unreasonably happy!

the best kind.

so! i have been wanting (and saying to many people) that I want to learn how to play the guitar for years (at least 3)! And, I have it! So many exclamation points because I have a lot of things I want to learn and 3 years is a long time to be talkin about it and not being about it, and i'm being about it now sucka! Got all this good stuff jumpin around inside of me. And I can't wait to learn how to really hear notes, and read them and play them and just.... there's so much to know. And, I haven't been excited about learning anything in a really long time and I LOVE to LEARN ... and it's coming back. I don't know what the hell I'm doing really, trying to teach myself from this book from the library, until I set up lessons with a real live person, but I don't give two kitties y'all. Not nan damn son.

And get this,

while I'm taking my time trying to figure things out

I AM

     only thinking about 

ONE THING at a time!!!

Oh, the splendor of living in the moment, of being engrossed and fully present with one thought.
ahhhhh.
i don't know where to fit love into a sentence about how i'm feeling. but i know it's supposed be somewhere in this post.
woooo!
yes!

and, i don't need to be a genius. i just need to try. i just need to do what i've been wanting to do, and learn. and take things as they come. that's it. and that's mighty fine!

list.

1. my afro makes me happy. i can make it what i want, whenever i want. and i usually want what it wants, so we're winning together. mmhm.
2. creating things. i wonder if that's why i've heard some poets calling each other gods. i've always found it blasphemous as all get out, but if that's where it's coming from, i'll concede a little. also, in the sense that i'm not doing any of this alone, if my steps are ordered (and i do believe this) i'm being led to what i need to say and God and footprints in the sand and uhm yeah.
3. last night, i took a Jamiroquai song--- I believe it was "Everyday" and I just listened to the instruments and Jay Kay's voice disappeared for periods of time (though i do enjoy it) and i chose one at a time to hear and then sometimes the others would fight for space in my ears too, and it just felt really good. and then i did it with "Music of the Wind" but I started to get so relaxed I was gone from the sounds too and somewhere else entirely, some empty space where my thoughts were air-colored but not air important.
4. listening to instrumental music now, and it's slowing my heart down, in a good way, so i feel what feels like the core of it. i love those days. so simple, but they make me feel like my day is happening just like it's supposed to. and my ears open wider and i'm only thinking one thing at a time, and some time that thought is that i want to be able to do that too.
5. sometimes, words are too much. they're too much like all the layering that's already happening that's not art- just nuisance in my head and i want sounds. or different phrasings. and levels. and i wanna feel it out and not think it out.
6. but i take it, i like it, when words are not my own maybe and sometimes they just blink across the frontal cortex (? shoot, let's just say the inside of my forehead) and they line up for me and i write them, without feeling full to the brim. just feeling like there's space, and these are walking down an isle from the subconscious to the conscious.
7. i wonder what people wonder about me, because i'm never really thinking that they're wondering anything. but i've been told and shown recently that i'm wrong if i assume im not on anyone's mind. 'cause apparently, more people wanted me to say "hi" to them in high school? accordin to a conversation i had with someone last week about how many girls came up to her and said, "Why is she like that?" Idk. If I seem bitchy, it's just because I've mastered the art of minding my business and I never consider the idea that people are interested in me or want to get to know me better. But I guess this is flickded because clearly I feel that way about certain people. I don't know, I just try to keep my life drama-free, and it's easier to do that with less people in it. And sometimes that involves, less "Hey giiiiirrrrlllllll" in the streets, especially since I don't usually talk like that anyway. My concern, interest, recognition doesn't really look like the average person's, because I'm careful with it.
8. And being cerebral has it's consequences. Like, I meet more thoughts than people. And if both are surrounding me, I choose the former. Not always healthy.
9. I wanna do things that make me smile more.
Someone told me yesterday that I always look content with life, like it could be just a little bit better but that she'd like to see me leap for joy.
And I said, me too! And meant it.
I'm on that mission this summer.
10. And I don't quite know how to be on that mission and also incorporate having a job to pay for my exploits and randomosity.
11. I'll work it out though. I'm stamping out worry from my energy exertion.
12. I wouldn't cut my hair low enough or grow it long enough, straighten or curl it enough for anyone right now. But, I would learn more and enough of an art to pull you into me because that's what I want. Or hell, pull me into me. I'm still meeting me too. And, I find the closer I get to me, the more I love.
13. Is there a place where emptiness is fleeting, and if not,
freeing and where I can store all my crazy to pick up pieces of and write from every once and a necessary?
14. I want to go there.

did he write this for me?

...for my today?

i like this song! LYRICS.

i don't know much about Jon Brion, outside of his work on the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtrack (strange and dope), and apparently that he did Punch Drunk Love, which I'm bout to go find and watch now, but uhm, I'm glad I ran into this song and I like what I've heard so far.

[insert good/appropriate/clever/revealing & relevant title here]

Somewhere between an extreme case of the normal human dislike of rejection or misunderstanding and my in ability to separate the writer/desirer of creating alternate realities and imagining how to explain what is and isn't there I've been malfunctioning between the thinking and acting parts of the body/my person. between the what i'd like to say and actually saying it. of liking the idea of starting and actually doing it. of realizing i only have one life but when the time comes to put this into practice, wanting the room to do nothing, which is to say, "Please God, give me a next time (and give me an experience to work up the courage in the meantime, please)." A big part of it is me lacking on my "being my own best friend," such that I keep myself from being so apocalyptic, which is to say, stopping myself from thinking every time I don't know how to make things happen the way I'd like or start on a good footing (in my eyes) it's the end of the world. I would tell anyone else that's ridiculous but I wrap myself in it. And I want to learn how to untangle myself. So, I'm going to.. start with remembering that no bad can come from me being true to myself and being the best me I can be wherever, and giving myself room to whatever. Remembering that, duh, I'm not perfect, and not particularly interested in being that. And that most doors close so I can pay attention to the others opening. And all this good self-love stuff :) I'm conflating a lot of habits I have right now, and in the interest of being buck naked and giving others room to do the same...


 I'm thinking about how:


1) It's taken me so long to be alright with the fact that whether or not I'm saying something profound to add to a discussion, what I have to say does matter.


2) The quickest way to turn me into a punk: have me to try to start something with an interesting stranger. Because I have a tendency to find people beautiful and not know whether I'd do too much, so I do too little. (and by people, I'm largely saying guys that snatch something up in me somehow) But I'm thankin, I should start trying the "too much," 'cause chances are, it's just enough. Just like when you think you may be overacting and you're really just taking the character to just where they need to be.


3) You know how Derek Zoolander can't turn left? Well, I have a problem turning toward what I really wanna look at, in the beginning, until I know or at least start to feel it's safe, which is to say so and so may give a damn about me.


4) And not knowing whether I'll do well with something I have relatively little to no experience in can send me into fits of trying to predict/daydream too many scenarios and outcomes to just prepare myself for whatever wrong or disappointment or how I can possibly be good enough for it to go well.


And gosh darnit, I don't know when I got so guarded but I'm working on it. And it's a constant effort.


I've been told,
I need to learn how to live in the present,
and I agree.

one of my favorite love songs

i have a very strange relationship with being alone.

'cause I sure do like it. during the day, as long as the sun is out usually.. i am perfectly content with being alone. whether it's good or not, i can spend a whole day in the house or in my room as long as i have writing, reading, music, food and drank. i don't ever really feel a need to be around people until the sun goes down.

i think that's why i can be bad with contacting people sometimes, especially phone calls. i only really keep constant contact with like 1 or 2 people at the most at any one time. it's not because i don't care about other people, it's because i largely only keep track of my self and my space in the present. it's actually ridiculous how when i leave my head space and solitude i'm surprised to find that "damn, i do know people and i guess we care about each other, enjoy each other's company and maybe instead of being alone all the time i could get to know them better...oh. oh." oh.

and it's not like i'm inside all the time. i move around the city largely alone too. i've been accused of hiding. but i'm not doing that consciously (anymore). i'm getting more visible. but i'm so used to 78% solitude that I really don't know what it'd be like not to be that. and i think i'm worried about losing it. i don't know when that started. because there are definitely people i like, even love... but i think i'm big on having the space to do exactly what i want without having to accommodate others. and that's because accommodation... i'm bad at it. instead of being compromise it turns into me giving into what the other person wants so i can avoid confrontation. which boils down to me not wanting to be the black bitch. or just the mean person. bad person. however misunderstood. and i only really care about that judgment when it comes to friendships. i'm not particularly concerned about john and jane q public or the peanut gallery.

but as i've realized/been pointed towards/told before, the bigger fear is that maybe i will be understood. because i've been misunderstood or slantingly perceived before so i know how to deal with that, as much as it may suck. and even to a certain degree i handle this by staying away from people. but the bigger fear may be actually feeling connected to people. like i need them. or i would miss them. i can't remember the last time i've genuinely missed someone. not family. not friends. because there's a difference between missing someone, like an ache, like a constant reminder and plague that he or she is not there for you to be with when you want and going, "oh yeah, it would be dope to see so and so."

there are people i love. i wonder if i'm loving them less by not being able to miss them. or feel like i can't live without them. not being able to fathom letting myself be hurt in that way. it's not that people don't affect me, it's just that i don't always have the energy to let everyone touch me in the way they could if i let them. i'd probably be a wreck if i did. but i may still be imbalanced. i might be veering towards the other extreme.

i just... lately, i have entirely too much going on at once and i don't know when's the time to let people in. to let them be more than eventually temporary. because except for my family, i don't really expect anyone to last. i feel like i have no reason to. and maybe that's where faith comes in, but i also think it's a symptom of the little bit of common sense i do have. and lasting ... maybe lasting has different definitions. and family, what is family but blood ties and love. love, granted, i'm realizing i have a choice in who in my family to love as well. i've chosen to love the ones i've always seen growing up, others... not so much. i won't take everyone's ugly and still.

i say this all to say. im thinking i'm gonna have to learn how to let myself care, meet, risk for and open myself to people this summer. i know it's gonna take more than the summer, but this is a start.

for the day,

this is my shit!