I'm listening to: Taking Back Sunday - You're So Last Summer

I feel like my favourite geek (pre-mid-season-three) sometimes. Unfortunately, as far as I know, nothing around me is such that a genuine comparison is warranted, and nobody has the same compelling motivations for that kind of behavior (or lack thereof). Very unfortunately. So I'll just have to settle for the most ordinary reasons which are, perhaps, not even that common. But a very timely bit of food for thought: what seems so undeniably clear cut might not actually be giving the right idea about what's going on. It's a little like Gettier's problem. 

I just happened to read this a short while ago; an anonymous song reviewer said she assumed that because her ex was so quick to replace her with another girl, she meant nothing to him, but what he did (a constant variable?) turned out to be because of the exact opposite and it's not hard to see how it's just as likely, even though it doesn't make him look so cool. I think the point is that for most of what we 'know', we really only think we know. And of course it isn't good enough to make every kind of judgment we often make, not just to avoid being unfair to the other party, but simply because it's quite pointless given the mediocre sort of information and processing capabilities we have to settle for. To put it another way, it's logically meaningless, though ironically so, since it depends on the inadequacy of the application of logic. Yeah, so, I'm really not preaching about the principle of charity - or is it the benefit of the doubt? - because they're besides the point. 

You can forget everything I mentioned in the past, I can't really be bothered and I don't think I care anyway. You're an awful waste of my time - so go right ahead and throw yourself out of my brain. YOU are sick.

p.s. I'm sad I lost my retainers. I even dreamt that I found them and I was so disappointed when I woke up. I don't know what the cats did with them but I shouldn't have left them lying around.

You're a touch overrated; 

You're a lush and I hate it, 

But these grass stains on my knees 

They won't mean a thing. 

And all I need to know 

Is that I'm something you'll be missing. 

I'm listening to: Renee Olstead - Midnight at the Oasis

Oboje są przekonani,
że połączyło ich uczucie nagłe.
Piękna jest taka pewność,
ale niepewność jest piękniejsza.
Sądzą, że skoro nie
znali się wcześniej,
nic miedy nimi nigdy się nie działo.
A co na to ulice, schody, korytarze,
na których mogli się od dawna mijać?

Chciałabym ich zapytać,
czy nie pamietają -
może w drzwiach obrotowych
kiedyś twarzą w twarz?
jakieś ,,przepraszam\'\' w ścisku?
głos ,,pomyłka\'\' w słuchawce?
- ale znam ich odpowiedź.
Nie, nie pamietają.

Bardzo by ich zdziwiło,
że od dłuższego już czasu
bawił się nimi przypadek.

Jeszcze nie całkiem gotów
zamienić się dla nich w los,
zbliżał ich i oddalał,
zabiegał im droge
i tłumiąc chichot
odskakiwał w bok.

Były znaki, sygnały,
cóż z tego, że nieczytelne.
Może trzy lata temu
albo w zeszły wtorek
pewien listek przefrunął
z ramienia na ramię?
Było coś zgubionego i podniesionego.
Kto wie, czy już nie piłka
w zaroślach dzieciństwa?

Były klamki i dzwonki,
na których zawczasu
dotyk kladł się na dotyk.
Walizki obok siebie w przechowalni.
Był może pewnej nocy jednakowy sen,
natychmiast po zbudzeniu zamazany.

Każdy przecież początek
to tylko ciąg dalszy,
a księga zdarzeń
zawsze otwarta w połowie.


Miłość od pierwszego wejrzenia
Szymborska Wisława

Not that I understand this original Polish version, but I like it so much because it plays on the infinite possibilities surrounding the concept of intelligent design operating beyond the more apparent natural order of the universe. Thing is, we would never even get a sense of its existence as long as it isn't revealed to us in some way or another, as is more often the case than not, and that means it's always an open possibility. The wonder and beauty associated with intelligent design, coupled with its elusiveness, is what makes it so fascinating. If so, what we don't know is far greater (not quantitatively) than what we do know.

That makes me a happy fatalist. I don't mean to suggest that I subscribe to the commonly assumed sit-around-and-rot kind of fatalism, but that it's a bit of a straw-man argument. Just because you believe in a predetermined course/end doesn't mean you believe in having no part in how it plays out. As far as I'm concerned - with limitations to what I do know - I'll do as much as I am willingly able to do in view of the things I am aware I want. I don't believe in working myself to death; unless it's a matter of life and death. If it sounds like an excuse for slacking off, it might well be my best one, in ready acceptance of the necessarily flawed state of humanity in general.

Which is also why we're always waiting. There's so much out there that defies the bounds of what we're able to grasp and comprehend, but deep down inside I think we do believe in Something Else, somewhere out there.

I'm listening to: Flyleaf - There for You

Swirling shades of blue
Slow dancing in your sky
The sun kisses the earth




I've been watching Chuck and I'm getting to the end of the second season. It's nothing unique to the show and also unavoidable given the plot, but I really dig the overt dramatic irony, particularly in the very complicated relationship between Chuck and Sarah. Because Chuck's the human Intersect (a database of highly important government secrets), Sarah, a CIA agent (together with Casey), is his handler in charge of protecting him mostly from Fulcrum (rogue CIA) agents after the human Intersect. She works undercover at a frozen yoghurt shop near Chuck's Buy More and poses as his fake/cover girlfriend. They both really like each other, as is apparent to many of the other characters in the show, but Sarah can't compromise her cover in view of Chuck's safety. So, while Chuck's made clear his feelings for her, Sarah has to keep (VERY coldly) pushing him away and it secretly hurts her as much as it hurts Chuck, who hasn't a clue and thinks he doesn't stand a chance with her because she's not interested. It becomes a vicious cycle with Chuck unintentionally hurting Sarah's feelings back, from his short involvements with Lou, Jill, etc. The worst part is their having to show the rest of the world everything they want to but can't be. I know, I'm a complete geek.




Just for fun, I'm keeping track of how my new monster bruise changes colour, though I'm not sick enough to want to post visual updates everyday. In fact, over the course of the afternoon/evening, it's transformed from pink to red and finally settled in this dark plummy shade. It's probably the grossest bruise I've ever seen and gotten, but that makes it cool (apparently, my psychological development sometimes reverses and regresses to the level of a little boy's).

Day 1:

All of the time, we don't have perfect knowledge and it's easy to forget that.
Sometimes, doing something's as good as doing nothing. Then, nothing should be done, but this less often the case than assumed.
All of the time, you can't see what's right behind you, but it doesn't mean it isn't right there with you.

Sometimes, what you don't know can hurt you.

All of the time, we're waiting.

Sometimes, the spaces between mean more than the words themselves. It's nice to think so. 

In my defeat, I wish I knew you were safely at home.

I'm listening to: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Soul To Squeeze

I've got a bad disease 
But from my brain is where I bleed.
Insanity it seems,
Has got me by my soul to squeeze.




Where are you now?

Penny and Me
Anna Molly

Boy With a Coin

25 Minutes
Flashdance
Is This It?
Santa Monica

Date With a Night
Lyla
City of Blinding Lights


Hi. It might sound funny, but I'm sick of Nausea. Today we climb into a time capsule and stay there till it suits us just fine. Books open unto the dizzying surrealness of infinity do not actually exist. So, I know your name but that secret's safe with me. Then again, who buries those which in turn nourish the Breathing? I'm sure I've got a paper clip somewhere in the depths of my pocket, if I can find it.

I'm listening to: Queensrÿche - Silent Lucidity

FUCK YOU BITCH.

I'm listening to: Jordan Hill - Remember Me This Way

Say "hello" to the domestic UNgoddess. Bree van der Kamp represents the quintessential domestic goddess to me, and how she does everything looking so impeccably collected, besides the fact that it's television, really escapes me. My weekend, so far, has been so mundanely weird. On Friday, I made cream of (white button) mushroom soup and cleaned the house (read: vacuum, mop, etc.), and I was very happy/relieved to discover that roux can be made with olive oil in place of butter as well. Today (Saturday), I went to grab groceries and made dinner! Pan-fried fillet of herbed fish, creamed spinach and savory buttered rice. I'm quite proud of myself, but I feel like the new domestic help and I've also been eating and watching TV a LOT, that I'd much rather be doing other things. If this keeps up, by the time school starts again I'll have piled on - god only knows - how much weight.

I wonder where I can find the old 1995 Casper movie. I used to own it on videotape and watched it so often as a kid and I REALLY LOVED IT. This is my favourite scene. =) When he takes her arms and puts them around his neck and when she gets scared and clings onto him so tightly and he gives that completely uncreepy but really cute lopsided smile, my heart just melts. =D





"If it wasn't love, it was a lot like it." 
Oliver Martin, A Lot Like Love

I'm listening to: Something Corporate - Punk Rock Princess

Saw you last night
Dance by the light of the moon

Stars in your eyes
Free from the life that you knew


Saw you last night
Stars in the sky
Smiled in my room

I'm listening to: Deerhunter - Agoraphobia

Aaahhh you're so cute. RLY I cookie-cutter-<3 you.

And after some time, I knew I would go blind

But seeing only binds the vision to the eye.

I lose my voice, I know

But I've nothing left to say.

p.s. This song is creepy (read: haunting but emotively and aesthetically beautiful). It induces super deja vu and transports the psyche back into the old school Christopher Pike novels I grew up reading. Not exactly where I want to be; they're, albeit fascinatingly unforgettable, existential nightmares.

I'm listening to: Goo Goo Dolls - Iris

And I'd give up forever to touch you
Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
And sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of the truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive

And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am



I've been listening to Iris for more than half a decade and only really listened to the lyrics just a couple of days ago (very uncharacteristically, given I'm such a sucker for nice lyrics). It brings back a whole flood of memories, and that they've acquired (figuratively) a vaguely musty feel, shows all the more how they're merely reconstructions, since the original experiences could never be that way. There's so much harbored intensity in the temporal, metaphysical peak of human experience as described, because of the stark contrast between being cognizant of these moments and their inevitable transience.

Though I'm completely ruining everything, I just can't help but mention that a premise central to this idea is "everything's made to be broken". It might not be true, like "everything fades". Thanks to Leibniz, I no longer subscribe unconditionally to Heraclitus's everchanging river, but it doesn't make transitions any easier. In this case, especially when you know you're just a tiny bit shy of reaching whatever it is, coupled with the natural predisposition to be more loss-averse than attracted to the prospect of gains, you've basically put yourself in a very small spot. Not what the song has to bother with, though, but unfortunately it's more often than not the case.

An encounter with near-perfection (again perfection is elusive) therefore has to be broadened as a concept to include some fatalistically unavoidable ending and the accompanying barrage of emotions from hell. Even stoic acceptance doesn't preclude a general sense of pity/sadness for the sweeping evanescence of each distinct, possibly discrete state, that so acutely outlines the human condition. Is there a solution? Probably not. Can anything be done? Take more photos, collect more souvenirs; keepsakes that help your overworked and grossly incommensurate memory out. Above all, a consistently lucid awareness of impending closure is probably indispensable, for obvious reasons.

Reason and emotion quite apparently don't always cooperate, much less agree with each other. Ephemeralness and the idea of infinite change plagues the mind and its highly constrained ability to conceive quantitatively. Yet there is beauty in a passing moment, like a flower at the height of its bloom, that has the capacity to permanently affect subsequent states. Less tangible than pinning it down, but it's for keeps just the same.

If you've found It, don't let it go.