Imaginary Scenarios

A song I forgot the title of once gave me the best two lines in a stanza I've ever heard in my life:

"The best moments of my life
I think I saw them on TV."

And for the first time in my life I knew what restlessness was. The rage fuel inside of your gut: the winds moving and the volcanoes erupting inside. The urge to move mountains and run through rivers and seize some unattainable feeling of euphoria.

And then the restlessness died away with a fizzle and silence after a friend pointed out it's our fault for not going out and doing things.

I knew I wouldn't do much, so I couldn't mind much anymore.

But today I realized something: I am a person with a huge amount of potential. Beyond what I've said before. I have the potential of being someone's wife someday.

I can be the emotional support/co-op partner in crime to another human being. They Bonney to someone else's Clyde.

Beyond any other amazing idea that's crossed my mind--from traveling time to patenting clothing to renovating housed to make them look authentically abandoned--this is the most incredible. The chance to touch and be touched.

The chance to do something beyond all understanding.

If we're all capable of loving and being loved, who's to say we aren't capable of living and being lived.

For once I understood Belle.

Drink up the fountain of life!

Try and say "yes", before life passes you by.

Change Life

They say one should always be careful when planning a career.

And after all, the future is an uncertain mess made of decisions, possibilities  and the finite human existence.

Then why do we plan?

The answer's pretty simple: for most of us, it's because we're expected to. A lot of us find it's a way to give meaning to existence. I think everyone does it for food to some extent.

But above all, I think it comes down to boredom.

Human society itself--every great creation you've ever seen or heard or loved--comes down to boredom.

Keeping this in mind, surprisingly, makes a lot of decisions easier for me to make. People are bored and devised a system where you have to do things in order to eat, so why not do the things you love if you can?

Why not take a chance and do something you actually enjoy, even if it's not to gain those little bits of paper we trade around for goods and services, and see where it takes you?
This life is an amazingly short one, and you're only going to live it greatly if you roll with it.

Grow.

Explore.
Have fun with yourself!

And whatever you do, don't be afraid to try again when you mess up.

A professor of mine always begins his lectures and tips for art making with the phrase "We don't make mistakes, but if you want to change something. . ."

It's fitting for life, too.

Go change something.

With Love
Nick Strange

What does it smell like?

I decided to do a nice thing for my older sister and clean the house today.
That included mopping:
Mostly water, and some "Fabuloso!" my mother always uses was called for.

As soon as I opened up that tiny bottle of cleaner, I was bombarded with the smell.

Amused with my initial response (I don't think it was a positive one), I imagined myself answering the question "What does it smell like?" to a first-time buyer (she was blonde in my mind, with an oompa loompa tan and overly big sunglasses, but a genuinely friendly smile. I was a worker).

My first though was "Cheap house": It smells like a place we're all programed to want to get out of: a city born 30 minutes on the wrong end of the fence.
Like humble families and lots of children.
It smells of ice cream, and children laughing. Of sun bathed afternoons and bare feet. Yellow shorts and spaghetti tops and bubbles.
It smells like potholes and poor neighborhoods.
It smells like mother's hard work, and like the cement floors she's make sparkle as a child.
It smells like father's work and tired naps after hours of labor.
It smells like washed out things.
It smelt of home, ironically. Despite the fact I'm somewhat detached from it--from all the poor things.
Yet I am still poor. I probably always will be--
No, I doubt it. But my house will always smell of poor things.
And that makes it all the richer.