I like Random }:>

Surrender, U2
Breath, Prodigy
I miss You, Bjork
New Year's Day, U2
Suspicion, REM
Self-Destruction, NIN
Horses in my Dreams, PJ Harvey
Heaven beside You, Alice in Chains.
Undo, Bjork
Ghost of Tom Joad, Rage
Commin Back, The Crystal Method
Glory Box, Portisehead
Rakim, Dead Can Dance
I'm not in Love, Tori Amos
Where is Everybody, NIN
Headphones, Bjork
Mindfields, Prodigy

A few notes to fix time and place and mindset. I was on vacation for a few days and just got back today and my head has been buzzing with words and pictures I want to set down. Journal surfing I found this fill-in-blank super-wide-open questionaire, which really isn't a questionaire, it's just openended verbs that I can apply anyway I like. I find that incredibly daunting but Coyote was able to deal, so I think I can too.

i see - A fine and beautiful world. it was created, I am sure of it by a force that was/is so huge and vast that a simple word like love would never suffice. What we have done to it and to each other is heart-rending. Flying over a city in the middle of night provides astounding, breath-taking views of delicate jewels winking at the sky. Flying over the same in the day yeilds a view of great trenches searing the earth's flesh, smoke and frantic ant-people scurrying about, ever ignorant of the impact of their actions. A mostly-frozen river shudders on toward the sea implaccable and unstoppable. It once destroyed a steel bridge. It's waters flow determinedly on cradling ducks and nuclear pollution alike. The area is a sad sort of grey, all signs of vitality hidden far deep for its own protection. And then, like magic, steady silent snow blankets everything with white perfection. Air sucked in is bitingly cold and stings the back of the throat. Walking leaves tracks and turning to look at footsteps is a must. The sun rises later in this northern land but the snow reflects enough night that one hardly needs the sun. Long Beach is warm by comparison, but locals comment only on the long chill, the sky is a tired sort of blue, hoping for more rain. I saw men playing at war, remembering, desperately, like a prayer, the violence and chaos of battle. They breath fear and exhale stubbornness, the one death up close and personal is an honorable tragedy. They fight in a land that would be beautiful were it not so bloodstained. What have we done?

i find - that work and even wakefulness is a difficult task today. Possibly, I should not have returned today. I cannot go without my jacket or I shiver but my forehead seems warmer than usual, and my eyes are certainly exhausted.

i want - peace. Understanding between individuals and their surroundings, both for the earth and other people. and rest.

i have - so much, it will take a journal to catalogue it all: A few items scattered in a small, messy apartment, family who are assembled in my father's house, a significant other and a few close friends who guard my secrets well.

i wish - I could grant my friends the peace they may only give themselves. Squire is still depressed and occasionally angry. I wish he knew himself well enough to bundle it together and hold it out like a balloon on a string and let it go. But he finds some comfort in anger. Or perhaps better to say he is less afraid of what may come next. Rabbit is more comfortable but I had to leave her cold and alone, her child is ever far, but will never be any closer than now. She is learning to swim through her anger and fear and perhaps one day she will come to shore and leave it all behind. But for now, keeping the head above water is a good thing.

i hate - people. Well specifically I hate those who cause trouble without knowing or understanding what they do. They are like children breaking delicate things, or worse, the potential for greatness and beauty, all for their petulant whims. Would that I were not one of them. Would that I could grow up.

i miss - the comfort I had with close friends. The touch of a woman. Time enough to read.

i fear - spiders. (I do!) But also opressive darkness. Phantasmagoria that catches me at night and I cannot be sure if I am still alive or if night's stillness caught my heart and stuffed my lungs so that neither proceeded to function. Some dreams of death frighten me, others make me laugh, and that frightens me. Finally I fear not having control of my life and death.

i feel - wordy. But mostly like not working. A little bit like crying, and a lot like sleeping. possibly in need of coffee.

i hear - music. Occasional office chatter reaches though my headphones but I cannot understand it.

i smell - processed office air. Though in a bit I'll have some oatmeal with sugar.

i crave - food, at the moment. In general, the company of friends, good music, good sex. Which in a non-oedipal way leads to respect and high regard from my parents.

i search - because that is my job. Otherwise I have not sought anything in a very long time. Which is almost disappointing.

i wonder - about many things. The magical simpleness with which the universe was designed. If the universe take up a finite amount of space and will one day cease to expand and then commence to contract, what lies beyong the universe? How can space truly be finite if there is something else beyond it? Beyond the walls of my childhood bedroom was my father's house. Beyond it was the neighborhood, and then the city, state and country. Along comes the planet, and beyond that is the solar system taking up only a sliver of the universe. Something has to be beyond it. But that something, I am told is finite. So something *must* beyond that. Science and reason like not things like infinty for they like answers and "infinity" is no answer. Infinity only means that the final figure has not been arrived at. I wonder how blue blue can really get. I wonder at how things exist in waves and if the frequency of something is increased or decreased enough it becomes something else. A flower could become a radio transmission and then a cancer on my hand.

i regret - any hurt I have caused others, through words or failing to speak, acting one way and not another. Any time where I could not find a pleasant solution for all. I could only act in a way that suited myself and I desire nothing more than to assuage the pain that has caused other. I regret shouting at my mother.

i love - many things and many people. Foremost among them is my Molasses. I love to watch forces on earth - fire, waves crashing, snow falling, birds playing in trees. I love a good story, or even a bad one. I love people for they are living stories, even the dead ones.

i ache - from sitting to close to the screen in my un-ergonomic desk. Occasionally when my wrists twinge from repetitive motion stress, frequently from the stress that settles in my sholders and spine, regularly when I go climbing with Squire and my upper back and forearms are rigorously tested and the rest of me gets banged up. I ache inside when I speak with Squire and I want to shout "Just let it go!" But don't dare because I am the one who handed "it" to him. I ache from some of the journals I read and I slap that stupid little girl deep inside who takes everything so personally.

i long - for a real job working myself to the bone doing something I desperately love. for tears because people haven't attended my play, rather than my game. for recognition I suppose.

i care - about more than is good for me.

i always - smile when it rains

i am not - a junkie. or myself. I am always something else. Which is frustrating because I always wanted to be Nobody. But I am not that either.

i believe - in something beyond the empircal evidence of this reality.

i cringe - memories of childhood foibles, and when I still commit them at this age.

i dance - rarely and typically only to music I really like.

i sing - mostly off-key but as well as I know how.

i cry - messily, and at odd things. A story. always a story. The story of another person. A commercial with a good story. but not a manipulative drama AT&T commercials have messed me up more than The English Patient or Gone with the Wind. I cry at thinking of my father in pain but hearing my mother tell me of his cancer felt like a dull iron weight pressing on my heart.

i do not always - say things the way I wanted, or try as hard as I think I should.

i succeed - when I am thorough, when my planning has been consistent and my research is complete.

i fail - when I take the easy way out. When I ignore consequences and the motives of others

i fight - against things I consider unfair. I fight with words and thoughts, I imagine myself hunting down the cruel and stupid with a sword and act with the English language as my weapon of choice.

i write - of that which catches my fancy, incomplete thoughts and unpopular opinions, trite beliefs and I compose letters to those I cannot reach any other way.

i give - as much as I possibly can to those who have given me more than they can possibly know.

i won - two dollars on a lottery ticket that was given to me for Christmas. I still haven't cashed it, or the tickets that came to $12 that I got for my birthday - of course those aren't worth anything any more.

i lose - as much as I win. Sometimes more often, but not *more.*

i never - meant to hurt you. or gainsay something I truly believe in. Though I'll apologize for being dumb.

i confuse - most people. myself, sometimes, when I'm tired and I've stopped listening to what I'm saying.

i listen - to the news. Everyday. Consitency has made it seem a little less horrible. I don't believe that I am numbed by it only that my previous thoughts about humans being mostly interested in peace is incorrect. humans are mostly lazy until they're irked. I listen to the stories people tell. They tell me more about said people than these quizes.

i can usually be found - if people look hard enough. though apparently it's not hard to hide. Especially if no one is looking.

i am scared - that my life will not mean a single thing to the world. I don't care so much about a lasting monument so much as a lasting idea or two. I am scared that this war-that-is-not-a-war will become an amalgamation of the War in Vietnam and the War against Drugs. I am scared that I will never help imrove any one else's life. I am scared that my mother will never respect me.

i hope - for a day when each of us finds something we love doing so much that we make it a life's goal and never have to worry again about why we don't like what we are supposed to like and only want what we can't have. I hope there is a day when a boy puts down his father's gun and all of his friends find that putting down guns is more interesting than picking them up. (*Sigh* this feels like wishing for a pony, but I guess as long as I'm at it....) I hope for a day when sex is not looked on as a weapon to be forced on or denied from a weak individual. I hope, no I long and pray, for the day when my friends will be happy with who they are.

i expect - people to be people. No more and no less. Although out loud I place my expectations on their sense of maturity, responsibility, tactfulness and grace.

i need - to finish my work }:> And some food.