a new clean slate

I thought this was profound and needed to write it down somewhere. This is from the spoken track "A New Clean Slate" on the "iTunes Originals - Ben Folds" album.

"...'Mess' was, this song was about just realizing you've hit the point in your life, where you definitely--it's a loss of innocence song for sure--that you've made a mess. It's like at this point, there's really--'The next person I meet', I thought when I wrote this song, 'the next person that I'm with, I can now no longer completely explain my history. I have enough baggage to where, that's not possible anymore, and they're just going to have to take it from, you know, this is a new clean slate.'"

In truth I haven't been too angsty much anymore...although I see this quote as more peaceful than angsty, and that's a big reason I like it.

I'll try writing more again soon.

random acts of serendipity

Today after work, it was so nice I decided to go for a run. The last few weeks have seen me getting back into running regularly again, but the past week and a half have not been so good. But I made myself go for a run tonight and it was pretty good.

I had to go in to the office today because of some meetings, so I got a ride with the ex. (Who, for those of you that don't know, lives right nearby me.) It's always difficult to see him, even when we get along. Maybe especially when we get along.

So the run after work was good mentally, too. There is a little park with a pond and a sidewalk loop near my apartment complex. Now, this park is a special park.

This park is where the ex would go for walks in the evening and call me to chat while I was still in Vermont. He'd send me pictures of the park via cell phone and I'd set them as my background to remind myself of the happiness I'd soon be with. This park is where the ex ran into a co-worker and effervesced for near an hour on the great love he had found, a story which was recounted for me upon meeting said co-worker when I moved out here. It was nice. Everyone I met was really happy to "finally meet me".

And in this special park there is a special bench. This bench has the best view of the sunset. It has the best shade in the afternoon. It's got the best view of where the little fish like to jump in the pond, and it's offset from the path just enough so that you feel like you're in your own little world. This is where the ex would often sit while talking to me on the phone, and this is where we would often sit while walking in the park together, holding hands.

Tonight on my run, I walked a lap at the end. I stopped to pick some wildflowers from a flower bed that hadn't been tilled under yet for planting. I did this while thinking of stopping by the ex's on my way home and giving them to him as a thanks for the ride to/from work today. But I knew I couldn't do that. He doesn't deserve to see that I still care, and I don't deserve for loyalty like mine to be betrayed or rejected.

As I walked with flowers in hand, soaking in the golden evening sunlight, I tried talking sense in myself. I only had until the end of this lap, when I would be leaving the park to walk home and my bleeding heart would test my better judgement. Despite the haze of my pain, I saw the cheery bench patiently waiting ahead along my path. I then knew what I had to do.

I walked over to the bench as I had so many times before, but not to sit. I looked out over the park, took a deep breath, then worked the little hand-made bouquet of flowers into one of the open stripes in the middle of the bench. I walked away, taking one good look back at the little memorial I had left. It was pretty. It was fitting. And I then had a wisely uneventful walk home.

anatomy of a wormhole

1. Was reading the latest BoingBoing goodness before going to bed, as many self-respecting somewhat-dorky-yet-still-somewhat-socialized types are wont to do.

2. Saw an ad for woot.com, some sweet sale site, and actually clicked through. (I probably click on internet ads at an average rate of one or two per week. Congrats, woot.com.)

3. Noticed the following bit of awesomeness, and surfed over to the totally rad subdomain wine.woot.com. (How's that for a little early-late nineties jargon mash-up. Totally rad subdomain.)



4. Read a decidedly 'Abbott & Costello'-esque blurb about the wine of the day, and briefly pondered buying in--at least enough to check out the shipping info. I then learned that you can't order home-delivery wine in some states:



5. Free the grapes, eh? Funny name; ok, I'm intrigued, so I clicked on over. What I found, was nothing short of awesome. (Probably helped that the funny writing on the wine page was a great opening for the hilarity that followed...)



Awesome.

And now, time for bed.

flaming hot lobsters!

So evidently there's a bill in the Maine state legislature right now to legalize same-sex marriage, and to repeal the current state statute declaring that marriage is between one woman and one man. Upon learning this, I decided to check out the Editorials chatter on the Bangor Daily News website. I'm happy to say that there's definitely more support for the bill than I had feared. Maine can be one of the more conservative New England states sometimes.

As anybody might predict, people on both side of the issue have plenty to say. But what I really liked about reading those editorials was the great juxtaposition of discussion of these revolutionary civil rights issues alongside equally vehement chatterings about some lobster industry woe or another--I had no idea wtf they're talking about of course, as I hail from the "lake and mountain set" not the "trap and docks set" (as I once read it succinctly put), but I can tell that this lobster concern is at least something very important. Anyway, for the most part, I liked reading these editorials. Even the people whose views I disagreed with, even this one chick who felt it necessary to imply women's inferiority to men (whatever the fuck that was about), I was grateful that they decided to share their views. Disagreement (hopefully?) marks the beginning of social progress. So for the most part, I read most of the crazy talk with a chuckle. (Yeah, even that one subservient chick...most of the time I'll get mad about sexism--especially when it's self-enforced--but I instead just felt bad for her for some reason...)

That having been said, there is just one argument in this mess that gets me truly, emotionally angry; one statement capable of luring me down from my cool, objective perch and into the immature, name-calling fray. It's when the hyper-religious types start whining along the lines of "but the state saying that marriage between two people of the same gender is 'real marriage' would mean somebody else is forcing their views upon me!". Ok, so then what (the fuck) would you call attempting to force religious views of marriage on the state definition of marriage?! How is THAT not forcing beliefs upon unwilling others? A point that really seems to be lost on these people is that the state is not going to walk into a church and demand that a religious establishment recognize a same-sex marriage before God. So in turn, the church should not walk into a statehouse and demand that the secular establishment be stripped of the right to recognize same-sex marriage before The People.

I'm going to drop the pleasantries now and just be bare-naked honest. Despite some of them making me angry, I like reading editorials from hyper-religious types about how sinful/nonsensical/akin to bestiality same-sex marriage is. I enjoy it in the most unadulterated, smug way possible. (And I mean like, "I EAT ARUGULA AND I LIKE IT!" smug.) And instead of apologizing for that, I'm letting myself celebrate it. I've worked--and continue to work--faithfully to be a self- and well-informed person capable of tolerance. It really makes me feel good about myself, and comfortable with who I am as a person, to read these fuddy-duddies working up a lather about something that really has nothing to do with them.

You know what? I think football is dumb-ass stupid--I don't think it deserves to be called a "real sport". (And you know, I'm only half-joking here.) But instead of getting all upset about football, I just watch/play the sports I like instead. There are plenty of other sports that are already played the way I think "sports ought to be", so however the institution of football feels like playing its game is up to its members. They can even keep on calling football a "real sport", and I couldn't care less. Doesn't make my beloved basketball any less of a "real sport" in my eyes or practice, and doesn't mean anybody is going to be forcing me or anyone else to play the non-sport of football. I don't even have to call football a sport if I don't want to! (And I don't!) But it does mean I have to let other people call it a sport, at least the ones nice enough to mind their own business. I'd be pretty sad if someone told me basketball wasn't a "real sport" anymore and everybody was outlawed from playing, so I guess I wouldn't want to do that to football either.

spring cleaning

Just un-facebook-friended the other half of the most significant relationship in my life to date.

Kind of sad. Kind of necessary. Hurts but was the healthy choice.

In other news...all rejections from grad schools so far, save for the two applied math programs, still waiting to hear from those two. Things are not exactly looking up for me right now. Granted, the rejections were from physics programs, whereas I realize (but only realized halfway through the apps process...) that I'm a better fit for an applied math program...but who knows if such optimism is founded. Maybe I just suck.

The only thing that gets me up in the morning these days is that I have set a personal deadline of June 1 for me moving out of this stupid town I currently live in. Seeing as how I still have two schools left to hear from, I don't know where that will be to yet, but I am confident it will be somewhere better than this. Also, the not-knowing the details has not stopped me from already looking into summer sublets in the two prospective towns. Got a bunch of craig's list bookmarks, send out some emails, have already gotten some responses. Either town I'd be happy to live in for the summer if I don't get into either school; I would be living somewhere where I can find my happy while sorting out what the next phase of my life is going to be.

78 days. That's all I have left in this town. Better get moving.

the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny

To the dear, few readers of my little blog:

Sorry I've not been much for writing lately. The waiting to hear back from grad schools on my applications is really taking an emotional and mental toll on me. Don't worry, I'm not a total mess or anything...I'm just very spacey and drawn inward. So the free time which I spend on the internet has lately been spent perusing a message board forum for people in the exact same situation as me.

This evening, this video was shared with me, and I in turn wanted to share it with all of you. If you are in need of a good laugh, like I have been, then do give this a watch. Laughs guaranteed.

the good life

If you have spent much time with me at all, you've surely heard at one point, "I'll know I've made it in life when I have a place to live with a piano in it."

That having been said, I really enjoyed this article from today's nytimes.com. But perhaps what struck me most was the final paragraph:

"But he is not a butler," she said. "He is a guest." She explained that having houseguests was a way of life that Americans don't always understand. "I grew up in a situation where you would never ask guests when they would be leaving," she said. "In Poland we have an old saying, 'Guest at home, God at home.' "

One of the things I really miss about the northeast is the innate sense of community its people have. (And actually, I even missed it a little in Vermont...for all of its self-declared progressiveness, its hospitality facet of community-mindedness is a shade weaker than Maine's.) In the midwest, there is practically no "innate sense of community" whatsoever. Still, it sounds like Poland has us northeastern-ers even further beat still, in terms of community-sensitivity, and it sounds rather pleasant.

(Side note: I always wondered how Erdos could've actually lived just hopping from friend's house to friend's house...but I guess now I have my answer...)