#I am tempted to post the whole poem but I am also afraid | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luthienne · 4 years

Note

Hi dear, do you have any good words on emotional courage?

hi my love, you can check out this post and this post; here are a few more:

“I know a lot about pain… and I know it is bad for people, eats away the spirit, but how about courage, what is it for if not to use when needed?”

Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters

“This is in the end the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to face the strangest, most unusual, most inexplicable experiences that can meet us.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“You don’t realize it, perhaps, but you are turning these delusions and illusions of the past into criminal things. Relinquish everything. Stay in bed until you feel so shock full of energy, hope, courage that you bounce out of abed. You can only aid the world–if you still believe the world needs our individual aid–by retaining your faith in life. Your body may be weak, but I know you still have wings.”

Henry Miller, A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller

“I… want to inherit the witch in my women ancestors—the willfulness, the passion, ay, the passion where all good art comes from as women, the perseverance, the survivor skills, the courage, the strength of las mujeres bravas, peleoneras, necias, berrrinchudas. I want to be una brava, una peleonera, necia, nerrinchuda. I want to be bad if bad means I must go against society—el Papá, el Pápa, the boyfriend, lover, husband, girlfriend, comadres—and listen to my own heart, that incredible witch’s broom that will take me where I need to go.”

Sandra Cisneros, A House of My Own

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.”

Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

“In the winter I am writing about, there was much darkness. Darkness of nature, darkness of event, darkness of the spirit. The sprawling darkness of not knowing. We speak of the light of reason. I would speak here of the darkness of the world, and the light of———. But I don’t know what to call it. Maybe hope. Maybe faith, but not a shaped faith—only, say, a gesture, or a continuum of gestures. But probably it is closer to hope, that is more active, and far messier than faith must be. Faith, as I imagine it, is tensile, and cool, and has no need of words. Hope, I know is a fighter and a screamer.”

Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Poems, and Prose Poems

“There is always some miracle left; and though miracles do not happen, they might happen. Who knows? Perhaps our intelligence, our instinct, our senses, in spite of their daylight clearness, are leading us astray. Perhaps the one thing needful is just that unreasoning courage which follows hope’s will-o’-the-wisp as it burns…”

Jens Peter Jacobsen, Niels Lyhne

“But if the deepest loss, […] / can be, not just survived, but made into the matter / of hope, made into song, not into a hatchet / to cut off the offending parts, made into poems / then blessed be the end of things, the loss of whatever / secures us blindly and mutely to our lives.”

Julia Alvarez, The Other Side/El Otro Lado

“I run / stumbling, expectant. / Impatience is hopelessly / desperate. Hope / takes time.”

Marie Ponsot, Springing: New and Selected Poems

“How lightly we learn to hold hope, / as if it were an animal that could turn around / and bite your hand. And still we carry it / the way a mother would, carefully, / from one day to the next.”

Danusha Laméris, The Moons of August

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Representative John Lewis

“Where does such a force come from? What does it mean? A voice very faint, and inside me, offers a possibility: how shall there be redemption and resurrection unless there has been a great sorrow? And isn’t struggle and rising the real work of our lives?”

Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Poems, and Prose Poems

“Don’t forget that apparent impossibility of something is the first sign of its naturalness—in a different world, obviously.

Marina Tsvetaeva, from a letter to Anatoly Steiger

“Grieve. Have / hope.”

Jorie Graham, Swarm

John Berryman, “The Heart is Strange”

“Skin had hope, that what’s skin does. / Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.”

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Two Countries”

“I am quite troubled in the depths of my soul. But that will pass,”

George Sand, in a letter to Gustave Flaubert

“Let’s dance a little before we go home to hell.”

Muriel Rukeyser, A Muriel Rukeyser Reader

Hélène Cixous, Hyperdream (tr. Beverly Bie Brahic)

“That most moments were substantially the same did not detract at all from the possibility that the next moment might be utterly different.”

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

Ada Limón,��“Dead Stars”

“Listen, everyone has a chance. Is it spring, is it morning? Are there trees near you, and does your own soul need comforting? Quick, then — open the door and fly on your heavy feet…”

Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems

“Get to the bottom of this intensity and have faith in what is most horrible, instead of fighting it off—it reveals itself for those who can trust it, in spite of its overwhelming and dire appearance, as a kind of initiation. By way of loss, by way of such vast and immeasurable experiences of loss, we are quite powerfully introduced to the whole.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Countess Alexandrine Schwerin, June 16, 1922

“…only one thing is urgently needed: to attach oneself with unconditional purpose somewhere to nature, to what is strong, striving and bright, and to move forward without guile, even if that means in the least important, daily matters. Each time we tackle something with joy, each time we open our eyes toward a yet untouched distance we transform not only this and the next moment, but we also rearrange and gradually assimilate the past inside of us.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Adelheid von der Marwitz, September 11, 1919

“Continue to believe that with your feeling and with your work you take part in what is the greatest. The more strongly you cultivate this belief inside of you, the more it will give rise to reality and world.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Elisabeth Freiin Schenk zu Schweinsberg, September 23, 1908

“…I have known with certainty that the worst things, and even despair, are only a kind of abundance and an onslaught of existence that one decision of the heart could turn into its opposite. Where things become truly difficult and unbearable, we find ourselves in a place already very close to its transformation.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Anita Forrer, February 14, 1920

“…he says, it will be all right.

“It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. They are words you might speak to a child ... and somehow I am comforted. He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.”

Madeline Miller, Circe

“Right then she knows herself even less than she knows the sea. Her courage comes from not knowing herself, but going ahead nevertheless. Not knowing yourself is inevitable, and not knowing yourself demands courage.

Clarice Lispector, Complete Stories; “The Waters of the World”

“Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining—regaining of a clear view. I do not say “seeing things as they are” and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say “seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them”—as things apart from ourselves. We need, in any case, to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity—from possessiveness. Of all faces those of our familiares are the ones both most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult really to see with fresh attention, perceiving their likeness and unlikeness: that they are faces, and yet unique faces.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, from his essay On Fairy-Stories

Camille Norton, Corruption: Poems

“Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.”

May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

“I have the fervour of myself for a presence / and my own spirit for light; / and my spirit with its loss / knows this; though small against the black, / small against the formless rocks, / hell must break before I am lost;”

H.D. from Collected Poems; “Eurydice”

Denise Levertov, “Epilogue”

“The days go numb, the wind / sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves. // Through the empty branches the sky remains. / It is what you have. / Be earth now, and evensong. / Be the ground lying under that sky. / Be modest now, like a thing / ripened until it is real…”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from Rilke’s Book of Hours (tr. Anita Barrows, Joanna Macy)

“I know your sorrow and I know that for the likes of us there is not ease for the heart to be had from words of reason and that in the very assurance of sorrow’s fading there is more sorrow. So I offer you only my deeply affectionate and compassionate thoughts and wish for you only that the strange thing may never fail you, whatever it is, that gives us the strength to live on and on with our wounds.”

Samuel Beckett’s words of consolation to his friend, Alan Schneider

“What matters is not to allow my whole life to be dominated by what is going on inside me. That has to be kept subordinate one way or another. What I mean is: one must not let oneself be completely disabled by just one thing, however bad; don’t let it impede the great stream of life that flows through you. I have the feeling of something secret deep inside me that no one knows about.”

Etty Hillesum, from a diary entry featured in An Interrupted Life

“You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. / This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. / To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam. / To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.”

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“Try to keep what is beautiful to you and what you can use for today and now — You must not let things you cannot help destroy you —”

Georgia O’Keeffe, from Georgia O’Keeffe: Art and Letters

“What we love, shapely and pure, / is not to be held, / but to be believed in.”

Mary Oliver, from Evidence; “Swans”

“In time of the crises of the spirit, we are aware of all our need, our need for each other and our need for ourselves. We call up, with all the strength of summoning we have, our fullness. And then we turn; for it is a turning that we have prepared; and act. The time of turning may be very long. It may hardly exist.”

Muriel Rukeyser, from A Muriel Rukeyser Reader, “The Life of Poetry”

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Howard Zinn, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

“But don’t lose heart, dear ones—don’t lose heart. Don’t let it make you bitter. Try to understand. Try to understand. The world’s already bitter enough, we got to try to be better than the world.”

James Baldwin, from Another Country

“You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves. / Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. / Meanwhile, the world goes on.”

Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”

#ask #anon #quote compilation #emotional courage #words #lit #poetry #long post #of hope to bite on like a bullet #yeah ok i have no chill #also no explanation for how my brain works and ties all of these together #compilation

578 notes · View notes

honeyrose-tea · 3 years

Note

are you doing anything for new years? if you could call any friend to talk to at midnight to enter the new year together, who would you choose? do you enjoy staying up late or going to bed early? do you like making new years resolutions? if so, what are some of your new years resolutions for 2021? did you have any for 2020? did you succeed at them? if you didn't, are you going to try again this year? what are your hopes for the upcoming year? your fears? your most ridiculous prediction? -🌙

no, I don't have any plans for new years. my parents will likely put on the tv and I might watch a bit of the festivities, or I may just go to bed and let the year come softly. either way, it won't be too eventful. but I don't mind

the past few years I've gone to my friend Syl's (@spice-ghouls) house to celebrate new years with them and a couple friends, and I've always enjoyed that. and they're basically my only friend at the moment, as well as being one of my oldest and best friends. so probably them. I love them very much

I hate waking up early. though I love the morning and think it's a beautiful time of day, I like waking up when my body tells me to and that rarely coincides with the morning. I especially hate alarms, no matter what tone they are it's always such an abrupt way to start the day. I'm excited for the day when my significant other (who is hopefully a lighter sleeper than I am) wakes up to a quiet alarm, rolls over, and gently wakes me up so we can start our day together. maybe then I wouldn't mind waking up early.

as for staying up late, I don't love it either. I do love the night, it has a peace that is similar to yet distinct from the morning. but staying up late is honestly almost a compulsion at this point and it definitely has negative effects on me. it's something I've been working to stop doing over the past year or two. I still do it (it's almost 1am as I type this) but I don't love it either. the best nights are when I go to sleep at a reasonable time (8-11pm) and wake up naturally, but still early enough not to feel as if the day is already wasted

I'm not big on resolutions, actually. I mean I don't mind them, I just don't usually don't have any. if I want to do something, I just start doing it right away, I don't wait for a certain time to start. if I get a whim in July or October or even December to start writing more poems or posting less on social media or whatever, I start immediately instead of making it a whole big new years resolution. part of that is because I'm very instrospective and goal-driven by nature so I'm always seeking out new ways to grow and improve. I think people in general don't think much about their goals until it's time for a milestone like the new year. I guess it's also because the new year just isn't that big of a deal for me. if anything I seem to reflect most on my growth around my birthday rather than new years

that said, I did have a resolution in 2019, simply because I happened to get a whim right around that time of year. the resoltion was to visit all the counties in my state. I had lived here my whole life and hadn't been very far outside the city I live in, I wasn't really familiar with the state's geography either, and that didn't sit right with me. I felt like I couldn't call myself a real resident until I really took ownership of the and got out into the state itself. so from January to July I visited 80+ counties, often with one or both of my parents, and it was incredible. it made me feel so much more connected to my region and we found so many hidden gems. I have tons of pictures and I've done some writing about it if you're ever interested. but yeah, since then it's been kinda hard to come up with new resolutions. I feel like I peaked with that one, I don't know how I'd top it.

I'm not planning on a resolution for 2021, but maybe something will pop into my head in the next couple days. I want to be more social after the vaccine, that I know for sure. it was kind of a wake-up call that the pandemic didn't change my social life hardly at all. I want to spend more time with friends and family and enjoy the little things like the ability to eat in a restaurant or cafe or go thrift shopping or go to the movies. I just think I should do more with my life, and I've been feeling that way for several years now. I've made some small steps, but post-quarantine I want to make bigger ones. my lifetime is finite. outside of that I don't know of anything big I hope to accomplish in 2021. good grades I guess, but that's kind of a given. I'm always aiming for good grades

I hope that the year is filled with love and warmth. I hope it is calm, joyful, and that I can live it out with all the people I love by my side. I hope that for everyone else too, that they can be closer to their loved ones. I hope for less death and sickness and that the virus is eradicated as soon as possible. I hope for more equality and progress, and though they are slow I do believe they're coming. I hope that life becomes more normal, and that people who are hurting are comforted. I hope things go well for my church, because it means a lot to me. selfishly I hope for a significant other, and I hope it's the last one. I'm so ready to be with the person I will spend my life with, I like the thought of stability and security, of building a life with someone. and even more selfishly I hope it's Eli. I hope my dog stays healthy, that my chickens live long lives as well, and that the weather is nice. I hope I get to spend more time outside. I hope that children get to see their friends, go to school, and that they are more carefree. though I don't have any siblings I do have some special kids in my life and I hated seeing how they've suffered this year. I just hope everything is better and happier for everyone, that we are all more successful and compassionate. I especially hope that we will carry our lessons from 2020 with us but leave behind the pain

I have a lot of fears. I am scared of the unknowns about the virus- the effectiveness of the vaccine on a massive population, the new strains, the long-term effects of the virus or even the vaccine that may crop up months or years from now, and much more. I am scared about the state of our society and how reforming it seems nearly impossible, I am scared that at some point this unsustainable system will fall apart, I am afraid of how and when that will happen and how many people will have to suffer and die amidst the collapse. I am afraid of a very lonely and uneventful year, I am afraid of a lonely year filled with bad events too. I am afraid for the health and safety of everyone, especially those I love. I know we aren't out of the woods yet, and the new year will not be a magical fix. I am a little afraid regarding how quickly my future is approaching, that in 2021 I will need to be looking at grad schools and applying to begin my graduate program in fall 2022. I am afraid I will lose my passion, I am afraid maybe I never had any passion to begin with. and as always, I am afraid of being forgotten, but also afraid of being known, deeply known, and still remaining unloved. I think we often forget the mortifying ordeal of being known is not guaranteed to result in love

still, I don't want to dwell on my fears, and though it has been tempting in the midst of all this chaos, I think I have managed to push them away most of the time. I think fear is rarely productive except sometimes as a motivator, and even then I would rather be motivated by love or hope or optimism than by fear. I will end with my absurd prediction, which is of course that Eli and I will get back together and it will be permanent. I hate to say it but I do honestly believe it, even though I know it's ridiculous. I have a deep sense that it will happen. I don't know why. it is just a divine knowing, one that I have only felt before on a couple occasions, both of which were definitely orchestrated by God, I have no doubt about either. but feelings aside, you can never predict the future, and I am excited to see what happens regardless. there is joy in not completely knowing, joy in knowing that you will get to live it out and watch it all unfold. all that I can do is learn and love and grow and work as hard as I can, and the universe will take care of the rest

thank you for this, my friend. your questions aid in my self-reflection and I always feel like I know myself better after writing to you. I hope you are well, and thank you again for taking an interest in me. it means a lot to me, more than I can say. I hope your holidays were/are well. are you doing anything for new years? talk you soon:) xoxo💞

#ask #pen pal #eli

1 note · View note

pixelproductions · 4 years

Link

How to Use the TM Symbol After Registering a Trademark

You’ve put a lot into getting your Trademark learn how to use the TM symbol and enforce it after registering a trademark – your brand depends on it.

Navigating the tricky world of trademarking and copyrighting your work is no small feat. Once you finally accomplish it, therefore, and earn that trademark for which you’ve been striving so long and so hard, it can feel tempting to rest.

However, there’s no rest for the weary in the world of trademark law and business practice. A single slipup in terms of how you use your trademark and you could set yourself back in a big way, or even endanger your trademark completely.

So what are the do’s and don’ts of using a trademark once it’s been registered, and how can you avoid some of the most common trademarking pitfalls?

What Is “Genericide” and Why Does it Matter?

“I am become a name” declares Ulysses in Tennyson’s poem of that name. Transforming yourself into a noun may be all well and good for poets and mythic heroes, but for all but the most successful companies, it could spell disaster. You want buyers to associate your brand name with your brand alone, not the general product field.

When you say “Jacuzzi,” you probably don’t think of the brand itself – or even know that it does refer to a specific brand, rather than just any old “hot tub.” The former has become so popular it’s become a catchall phrase for the latter.

That may be fine for a big company such as Jacuzzi, or Apple’s iPhone, but smaller brands need direct brand recognition. A trademark that is too general, or allowing your trademarked brand name to be genericized in reviews or descriptions by competitors can lead to “genericide” and severely damage your brand’s visibility and viability.

You worked hard to get that trademark – don’t be afraid to enforce it.

Which Mark Should You Use?

To do so, however, you first need to make sure you’re using your trademark properly in the first place. There are three main trademark symbols, and you need to know which is which and when to use each.

The TM symbol is used for the most common trademarks. Oftentimes, they are not federally registered. It is the simplest and broadest type of trademark option, covering everything from product marks to service marks. When in doubt, the TM symbol is the one most likely to apply, though it may not have the same kind of force as other options.

The SM symbol is the least common of the three. It can be used to cover service marks. It enjoys a great deal of overlap with the TM symbol, which contributes to the relative rarity of its use.

The R symbol stands for “registered trademark,” and it’s actually the strongest of the three trademark symbols. It can only be used once you have cleared federal registration and can only be used for goods and services that have received federal registration.

How Can You Make It Visible?

Once you have done all the hard work of getting a trademark cleared and registered and then worked to make sure that you’re using the right symbol to designate it, you may think you’re home free. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

To get your application through you’ve already had to dot your I’s and cross your T’s – you hardly want to let a little thing like the placement of the R or TM undermine the whole thing.

One of the biggest mistakes in terms of trademark placement is also one of the simplest to avoid – make it visible. Far too often people go to all the trouble of getting their product, name, or logo designed, or any other aspect of their company trademarked only to not actually use it, or make it so tiny that consumers can’t see it. This can raise problems if people abuse your trademark and then try to get away with it by “claiming” they couldn’t see it.

You worked hard to earn this trademark – don’t be afraid to show it off. It may not be the most exciting part of your product, but it is an aspect of it that says that you own a legitimate, registered trademark, which does indeed confer a degree of legitimacy and market cache. Your trademark should be bolded, italicized, in caps, or otherwise distinguished from your regular font. It needs to stand out to the casual consumer. It is often located to the right of the trademarked logo or name.

How Much Should It Be Used?

The frequency of trademark usage will vary depending on the medium you are trademarking:

For a book, the title page should be sufficient

For online material such as websites, once per page is a good rule of thumb; make sure that the trademark is static on the page and not part of ads or text that appears and disappears

For social media, the rules for trademarking are still in flux, only tend to follow bios or usernames, and are not generally included in Posts and Tweets

What’s more, if you allow a third party to use your trademarked name, logo, or content, they should republish your material with your trademark as well so others know it is protected and to whom the content belongs.

When Can I Stop Worrying About it?

In a word – never. You have to remain constantly vigilant to make sure people are not violating your trademark or using it without your permission. What’s more, for certain types of mediums such as blogs, you need to maintain regular usage of your trademark for an extended period of time. In the case of blogs, at the end of five years, your trademark will be checked, and if you have not regularly used it or your blog is inactive, the trademark may lapse.

Make sure the trials and travails you faced in getting your trademark aren’t in vain by following these essential steps for its usage and preservation.

#how to use the tm symbol after registering a trademark #Trademark #UsingaTrademark #enforcetrademark

0 notes

rueur · 7 years

Text

Morning Pages #31 (10.02.2017)

Friday 10th February - 11:02 a.m.

So Malith called me yesterday asking if there was going to be anything on for tonight. Friday night! Our plans to go out have been postponed again and again over the past month, essentially since those nights I went out on my own in Northcote. So hopefully Malith is definitely coming out tonight, and Daniel said that he might too if he’s not super tired from work today. I hope he does though, because I have also been meaning to go to Laundry with him, considering that was originally his scene anyway. I also got in touch with Lauren and Jacob and they said they’d love to come too, and that they’d try to make it after Lauren’s photoshoot or something. I had no idea what that meant, and Jacob didn’t say anything else about the photoshoot, so now I guess I’m just hoping that they come out tomorrow.

I have to renew my phone plan today too, and I am afraid that I’ll need to break another $50. I have exactly $700 left to live off of this year and it’s absolutely going to be impossible, unless I never eat anything at all and never leave the house (aside from going to class). I will definitely need a job. I don’t know if they will, but if my parents or my grandpa at least lets me borrow some money for my school books, I might just be able to get by for one semester. But certainly not for the entire year, that would not be possible. I mean, it was fine for first year, but third year will see me tackling longer contact hours and a heavier workload too. I have three full-on days and I’ll definitely need to be treating myself during my lunch break, I mean otherwise I would not have any academic motivation. Uni can be quite indulgent, definitely if you also happen to be studying what you love. You are basically dedicating three years of your life to passionate study that fuels your own personal development rather than contributing to society, and...sorry. I just got a text. My plan was renewed. I checked my balance, and apparently I have enough money for the next two months? Was this my dad? This is very odd. See, I’ve been anxious about where I’m going to be getting my money to pay for this plan from after I donated so much to Lentils, but I couldn’t help that. I know it was probably a stupid thing to do considering my financial situation, but I just felt really bad about the fact that I’m really hoarding my savings. I need to though. I know it’s more socially conscious to share the wealth, and I have generally been doing that with what I have on my card, but I refuse to eat into my savings. I think everybody is the same way, to an extent. Anyway, I’m at least glad that I don’t need to stress about this anymore. I have too much to deal with right now, but then again it feels like I always have too much to deal with. That’s what Malith said to me on the phone yesterday too. Right before he put me on speaker to talk to his sister through their bathroom door as she took a dump. The poor girl.

I’m waiting to Skype with Courtney too. It’s been a while so I figured it would be fun for both of us to properly catch up. I keep thinking about who would want to come out to Laundry, and the only girls that I think would actually fully enjoy the scene with me are Courtney and Jay, but Courtney’s on the other side of the world. And Jay’s not getting back to me, because she rarely does. I have no boisterous female friends, aside from Rhiannon and Lauren, really. But I don’t know if Laundry is Rhiannon’s kind of place, and honestly I don’t really know if Lauren will like it either. I was hoping to just kind of meet girls when I go out, just kind of start dancing with them and then maybe like exchanging numbers or something, but every time I’ve gone out I’ve ended up dancing with some guy for the entire night. Of course, I had no grievances with Evan and I actually am quite happy I did get to meet him, but every other time I’ve gone out has felt somewhat unsuccessful because I didn’t get to meet any interesting women, who would take me out again ideally. Who would take me out a couple of times for the rest of this year and I’d build up a fantastic rapport with them and establish what would quickly become quite distinctively long lasting friendships. Toni and Sam have kind of moved from both me and each other. They’ve become their own people, as have I. And now I’ve found myself in a place where I can’t say I have any real close female friends. I am hopeful with Lauren, but I also know that Lauren and I are going to mess around a little. It will be a friendship, but there’ll also be some fleeting sexual element to it that...actually, that might make the friendship stronger rather than diminish it when you consider how chill Lauren is.

Tonight though, I’m only interested in blowing off some steam: a month’s build up of steam. I am tempted to send Evan a message but I’m just so nervous, I’m too fucking nervous. I was hoping that these pages wouldn’t lapse into journal entries painfully reminiscent of my high school years, but I fear that this has already happened considering I have mostly been talking about boys and friends. To be fair though, I am also on holiday right now, and I will be for the next seventeen days. So I am making the most of this time, spending it being social and revelling in the fact that I have a social life now, rather than working. Even though it would probably be worthwhile to do a little more independent script development, and to refine my slam poem whilst I still have the time to focus on these things. I know that when uni starts, I’ll be spending all of my time on that work over anything else.

It’s 11:34 a.m. now. My plans for the morning were to bike to Westfield and sort my money out at the bank before biking back home and topping up my phone, but now that that’s apparently all been sorted for me (by some generous spirit, or by my father who sounded perhaps too unperturbed on the phone, because I called him as soon as I received the text notification), all I need to do today is eat and workout and then maybe clean my room, just manage myself. Courtney said she’ll be home in an hour, so I think that I can have a quick shower and actually eat some breakfast before she calls and then during the call, I can do a little tidying and also talk to her about what’s been going on with me too. I have been meaning to speak to her for a while, just because talking to her on messenger can become pretty exhausting. I don’t know how she manages to type so much so fast, but it’s actually such a trial trying to keep up with it. I feel bad every time I literally am emotionally incapable of replying to her, and then just end up ‘ignoring’ her messages for a couple of days. I don’t ignore them, I read everything as soon as she sends it to me, but it’s just very hard for me to process everything that she throws at me at once. It’s like I’m living my life but in the background, I have the lives of other people playing at double speed and I have to sort out my life but also sort out all of those lives too. To be fair, this feeling has lessened since I don’t speak to Ikaros as much anymore. That’s certainly helped. And Evan has been taking up a portion of my head space too, I don’t know why really. I’m trying not to place any pressure on him or on me, because it is just the weirdest time for us to have met. Valentine’s Day is next week, and both of our birthdays are only a stone’s throw away. What are we supposed to do? Do we get each other gifts or do we just leave these days of significance be? And miss these first days of significance we’d be having JUST because we don’t know what we are yet, and end up having to wait a whole other year (if a whole other year does pass us by) in order to actually celebrate those days for the first time. Is he even thinking about this too? Or is it just me? What the fuck does he want from me? Why did he tell me that I made his day!? I mean it made me so so happy, I mean you could say that him saying that to me really made MY day. Sometimes I wonder if he’s found this blog and has read my morning pages. If he knows all of this and thinks I’m insane. I know it’s pretty stupid to essentially be posting my DIARY online for everybody to see, but this is supposed to be more of a disciplinary daily activity rather than a place for me to sort out my thoughts. I’m learning more about my voice, about my concerns and how to translate these real-life concerns of mine into my fiction in order to strengthen that sense of individuality and signature in my authorship. It’s like being a linguistic auteur, I guess.

I’m so caught up in this boy, it’s actually making me want to listen to The Script. Science & Faith: the ultimate album when it comes to relationships and deciphering the secret language of I want to say love for the sake of making this sentence sensical, but perhaps ‘relationships’ is more an apt word for me to place here in my given situation. I also just took a massive break from writing (well not ‘massive’; it’s 11:56 a.m. now), to check Facebook and once more scroll through my contact list looking for people who might want to go out because I have actually been a social recluse for the past year and I haven’t really caught up with that many people, which can also explain why I’ve been feeling so lonely lately. Because I spent most of my last year either at work or at uni or with Ikaros. I only really have creative writing friends or old high school friends, or old PRIMARY school friends, but no boisterous friends. Isaac is still overseas, but he’ll be coming back next month, and I don’t even know if he would want to see me because he really hasn’t made any efforts to stay in touch. I know he’s been busy though, and he’s probably been talking to many other people rather than me. The last couple of times we’ve met up have been kind of lacklustre. I don’t know if we can be friends. Okay, it’s 11:59 a.m., and there’s one more minute of morning left. But I am on my fourth page now, so I’m going to go and have a nice, warm shower. Or a bath!

#morning pages #31 #10.02.2017

0 notes