully so we went and ate "dunch" at the brewery at about 3 or somewhere around there. then we went to caribou and hung out with the crew and had some coffee... then... surprise! i played piano for the first time in ages. it was lovely.... haha j/k, i sucked. i'm ridiculously out of practice, but i aim to change that... along with some other things... like my body. hahaha.... so then after that i went home where i thought i might take a nap or something else more practical. this was around 7 maybe. i really have no sense of time right now. so i was thinking of taking a nap while conversing heatedly with my ex ;) when all of a sudden i got a phone call from my venezeulan friend :) who wanted to take me somewhere. turns out we went to an art showing-off party or something like it. bunch of wonderfully intellectual individuals (what a blessed relief from my obnoxious generation) sipping wine and discussing religion, culture, and the like. very chill, i must say. then for a change of scene we headed over to aladdin's to smoke a hookah and have some hummus. this was perhaps around 9? maybe? again this lack of a sense of time. we ended up hanging out there until 2! we smoked like chimneys and i ended up having 3 more beers (newcastle, sky blue ale, and yeungling) on top of the 2 glasses of wine i'd had earier. so inevitably i danced :) it made me so happy to realize where i've come since i first started dancing way back in... oh wait that was last year. lol. aren't you proud of me, frankie?? hehe... you should dance with me sometime... so yes. i danced. mucho danco. and then i went home. and here i am. somehow, i doubt my night is over.... curses on insomnia (or at least a very fucked up sleep schedule).

p.s. i'm the goddess of smoke rings.

changes in life... particularly mine

so this may come as a shock to some of you, but i've moved. it's official now. if you're curious, you can check the place out yourself. it's called the warehouse.

this means i'm completely phoneless for the moment, so if you want to get in touch you'll have to rely on good old emails or aim. i'm living with three girls i have yet to meet, and i must admit, moving in today made me feel a tad like goldilocks intruding on the three bears. hopefully this will work out. i have a pretty good feeling about it though. the place is really nice and there's a gym on the first floor, so there's no more excuses for failing to get my fat ass in shape =) so that's about the only big thing that's happened recently.

so something funny happened the other day. amidst the swarms of phone calls i received yesterday, the last one i got was from the mary kay company. weird, huh? even weirder: i won a raffle i entered randomly a few weeks before. i ended up winning a free "pampering party" for me and up to 5 of my friends and $50 worth of Mary Kay product. i was highly amused. i don't even have 5 female friends. however i had the fabulous idea of using it as a sort of icebreaker for my new roommates since they look like the type of girls that would appreciate it ;) oh yeah, did i mention they were all proud members of alpha kappa delta????

hahahaha. this will be interesting. stay tuned....

happy new year!

so i had a number of potential resolutions to make for 2006, and as i'm sure you could predict, keeping up with my blog WAS one of them. so here's to the first of (hopefully) many blog posts for this marvelous new year! it really is a great day to start the new year off with. sunny, warm, slight breeze... ahhhh.... i'm gonna have to go for a walk later. which brings me to my next resolution: getting my fat ass in shape! i did "ok" last year, but i wasn't as faithful to it as i should have been. so hopefully this year i'll be a little better at it. i'm hoping that moving to a new place closer to campus should be conducive to my plan. for those of you that don't know yet, i am moving (a.s.a.p.) due to unforeseen circumstances (actually they were slightly foreseen, but still...).

so i made it! it was a long, extremely difficult semester in a number of ways, most of which you all are aware of, but here i am--still intact mentally, emotionally, and physically. hell, even financially! i have $21.56 to last me until january 9th, but i think i'll be ok. granted, i am about $400 in debt, but that's another story...

in other news, i'm considering a resolution that involves me featuring "band of the week" on this blog, or perhaps another one. i'm sure every once in a while i'll come up with something that someone likes =)

until next time...