repeat ending

listen to music i should have listened to three years ago, and my own mother believes my younger sibling will give her grand children before  me

sometimes my cleavage looks phenomenal, but i'm always self conscious about it that it's not even worth it

am cursed to love men who can't seem to love themselves, and there's a special place in heaven for those who believe there's a special place in heaven

wonder what it's gonna be like to live in a society 

where the smog of christian values doesn't hang over a government that's 'free of religion' but chained to the God we entrust

don't want to pay for sorrow

it's why i can never see those sad singers live

wanna get so lost that i forget that someone is paying for all of this

that's the new freedom

but

instead

sometimes

bare my teeth and eat the fat off overcooked animal flesh, thinking about it on four legs and not belly up

and instead of saying it direct

i write to him, "you're my bukowski, but you're probably a better fuck"

so coy because that is a line i've probably been waiting to write for years

500 miles away, can he feel my hopeful sadness seeping through phone lines

give him parts of me to remember, thinking, he just wants to forget.

taught to kill 

but clumsily learned how to live

remind myself that not everybody is like me… 

and

try to figure out if that's more comedy than tragedy

i'll laugh either way.

happy boy in black

happy boy in black

you sang a johnny cash cover before i knew you were a singer

and talked zero shit

cared about my torn ACL

before you were fucking me

asked me if cigarettes or your tattoos were a problem

said let's get out of here, without saying it

said lets go somewhere, who cares where

did every thing right

did it perfect

said my last name in your head until you got it right on the first try

didn't buy my dinner, bought everyone's dinner

told me you wanted to see me again

you needed to see me again

after a day of knowing me

i thought you were fucking off your meds

i thought you were fucked in the head

maybe i'll never know why you thought i was

the one you'd choose to love

you told me i love you, drunk 

i told you, drunk

we were intoxicating

we were intoxicated, out cold

untold

you brought me whiskey on our first date

and bought the hotel that we left late

you bought my drinks and we danced

in a bar, where we didn't know anyone

where we didn't have to be anything

we were new. 

we were unrivaled.

unstoppable

now where is our love?

hidden under the pressure of normalcy 

covered in the cobwebs these ghosts keep leaving behind

pissed on by annoyance and petty dispositions

where is our love?

buried under the Pacific ocean and trampled by the distance we travel on

cracked and caked with dust of uncertain trust, 

if you could go back, would you say, i'm just here to have a good time?

would we agree, to make love and make time, and be done when it's done 

but you say Lenny Kravitz is so underrated. you might be the only person ever saying that, but I am choosing to believe that "it aint over til it's over"

cuz our love, is just that, ours

and for a while we let outside instances bruise it like a ripe peachy

but im fuckin juicy and ready to cut loose

and you're going to drink me up, cuz i've got life to spare

and you've got love under there

i've seen it free flow. i've watched you be alive and happy and i know, there's something to this.

this is "something else," 

unless the fear of it not being everything else

lets us relapse back to old habits 

like walking a tight rope only we know how to balance on

i've made it to the other side

and i don't want to go back.

maybe you're right

i'll have to get deeper into it sometime

yeah im surprised you havent already

the escape is an escape but is not an escape

i wrote a story about my ex lover and it made him cry when he read it 3 years later

he is the first person i ever wrote a love letter to but he never wrote me back

it was very dramatic. i was 19

And a lot of people were still alive

who are now dead

But dead is really within the consciousness

So sometimes, I can feel people floating around, you know, like it's questionable, but sometimes it's OK to think in this manner that the body is merely a cage And the contents though it can be let out and never seen again, never really actually goes away

did you just come up with that?

I am just talking

to yah

well thats what i was asking

it was eloquent

just thoughts

maybe you're right

Bugs

Insects identified by former University of Wisconsin insect expert !

Took these photos in Verona, WI.

 type of damselfly- genus Argia

BLACK HORSEFLY - Tabanus atratuson

tiny birds

i sing birds that have never flown

their wings little table clothes to the vain

i told you there are christmas presents we'll never buy

and you have to be OK with that

in order to be close to me

but how far can you get and get it

When I wake up

When I wake up

There’s a marching band along my pillow and my fingers flick drummers and trumpeters off my ears

As I scream, it’s light out

Like that wasn’t obvious but today maybe the obvious really isn’t that obvious anymore

Maybe it’s not so cordial to say hello

Maybe we shake hands and shoot sparks into each other’s mouths

Sonnet CXLVII

Sonnet CXLVII: My love is as a fever, longing still

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please.

My reason, the physician to my love,

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,

Hath left me, and I desperate now approve

Desire is death, which physic did except.

Past cure I am, now reason is past care,

And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,

At random from the truth vainly expressed:

    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,

    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

----

My god this is amazing.

Wants. (What I do and don't and why)

In this peice you will find:

• your wildest dreams (pssssssshhhhhhh)
• Abstract and concrete stories about a few different people, things places that somtimes stray off topic but are still good anyways
• A form of an apology (rarities)
• Things that are just specific enough for certain people to know who they're for but just vague enough for others to maybe relate, anyway
• A story about my dad

Why I wrote this: 

• The first step to getting what you want is identifying it ... right?
• Every day I outright ask other people to publically share their utmost personal stories. It is my belief that sharing helps humans connect to one another ultimately creating more empathy.  Time for a taste of my own medicine.

4 years later she figured out how to use her macbook, eh?

1. My own apartment. 

The magic of my own weird aloneness is too awesome not to. Plus I need to be able to listen to music super loud at any point in time, not just in my carrrrr. (Even though my current roommates are awesome.)

I'll be doing activities like this, obviously.

2. Make art. 

An argument to which a conclusion was never an option. Just keep it flowin.

"Christ you know it aint easy" is my favorite work of art, and yes, that is jesus on the cross made completely out of cigarettes.

3. Not format the future based on the past. 

To navigate the now based on the purity of my own being.

How many things can you definitively say changed your life? I can say this book did.

4. To almost always give someone the benefit of the doubt. 

I don't care if I know you or if I don't know you or if you're the biggest dick on earth. If you want to see the good in someone, you will. If you want to perceive the evil, well, that's on you.

Originally saw this posted by Jade :)

5. Stop accumulating so much SHIT, and donate a lot of it. 

By shit I mean material items. I have  a friend who I am lucky enough to call a friend... by the name of Matt C. (We'll leave it at that just in case he doesn't want the attention, which I'm sure he doesn't, haha, most good people don't. And I say good not in the idea that some people are bad and some are good but just in the way that, if you met him, you'd be like, "What a good guy."

 Dude has what I assume to be a well-enough paying job, and yet, downsized his whole element of life to live out of a converstion van that housed a bed, some sort of heat element because, yes, he did this during the WISCONSIN winter, and a couple other material items.

Why did he do it? I can only assume to get rid of the distractions that are material items, though I am not completely sure.

A big question people had was how do you meet girls?

Well, I'm not exactly sure, but maybe getting rid of those distractions truly worked, or maybe it had nothing to do with it at all, but I was lucky enough to get a wedding invite from Matt and his finance, so I am assuming he did OK :)

6. Work in a career I truly care about and that the people around me care about.

 I am truly lucky enough to work with people who give a shit about their job. Feeling passionate enough about something to actually give a shit and not simply just do what's asked of you, but to care about what you're doing beyond what your obligated to care about, is a beautiful thing.

I don't know if I'll be in journalism forever, but I always want to be in a career that I not only care about, but that the people around me do. Having talent in your career choice is an obvious want, but to be around people you can flow with, collaborate with, and ultimately not hate.... that's becoming a luxury, when it doesn't have to be.

7. To be the person someone meets and it makes them feels better about life, and maybe, even about themselves.

There are too many people who don't care about others because they feel no one cares about them. I want to affect that person to let them know someone does care, even in the smallest instance.

Why? We all have a much larger effect on each other than we could possibly know; it's time to be brave enough to recognize it.

Another reason for this is I had an immensely large role model in this realm: My father. And I see myself becoming more and more like him everyday. In all his oddities and quirks was a man who took a genuine interest in every person he met, whether they were one of my 16-year-old friends, one of his students, a random person he met on the street, or a convict who literally stole my family's car. (He then bailed him out of jail... hahaha. Oh... I laugh as I type this because c'mon dad... my mom was SO pissed. It's a story she still tells today.)

When Michael got out of jail (not for car stealing but for other things) more than 10 years later, my dad hired him becase no one else would. Hired is a humourously loose term.

He did yard work and odds and ends for my dad who was retired and at home. Living at home at the time, and being a journalist with atypical work hours, I'd watch as my dad treated Michael not as some charity case, but as an equal.

Each afternoon, they'd have conversation over turkey sandwichs and potatoe chips on our picnic table in the front yard of our little suburban paradise, unbenounced to my mother, who probably would have had a shit fit had she known my dad gave this man yet another chance. (She was probably justified in this line of thinking.)

Michael would pull me aside sometimes and tell me how he wanted me to write his memoirs and carry on about stories from his past as he raked leaves, clean out gutters and pull weeds.

My dad even helped him type of a new resume, of course, having me type it. He even offered to pay me to type up the resume. Dad, really? It took me like 7 minutes to do it, don't pay me, haha. I noticed on the resume that Michael was working for my dad during the time he was in jail... a little white lie perhaps?

But my dad gave everyone the benefit of the doubt, always. It didn't always work out for him. It wasn't always fruitful, but I am venturing to guess that it was pretty fucking powerful to a lot of people in a lot more ways than not.

That was confirmed to me in too many ways to retell, but in one specific instance that was ironic and will stick with me forever. I played on an ultimate frisbee team with someone I didn't before the team started. But by the end of the season, she finally realized that Vlisides is that unique of a name and that I was Peter's daughter.

We shared a hug, and I cried a little. She had been at his funeral, or at least at the wake, and she had taken his class. She basically relayed to me that he was the reason she is where she is today -- (a pretty amazing person, but besides that) an awesome athletic trainer. She said my dad helping her get an internship and working through the class made her believe she could do it. He had changed her life. I paraphrase, so forgive me, but it's been a year or two.

It's powerful, you know? 

And it's the type of power that money can only come so close to, and my dad, always knew that, but what's more, he believed that wealth wasn't something you accumulate, but something you share with other people: your family, your friends, your neighbors, and yes, even with people who you aren't quite sure about.

And you do it not because it'll benefit you -- even though it will. You do it because that phrase "be the change you want to see" couldn't be more cliche but more true.

I am sick of bitching about other people changing their actions when I have all the power in the world to change mine and exemplify this behavior to others -- if they so choose to take notice. Because I think inspiration is illustrating to someone that something can be done, so they feel like they have a chance to not repeat it exactly, but to at least try it. 

Such a bad picture of me but..... ya know. (Note: Alex, you're still not forgiven for getting too drunk to come to my college gradutation ... Especially when I sat through the 50-mile long circle jerk that is UW-Madison grad ceremony.)

8. Not think of my mind as a separate entity than me.

This type of thing slowly degraded everything i wanted and looked at as mine for about the 3 past years. I wish I could apologize to those I hurt because of it. Because I had no true grasp on the degrees of my actions or who I was throwing away.

Even though this sounds like an excuse, but i cannot excuse myself.

I say no true grasp. I cannot say I didn't have some sort of grasp on it, after all, I wasn't totally mad and I wasn't addicted to drugs or something as dramatic as that. But to say my life was devoid of tragic would be a gross understatement.

I did have some life changing events piled on top of previous unattended to mental shit that added to the lost cause that was my headspace. It felt as though no matter what I did, I ultimately, didn't have control of how (most) shit went down. That my actions were as separate to me as the actions of an actor in a made-for-TV drama.

(I say that instead of a film, because seriously, who am I to claim that my life is as fabulous as some Spike Jones flick, but still, it's... something, alright.)

And, maybe, there is a term for this.. because I began to see myself, instead of be myself. And it was goddamn miserable. I would do something or say something and it was like dropping a penny into a fountain laced with other decaying little pennies. And all the little pennies in my mind would gradually oxidize together until I was thinking, rethinking, dethinking and unthinking almost everything I did or felt. To just feel something became too easy somehow...

It became passe.

I needed to feel something, then stop myself. Figure out why I felt it, and if I was actually feeling it or tricking myself into doing so. I was on this quest to know exactly how and why and what brought me to this feeling and was it because i wanted it or was it cuz i was just convincing myself i wanted it or was it just .... You get the point. Exhausting.

As if each feeling or sense was so complex that getting to the root of it was like attempting to open 100 of those Russian dolls where there's a smaller one inside the other and so on.

It wasn't fun for me, and it was a literal nightmare for the people who tried to love me. 

For that, I apologize. But, I cannot apologize for it all, because all I can do is keep learning. And that's what I hope I've done to bring me to the very second I am at right now, 5:51 a.m. on a Sunday, the scent of bonfire still slipping away from my dark maine that surrounds my head on the pillow as I type from my bed.

9. To explore as much as possible before I die.

clearstreamjapan.blogspot.com

10. And, of course, you. 

10-minute madness

it's 901 p.m.
and this house is well lit
if you were to walk into it, you'd say 'it's got a nice feel'
picture frames clutter living room walls,
just like you'd want your childhood house to look

it's 902 p.m.
and this house is full of furniture
and ghosts

it's 903 pm
and my mind fatigues with memory
you see for most people, there's a healthy difference between
denotation and connotation

but my cigars are never just cigars

and my childhood living room so easily becomes quicksand
granules of what was
And i wonder how my mother lives in this dessert sand trap
day after day after day

904 pm
TV. it's mounted to the wall. when they remodeled the living room, the construction people told my parents it wouldn't be an easy task to mount that sucker, but he insisted. He had a vision, and he stuck to it. it works like a fucking charm.

905 pm
terrible horrible painting of sunflowers on a table with a table cloth. i told them i HATED it when they bought it. it's nice he said, your mother likes it. we're buying it.

906 pm
Chairs. But not specifically the chairs, though they housed nearly every family dinner i ever ate. What was on the legs of the chairs. What was on the legs of the chairs that stopped them from "scratching that hard wood floor."
i don't think anyone under the age of 25 can appreciate hard wood floor, but i also think we all get to that point.
he drives a minivan, and treats the floors like his mercedes.

907 pm
carpet. carpets house each xmas, greek easter, family

on that carpet is where i'd film the last video footage of him.
it was happy. it was real. it was weird. it was how it was.

908 pm
Double-seater chair. That's where i was sitting when he got the call. when he got the call that the first person i'd ever loved was gone. where i, for the first time, found out that death is like turning a war on mute. it is the only action with no sound, no consequence, no "after."

909 pm
i put my hands on these items and they crumble to dust. and i wonder how anyone else can see these things as objects and not as holding cells of tiny parts of my life i didn't take the time to enjoy until i'd one day be able to call them "memories" instead of upholstery.

910 pm
and i want none of these things
i want him back here.
in this room.
watching HIS tv. sitting in his chair. complaining about his hardwood floor that has a carpet tying the whole room together...

just about the most mundane scene you can think of -- but now, just to have that back even for a minute, that'd be heaven to me.

i know there's nothing. i know it's mute.
but it doesn't stop me from desperately trying to remember a melody to a song i've never even heard.

20 things I didn't realize until my late 20s written in 20 minutes

Start time: 4:51 p.m., March 16, 2014

Stop time: 5:12 p.m., March 16, 2014

1. Your friends at parties are rarely your friends outside of parties.

2. Talking to people is really easy, but like everything, it takes practice. Listen to what others have to say without thinking of your response before they get done speaking.

3. Practice is actually just life. and the culture of "I am good at this" or "I am bad at this" is 1. increasingly irrelevant and 2. detrimental to growth.

4. You can appreciate something without fully understanding it. Know the difference between not liking something and simply identifying it has worth but is not your taste.

5. Change is perfect.

6. Shit happens. You either sit there and complain or roll with it and get the BEST possible out of it.

7. Pop music is not by any means bad. It is mostly just a formula for money and fame. And it's one that works. We just gotta make sure we don't pass it off as something that someone put their soul into. It just feels good. And things that feel good, feel good. Chase it but don't pretend it's going to enlighten you.

8. Conversations over the phone are 90% more effective than emails.

9. When you share something sacred to you, you're taking two polar risks. One: The fact that no one else will care as much as you and there fore disappoint you greatly and alienate you. The Other: You connect with other people who feel the same -- but then WHAT?

10. Love is never pain. Love was never pain, even as much as you like to glorify and romanticize college loves who "ruined you." Probably just get over it. Love is being full.

11. Sex sucks until you get to know yourself.

12. Do things you don't "think" you want to do. When I was in 2nd grade my mom wanted me to play soccer -- I didn't want to! Try it for a season, she said, if you don't like it, you can stop.

I ended up playing soccer for like 15 years.

Know the difference between a risk, and simply trying something! I think some don't try new things because they've subscribed to their beliefs so hard for so long. The idea of changing something they've hated or not done forever scares them because they don't know what to subscribe to then. And the realization that you've spent so much time doing this one thing or not doing this one thing and it was pretty much pointless. So we build up our egos my not changing, even if we'd be happier if we did so!

13. There's something called "traumatic growth." The idea that out of traumatic event can come growth and gratefulness. Are we strong enough to embrace this, or are we too weak to grow from the shitty stuff that happens to us? Easier said than done.

14. It's insanely hard to find people who are exciting and who are reliable. Why is that?

15. You didn't love someone who is the most important thing to you in the world one year and is a stranger the next.

16. You should DEFINITELY not find a real job while you are under your parent's insurance. Insurance is the ONE thing that ties us to a job we don't want -- which is really detrimental to our society and to people individually, but alas. DON'T GET A REAL JOB. Work on something you love while you have the time and make due.

17. Cable is the hugest waste of money and I cannot believe, with Netflix, people still pay for that shit.

18. Slow the fuck down. Really? You don't have 3 minutes to just sit in your car and finish listening to your favorite song before you get out. Holy crap. I try to do this freezing of time whenever I can.

19. Intention. Be intentional. Decide on something and do it. Just floating around is so unfulfilling.

20. CREATE. CREATE ANYTHING. Release your rational side and do something to create something -- art, a conversation, writing...... a fucking garden! Create something and own it. Something that's all yours.