None Of This Nonsense, Please

Heads up: my journal is going Friends Only to help me keep the distinction between my RL and online lives. If you're not on my f-list and want to be, message or email me!

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I am an anachronism and a contradiction wrapped up in an enigma... (and not at all self-involved, really). A young American woman with largely old-world European sensibilities, brought up on books rather than TV, more likely to know odd British slang than pop culture references, old-fashioned in manner but progressive in ideas.

I lean towards the morals and fashion sense of the 1960s, the movies and music of the 1980s, a futuristic appreciation for chocolate, and a timeless love of the written word. I am a cynic and an idealist, easily joyous and easily frightened, clinging to the past and oh so curious about the future.

I am prone to deep depressions and crippling anxieties, but I also believe in enjoying the little things in life. I stop to smell the flowers (and take photographs of them!), watch the children play, and dance when there's music. I sing for fun, love trying new foods, and always have a handful of half-baked artistic projects up my sleeve. As a wise person once said, "anything worth doing is worth doing badly."

I think that will do for now.

I read a magazine
It said by seventeen
Your life is at an end.
I'm dead and I'm perfectly content
- Charlotte Gainsbourg ("The Songs That We Sing")

I'm just a mirror of a mirror of myself
All the things that I do
And the next time I fall,
I'm gonna have to recall,
It isn't love-- it's only something new
-Indigo Girls ("Least Complicated")

I don't want the world-- I just want your half
- TMBG ("Ana Ng")

I tried to drunk-dial you
But I couldn't find my telephone
And I wasn't drunk
I just had to hear your voice again
- sung by The Wrong Trousers ("Loving You" by Issac Cheong)

What we want and what we need
Has been confused, has been confused
-R.E.M. ("The Finest Work Song")

Wheels can take you around
Wheels can cut you down
We can go from boom to bust
From dreams to a bowl of dust
We can fall from rockets' red glare
Down to "Brother can you spare..."
Another war
Another wasteland
And another lost generation
-Rush ("Between the wheels")

It ain't no joke
I'd like to buy the world a toke
and teach the world to sing in perfect harmony
-Smashmouth ("Walking on the Sun")

I reserve the right to hold my grudges.
"Friends like you..." you know the rest
But all told I hold onto my anger far too long
Until it's a joke
The night is cold
The joke is old
And poorly told
- Harvey Danger ("Private Helicopter")

I don't want to die
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all
-Queen ("Bohemian Rhapsody")

I've often tried to hold
The sea, the sun, the fields, the tide
- Live ("All Over You")

A bad day's when I lie in bed
And think of things that might have been
- Paul Simon ("Slip Slidin' Away")

And I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried...
- Garbage ("Wicked Ways")

"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over eight hundred billion dollars a year, but that GNP -- if we should judge America by that -- counts air pollution and cigarette advertising and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."
-Robert F. Kennedy


Reading is my passion. Thinking runs a close second, when my health allows for it. Being able to write about both makes me very happy indeed. I love stuff that makes me laugh, I collect quotes, and I'm always in search of new ideas to play with.


- There are two things I won't put up with: intolerant people... and hypocrites. For that matter, I've got very little patience for willful ignorance, magical thinking (that includes "religion" for all you non-atheists-- I respect your right to your own beliefs, but don't come in assuming I will agree with, or even be aware of, your premises), general incivility of any kind, cruelty to children, and insufferable-know-it-all-ism (of which I am sometimes guilty myself.)

- I am currently in a committed, monogamous relationship, and am *not* interested in any romantic/sexual entanglements outside of said relationship. Always happy to make new friends, though. People underestimate the value of friendship.


- Tolerance is important to me, but sometimes I suck at it. I also know that I will sometimes be grossly unfair about stuff just because I need to vent-- I'll try and warn you when that's happening (note: if the entry is tagged "sex," "men," or "politics," prepare to hear ranting). I'm also touchy as hell sometimes. In light of all that, here's an open "letter" to all my friends and acquaintances coping with prejudice:

If you need someone to listen to you rant, let me know, and I'll listen; however, please let me know that's what you're doing so I don't feel like you're blaming me for other people's asshattery.

If I make racist or ablist any other sort of mistakenly hurtful remarks, please tell me so I can fix them. Please give me the chance to correct them before you bite my head off about it.

Yeah, you might have to explain something to me. We all come from different places on all these issues, and I don't know everything you know. I'm always willing to listen and learn, but I don't promise to agree with everything I'm told.

Please don't ask me to feel bad for being who or what I am. Please do tell me what I can do to help make things better. Thank you.


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