choices in life

There are promises. There are promises that you will keep, and there are promises that you won't keep. And then there are promises that you don't know how to keep. What do we do with those? It's no longer about remembering. It's about finding a way, and no way am I going to put these unfulfilled promises with the ones that were forgotten. They haunt the mind. Why did you agree? Why did you offer? Because.

Because you want it to happen very badly, and perhaps if you hope hard enough and try, there will be a way. Because you want to give hope, and perhaps the other person will find a way. Don't give up. And we try, and we fail. And then what? I did my best. You did your best. I shouldn't have made that promise, and you shouldn't have held me to it.

Sunday mornings should be reserved for happy cartoons. I made a bad choice this morning, but it's still a beautiful day.

cycles of adaptation

It started off innocently enough. She told me that she would have to start cooking. And I asked how she survived in the past without cooking, wanting to know what made someone who never used to cook, much if at all, want to start. She whispered, "My boyfriend...and Trader Joe's frozen dinners." It wasn't hard trying to figure out which part was missing. We shifted the conversation topic to Trader Joe's frozen dinners.

It has been often said that you don't know what you're missing until you lose it. Maybe it's been said too often. I am afraid of losing everything in case I miss something. I'm thankfully not a packrat. I didn't think of the possibility of losing the function of a thumb for a week, but it's happened to me recently, and life has been very different for better or worse. Hopefully for the better of course. And then we adapt and everything becomes a blur again.

I don't like habits. But I have them. I couldn't survive without them, yet with them I am more vulnerable. We can hope that adapting means changing for the better, since you wouldn't want to change to make things worse. But having a new addiction just means a shift of reliance. Ah yes, life is one huge vicious cycle of shifting reliance. That is what you think I am driving at. Maybe. I don't really have an end in mind.

All I wanted to do is write.

incoherent thoughts

You look like someone who has lunched poorly and who has no expectations of dinner.

That is one of the better lines I've seen over at the Surrealist Compliment Generator. Exactly how is it a compliment? I don't know.

I don't know when I started deliberately trying to be show that I'm different and special. From not liking the fact that I was the odd one out, I've become so used to not fitting in that being part of anything coherent just makes me feel awful. It's one of those nights when I'm just moody I guess. I don't really believe that I'm that special, but I just need to feel that way.

I fell in love with the word "misanthrope" when I first saw it. Should I have been surprised to find out that my thoughts are not unique, that a long time ago someone figured out that such a malaise of the mind existed and gave it a name? I was relieved somewhat to know that I was normal in the grander scheme of life. I am not alone; I am with other tortured minds that have made good.

Growing up, my dad taught me a few things about friends. Always keep a group of people around you that you can trust. And what you see of them in 10 years, it is what you will become. I have failed to generate a good group, although I'm getting there. But there is no way we will be on the same path in 10 years. Promises of the present rarely carry forward to the future. The past shouldn't be the only thing keeping us together. It often fails to anyway.

thoughts while sewing

Sewing cushion covers tonight, I recalled the last few months of junior college, and the general pessimism that prevailed. When will it all be over? I was very worried at that point in time because some of the girls were joking about giving up and marrying someone. It was a pretty bad joke repeated too many times. If those girls I knew were failures, the rest of the world didn't have a chance. Or so I thought.

But it seems that the rest of the world is more resilient. Many awful things have happened, and will continue to happen, and humans go on living.

Did I mention that I was sewing cushion covers? The world continues to amaze me, and I continue to amaze myself, seeing the person I am becoming. I cook, I sew, and I can still be a feminist. We live in fortunate times.

Le battement d'ailes du papillon

I recalled while brushing my teeth just now the moment when I discovered the butterfly effect. It was a very romantic notion, the idea that the flapping of a butterfly's wings can cause a storm across the Atlantic. I was watching a movie, and the opening scene had a butterfly I think, and there I heard described the romantic idea that little things can have very big effects. In case you want to see the movie, the English title is Happenstance, starring Audrey Tautou.

I checked up on the butterfly effect for a fuller understanding of it, and I kind of gave up at that point. The real and deeper meaning of the butterfly effect has its roots in Chaos Theory, which I am proud to say that like 99% of the world, I am unable to fathom. Fine, I didn't try, but I was never under the impression that I was particularly gifted in certain aspects.

Let's go back to romantic version of the butterfly effect -- the idea that something very small and seemingly inconsequential has a profound effect on life. The idea that we are all linked, interconnected. That everything we do is of consequence, which by extrapolation means that we are all important players in determining the direction this world is taking. Take a deep breath and ponder on your importance. Now take a pin and deflate that bubble.

Reading further into that statement, I can also say that we are not important at all. Our absence will cause a reaction perhaps, and the world will go down another path. The point is, the world will change anyway and no one path is necessarily better than another. We don't know the unrealized path. It is not relevant. The world will go on.

Zidane's headbutt may have its origins in the Algerian war. The reason I am in my present location may have to do with a class I took years ago, or with a person I met years ago, or a more recent event. I don't know which was the butterfly's wings, and which was the contribution of the flapping of the hummingbird feeding one bright morning.

I'm not a person for what-if's. Not that I don't care about the butterfly effect, but beauty is not exactly always useful. I like beautiful things anyway.

I'm still alive

You probably know that, but I thought to be considerate and let you know anyway.

I was supposed to be in California last week, but I cancelled that trip and it wasn't a bad decision. I got to see the 4th of July fireworks in Boston -- which are the best I have ever seen if I may add -- and I got to attend a wedding. I didn't cancel my trip to do those things, but they happened.

Growing up, I've always thought that weddings were huge formal events with no hint of romance to them. It was probably impossible to feel anything for people you don't know. I liked attending weddings though because there was always a feast. Oh, the innocent joys of childhood.

The wedding I was at on Friday was a simple civil ceremony. There was no rehearsal, and the City Hall official presiding over the affair couldn't get my friend's name right, so he stumbled while repeating the words because he couldn't figure out what she was saying. My friend looked dashing and nervous, and when someone made a mistake, we all giggled. And the ceremony continued.

There was no official photographer -- I brought my camera along so I tried my best. I didn't know where the boundaries were, or if I was going to disturb the ceremony, but the kind City Hall official told me to go ahead. When the couple finally exchanged rings, she turned around and said that there will be a slight pause while she rearranges the couple so that people with cameras can get that important picture with the couple, the bouquet and the rings on their fingers. It was all unplanned, but very real. There was more goodwill towards the couple in that room of 20 people than in the huge ballroom of 200 people of my childhood. I think. Maybe I think wrongly.

Outside the City Hall, the bride tossed her bouquet and hit me squarely in my right shoulder. I wasn't paying attention and I flinched and the bouquet fell to the ground. Peter said that he had never seen that reaction before. Thus the bride had to throw her bouquet again, and this time, I didn't get it. Whew.

Not that I don't want to get married mind you. Seeing the people around me getting married and having children these past few years has made me realize my own mortality. My cousin once confessed that he didn't think that I was quite human. Dear cousin is quite wrong. I feel too. Tired, happy, sad, alive.