you, i cannot judge

I'm back in Birmingham for the night, and after a nice hot bath I'm feeling refreshed and in a better mood. And though at 10:30 at night this is probably a bad thing, I'm feeling more alert too. It's been gloomy weather for the past few days; I was so tired at work, it was hard to keep awake even with my Dr. Pepper pick-me-up around noon. Alas, at certain moments even my addiction to caffeinated beverages cannot rouse me from the clutches of lingering sleep.

Other things have gotten me in a better mood since that somber post yesterday. A surprise phone call and the promise of a future dinner from an old friend lifted my spirits significantly. It's nice to start things over, get things off my chest, and be honest with someone again. I look forward to reestablishing a friendship I once thought lost completely.

One of the reasons I love driving to Birmingham and back is that I get to really listen to my music. There's not a lot of moments in my life that I have the opportunity to listen to my music library uninterrupted, but the two and a half hour commute from home to second home is one of those times where I can let it run as the soundtrack to some imaginary movie in which I am the star, driving down the interstate to some unknown destination. Silly, perhaps. I'm not ashamed.

This song in particular, struck me. I rediscovered my love for R.E.M. today:



Tomorrow brings a big change.

and so i tell myself that i'll be strong

Disappointments.

I've had a couple of those lately. People have disappointed me. I've disappointed other people. I've disappointed myself.

It's been a strange couple of months for me. And while that is no excuse, it's true. I still don't think I've quite recovered from February. You know when people talk about digging a hole you can't get out of? I think February did it for me; it dug an emotional hole that I can't seem to crawl completely out of even now. And it's one of those things that seems to have affected other aspects of my life. Bad things happen. And I'm usually one to get over them. But sometimes, I think, blows like the ones February dealt me can manifest as something unexpected. I feel somewhat shut down. In March and April I felt like I was constantly overcoming some unknown distance between people and school and while it got better, I think I could have done more. And in not doing more, I think I suffered disappointment. I let someone down; I didn't live up to their expectations. I didn't do. And that's not who I am. Now I have to suffer the consequences and lose something that I once took a lot of pride in having.

I'm disappointed in myself. But I guess it's something I'll have to accept.

And it's not just myself that's disappointed me. Other people have too.

I remember writing a post a while back where I expounded on how a change in the nature of a relationship inexplicably changed the way someone behaved. It was a perplexing thing to me. I understand that things change, I never question that. But unless something really significant happened to change things, I don't understand why communication between two people has to completely break down into passive-aggressiveness, sporadic meaningless conversation, and the occasional emotional outburst that yields real talk. Maybe I just need to learn not to hope so much on other people? I don't want to do that, but perhaps it's time for me to really accept that not everything works out the way I would like it to. People can't be controlled, people won't always act as they should. And yes, changing the intimacy of a relationship invariably changes the way people treat each other. I wish this was not the case. However, I know that the way a person treats their friends should not be inconsistent from one person to another. If I did nothing to deserve rudeness, I feel like I shouldn't receive it. My patience can only last so long when taken advantage of.

One specific incident spurred that last rant, but it's a frustration of mine that can be universally applied to every lost friendship I've ever had. It's a disappointing thing.


Last night's exercise in breaking free of writer's block seems to have worked. Also, it's an overcast day and my hopes of spending Sunday in the park were dashed by cold weather. And gloomy days tend to my affect my mood to the point where I cannot be content unless I'm listening to sad music and doing nothing with my day. Maybe it's stir-craziness; I just have to make it through the week, and then I will once more be reunited with my Ogle-family for the summer.

Also, a new haircut is in the future. Something different. I'm nervous and excited at the same time. So my life is not all disappointments and bad moods. It just always seems to be pertinent to talk about on the blog. I'll do better, I promise.

if it were up to me, i would leave it up to you

It's a Saturday night. I just enjoyed a day full of writing and reading Young Adult novels for work followed by an evening double feature at the drive-in: Bridesmaids and The Adjustment Bureau. Despite my incessant need to converse about The Adjustment Bureau's commentary on the concept of predestination and its implications on free will and the human race, the boy and I agreed that getting out of the apartment was necessary; our Friday night consisted of me curled up on the couch watching a Star Wars "making of" documentary while he played World of Warcraft...how delightfully nerdy of us.

To be fair though, I've needed to just relax. After exams ended I was only allowed a few days of break before I started my internship at Peachtree Publishers. As of Monday, I am their editorial intern, sequestered in a back office with pen in hand and eyes at the ready, poised to tackle the thousands of unsolicited manuscripts would-be children's authors send in every day.my surprise, some manuscripts have been sitting in kitty litter smell for almost a year now. Reading (and most of the time, rejecting) this "slush" has been the bulk of my job so far. However, I do get a lot of time on and off duty to read what the company has published before, which has been very enjoyable, even if most of the titles are not my usual reads. This first week, however, has been eye-opening as an aspiring writer - I, the lowly intern doing the job for free, wields the power of judgment in deciding whether or not you are even worthy of possible consideration as a published author. Woah. That sucks for the hopeful writers out there.

But leaving that rather bleak note there, I have been slowly adjusting to apartment living. It's nice to have a real kitchen for once; I think I'll be sad to leave it once school starts again and I move back into the dorms. Cooking for myself has been a challenge in buying grocery in bulk and at reasonable prices. I think the summer, however, will be a good lesson for me in money management. I definitely need it.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this post was. I've had the itch to write for a few days now, and I'm hoping that maybe this will help get me through the writing dry spell.

Maybe that's a point in itself.

An Entomologist's Last Love Letter by Jared Singer

dear samantha
i’m sorry
we have to get a divorce
i know that seems like an odd way to start a love letter but let me explain:
it’s not you
it sure as hell isn’t me
it’s just human beings don’t love as well as insects do
i love you.. far too much to let what we have be ruined by the failings of our species

i saw the way you looked at the waiter last night
i know you would never DO anything, you never do but..
i saw the way you looked at the waiter last night

did you know that when a female fly accepts the pheromones put off by a male fly, it re-writes her brain, destroys the receptors that receive pheromones, sensing the change, the male fly does the same. when two flies love each other they do it so hard, they will never love anything else ever again. if either one of them dies before procreation can happen both sets of genetic code are lost forever. now that… is dedication.

after Elizabeth and i broke up we spent three days dividing everything we had bought together
like if i knew what pots were mine like if i knew which drapes were mine somehow the pain would go away

this is not true

after two praying mantises mate, the nervous system of the male begins to shut down
while he still has control over his motor functions
he flops onto his back, exposing his soft underbelly up to his lover like a gift
she then proceeds to lovingly dice him into tiny cubes
spooning every morsel into her mouth
she wastes nothing
even the exoskeleton goes
she does this so that once their children are born she has something to regurgitate to feed them
now that.. is selflessness

i could never do that for you

so i have a new plan
i’m gonna leave you now
i’m gonna spend the rest of my life committing petty injustices
i hope you do the same
i will jay walk at every opportunity
i will steal things i could easily afford
i will be rude to strangers
i hope you do the same
i hope reincarnation is real
i hope our petty crimes are enough to cause us to be reborn as lesser creatures
i hope we are reborn as flies
so that we can love each other as hard as we were meant to.