Beauty is the the Eye of the Beholder

I am doing a Photo-of-the-Day project that I started mid-May. Some days, I’m lazy, and just snap a shot to be sure I have something.  Other days, I look for something artful.  Today, I was driving home and I noticed the rays of the sun absolutely bleeding down between the clouds.  It was almost supernatural.  I pulled into the first parking lot I found and pulled out my camera, thinking I found a prize.  When I looked at the playback of the picture, the rays weren’t visible at all; just a plain old sky.  I’ve come across this frustration a lot – as an artist, a writer, and as an actress.

The world around us is a fantastic and wonderful place.  Every day is different, and no person can be completely recreated.  The things that we see and original in every sense, and sometimes, even humans, the top-of-the-food-chain-we-are-powerful-hear-us-roar, we can’t reproduce that.

I hope that I never find the day when I’ve forgotten the sound of children’s laughter, the smell of springtime, the taste of strawberries, the feel of an autumn wind, and the sight of a sunset.  There are some things in the world that cannot be replaced, recreated, or forgotten.

Apologies, Friends…

First and foremost, I want to apologise.

Why?  Well, to start, I changed the layout again.  I’m trying to find something I’m comfortable with.  This is a step up (for me) from the last layout.  On the bright side, it doesn’t require a home page!

Second reason for the apology?  These blog entries lately have been brief and dull.  I’ll work on it.  I went to see Knight and Day today, maybe I will post on that a little tomorrow.

Now?  Now I am going to go test WiiFit Plus.  It is the closest emblance of exercise I have, and I’ve been sitting on my butt all day.  More tomorrow. … I promise.

In way of apology, I have posted a cute kitty to distract you in this entry.  Her name is Ginger, and she loves the camera.

Terror Tuesday

Every once in a rare while I come across a day that depresses me to the core.  One of the days that makes me feel like I’d rather be burrowed inside myself in a small, safe room with only one window looking out into a forest with no human contact.  These are days that – despite their glimpses of humanity – so rotten to the core that flakes have fallen off my soul and disintegrating into the past.

Today was one such day.

On days like these, I will be too lazy/depressed to bother with any sort of formatting.  Inspirational quotations seem mocking and therefore I will not post them.  Photos are too cheerful, and will not compliment any posts.

But yet, despite all these offsets, I will often still write, because it is my natural inclination to pour my soul on a page and to let the ink (or, in this case, pixels) seep into the pure whiteness and taint it.  What I do write will be full of images, but a tad overdramatic.  My censors fall down because I am in a state of not caring.  Sometimes, on these days, I will write about the reasons of my unhappiness.  Other times I will simply write about the feeling of depression.  I often feel like my emotions are either unwarranted or else will not be understood by anyone else, and therefore I will be looked down upon to share their source.

In brief, I have dubbed today “Terror Tuesday” due to the collection of mishaps and frustrations that have tumbled into my lap one right after the other.  For the flood of tears I have held back between the gray walls in my irises.  One snowflake is not alarming, but when many snowflakes fall all at once from the sky and trample the world, they are a blizzard, and everyone fears.  In the same way, a small hurt, a single frustration, can be healed with a small matter of time.  But when these things come in hoards, fighting and slashing until a human looks more like a pile of dog chow, then a small amount of self-pity is warranted, as long as it doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s lives, which I have strived today to be sure of.  But in is 10:30pm, and this is the end of Terror Tuesday.

Tomorrow, I pray, will have signs of improvement.

Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee.

“A friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself.” ~ Jim Morrison.

Quick stylistic note:  I am going to try now to separate my “Photo of the Day” from a normal blog entry.  Just because I like to have relevant photos, I think, to the blog posts.  As awesome as the picture with my brother organising cards was, it wasn’t very relevant to cooking-baking.

Anyways.  Since the title of this blog entry (“Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee”) seems a bit peculiar and definitely flat out of a musical, I feel the need to justify it.  Yes, I know, one of Gibbs’ rules is “never explain yourself” but I’m going to anyway.  After all, Gibbs is unfortunately, in the end, just a fictional character.

The song in the musical makes pretty clear that Sandy, the main character is a Goody Two Shoes and that the other girls (or, at least, Rizzo) think she’s a little snobbish and “too clean”.  What’s sad?  If you look through the lyrics, the things that are mentioned are:  smoking, drinking, having sex/sleeping around, and swearing.  Rizzo disapproves of Sandy not doing these things.  First:  what a terrible image to send to youth!  Second, I’m pretty much like that.

I’m not going to lie, I’ve had my indescretions, but in general?  I don’t smoke, and the smell of tobacco smoke and marijuana smoke, et cetera makes me feel ill.  I don’t drink because 1.) I don’t like any alcohol I’ve ever tasted; 2.) the smell makes me nauseated; and 3.) I cannot in any way, shape, or form justify drinking.  I’m really bad about that, and as a college student, that pretty much screws me over.  I will tolerate drinking, I will be your designated driver, and I will cut you off, but being around people drinking just isn’t fun from me and I feel peer pressured- general, all-around unhappy.  I hate drinking, period.  I can keep going, but do I have to?

It definitely makes me look like a snob, and no fun (though every once and a while someone tells me I’m a lot of fun, and I just don’t understand).  Many of the people my age require a tolerance (and prefer an interest) in one of those four activities, and since I’m not keenly interested in any of them, I kind of shy away from people.  Why be friends with people who do things that you don’t like?  In the end, it’s akin to making friends with a bunch of people on the robotics team, even though you hate things like engineering and problem solving.  Only they’re more controversial topics, so people get more offended when you disapprove of drinking, smoking, swearing, and sleeping around.

I’m not trying to sound preachy.  I think it may sound that way, but I’m not trying to be.  I’m just exploring the reasons why I have difficulty making friends, and why the people I have made friends with (and want to see outside of their environments) as of late are four, six y ears younger than me.  A lot of them have the same values in these areas that I do.  Some of them, granted, I like and all, but I can never completely and thoroughly trust because I know they drink and smoke, and I don’t know why, that just bars me from respecting them fully (unfair to them, I know).  Most of the people I’ve been trying to befriend are like me, but if nothing else, they’re underage, and can’t legally be doing any of the things that worry me.  Unfortunately, my age worries a lot of their parents and I understand that and I curse my generation (or, you know, just plain old college students) for creating a reputation of uncleanliness, illegal activity, and general mayhem.

This is why at first, I missed Houghton.  It was a dry campus, it was mostly safe.  Of course, I was more naive then, and now I know that there are parties there same as any other college.  I’m just looking for a safe place with safe friends, and when I don’t see someone that fits my needs, I bar myself in and let myself be anti-social.  One of the many reasons I am anti-social, at any rate.

It’s Ashley’s birthday today and hopefully it will be good.  I had a lot of fun the last time I saw these girls, the ones I went to high school (middle school, in Caitlyn’s case!) with.  We’ll see what today holds.  I have no plans, just cake.

The End of a Very Long Day.

May 14, 2010; Chesterfield, NH: Tiny white flowers near the foot of my stairs. Taken at about 8:30pm, just after sunset.

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No update today. Just the photo. Will update better tomorrow.  It’s been a long day of driving and sorting, emotionally trying, and I have a long day of work ahead of me.