sin' auld lang syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
And days of auld lang syne, my dear,
And days of auld lang syne.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pu'd the gowans fine.
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld lang syne.
Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne,
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld lang syne.
We twa hae sported i' the burn,
From morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.
Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne.
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.
And ther's a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.


good night, and good luck.


http://tinyurl.com/2r9fb

the darkest night of the year

chaos
broken
starlight
pouring
shadows
through
the
lesser
light
towards
imagined
desire
to
find
yesterday.

should
help
descend?
i
think
the
morning
should
awaken
soon.

vodka
laughter
smokes
cookies
truth.

my christmases have improved.

sensory

insane drain... the drip has just dropped and the plink on the sink is enough to drive me mad. but to walk across the room to fix it seems like wasted exertion. my drink was drank and now i'm bled dry. you'd think the quick beat that moves the life from heart to toes and up my spine would take less time, but i'm hemorrhaging thought out my ear everytime you cause me to question.

but i beg of you to fulfill the need of me.

i'm crumbling. the parchment upon which i wrote my last lines has been burned, for lack of water to quench the flames. but i will still lay with my words and coax them to open their eyes. there's a leaky pen between me and my next turned phrase, and when all the drops seep out we'll see what remains.

blink and you'll find it.

eggshells

i had an interesting experience recently.

i developed a deal with God at one point, sometime in my early teenage years, that if he thinks he gets to run the universe, he has to deal with my opinions and questions. the first interesting thing is that he took the deal.

the second interesting thing is that he just told me that i don't get to do that anymore. it was somewhat jolting... i don't think i realized how comfortable i was with that, and how odd it is to not have it. now when i question, he tells me i know the answer, i just don't like it. now when i tell him my opinions, he tells me that i'm an adult and i need to just stop talking about it and deal with it. it's rather interesting. on one hand, it made me feel kind of stupid, as i realized how obnoxious i had been to him. on the other, i think he just told me that i've grown up.

i honestly thought i would spend my whole life as a broken person. i really didn't realize that he wanted me to stand with him, and walk with him, not just spend my entire life in broken humilation.

i used to hate everything about myself. i still have scars in places i cut myself. i can still remember what it was like at night when there would be so many voices around me i couldn't sleep. i know that i used to starve myself to make me a better person, and i even punished myself when my mom wouldn't because i was yearning so much to matter enough to be disciplined. i used to cry when someone didn't like me. i used to hate myself if i made a mistake. i often ran from people who loved me, and i would push people away if they could see in. i was always angry and always afraid. the times when people thought i was righteous, even when i was young, they didn't realize that i was two people. not because i wanted to be, but because i was so fractured i could be nothing else. i wanted power to protect myself. i wanted money to make me safe.

i'm writing this because i also hid away, and was so ashamed for not being able to control my weaknesses. it wasn't until this year that i realized the depth of my misunderstanding of grace. all i needed was to give in, and let go, and know that i'm loved. i never needed to prove anything in the first place. yeshua took the weight off my back and the craziness from my mind and while i still, every day, have to choose to eat and not be afraid and to accept love and forgive i know that i can.

i have come a long way from the girl who hid in the closet to cry.

i am so lucky to be alive. a big thank you on that end goes to my parents, shawn and missy. my mom was so broken at the time that she could barely function herself. they took a really obnoxious teenager in when no one else really knew what to do with me. i don't think they did either, but they loved me enough to be honest and tell me that i was running from life. their oldest son is now their second teenager. and i am two years older than they were when they "adopted" me.

thanks:)

selah's super gatorade

"all you need is 1/4 cup of water, 1/4 cup of sugar, 10/4 cups of gator, and 1/4 cup of gatorade. and that's how you make super gatorade."






can i be 3 again, please?

so i totally forgot

how much i like creating. even though i'm so overloaded i can't really sleep (something that i will have to get better about), i wake up happy every day.

pretty damn cool.

catharsis

the smell of the spice carried on the breeze from the oscillating fan brought the sweet unattainable flavor to my attention… it would be months before i could savor the craving. rum is wonderful pain. i took you somewhere, or nowhere… and we tried again to see the familiar. that wasn’t the last time i saw you, but i think it was the last time you saw me.

the memory i will forever keep as the one defining you to me is sitting while the constant waves beating the shore reminded us both that we would never rest, but the light from the beacon piercing the fog was a comfort. i’ll keep you there.

i never knew how far away together could be.

there’s words to be known and time to be understood, but i don’t know if i think it will be something seen. i think, if it happens, it will just appear again and we will know the lost years did not destroy our family. i know you would think it trite for me to say i have cried for the lost time.

i still reach out, and i’m still turned away. your friendship was freely offered, and then quickly rescinded time and again when i failed to live up to the expectations you never shared. i’m sorry you’re lonely, but i didn’t leave.

it was like this.
and old man, who should have been young… should have been able to touch the stars that he aimed to grasp for his kind of brilliance was rarely seen… he wasted away. the cancer ate him from the inside and the sounds of his cries still echo. i know he rests in peace, but i would have more belief if it hadn’t taken years of decay to make him see his wife and his child for the first time. he was 46. i’m no longer so far removed, and i’m watching the decay start again. it starts in the eyes, when you can’t see in, and you always look down.

next comes the denial.

then alone, the bitterness eats away. that’s the cancer that took him.

that’s how it was.

so when i say that i’m waiting for you to prove that you’ll achieve what you’ve promised, take that as love. i’m believing that you will choose to live.

don’t let me down. it may be selfish to say that i can’t watch the cancer again, but it’s true.

i see a man with a light, forging the way through a dark forest that has lived in myth, only to burn at your hand. i see a lost soul finding the one he’s sought, to find that he’s the one who was lost. and there you are, filling the large footsteps you’ve left by your dreams, and the worlds you’ve painted with your rhythms and rhymes you will finally believe.

charlie brown

i meant to post this last Friday, november 25th. but many circumstances got in my way, most of which are too boring to mention. there was that bit with the giant orangutans on the subway, but i'm not sure that one was true, so i don't think it counts.

i spent a long time being a die-hard feminist. i'm sure this is big news to most people... as i'm so demure, and all. i swore i would never have a family before a career. and here i am. i've actually become a sap, too, which adds insult to disillusionment... only because i'm now eating crow for all the years of insulting sappy people.

i first saw my husband in a stinky rehearsal room in Tulsa, OK. he was 19. i think his forehead was the first thing i noticed. the second thing was his overly arrogant attitude, and the third was his smile.

not exactly love at first sight, but i've never been a traditionalist.

there were several nights when we drove down to the park with our friend chris crews (also a daddy now) and justin would play his guitar while crews beat his drum, and i swung on swings or danced in the sand. sometimes crews would stare into space or rant about the doors or draw instead, and i would take my insignificant talent for percussion out on his poor drum. justin would sometimes sing, and always eventually put his guitar down and take out a pack of Cherry certs. i think the smell of cherry certs would always be connected to Tulsa, OK and small parks and mishmatched music and long conversations about nothingness and long drives home in a car that scared the shit out of me every time i got in it, had the certs company not stopped making the cherry flavor.

after that, we got married. Which was, obviously, many steps removed from the previous story. these steps involved such things as neo, ghetto-rigging, gaff tape, star crunches, many jackie chan movies, huge palmetto bugs, great pizza, too much coffee, many truly inspiring moments, fun foam, wrestling shoes, road trips, power naps, and a couple of romances and quasi-sorta-not-quite-romance-so-what-do-you-call-it things. But after all of that, we got married. As you might have guessed... it wasn't traditional.

After that, we had a baby. And started a couple of companies, and i still drank too much coffee, and justin quit smoking a lot. now we have this great kid.

i tell you all of this, because as random and unconnected as the above story might sound, there's one constant in all of it: the man i call charlie brown. well, if he doesn't listen when i call the first time.

i don't think i've ever met a person of so many contradictions. but i can tell you that he got a man-hating bitter chick to marry him and have a kid... and realize that there was really nothing more that she wanted in the world than to be married to this man and have a small to moderate amount of his children.

this is less sweet and sappy than i intended... if you get one day of the year when your wife can't be sarcastic to you it should be your birthday. but i forgot to post this on your birthday, poopsky, and if i wasn't sarcastic i doubt you'd recognize me. unless i was losing my temper or lost in thought.

so here's to you, charles justin harvey. you're marginally older, quite a bit younger, much wiser, and a great amount more fun than i am. thanks for keeping me from growing up to be a too old and stodgy, immature, selfish woman. i think i might follow you anywhere, even if i might bitch the whole way that i have no idea where i'm going.

charlie brown, you're my hero. truly.

it definitly works for you that you're hot, too.

confessions, or i really need this out of my head

i just needed to vent this... it's something i've realized that i've been carrying around for a long time. and when you realize that you've been carrying around an elephant that occasionally shits in the corner of your life, i find that it is often helpful to talk about it, so at least you're not in denial that your elephant is stinky.

as an artist and a performer, i am craving specific input. i was raised in a combination of two schools of thought as far as working with a teacher. The first being that if you don't recieve correction and constructive criticism, your teacher believes that you are not capable of handling it. The second, that artists are too sensitive and therefore need to be handled with kid gloves and shouldn't be given too much criticism... or compliments, for fear they'll become full of themselves.

i spent my entire life getting extremely mixed signals. i sang for years; it's actually what i started in. i won most of the competitions that i entered in. but when i asked my teacher if i had a good voice, and if not what i could work on, she replied with "well, you definitly contribute something to the choir". what is that, exactly? when i asked my dance teacher if i was a good dancer, and whether or not i should even try to do it for a career, she said, "well, you're definitly called to this. not as called as so-and-so, but i think there's something there." WTF! when i asked my acting/mime teacher if i was any good, he said "well, your thighs are really too big to be a ballet dancer, and i think you're too shy to do any speaking parts, but you're great at mime". so i'm too fat and un-interesting to be a dancer or an actor? what exactly are you saying here, people?

i asked one of my teachers why this had been the case all my life, with everything i endeavored to do. poetry, performing, novel writing, painting, acedemics... in every case i was more or less vague-ismed out of any confidence i might of obtained otherwise. she told me "we knew you would eventually succeed, so we wanted to give opportunites to other students who might not get it later."

eventually succeed? are you saying that i'll eventually annoy someone enough that they'll give me a chance? what is it about me that cause people to be so vague... they often claim to be protecting me cause they can tell that i'm sensitive, though the things that i hear have been said behind my back usually don't imply respect for sensitivity. so here i am, at 25 with no true idea of what i'm good at. i know i'm a good leader, and that i'm good at business, and i'm at least a decent designer, and i think i'm at least unintentionally funny. but i really don't know anymore than that.

am i too abrasive? do i come accross as cocky or overly self-assured? do i seem needy when i'm asking for feedback? cause i'm not, i'm just literally starving for specificity. i HATE VAGUERY. seriously, man. can't handle it anymore.

so i have to say that though i don't really know if i can sing, or act, or dance... or at least to what extent. should i stick to christian performing, or background roles? or can i aspire for somthing more? i think i can, but who knows... i'm going to inflict it on everyone if nothing more than to recieve some honest opinion and suggestions for improvement. because currently, i'm very confident where i am confident, and i have no self-esteem where i don't. and i don't need a bunch of people walking on eggshells and telling me that i'm cute and even if i need attention, i can just ask... i need to know something definable. i grew up in the christian arts world, people. somebody give me something.

please don't reply unless you're going to be specific

example

did you mean it? in the moment,
when you looked into my words and
understood the way i see, the figurative
reality that gives the breath i breathe,
did you really comprehend the extent
of which i would depend?

the lost cadence is blamed on the true nature of being
one who only walks to a drum if she has to.

and there the beating drives, drives deep into the chords
of parched want for release. you've driven me to
the edge, and i'm begging to jump off the cliff but you hold
me back for fear i'd fly out of my skin, and lose my sense
of self.

one for the money
two for the show
three, in case we need it
four is excess, but who's practicing restraint when
beating out the time by which we stone? the small
pebbles hurt more, but the big ones crush your bones.

drive it home.
the pages are browning and tearing. who's to say, that
some distant day as far from here as the day behind
tomorrow we won't look back upon these years
as the golden days, the time of innocence.
who's to say that my own imaginings won't find
home in my true reality, and break free of
the desert of metaphors, but never lose their poetry.

the motion of time often makes me queasy. here's to
the broken drum, and the forever time.

damn the sprawl

an interesting article, about the infamous American urban sprawl.
http://www.slate.com/id/2129636/?nav=fo

funny

i have a problem with being funny. see, whenever i'm trying to be funny no one laughs, and when i'm trying to be serious it's hard to keep people's attention.

see, i think that's kind of funny. but you're still waiting for the punch line, aren't you?

um... how about...

"Only two, but I don't know how they got in there! "

no? hmm. well, we'll get back to that.

another bit from my youth

i've been accused of being Lucy, but if it weren't for the obvious gender issues, i think i'd have more in common with him. or maybe i'm the tiger. am i keeping it real only when someone who believes in me is watching? or can the misperceptions of jaded people cause my words to lose their meaning?

if i tripped and fell over a twig in the woods when no one was looking, would someone still laugh at me?

truth

i must say that i really think it's easier to see the everyday ups and downs when you're alone. there is no need to editorialize or translate or watch your temper and tongue... the reaction can come and pass, and then you're just standing there with this moment in your past and no ones expression to mark it by.

heartless it may be, but truthfully so.

some days it's hard to believe. why should i have faith when doubt comes so easily... slips from my tongue with silken words... deceitful only in their pretense of strength. but these threads cannot be woven to cover the falls and the tries to climb up again. i'm trying to stop comparing, to remember that different is good and i need not be skinny but then i just want to be someone more beautiful, so maybe i'd believe that i'm worth you.

or maybe not.
i think i'm lost... i think i forgot to look down while i ran and instead, only tripped and tore skin from my knees.
i think i've forgotten where i came from, and i think the rain is making it hard to see.
i think that i'm wishing that lonely only felt so, and that i could pretend i don't need you to stand.
but truthfully, i must wander and run far from home but without you, i'd forget who i am.

.

i think you must be in jest.
to say that my narrative is wrought with
consistent ill-uses, and brings only
a moment of confused attempts within
the readers brain to create an unlikely
epiphany, is a euphemism for
“i’ve forgot the wonder of poetic freedom”
for to describe the world in only
sensible terms is prose. and while such
word play has its uses, the play would
soon loose the lust for understanding
that comes from encountering the
unexplained.

yes, it’s frivolous aesthetic.

you might see a person
and call them tall, or fair skinned, or
having a big nose. but i say they are
a wandering soul in the sea of
homogenous indemnity that is the
american experience. you can see
in the style of their dress a
representation of the true
minimal idealism and worn out
patriotic soap boxes. you might say
they are just poor, and i say that
the fruit of labor is bestowed upon
those who have inherited the grace
which follows the rich, while the
meager inheritance of the meek
seems to do little to pay earthly bills.

you might say that this poetic nonsense
is only the vain struggle of a young
foolish girl who cannot bear to look
at the world through prose, for it then
looses the luster that can be found
in its dark places and hard times,
if you can turn a phrase just so.

are poetics the original spin? or is
there truly a human need to find
beauty when the cracks are discovered
in the world of the real and it’s too
late to open our eyes?

you might say that’s a beautiful sunset,
but i say that the moment my eyes
feasted upon this reminder of our celestial
position, painted upon the skies with
such grand expression it caused me
pain to see the world beneath its gaze,
for only night follows the sunset.

i think we both have our uses.

i think

i must have been about 7.
kids make fun of you for the oddest things.
when i finally convinced my mother
that the ridicule was just too much
and she should break down and
let me have chewing gum, she
grudgingly abliged. the next day,
i bought my very own pack of gum
with my very own money
and brought it to school. another
kid, who had always made fun of
me for having weird parents who
said i couldn't do the
oddest things
taught me how to blow bubble
gum that day.

that was a good day.

for

and still the tempest rages.

how do you find the stepping stones when the clouds descend upon you? i fear to lose more than my way. but the words of the wise one, spoken in haste but still quite true sink into my memory. i'm burning it there permanently, with reflection.

the desert seemed endless. the vast stretches of sky only served to give canvas to the burning sunlight. my eyes had grown weary of squinting to see... which seemed pointless anyway. who needs sight while wandering aimlessly in a desert?

i asked for rain. i should have known.

stop to listen, stop to rest, stop to ponder.
when does the race end?
i don't know, but from here i can see no end to the
running
and my wings are wet.

you say you don't understand
my cryptic lines
but you need not read between them.
close your eyes, and count to ten
then remember the time you
stopped. and did nothing else.
then look, and see what
you comprehend.

how about this one?

"to stop, and will the raging winds to cease
and mourn the time of peace
now gone, but never truly known. this
is my need, but the tides come quickly
and the shoreline is falling away
and the time to sail is close."

do you remember now, the eyes by which you see?

defining moments

"nothing has changed, outwardly. i'm still in the same little room, with the same challenges, and the same old car. but even when i had money, i did not feel rich."

"so do you feel rich now?"

"um, it has come and gone. most of the days i have, there were a couple of times that... i didn't. it was like that poor thing crept back in. right this minute... it's fine. i feel... i read something, i don't remember where, that said it's not a lack of money, it's a lack of ideas. it's just a matter of [sticking with it], and getting it there. and that's true with me. even if i had all the money in the... even if i had millions, i still have to make the choice about my car, i still have to decide where to live."

"so do you think that the problem is in making a choice and going forward?"

"that's entirely possible. i think that may be a good part of it."

"so what do you think has changed that makes you feel rich?"

"that's a good question. it just came to me... i think [pushing my boundaries] has a lot to do with it. i still have a long way to go. but it's coming along well, and i'm learning a lot that[i didn't think i could learn at my age]. and it's given me a lot of confidence. part of it could be that i am making my way, i'm paying my bills, my utilities, my rent. which isn't huge, but compared to my income... but right now, i'm financially independent."

"do you think that's ever happened before?"

"no. there was a time... where i was paying the bills... and i had some part time cleaning, and we were getting social security. but i didn't feel independent. now that i think about it, if i had, i don't think i would have fallen for that mortgage deal. i could have thought, ok i'm $3000 behind, so what can i do to make this up. but i was in such a state, and i can say it's because i was so traumatized from your accident, but that was probably just a symptom. but then i realized, this is not how i want to live the rest of my life by any means. but right now, i am independent, and successful. i have gas in my car, i have good food... i go out to eat on Sundays, i was able to buy nice clothes, i'm [saving]. i am probably in better shape. i may not see the 26 inch waist i had before i got pregnant, but i'm in better condition. i'm probably in better health. i'm more disciplined, without being rigid and un-teachable. i'm anticipating my move, but also, i'm enjoying my life here.

and i give."

who says we're old? my mom is still growing up, and she's turning 60 this year. she isn't depressed all of the time, just some of the time. and she's getting better. she's learning the computer for the first time, going from knowing nothing and being terrified of the "beast", to typing 30 words a minute and learning how to use the internet.

if anyone thinks they deserve what they're getting... if there's anything that seems insurmountable, i can tell you some stories. i can tell you what it's like to spend your entire life thinking you're limited, and you have no hope, and then God shows up and changes everything. and if i think i have stories, my mother lived over 50 years with no hope. things aren't all the way fixed. but she believes that they will be, and that's more than i can say for many people.

" Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!"
Romans 5

sc

i think i just watched my worlds collide. or at least, i saw memory coincide with present existence. when that happened, the value of my remorse was lessened and i saw only one who i laughed with. you think you left only a mild impression on me, as once again i remained true to pattern and escaped when you became too controlling. you did not realize that you can't leave a mark on me by willing it there. i will defy every attempt to make me bend to fit your perception.

though i realize now that your perception was not your intention, and you tried to keep all of the chips in your pile because you were afraid that if you shared you would lose the game.

did you know that every friend is a gamble? your controlling nature only made me stubborn and foolish. it was your persistance of vision that made me believe the world would not end just because i tried to succeed.

i think the moment i realized that i still had a true friend was when i understood you were not trying to be cruel. you have just always had a really rotten sense of comedic timing, and are too insecure to say the joke when it would have been funny.

here's to the good times and the crazy, cult-ish times. i wouldn't give them up for the world.

and here's to more beautiful days.

who knows?

maybe i will run away and join the circus.

i certainly know how to walk the tightrope - constantly wondering if it will be this step or that which will misstep and send me tumbling to my doom, as i'm sure i'd miss the net.

tricky words, tricky game. is it your turn or mine? i find i'd rather stare out the window and watch the rain fall, and the paint dry on the porch swing. swinging back and forth from one who wants to play you to one who wants to just call it a game, and say you won if it would make you forget to ask me to play the next time.

too many things to rhyme. it interupts my flow.

i think 'back' and then 'sack' and 'far' and then 'tar' and there are no connections to gather the phrases into poems. so i try not to rhyme. at least, not all of the time.

would you like some sake while we reclaim our rhythm? i find it loosens the mind and sends the words drizzling out the gutter. this season brings much change. the leaves fall, the grass dies. and the bears sleep. we make cider that fills my senses with such smell, and then i sneeze. momentarily i lose my train of thought, and then i grasp at the straws of my own theology and we reset the timer and again, it's your play.

i'm watching the rain. i love the flying trapeze.