The Day You Were Born, Well, It Was a Good Day

This is for you. Tina.

Why this song? mm. I 'm not sure. It's happy and I'm happy. Well also, you should be happy because it's your birthday. So I hope this song cheers the living Daylight out of you. Yes. haHA! yes. That seems appropriate. (Press play about..... now.)

Young Tina.

Now, as you listen to that little piece of joy up there, I will begin the  long-awaited and true history of your life:
I've thought about it for a long time, wondering what I should say that could encapsulate such greatness.
And then I decided that this might take forever. (actually it will because you've Only Just Begun life really so how could I possibly document the brilliance that hasn't yet happened. It's impossible! forgive my weak humanity.)

On that note, how about another video? Go ahead. press that little sideways triangle. (Oh. maybe you noticed that big box above already and have already pressed play. hopefully not. that might ruin things a little bit.) You know you're itching for a bit of this 70's greatness. Well, wait a second. You might still be watching the other video, in which case you'd want to respect that song and hear it out. but I don't know. You could listen to both at the same time. That might create a whole new musical experience never before... experienced. (isn't the English language wonderful.) Do what you wish. I won't dirty my hands in this bloody business.
Lastly, a bit of Justin Timberlake for everyone. It's irresistable. Those golden, golden locks.

Trust

in people. In yourself. In love. In your ability to become the flower of what lives in you now as only a seed.

It's all you have.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense

Remember that one quote nobody gets quite right?
I'll wait here while you rack your brains for the most profound quote you've ever seen/heard/read, the one with the wording that was kind of difficult to remember, and was also sort of long and complex, but really really relevant to... gosh, well, everything.
Sorry, not that one. This is the one I was referencing:
"Obsession is the word that lazy people use to describe dedication."
What do you think? Agree, disagree? Or, in FacebookSpeak, Like, Dislike?
Here's what I think.
Hm. I could pretend to be really erudite here, cross my legs, rub my invisible jaw-stubble and analyze this statement philosophically until it started to contradict the meaning of life, but since that would be useless, not to mention you might hate me for it and storm my mental talk show with pitchforks, I will simply say that I agree.
That being said, it's not the point of the discussion--ahem, monologue--for today. It is simply a precursor.
The Point of the Discussion:
Listen--read?--very closely. You are about to encounter a series of analogies. Be on your guard. 
I want you to imagine the world and everything in it that you've ever seen or experienced. Imagine the people you've met, the places you've been, the sights you've mentally photographed, all of it.
Now imagine that memory was not real. Imagine that the world was actually just a very large picture; flat and naive, not one pixel more than meets the eye.
Different, no?
That's how I view obsession (please suh, "dedication" is the politer word) as opposed to dabbling. The world is so full of potential hobbies and pastimes and skills that we never quite master most, just experience them in passing, because we realize that there isn't enough cruel Time to take it all in. Nonetheless, if we approach everything like a dabbler, we will only ever have the surface of everything. Isn't it better to leave some things out of the real experience than to have only a picture and no true experience? Wouldn't you rather have a real apple tree than a thousand pictures of an apple?
Or would you trade the sun for the picture above?
If dabbling only gives us the surface of things, we will never reach the substance. In other words, we'll always love cupcakes better than muffins.
(In the slight case you didn't understand the analogy, let me clear up a small point of debatability: muffins are better than cupcakes. They have substance. Cupcakes are fluff. That's why they have to work so hard to be prettier, otherwise they'd never get chosen.)
I'm sure you've heard the expression "jack of all trades, master of none."
I vote this: in order to experience the deepest, the best, the superlative of all, we must truly strive for mastery. We must fling the entirety of ourselves into everything we do with the madness of conviction.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!” -Jack Kerouac

"Pray hard, Love hard, Work hard, and then pray some more." -Anna Hargadon

fear, freeagency and the future

The doors have opened. 
The Grand Councilor takes you by the hand and leads you down the velvet red spiral of stairs, down from your home into a strange place, a strange land. 
It's not what you were expecting, despite the rumors, and you want to run, you want to return home. 
This place isn't like your home at all; assemblies of faces you don't remember look down at you, though you came from higher then the sky. 

The sky. All you can remember is sky; everything now is cloudy, fogs of fresh experience woven with mists of forgotten memories. 

The lights are bright here; not the brightest you've seen, but of course your eyes are different now: to them, the light is only pain. 

And voices. The air--so cold, who knew there existed such a cold?--is filled with voices you cannot name, names if you knew you could not speak.
Help! you want to cry, but all you utter is a helpless sound; a child's sob, a nervous, fearful disaster of emotion.
Where is your father? He would know what to do.

This May Sound Crazy

but it's the Truth. Capital T.
When I was a little girl (about nine  to eleven-ish), I was obsessed with the world of J.K. Rowling. Obsessed. Or perhaps the right word has a closer connection with confused. Externally, I denied affiliation with any sort of fanhood related to Harry Potter, but internally, I desperately wanted this childish fantasy to be reality. I wanted it all to be true; I wanted witches and wizards and broomsticks and wands. Most of all, I wanted magic. I wanted to say Wingardium Leviosa and have a feather float through the air as a result of it.
For some reason, in my nine-ish-year-old mind, this desire transformed itself into a desire to be an actress in the Harry Potter movies. You see, I had the thought that if one were to act in these movies, the world of Harry Potter would, at least for the time that one was on set, feel completely real. (It didn't occur to me that being a Harry Potter character would probably take away the magical otherworldliness of it, since it would inevitably be part of my world.)
Of course, seeing as I never told anyone about this fantasy, it hardly had the opportunity to fulfill itself in reality, and thus, over the course of months and years, my hypothetical Harry Potter career faded to nothing.
It's like that saying about the tree falling in a forest; if no one heard it fall, who's to say it did?
Well, now you've heard my tree falling.
Don't you dare laugh.

Mind Over Matter

So. Let it be known that the fruit and vegetable detox was an absolute FAIL.
Sorry to disappoint. I really wanted it to work. Unfortunately I discovered that I have no will power with that diet. Which is why I have to try this new thing! (But Rachel, you whine,if it didn't work last time, what's going to change this time?)
Well, I have decided to get to the root of the problem. Will Power.
Yes, will power. That's the basis of any addiction extermination plan, isn't it? alcoholism, drug addiction, sugar addiction? Thank my lucky stars I don't drink coffee; if I'm already addicted to chocolate, (I literally haven't gone a day without it in the last month) then the coffee demon would probably have possessed my body by now.
No mattah.
Starting fresh.
I am now embarking on a peppermint fast that will end after three days. Yes. a peppermint fast. As in, all I consume is water and peppermint tea. And, if I feel faint, I eat a cube of cheese.
Haha. Not.
That is, the cube of cheese part. I am not breaking down to that level. Nosiree, not me. If I feel that I cannot go another minute without some sort of sugar, I'll eat an apple. Got it covered.

Strike

"Yes."
"Yes, what?" I ask Jimmie after she's rolled her eyes enough times for me to forget that they aren't bright green bowling balls, like the one in my hand.
"Yes. My answer to the question you asked last week. At Keisha's wedding, you remember?"
I look down, spinning the hard, heavy bowling ball while contriving a facade of confusion.
Keisha's wedding last week. Jimmie and I sitting at the foot of the long, extravagant mahogany table, laughing at the fact that Keisha had asked me to be the best man, because, as her delicacy would have her put it, all of her husband's male friends were "unavailable."
"It's obvious he has no friends." I'd said, chewing the salmon carefully
"Well, he don't need no friends. The only reason Keisha fell for him is 'cause he's a playaaaaah..." Jimmie had drawled, giggling as she reached to hold my arm for support, slightly tipsy from the reception hall's "ooooh, free refills?" wine bar. Her violent red curls had brushed against my jaw as she laid her head on my shoulder, and for a moment, there was nothing in the world I feared more than the next moment, when she pulled away.
Yes, I know what the question was. No one knows better than I.
"What question?" I wrinkle one eyebrow, perhaps a little too purposefully.
Her lips purse.
"The one about my love life. Whether or not I have plans for it." She pauses. "I do, you know. My boyfriend and I are very much in love."
"Oh? I didn't even know you were dating anyone." My nonchalant tone is a carefully constructed house of cards.
"You do now."
"Interesting." They may be cards, but they're as good as bricks.
"Interesting? That's all?"
"What did you want me to say?" I focus on the lime swirls that spin like a heroin trip on the surface of my bowling ball.
"For heaven's sake, Danny, you're my best friend. Don't you want to know about him?"
"Nah. Maybe later. Frankly, I'd rather take my turn now." Of course I want to know about him. There hasn't been a him in her life for the last year. Other than me, anyway.
"Well. Then. Nobody's stopping you." Her eyes are dimming, but I don't know where the light switch is.
I turn around toward the bowling lane, truthfully confused.
I had been so careful these past months, determined not to be a mere rebound from her three year relationship with my old roommate.
Out of nowhere, my foot pivots and I turn around to face her.
"And why haven't I heard about this...uh, fellow...before now? I'm your best friend, aren't I?" It's possible there's a puff of wind blowing on the house of cards now.
She smiles, a wry, smug affair that burns down the whole house. The light is back on.
"Why the sudden interest, detective?"
"No interest. Mere curiosity. Very different than interest, my dear Watson. Curiosity. And a very vague, superficial curiosity at that, seeing as it doesn't really involve me anyhow." I'm spinning the ball between both hands without thinking, an expression of anxiety. Stop it, I tell myself. I'm not nervous.
"Or does it?" I force myself to look at her, into her laughing eyes.
She holds my gaze as the edges of her smile deepen, picks up a ball and moves toward the lane. I watch, unsure how to form the words that need to be said. How do you admit cowardice, how do you confess that you always wanted to say it, but couldn't? How do you force yourself to sudden speech when you are already realizing it is probably too late, you waited too long, that even now, the longer you wait, the worse it becomes, until finally it reaches the point of impossibility?
"Well, it should. Since it's you."