Wandering Down The Hall Without A Flashlight.

Do you realize when your treating another person horribly?

Is that a trait that everyone posseses or is it one of those things that only a finite amount of humans have the capability of understanding?

How could one person not comprehend the fact that they are making another person feel terrible about themselves?

I understand fully and completely that I am not the nicest person in the universe.

But I always know when I've made another

human being feel less than good about themselves.

So it is beyond me how one minute someone can make you think your important and interesting and then the next make you feel as if you are absolutely nothing.

Lower than nothing.

Are there really those who are so consumed with themselves that they just don't care?

Could it be that I have appalling taste in character?

Maybe I should come up with some sort of character evaluation before I even speak to someone.

It really is beyond me.

If there is even the slightest bit of doubt that you've hurt someone you've cared about you should apologize.

I'm not talking about a cashier at a coffeeshop.

I'm talking about a person that you've had a relationship with, intimate or not.

You'd understand if you were cared about and then forgotten without cause or explanation.

Stopping a Drain With Papertowels

I have to stop.

Just take a moment to breathe, collect myself.

Possibly remind myself that I am an adult.

Why I feel a compulsion to rely on someone else for happiness' sake...

Its something I've struggled with for a while now.

People who say they live in the moment have always astonished me.

How can you not wonder about tomorrow or the next week, or the year to come?

Wondering and guessing doesn't get you anywhere.

I get that.

But for some reason the idea of sitting by and waiting for something to happen,

It's mindboggling.

Trying to make things happen may be even more maddening.

And so patience is something I have to try out.

Its not something I've ever been good at.

Trying as hard as I have in the past is not something I can keep doing.

Asking myself why I'm not good enough, or just not enough.

Well, they're questions that I'm never going to answer on my own.

Beadboard and Coffee Mugs

So I was taking a shower this afternoon, like I do most afternoons before work.

And I was thinking about some of the mundane aspects of my life.

I don't particularly mind the mundane-ness, but you know.

And then I started thinking about what would truly make me happy.

What I could do with myself that would just put me completely at ease.

I think I came up with something.

A two story house renovated into a bookstore and coffeeshop.

The bookstore will be darker tones of woods and soft rugs, big squashy chairs and old antique Tiffany lamps.

The coffeeshop will be in shades of creams, greens and white with wainscotting running the length of the walls. Lots of tables and chairs, a piano for anyone who wants to play and a balcony with....wait for it...even more tables and chairs.

Outside of town I will have a house that looks as if it was dropped into a forest.

I don't want anything huge, not even big.

Maybe two bedrooms.

All windows and hardwood floors with a big front porch.

I want a real fireplace so I can sit in my livingroom and watch it snow in the winter, afterall I plan on living in Oregon or Washington.

I want a dog and a cat, a huge lap dog that sleeps half the day and a cat that has more attitude than I've ever dreamed of having.

I want all of this. More than I've ever wanted to teach.

So what do I do to make it happen?

A Thesaurus Is A Handy Thing To Have

I've decided I hate everthing I write.

No, seriously even this.

I sound stupid and moronic half the time and I end up getting lost in my own head.

There's a 90% chance that only three people on Planet Earth even read what I have to say.

Something tells me that a 12 year old dyslexic could churn out more profound literary thought than me.

My ideas are colorless and dull and as soon as they hit paper they're imageless and lifeless.

I cannot even begin to fathom how authors come up with plot lines and character devolpment, it seems like a feat unsurpassable.

How can I possibly ask someone to read a story I've come up with when I can't even stand reading it?

Yes, its sad and maybe a little self-pitying.

And yet, here I am.....writing.

For whatever reasons I still write.

I am constantly putting my thoughts onto paper.

Or typing them out.

It's like a mental tick.

So I'll continue writing.

Mostly text that is complete crap.

Crossing the River With No Rainboots.

It's warm and windy today, not such odd weather for Arkansas other than the fact that its late December. Kind of puts a wierd twist on seeing Christmas lights.

Do you ever hear a band, or a song that reminds you of something or a certain time in your life? Almost every band I know does that for me. Most of them good, most of the time I associate good memories with a song or a band that I'm listening to. But there are those that will come on the radio and I'm hit in the chest with a flash of a memory that makes me want to pull off onto the side of the road and lay my head on the steering wheel. Its never the crappy bands that I don't listen to very often, the one's that I wouldn't mind so much if I deleted from my playlist. No, it's always the one's that I could spend hours upon hours singing along to, or driving down some back road while blasting their songs through my rolled down windows. It's these artists that I listened to for an entire summer while being blissfully happy until the world crashed down around my ears while I stood there completely mistified as to what exactly was going on. It was these songs I played endlessly while slowly losing myself until finally I had no idea who I was and not one clue as to how to fight my way back.

Oh, I know I've said all of this before. And I still sound incredibly bitter, and maybe I am; I don't like to think so. I like to think I've moved on a considerable amount. But like I said last night. It's not that I'm angry for the same reasons, I'm not. But an apology, or some acknowledgment goes a long way.

There's A Light In The Distance.

Guess where I am? Yeah I know, not hard to figure out. Work.
So anyway, I have this problem and this problem is potentially huge. I'm not sure how to go about solving this potentially huge dilemna, because its also rather delicate. And if I approach it from the wrong direction I could ruin a friendship that I've had for a very, very long time. Or at least, piss this person off in a way that would damage the friendship possibly forever.
Sorry if that was confusing; but I can't really get into it.

It is almost Christmas however. And it being my last night to work before that glorious holiday has put me in a rather chipper mood. I just hope my tire doesn't blow out on my way home.
I have the entireity of tomorrow afternoon to do absolutely nothing, and so I'm thinking I might clean the apartment or go hiking. Whichever sounds more interesting. The apartment really needs to be cleaned, but I've really been wanting to hike through Allsopp park. Maybe I'll do both, live dangerously. I'm then spending the next three days at my sisters because there's food there and I can't afford gas.
Ok, well I'm done talking about absoutely nothing. Maybe next time I'll babble about world peace or famine.

Happy Christmas. Merry Holidays.

I'm sitting at work, I'm currently supposed to be answering phones and it might just be the most boring assignment ever. And I started thinking about something that happened recently.

Someone asked me if I thought saying "Merry Christmas" in a retail store was offensive. Now, at first glance those words look rather harmless, and I would be one of the first on the "tell everyone you pass to have a happy and joyous Christmas" bandwagon. But I started pondering why I would be asked that question in the first place. I remembered working at Target and how we were always told to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas but it was never really explained why we had to differentiate. Now I see the difference. Saying "Merry Christmas" only includes one holiday, saying "Happy Holiday's" includes all of them, and whether you like it or not, agree with it or not there are other holidays around this time of year besides Christmas. So really, its just good manners.

I told the person who asked me that I thought it would be better for a person working in that kind of environment to say "Happy Holidays" just to avoid offending anyone. This person looked at me like I had just sprouted a third arm out of my forehead. "But its Christmas time!" they replied. They were so angry by my answer, and so confused as to why I did not agree with them that they immediately launched into a lecture about how ridiculous it was for "us" to sacrifice our Christmas season and greeting just to accomodate a few people.

I considered explaining that the reason Christmas is at the end of December every year is because the early Christians needed a way to convert the pagans and so they combined their main religious holiday with the pagan's main religious holiday...the winter solstice. But I refrained and instead said that we weren't "accomodating" a "few" people, but a large percentage of the United States population, let alone the global population. And that they should be more considerate because I doubt they would like it very much if someone came up to them and said "Happy Hahnukah" or "Merry Kwanza" and then thought they were ridiculous for not realizing it was the same season.

My point is, we all need to be a little more tolerant of each other. Especially given what time of year it is, and why everyone keeps saying this season is all about.

Happy Holiday's everyone!!!!