I'll try anything three times

I.Love.This:

www.yearof52adventures.wordpress.com

Campaign to undergo 52 adventures in one year (one per week).

Game on!

Now that I've met you, would you object to, never seeing eachother again?

I think we should all sing in union. Always.

Meaning, as found by Myndi

An old friend Myndi posted this on her blog and I couldn't help but pay homage to it here:

Advent Calendar of Christmasy Activities

Everything is just so lovely.

Forgive Me Lover, For I Have Loved You Wrong

When in search of all things lovely, please, do defer to these two:

See the cat? See the cradle?

Solitutde: A Sweet Absence of Looks

Depression, when it’s clinical, is not a metaphor. It runs in families, and it’s known to respond to medication and to counseling. However truly you believe there’s a sickness to existence that can never be cured, if you’re depressed you will sooner or later surrender and say: I just don’t want to feel bad anymore. The shift from depressive realism to tragic realism, from being immobilized by darkness to being sustained by it, thus strangely seems to require believing in the possibility of a cure.
-Jonathan Frazen

I'm still listening to hear where you are.
And certain these words are fleeting and unseen.

Today is a day to discuss with few. I can't concentrate. I can't sustain the hope so oft found in these entries. I'll likely delete this with humility, but for now I wish there was just one respondant with some understanding.

"You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange."

The subject heading seems a shame, as that's typically how I vet my dates. There's nothing better than to talk for hours about things you might sooner forget but seem so important in the moment of the telling. To get excited and ramble and drone and trail and offer up dangling modifiers and find common interests in a mutual disdain of cheese.

Then, somehow someone references a typewriter and you swell with swell pride and talk and talk and talk about how you love the jankety old things and you can't defend yourself, but don't need to because he's been smiling the whole time and just encourages your diatribe and yes. slow. That was a lovely night.

I imagine my grandparents had a similar conversation. And walked arm in arm past one of these:


I want to go to there.

I want for everything that I've already had. It doesn't seem fair, that I'm without, and lonely and longing. But, to be fair I have known wild romance. I've had epic romance, so it only seems right that I sit these plays out. It doesn't soften the blow. It just makes it more justifiable.

I am always enamoured of Robert Penn Warren, specifically his nod to the power of a woman's smile. But, because we're flirting with Milan Kundera (see: subject heading) today, let's focus on additional savory senses.

"We all need someone to look at us. we can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under. the first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public. the second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. they are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. they are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives. this happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. people in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need. then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. one day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark. and finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. they are the dreamers."
— Milan Kundera

I, too, want to go to there.

Your del.icio.us tag cloud could be mistaken for a come on

I owe more words, but for now let's revel in the beauty of Kevin Brown's:

Diagramming Won’t Help This Situation

by Kevin Brown

Grammatical rules have always baffled
me, leaving me wondering whether my
life is transitive or intransitive, if I am the
subject or object of my life, and no one
has been able to provide words to describe
my actions, even if they do end in –ly.

But now the problem seems to be with
pronouns: I am unwilling to be him
and you are unable to be her, so we
will never be them~the ones talking
about what they need from the grocery

store because the Rogers are coming for
dinner tonight; the couple saving for a
vacation, perhaps a cruise to Alaska or a
museum tour of Europe; the two who meet
with a financial advisor to plan their children's

college fund while still managing to set enough
aside for their retirement~and so we will
continue to be nothing more than sentence
fragments, perfectly fine for effect,
but forever looking for the missing
part of speech we can never seem to find.

"Diagramming Won't Help This Situation" by Kevin Brown, from Exit Lines. © PlainView Press, 2009.

When There's Nothing Left To Burn...

...you have to set yourself on fire.

What We Talk About, When We Talk About Love

I thought this was so perfect. Just perfect.


Not To Trouble You

by Leonard Nathan

Not to trouble you with love, I mean
those adolescent dreams of great, of greater,
or of greatest loving, let alone
the crumbly personal kind—compared with, say,
the public good or harder thoughts of death
obliterating thoughts of love, or after-
thoughts of love outgrown or love undone;
and not to be ironic either, not
to forget we come into the world alone
and leave it so; and not to be claiming more
than you can give, uncertain as I am
what I require: something like love, I guess,
whatever it is we've done without so long,
so faithfully and with such tenderness.

And these, compliments Graham Greene to Vivienne Dayrell-Browning, as he courted her in over 1,200 letters, poems and conversions to Catholicism:

"Darling, it's wonderful when the person one loves most in the world encourages one in what one loves next best (even though far less). … I've never met so complete a companion as you. Those winter evenings you describe seem to me the only thing worth having. It's companionship with you that I want & just that sort of companionship …

"And the whole thing would be an adventure finer than ordinary marriage, because it would be two, not merely fighting for each other, but for a shared idea. Darling, it sounds fantastic, but the fantastic is often wildly practical, as when Columbus put out from Spain. And I remember you wrote once that you did love me, though it wasn't in a way I understood, but, darling, it's a way I do understand, & it's the final because there's no reason why it should ever end, which is very different to the other. I wish to God (& I mean that literally) that this dream could come true."

Oh god it's wonderful/ to get out of bed/ and drink too much coffee/ and smoke too many cigarettes/ and love you so much/

I was writ large, like a queen or a saint

Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - (song is Please don't go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

And I think in the end this was the question
that destroyed Agamemnon, there on the beach,
the Greek ships at the ready, the sea
invisible beyond the serene harbor, the future
lethal, unstable: he was a fool, thinking
it could be controlled. He should have said
I have nothing, I am at your mercy.

By the Hammer of Thor

The craziest frickin’ day of your life.
Imagine that.

The craziest. Frickin’ day. Of your life.

That commands attention. That warrants worry. Or, in the very least, at least in the case of a d. Graham Kostic and I, it propels you to shell out $40 for a 5K Warrior Dash, replete with mad cap obstacles (see: chemical maze, the hell fires of Armageddon, jankety old car lot, and post-apocalyptic Magic Kingdom Main Street mayhem).

So Graham and I arrive with our matching race shirts. Graham provided the inspiration and initial design template. I botched said design, went rogue, and created these gems (keeping in line with the catch phrase theme, ‘IN IT 2 WIN IT’).

Graham and I weren’t so much IN IT 2 WIN IT as we were in it to have our photographs taken. With each photograph we aspired to become the face of the website. It’s just good math. We are in matching t’s. We are SUPER amiable to all the surrounding runners (save the times Graham would try to raise my mildly competitive spirits by pointing to a runner nearby and loudly asserting ‘We’ll definitely beat HER’). We were the Warrior Dash pep squad, so it stands to reason that the hour plus 5 k’ers that kept pace with us would appreciate our efforts to raise Warrior morale. They respected our need for interval theatrics.

And that’s just the first lap.

Here’s a sampling of what followed:
I almost lost Graham to the chemical maze. Barrels of chemicals EVERYWHERE. And some had spilt. TWIST!

I had a hell of a time trying to climb the never ending series of mounds. If I had vertigo it would have set in because that was an endless vortex of loops.

The suspended wooden planks were no more than 1 foot wide! With my big monster feet I had to gingerly tip toe across the planks. The crowds behind us were wild. Graham seemed to have no trouble. He took it slow to placate me. He’s a dear friend.

There were rusted out cars. A whole field of them! We were expected to hurdle them. And we did. We also sat in the back of a bus for good measure. And shade.

And wouldn’t you know, but positioned right before the façade of a super cute town lay a long, deep pit of murky water. We were nervous, and far from prepared, but we counted down and ran through. There was some back splash and I found it particularly adorable when Graham asked, post-murk, “Am I dirty?” The best being a Warrior, who had long usurped us in ranking, returned to the murky water obstacle to reclaim a shoe he lost. And he found it. What a hunter! He also found a bonus box of rusted nails. In the murky water. Where people oft loose their shoes. Oh Monster Mash!

Move on to the hell fires. Graham and I were certain it was all for show. Like a warm Disney production, but were we ever fooled. Those coals were piping hot and we were expected to leap over thick, hot flames. Oh doctor… Thankfully I have freakishly long legs and Graham is very limber. We moved forward without sustaining burns of any form.

And on to the mud pit and the grand finale. It looked harmless. I could not deduce why everyone was crawling when they could just as easily walk across it. I put on a great big smirk and cased all the goons we’d soon pass as we approached the mud pit, but were my cheeks ever red! There was barbed wire near the base of the pit and we HAD to crawl under it. Graham went belly first, like a true warrior, whereas I tip-toed around and tried to stay as mud-free as possible. I finally conceded and ate dirt.

We moved forward, hand-in-hand to the roar of the crowd screaming “IN IT TO WIN IT”.

And I guess we did. Just that.

Beauty is 10, 9 of which is dressing.

Beauty
by Tony Hoagland


When the medication she was taking
caused tiny vessels in her face to break,
leaving faint but permanent blue stitches in her cheeks,
my sister said she knew she would
never be beautiful again.

After all those years
of watching her reflection in the mirror,
sucking in her stomach and standing straight,
she said it was a relief,
being done with beauty,

but I could see her pause inside that moment
as the knowledge spread across her face
with a fine distress, sucking
the peach out of her lips,
making her cute nose seem, for the first time,
a little knobby.

I’m probably the only one in the whole world
who actually remembers the year in high school
she perfected the art
of being a dumb blond,

spending recess on the breezeway by the physics lab,
tossing her hair and laughing that canary trill
which was her specialty,

while some football player named Johnny
with a pained expression in his eyes
wrapped his thick finger over and over again
in the bedspring of one of those pale curls.

Or how she spent the next decade of her life
auditioning a series of tall men,
looking for just one with the kind
of attention span she could count on.

Then one day her time of prettiness
was over, done, finito,
and all those other beautiful women
in the magazines and on the streets
just kept on being beautiful
everywhere you looked,

walking in that kind of elegant, disinterested trance
in which you sense they always seem to have one hand
touching the secret place
that keeps their beauty safe,
inhaling and exhaling the perfume of it—

It was spring. Season when the young
buttercups and daisies climb up on the
mulched bodies of their forebears
to wave their flags in the parade.

My sister just stood still for thirty seconds,
amazed by what was happening,
then shrugged and tossed her shaggy head
as if she was throwing something out,

something she had carried a long ways,
but had no use for anymore,
now that it had no use for her.
That, too, was beautiful.

So Said Siddartha..

..."I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins"

And in moments that compel clarity, so says Keith:

me: well I want you to take care of yourself
that's a mandate
oh Keith
the same refrain
I just want my life to have meaning
I feel like I'm just ambling about
keith: yeah I am there right now too Hula
me: what do you do, love?
keith: I mean i know how you feel
I think i have to find meaning in something above work, school and just enjoyment
keith: We need to find what has meaning first you know
I think that is most difficult

me: so true
so, to make it less cumbersome
let's approach it like it's a mission
or journey
or something
I like the idea of slaying dragons in pursuit of greater truth
what do you say?
keith: that sounds true to me. So when you have an idea how to attack this dragon bounce it off of me please
me: yeah. I could disspell certain wisdom
:)

Like a velvet glove cast in iron

With Michele getting married everyone in the Hula/Sweiss household is in a seasoned flurry of activity. With well over a year remaining.

No matter. It's fun to plan and implement and play with color schemes and select menu items. I may be even more excited than my sister.

That said, it has called into question my own ideal wedding. It can be a great many things. It may never happen. It might happen a many 8 times. All things considered, I'm bound to change my mind to tailor the wants of some man, if ever I should meet a man who can keep pace. That said, that said, that said, one wedding'ed aspect remains a constant. The dress.

I'd flash a picture here now, but that's really playing in to gender ideologies and makes me look a fool. Instead, I'll do you one better. My dress, my beautiful dress of all dresses was made in miniature size to fit a freaky Vikor & Rolf doll. And, as I like all things small, it seemed so fitting.

Look below for the white, satin gown with a very prominent "I Love You" embroidered across it. Isn't she just lovely??

Call people rich when they are able to meet the requirements of their imaginations...

"The real offense, as she ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of her own at all. Her mind was to be his--attached to his own like a small garden-plot to a deer-park." - Henry James

But what of this worthy proponent?:



What are we unshackled? Where would we go if given the gift of uncensored fearlessness?

I would canyon. I don't know why base jumping or being propelled, or defying the natural order of gravity is so alluring. Maybe it's a nod to the many stations I've arrived at safely. Guarded arrivals make no news. Who googles traffic-less bus routes? I want to be the woman you photograph doing all the things you would if only you could. I want to be fearless and fun and free. Which begs the question; do our adventures remodel us? Can I morph into a less rigid, better-made woman if I simply jump from one base to the next? And if so, why must danger be our only recourse?

No one ever lies about being lonely

moments I once knew

Michele Getting Married, and Other Tales

was introduced to The Love Project, by random post after became obsessed and post-anxious with an NPR challenge that asked listener's to cite words that would withstand the test of time.

I wrote of love. Most notably, Robert Penn Warren's ostensible preoccupation with a women's laugh as written in All The Kings Men.

That got me to thinking; where are we going? where have we been?

I don't want to lose sight of the romantic. The happy adages of old.

I think this video perfectly addresses both sides of the coin.



Everything really is so beautiful.

Women seem wicked when you're alone

"Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go someplace where you don't know a soul? Sometimes I feel like doing that. I really really want to do it sometimes. So, like, say you whisked me away somewhere far far away. I'd make a pile of babies for you as tough as little bulls. And we'd all live happily ever after, rolling on the floor."

NPR challenged me to quote written words that will transcend the test of time. It was the anniversary of the publication of the Bard's sonnets. They may have been printed against his will. All those lovely words that no writer will ever trump being force published. How could he not have known the onslaught effect of his creation? How can anything so lovely go against will?

California is a binary mess. The people cry foul. The people cry fair. The former assert that their rights and liberties have been pulled out from beneath them. When finally they had set the table in storms Proposition 8 - a hefty drunk of an abusive father who pounds his fists in some Right Wing Papa's Waltz. So we can keep our marriages? What of our friends and neighbors? What's to come of a community so ruthlessly divided?

And queue our second camp, the latter. They assert, with straight posture and forefarthered wisdom that we haven't any right to disrupt the will of the people.

The Will. Of the People.

See here's where things get hazy for me. What have these people willed my one-day offspring? Hatred and intolerance? Yes it's true. The people of California decided, as an entity to outlaw Gay Marriage. But it's also true that not all people voted in favor of Proposition 8. Since when has the word of the majority been a testament to truth? Can we recall the Catholic Crusades? One religion is obviously not all religions. Bloody Mary would get no further than North Korea, when once her words dictated the will of the people. More Hutus than Tutsi's lobbed machettes in the Rwandan Genocide. That was the will of the Hutu. The Holocaust, the Japanese Internment Camps, The Red Scare, EVERY WAR WE HAVE EVER HAD.

In effort to amass a crowd there has to be some will.
But there will always be some dissent.

So we may have will. And we may be mighty in number, but who is to say what is right and wrong?

If there was a Prop to overturn Suffrage or Abolition movements would we say it's just because Right Wing eccentrics have powers of persuasion?

When do we remove ourselves from the principles of voting booths and ballot numbers and ask the simple question: does this REALLY seem fair to you?

People are people are people.
For the Mormon's who glided on the Prop 8 parade float let me ask you this: Don't you think your God, (he/she/it) would be reduced to tears, totally crippled in happiness, to see his/her/it's creation full of so much beautiful love? Be it man and woman, woman and woman, man and man and every gendered identity in between? Isn't that the grand design? Aren't we here to do well and love? Love and honor? So what is love with hate and biggotry and restriction?

I don't subscribe to your God, proponents of Proposition 8. Instead, I subscribe to our forefather's notion of a just and verdant life. We have taken strides to balance and grow. I think it time that you reassess the meaning of will, as either a forthcoming offering or a conviction and recognize that the two relay a stronger message than a book or vote.

And that's on you.

My Korean Care Package

Compliments Keith:

The sky was as blue as the ribbon on a prize winning lamb...

things I like that I'd sooner share with you:

They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem...

Oh those sister's of mercy. They are my favorite Valentine sentiment.

Today is the birthday of Toni Morrison. A little information on Toni Morrison, if you weren't otherwise informed:
born in Lorain, Ohio (1931). She started writing when she was in her thirties, unhappily married, working as an editor, and raising two children. She said, "It was as though I had nothing left but my imagination. I wrote like someone with a dirty habit. Secretly. Compulsively. Slyly." She went on to write nine novels, including The Bluest Eye (1969), Song of Solomon (1977), Beloved (1987), and in 2008, A Mercy. In 1993, she won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

We're (the collective unit of Kim & Jason) celebrating the birthday of my dear friend Helen vilner this coming weekend. As Helen's birthday is on Sunday, and Helen is spoken for on Sunday, I suggested we reign in festivities on a Friday instead at some nicer than not restaurant in the city center. Helen, lovely Russian princess that she is, refuses a gathering in honor of her birthday as it's a superstition and bad luck in Russia to celebrate one's birthday before one's birthday. So we compromised on referring to it as "Give Helen a Gift Day", but my curiosity was peeked. What other quirky superstitions does Helen uphold? Below, please find a few:

* When giving an animal as a gift (a cat, dog, bird, etc), the receiver should give the giver a symbolic sum of money, for example one Russian ruble.

* A purse (or any other money holder) as a gift requires a little money inside. Given empty it causes bad financial luck.

* A funeral procession brings good luck. But one should never cross its path or it is bad luck.

* A woman with empty water buckets coming towards you is considered a bad omen.

* A group of two or more people should not walk on either side of a tree. They should all keep to one side or the other.

* Bread should only be cut with a knife, not with your hands. Otherwise, it is said, that your life will be broken. The opposite is held true by some people.

* Two or more people should never use one towel at the same time to dry their hands or bodies, or it is said to bring conflict.



On the campaign trail I encountered even more. For a spell, I was the default driver. Odd, as I hate to drive and defer to someone, anyone else whenever possible. However, after being dispatched on a few multi-mile errands in my first few weeks of employment I found that I could milk the system. Milk for days. The reimbursement rate for my troubles was worth much more than the jacked economy's acquiesced discounted gas and oil. Celebrate! So I oft drove, and in so doing, my pal, the lovely Katie Kelly, could be found performing dedicated rituals that warranted question and stare. We would be driving, and as if without prompt she would diligently and hurridly kiss her palm, touch the car ceiling and lower her hand. Or she would pound two fists on a dashboard. I asked after a few, at first; most noteably what to do when I encountered a driver with one headlight. There even seemed some superstitious ritual to be performed when approaching a driver without lights, in the dark night. To that I prefer to flash my brights. I think I have a heavy hand over superstition in that regard.

Hearing tale of presumed beliefs, having, myself, lived with ghosts, I aim to further research. I'm in possession of a book of folklore or regionally specific rural and urban myths, "The Vanishing Hitchhiker". Let's get me to certain crazy, paranoid, suspicious and convinced in a matter of 200 pages. The countdown starts........ now.