Confessions of a Needy Friend

What is it we love about the mundane, the everyday, the commercialism? I love the beautiful weather, the flexibility of being in classes, and working part-time, and being able to appreciate that beautiful weather. I love the phone call of a good friend. It always comes at the right time. Sometimes, it doesn't come when you need it. Or when you want it. Sometimes you just crave that contact, that honest interest in you. I crave that... It's one of those things that makes your day wonderful, that takes the rain from depressing to something to celebrate. I am slightly needy. I need confirmation from people outside of myself. I have confidence, I know I am smart, and I know I am (somewhat) attractive, and I know that people like me. I know I am a good poet. I am a damn good poet. I know I could be a better poet though, also. Sometimes, I really need to hear these things. When I'm under a lot of stress, when the tests are all coming up one on top of the other (and not just school tests. sometimes friends like to test you, too). When work does not leave me time to study, when there are three dogs in the house that won't stop barking, when the rent is due and the money isn't there. That is when I need to hear someone say, "Hey, you are doing really well at _____," or "Wow, you are really hot tonight," or, say, "I read that new poem on your blog and I thought it was great," or even "I thought you could work on that and that in your new poem." Sometimes, I need to hear that, and believe it. I am not really a people person. My friends can be counted on one hand or so. I rely on them to know when I need to be needy.
I know you need to be recognized, too, and I try. Honestly I try to be earnest and listening and insightful for you when you need it. I am a good listener. I listen, and respond, and I try to use the effective communications techniques I have learned about in my Interpersonal Communications class. The problem is, we have to actually be talking to utilise those friendships in a way that is supporting and fair for everybody.
To be honest, I don't even know why I'm rambling about this right now... I am kinda bored and when I get bored, I like to read or write. So I am writing.

Drier-Cycle.

There are times when everything seems to go wrong at once. When stresses approach a breaking point, when the crack of that breach seems to reverberate all through a mind. It is a point everyone reaches in life. We all handle it differently, as well. Some people cry. They stay home, buried under sheets and blankets and comforters and pillows and cry until life does not make sense. They continue to cry. It is a cycle. A spinning drier drum of despair. Eventually, the depression is only about being depressed and unable to pop the balloon of hopelessness. Some people eat. They eat because it is comforting, allowable. At least I'm not consuming alcohol at this rate. Some people do turn to alcohol. They nurse it, drink it, gobble it, savor and guzzle and shoot and sip and swallow it. They lust, crave, want, need, desire, and yearn for the nectar's sweet escapism. This too is a cycle.
These cycles (there are many more) consume us in guilt. They cover us with the comforter of avoidance, and we are becoming more than adapt at slipping so easily beneath them, that like a comfortable friend whom we do not realize is essential until she is gone somewhere on vacation. It is not necessary to avoid problems. I think counselors and shrinks generally tell people to confront problems. But it is so easy to lay down. It is easy to not think about the problem. With avoidance, one can say, "I don't understand," "I don't get it," or any such variation of the same thing. In confrontation, one must be able to say, "Ah, I see where this is my fault."
I personally do not like being at fault. But I often am. I find myself wondering about the whys and hows and often come to looking in a mirror. Not that I am to blame for someone dying, or someone quitting, or someone having a chemical imbalance, or someone not having a timeline for the project, or for conflicting schedules. I know I am not. But I can talk to someone more before they die. I could encourage better training at a job. I can offer suggestions for next year's project. I could urge a visit to the doctor. I could offer a better schedule. I'm flexible. I don't really think that is a problem though.
In a skidding car you turn into the skid to retake control. One must trust physics to accomplish what must be done. Number the mounting problems. Understand them. Begin with small, easy tasks and address them. Redress them. Take them to task for attempting to bring you down to the bottom, for offering the sweet avoidance in return for... What? In return for not sending them out of your head. But taken care of, they magically disappear, like the genie into his oil lamp when that last third wish has been uttered. Ah, magic.
I love magic. It makes me smile like a child. It makes me laugh, because everyone knows that the magician is also a comedian. Like God, sometimes.

The Glories of Internship

After 2 hours of 24, and some random procrastination TV after, I finally got down to all my image editing I had lined up tonight. Just finished and burned everything about 15 minutes ago. Mostly rotating and cropping photos of paintings so they can look amazing when published. I used a couple of nifty freeware editors, GIMP 2.0 which I find just as useful as Photoshop, only more legal, and 11View, which I used for all my batch image conversions.
My biggest problem was that the images were all in jpeg format, though they were burned on CD before much degradation happened. So I copied and then converted them right away to bitmaps. The worst to deal with were those over email. But GIMP has a pretty good scaling algorithm, so I could bump them up a bit with not too much loss of detail. The final images are saved as bitmaps, tiffs, and uncompressed jpegs, just for compatibility purposes. Each should scale very nicely to fit on a 9x6" page. At least I hope. I spent too much time for them to not. At any rate, time for a little nap before I get started on the copy editing for all the writing. I've already marked up hardcopies, just have to type the corrections in. Wish me luck for waking up early enough tomorrow. Err... Today.

I wanted to get this

Posted before my full two hours of 24 started... Enjoy!

Daydream 1

In a vision I see my fingers
slide along her warm taut
slightly pneumatic (as Huxley
would say) belly where her
tight white shirt is pushed
up against the underside
of her breasts and
steal beneath the elastic band
of her thin floor-length
skirt and slowly pull it
off her hips while my tongue
and lips caress every curve
of her subtle belly and each
slight indention bend of her
skin and the sweet salt
of smoothness where leg
and hip and belly meet

I want this to get some attention:

a NY Times article about a food critic working as a server...
I found this at the WaiterRant blog... which I also want to point out again.

If you've ever wondered how to behave, how to tip, or how to treat your fellow humans bringing your food and drinks, please check these out.
The added benefit is that The Waiter is very funny. If nothing else, you can get a good laugh.

Dog Walk

While I took the dog for a walk,
the wind blew cold and bitter
for such a sunny-blue day.
The week’s temperature swings wrecked
my sinuses, and I smelled nothing
of the early spring; the stiff
wind kept it away besides.

The Collie runs ahead, tail
and nose high, stops and stands
at the length of his tether,
awaits me expectantly
to catch up and pass so he
can run again; this repeats
for our entire trek.

He needs the open farm
and pasture we do not possess;
I feel his yearning
in the taut leash, in the perked
ears and proud black and white
tail. If he were self-aware,
would he sue for freedom?
Would he loose himself against
the government, bring another
Civil War? I would. I would.

The Exorcism of Fears (working title)

This is what I fear:

I fear growing old. I fear the turning-gray, falling-out
hair. I fear the lack of comprehension. I fear I will end
old having never grown up. I fear calling my grandson
by his father’s or uncle’s name. I fear the true
blindness that an ocular migraine showed me.
That is one thing I fear.

I fear having children. I fear the unpreparedness,
the surprising announcement. I fear I haven’t the
selflessness, the resourcefulness, the money. I fear
I will have nothing to teach and that I will spend all my
time away as my father did. I fear my children
will hate me, that they will see through the
‘I-am-always-right-and-all-knowledgeable’ parental
character. I fear they will not be smart, or that they
might be disabled. I fear not being able to have
children.
That is another thing I fear.

I fear being alone. I fear dying without someone
to truly mourn me. I fear the hours at home
in the big, dark house with no one to break the silence,
the cold, the pain. I fear having no one to call upon
when I am in need. I fear the lack of companion-
ship that I so covet when I lay at the side of
the woman I love. I fear losing that.
That is another thing I fear.

I fear wrong planning. I fear I have not correctly
interpreted God’s plan. I fear I have laid my own
plans without consulting Him. I fear that I cannot
follow through on well-laid plans. I fear I will die
before I can accomplish those plans. I fear having
laid the wrong ones. I fear my lack of motivation.
That is another thing I fear.

I fear heights. I fear the dizzying spin of the ground
that calls me down to itself, its warm, earthy
embrace: “Come down, come down to me, and be
safe, be calm, be mine.” I fear the intoxicating, sweet
release of control and self. I fear the ease of that
one crucial step… the ease of the thrusting
wind, or a scared animal, or a jilted lover.
That is another thing I fear.