This is the cover of one of my favorite children’s books. It’s about great friendships and death and the afterlife. If the world ends tonight, I want us to take our cues from there.

So here’s the gameplan: I expect a lot of dancing in heaven, so you’ll recognize me by how, graceless even in the afterlife, I’ll be making a fool of myself in that cloudy disco. Sing to me a song we both loved, and even if our memories of each other have been fogged up and erased in the transit between earth and sky, deep down we’ll know that we have found each other once again. Let’s sit down and have a picnic with our childhood pets. You bring cheese sandwiches and I’ll bring juice and fruit for past hamsters/kittens/bunnies/puppies/gerbils/etc. We’ll start from the beginning. Tell me your favorite colors and ice cream flavors. Show me your best tricks: roll your tongue, cartwheel, burp through the alphabet, anything. Just take your time, because it’s you and me, me and you, together again in a whole lot of eternity.

Disclaimer: Just so you know, I don’t believe in all this May 21 rapture day crap. Everyone knows the world’s going to end in 2012…..

Quote for the day:

What am I supposed to be?
Look at me, oh my love.
Here I am, what am I supposed to do?
Here I am, what can I do for you?

- John Lennon

A lot happened recently. Look around and you’ll agree. The universe has been throwing people in the most unexpected directions–people have lost/gained friends, pets, jobs, direction, boyfriends, girlfriends, complicatedfriends, etc.

But. For some strange reason nothing major has happened to me, and save for some self-inflicted drama, all I have to show for myself is a tan [thank you, office team building exercise] and a bad haircut. [I went to get my bangs trimmed and my stylist got overexcited with the scissors. Now I have Amelie-bangs--perfectly adorable if you have Audrey Tautou's bone structure, but I don't so I just look like a dweeb.]

Anyway, I’m really really happy for developments in other people’s lives and everything, but living vicariously through my books and friends’ stories gets old after a while. It doesn’t have to happen now, but I need to know that one day I will step out of the chorus line and see what it’s like to be Out There. Is that too much to ask, world? Just one solo. One line, even?

Please?

4/21/11

UPDATE: I change my mind. I like the safety of the chorus line too much to put myself out there. Thank you and have a nice day!

Your problem is you don’t know what yours are, to you they’re not even there.

Yours and mine I know too well, my problem is that I care.

Together, we cry.

- The Script

Yesterday an 8.9 earthquake hit Japan.

Etc.

The whole day I was looking for comfort in a shared moment of silence, maybe someone to pray with me, anything that let me know that others around me were grieving too. I didn’t get it so I ended up canceling my evening plans so I could mourn over it by myself.

Tangent thought:
There’s a power in group emotion that I covet. I want other people to laugh at things that I find funny, I want them to cry when I cry, I want them to feel sorry for the animals and give up meat like I did–I want all of this because being part of a group is comforting. It’s a comfort that still eludes me because most people don’t laugh at things I find funny, or cry over things I cry over, etc. It’s not like I purposely interest myself in things that only few appreciate for the sake of not being mainstream, I’m not that lame, it’s just the way things are.

I made a quick root-cause analysis and I think I’ve found the culprit: I don’t watch television. I’m a disciple of the internet and books. No-one reads anymore, and the internet is so wide and high and deep; it is its breadth that makes it difficult to find even one person IRL who is interested in what you are interested in. This problem is easily overcome by TV watchers. Illustration: It’s easy to find other people who love Gossip Girl, and when I find someone else who reads The Abominable Charles Christopher… I will blog about it.

I love discovering that one thing you have in common with another – I love the excitement of comparing which song/lyric/episode/line/character is your favorite, how this makes my voice’s pitch higher by an octave and how satisfied the conversation leaves me. These discoveries are rare, but this makes them sweeter and I really wish I could keep connected with these people, but usually these are people I meet once and never see again. That, I don’t understand.

[So I went from Japan to my frustrations of not finding anyone who reads my webcomics. While you connect those dots I'm going to go have lunch.]

Quote for the day:

“I’d be lying if I ran away, and so I’ll stay.”

- Greg Laswell, I’d Be Lying

I know, I know. Where have I been?

Honestly, I don’t know where to start, so I’ll just back to the -ber months, primarily because as months go, they’ve been pretty interesting.

And emotional.

Let me illustrate with my stupendous paint skillz:

[I forgot to label the axes but obviously x is time in months, and y is happy points.]

Point A: When I started losing things, literally and figuratively. I’d elaborate but… no.

Point B: I am tremendously thankful for that sudden spike in my graph because I thought October would be the end of me. It’s a funny story actually [no, not really; it's amusing at best ] – I found myself in a high-school-esque crush for the first time in eons. I have long missed the feeling of new crush – the impossibility of feeling vulnerable and invincible at the same time: one moment you’re soaring high, the next you’re damning your heart to the depths of Hades for what it wants—-*dramatic toss of the head* DAMN YOU OH HEART OF MINE!!!

I think I should point out that I’m already growing out of this state of twitterpation, but because of you, dear Boy-Who-Must-Never-Ever-Be-Named, I now have high hopes for the future [see upward trend of my December projection]. Just the knowledge that there are guys like you still out there is enough to keep me going for another season or two. Thank you, Boy-Who-Must-Never-Ever-Be-Named, for making me see good things in the world again.

* * *

P.S. Seeing that this is my first update in far too long, I know that this post should be a little longer. But see, as you can probably tell, the lack of practice has made me lose what little connection I used to have with words. This doesn’t feel natural anymore. It is sad, but I will continue to fight the good fight against the powers that be [i.e. my not-so-inner sloth and The Day Job].

P.P.S. I don’t want to make yet another apology to my blog, but I think one has been long overdue for the state of neglect I have put it in. I have no excuses, just this one ’sorry’, and the most sincere ‘I’ll be back soon’ that I can offer you.

Quote for the day:

Everybody poops.

- some guy

Here’s today’s walking-home-from-the-corner-of-the-highway-five-minute reverie: If I were invisible I would stalk my life’s movers and shakers.

I’d skulk around in the bedrooms of the beautiful and powerful. I’d read over the shoulder of that-boy-I-haven’t-quite-gotten-over-yet. I’d sit in my former professors’ living rooms and see what soaps they watch.

I’d watch them clip their toenails, come home drunk and bleary-eyed, floss, and pick their noses. Not necessarily in that order.

Maybe then I would stop using them as measuring sticks for my physical attractiveness/intelligence/aptitude for greatness/and all that crap. Maybe then I’d let you see me and maybe then I wouldn’t care about what you’re thinking instead of pretending not to care, like I always, always do.

Quote for the day:

“The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.”

- Harlan Ellison

This was an ad that came out in the States [no, really?] in the late 1960’s.

I think this was a campaign to discourage deviant behavior. But that’s not why I’ve put it up here. I saw this awhile ago and it made me laugh because it made me remember an old classmate who had a mullet.

A MULLET. IN 2008. I KID YOU NOT.

This boy sat in front of me [of course! WHERE ELSE?!], so just imagine my pain, how impossible it was for me to concentrate on the lecture and how hard it was for me to come to class with the knowledge that his hair would be waiting for me.

IKR. WHYYYY?!?!

Okay, it wasn’t that bad, it was more like this:

But even so, every time I saw him I had to fight the urge to dig my nails into his forehead and scalp him – scalp him gooood. That hair only works on Captain Planet, and even he only barely pulls it off.

I dreaded that class because just sitting in the same room with that hair left me so drained. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a member of the fashion police – I own a pair of pink Crocs for goodness’ sake – but it was just… wrong.

THINK OF THE CHILDREN! THE CHILDREN!!!!

Thankfully for my grades, he eventually cut the offensive hair in time for me to prepare for our final exams. By then I had devoted so much of our class hours staring at his hair that I couldn’t recall 80% of our past lessons… and I also think he thought I fancied him a little. Wonderful, I know.

Our society could use a few good haircuts. Just saying.

This has been Day 2 of my I-will-update-my-blog-every-day-for-a-week resolution!!!

This will be my first and last letter. Enough is enough. I’ve been letting you bring out the worst in me, and I will not make patol to you henymore. I will not talk, I will not write, and I will control my body language. No more drama. No no no no drama.

Sincerely,

DQ