I'm still suffering larp-lag, and basking in the residual glow of a weekend freely spent. Perhaps larping is the most freely that one can spend three whole days, at least while in a social setting.

I'm beginning to fall in love with Sidereus, and after a weekend of playing, I notice that I'm a little bit in love with myself, too. Not in a pig-headed egotistical way, but in the way where you suddenly look at the world and realize that you can conquor any obstacle that you choose, and where you are suddenly much more aware of how much choice you really encounter, each day, and of how much courage you actually possess. I leave Sidereus on a Sunday evening, and all I feel is a smile that won't quite give up, and that hearty, happy feeling in your chest that comes from laughing long and hard. I am convinced that those two feelings are the essence of happiness.

And they don't quite fade away as fast as the rest of the world is wont to do. Sometimes it will be days later, and I'll suddenly catch myself ringing out a little laugh, and I'll realise that a little bit of happiness just slipped by and escaped into the real world around me.

You see, larping isn't about playing war and whacking other people with foam weapons - don't get me wrong, that is absolutely part of the fun, but that isn't the essence of the game. It's not what we come for. We go away for the weekend and create this character who is everything that we wish we could be - sometimes it's the purest saint, sometimes the mischievous thief, sometimes the brute hero or the resourceful surgeon. And then we try to tap into that character's psyche, creating him or her from our own selves. By the end of the weekend, your actions are true to that of your creation, or at least closer than they were when you started. But being somebody else is like being a child again. You suspend your disbelief, you embrace the game or the battle or the goal, and you give it your all in the most creative way possible. You learn to behave courageously, and you trust in your friends to save your ass if you aren't strong enough. You drop your guard for once. Completely. And you just live. life. to the fullest.

In explaining to others the idea of Live Action Role Playing, I've often exclaimed that it's like being a kid again, blissfully and shamelessly, and this is true. But I've also said that you get to go away and be someone else for an entire weekend. I'm beginning to understand that this is false... you get to go away and be completely yourself for an entire weekend. And I wouldn't trade that, or the other selves I've had the privilege of playing alongside, for anything.

Thanks for making the fantasy real. <3
 

location: my bed, my room, providence, ri mood: rejuvenated music: Art of Conflict - VNV Nation

Moments so dear

How do you measure a year ?

In daylights in sunsets in midnights in cups of coffee in inches in miles in laughter in strife

How do you measure a year in the life?

How about love?

Journeys to plan

How do you measure the life of a woman or a man

In truths that she learned in times that he cried

In the bridges he burned or the way that she died

It’s time now to sing out though the story never ends

Lets celebrate remember a year in the life of friends

Remember the love

Love is a gift from up above

Measure your life in love

Seasons of love

So here we are again.  We’ve reached that point of the year where we imagine the slate wiped clean; that annual opportunity to become better.  Sure, we could choose any day at all to start over: a birthday; an important day, or just the moment that the desire hits.  But tradition says that it all starts today.  And who are we to change the way things have always been? 

Oh irony of ironies, who are we to change the clean slate tradition of New Years Eve?  Complete with resolutions which we plan on breaking, although some may not realize it concretely. 

So everybody put your best suit or dress on

Make believe that we are working for just this once

Lighting firecrackers off on the front porch

As thirty dialogues bleed into one

Lets see… my past resolutions have included being nicer to my siblings, doing better in school, doing all of my homework, not kissing people I didn’t care about, and numerous other piddley little things that were so frivolous and improbable that they hardly deserve mention.  These all fell through… a couple I held out on, but not so much because I resolved it on New Years Eve as because it’s the better way to do things.  Some just fell hard and fast.  Splat. 

This year I’m making them small, simple, and worthwhile.  And I acknowledge now that they’ll take some getting used to, because lets face it, once you break that fleighty little new years resolution, you usually call it quits.  Instant failure.  It’s weird.  So I’m picking a couple battles to fight, here and now.

This year I will:

                Finish a story.

                Treat my life as I treat work- efficiently, actively, with less procrastination.         

                Start the freakin’ PTT.   Officially.

                Try my best to follow through.

There are other things that I’d like to promise to myself and others, but I think that if I stick to this list, I have a chance of growing into those things which I declined to write, here.  Here’s to the proverbial clean slate, kids!

Happy New Year!!!

Bonne Année à Tous!

Holy Cow, I’m ringing in the new year in Paris, France.  How perfect.  How appropriate.  I hope it changes me.  I hope it affects me.


p.s.
I wrote this new years eve afternoon... there's a lot that I've written since that I feel should be posted here, but it's not typed, so it'll have to wait until I really have time and the desire to cram it into a computer.  a+!

I'm working 38 hours again, this week.  Nothing like being an assistant manager at Christmas.  I love my job (most of the time) but with the disgusting amount that's taken from me in taxes, I rather wish I were back at Matt's Farm and Garden, where I may not have had the title, but at least I could be proud to be doing the work of a manager, a salesperson, and everything in between, and it showed in the cash I got back at the end of the week.  Honestly, I don't really know if this is worth it, anymore.   I mean, I don't even agree with where my money is going.  I guess this is the part where I have no right to complain, because it's my responsibility to act.  But lets face it- we are forced to pick our battles, and, when we do, are we likely to choose the infinate war of reformation, or the fight to pass a few classes, keep the store running, finally get the oil changed, squeeze in the important things (friends, family, france, alliteration), make it to the bank on time, and pay back the movie rental place for the 3 movies our ex-boyfriend pretends to have returned a year and a half ago?  I guess that this is where corruption wins.  When masses of people fight and lose against our own power, and lose, it doesn't really leave much hope for change.

And here I thought I was about to complain about the class i opted to fail, last week.  Guess nothing is that simple when you're a poisson.  We have a habit of digressing.

I'm officially beyond fed up with the radio.  There's no longer any sort of boundry between the pop stations, the rock stations, the alternative stations, or even the college stations (with a few exceptions.)  Everything overlaps.  Chrismas music is on every station, and has been since before Thanksgiving- a blasphemy in more ways than one.  And honestly, it wouldn't irritate me so much if a) Every song didn't happen to be a cover of a song everyone's known since birth or b) I'd heard one single song by Stevie Wonder.  So in a desperate attempt to escape the madness, I find that I've been listening to country stations for a solid month.  I can't decide if that makes me desperate or open-minded, but I plan on listening to it until I get my fill or a cd player in my van.  The latter will most likely never happen.  (I think her system would reject it.  I think I'm part of her system.)

The country songs and a vhs of Harry Chapin (it was sposta be Anne of Green Gables, but Harry came on first and mom and I just couldn't fast forward) teamed up on me and got me to pick up the phone and call someone I haven't spoken to in about a year.  I found out that I need to start stepping out of my comfort zone (hear that, Portia?) and start questioning boundaries if I'm ever to become someone I can admire.  It's the best I can do, considering I was not born an aquarius.

Had some fun adventures lately.  One was meant to take place in beautiful glorius daylight, but the sun went down while we were still in my van.  We became vampires and defied gravity (or at least a few laws and practicality).  We learned a new skill which works best when paired with dorky movies and loud singalongs.  Actually, this was all in two nights, and was pretty much all the adventure I've had the time to have recently.  But I figure it was pretty great anyhow.

My dear friend Bastien has agreed to leave me the keys to his appartment.  This means that I won't have to arrive in Paris with the smallest backpack I can convince myself to carry, or be a total vagabond who doesn't know exactly where she'll be staying; each night.  How lucky can a girl get?  I'll have a place to myself in Paris for nearly two weeks with the small requirement of watering a few plants and feeding a small arsenal of fighting fish every three days.  I'm getting so excited!

I took my art history final, today, and aced it.  I'd missed the last two classes, so I hadn't exactly learned about most of the things that turned out to be on it.  Thanks to some excellent guesswork and a little bit of prior knowledge, however, I can thankfully say that I got an A.  I'm considering sticking around URI for an extra semester so that I can double-major in art history; instead of just minoring in it.  You've gotta do what you love, and all I could think, during that test, as I looked at these brilliant slides of works by Monet; Canova, Pissarro, and LeBrun, all I could think of were the beautiful things that I have had the opportunity to see in my lifetime.  These works are real, to me.  I have seen great things.

This isn't a complaint list  or a brag list.  It's just a snapshot for me to remember by a few years from now.  I was reminded, this morning, that this journal dates back 3 whole years, and when I read all those stories that I'd forgotten, those people who I cared about or still care about or will love forever, I found I hadn't really lost a thing.  And I'd prefer never to lose any of it.  [Hey, Portia, if you're reading this, go read my first entry.  It applies.  I promise.]  In any case, read away, if anyone does, but remember, please, that this one was mainly for me... in fact, they all are, and always were, even if my vain side does appreciate being read.

Happy pre-noel week, kids.

"When someone shows you who they really are, and it isn’t as beautiful as you’d imagined, you need to learn to believe them the first time." I’m sure that this can be found somewhere else in these electronic pages, and the reason for that is simple. This is some of the most important advice I have ever received. Because it is true to me. And what else is advice but a simple, undeniable truth?

 I like to believe that I’m getting better at acknowledging reality. It’s true, I choose to ignore a lot of things- disappear them, if you will. But they’re still there, and they will always come out rearing their ugly heads and snarling, ‘you brought me upon yourself, foolish girl. You saw me in the bushes and still you sat in my garden.’ And I cannot deny that they’re right. I don’t ignore them because I think that they do not exist. I ignore them because I still harbor the belief that if I deny them and pay them no mind, if I show them that I expect better, that they will cease to exist. I ignore the monsters because everyone has them, and because I honestly still believe that they could choose to fight them; that they could become something else; that they could choose to be what they should be.

And I am so sick and so tired of these seemingly incredible people. The ones who I feel are worth trying for. The ones who I choose to turn my head for, because I believe that they want to be what they could be. Why pretend to be something better than you are? Why on earth would anyone choose to present a good front instead of striving to actually be that person I’m so hopeful exists? Why do these people have pieces of what I need; and how can they seem to come so close, and still be missing such crucial elements? Is it so hard to be interesting and fun and to still have integrity? How does anyone expect to find something good if they aren’t willing to be it themselves?

I’m abandoning them so much earlier than I would have, because these battles are so futile and I’m not sure anyone else is willing to fight them. I am no exorcist. I am no sorceress. I cannot purge you of your faults by ignoring them, and believing in your beautiful fronts. You cannot bury them inside of me. I’m not your graveyard and I’m not your dump, and I’m not some magical box that hides your bad so we can pretend that you are good. Don’t come after me because you think I’ll make you better. Be better so that I can let you in.

I’m by no means perfect. I have a million and one faults. You, my friends, know all of them. Mark Twain once said, "A friend is someone who knows everything about you and still likes you". It’s true. You know all the stupid habits I have and the dumb things I do. But I really try to make up for them, and even when I can’t; you still believe I’m good. And I’m really not conceited, but I know and am willing to declare that I deserve something so much better than I can find.

I mean, where the hell has Better gone? Where is he? I was laughed at for my impatience, but why should anyone be content to resign themselves to a belief that they’re too young to worry about it? Sure thing, I’m only 21. But that doesn’t mean I should have to be content with lonely until I’m 50. It’s just such a waste of years.

Fuck, this is disparaging. Maybe I’ll go jump off the Braga Bridge.

mood: disappointed

I think I've finally found my passion.  That great thing which makes you feel alive, which you'll do anything for, merely because it feels so damn good.  Some people are passionate about art or music, lilterature, clever banter.  I like everything, but a part of me has always been missing, because I don't like anything enough that my laziness does not get in the way of my persuit of it.  But there's one that I've found, my obsession with which rather irritates and hurts certain people... but I find that only the ones closest to me are hurt by it.  And quite frankly, I've comme to regard passon as something that has that ability.  I find that one of the hardest things to do is to feel honestly, deep down happy about the passion of someone you love.  It has a tendancy to make a person jealous.  Of what?  Why, of that great thing that your loved one(s) loves so greatly, that thing to which he or she so willingly gives up so much time and for which they furnish so much love.  Jealousy and inadiquacy.  The biproducts of one person's passion, and those which can only be felt by their nearest and dearest.  For this, I am sorry. 

Once upon a time (flash back to just six months ago), I couldn't see why I was in school.  What was I doing studying for a degree when I'd never known for a second just what I want to be?  Why does everyone else know just what they want to be when they grow up?  A psycholigist, a lawyer, a musician... but what about me?  As a pisces, I've always been unable to pin down one thing that I wanted to study.  I thought I'd be in school forever, because as we all learned from Van Wilder, college can be used as a postponement of real life.  One feels quite lost in a cloud, without a passion.

I looked for it in others.  The one thing that I can say attracts me above all, is passion.  A passion for anything.  I admire it, crave it, and, yes, I've spent my fair share being jealous because of it.  Jealous because it takes up that person's time, and jealous because they had one and I did not.

But I've found mine, I think;  It sounds stupid, because I can't pinpoint it's exact essence, yet.  In one word, I would say, "France".  However, I don't quite know if a country can be considered a passion so much as it can be classified as an obsession.  I believe that I am passionately in love with this place, however.  With it's language, it's people, it's customs, and above all, the lifestyle, there.  My passion is linked with the experience that I had, there.  Perhaps it's a passion for living an adventure, which I no longer feel strongly abut doing in my native tongue.  Perhaps the language is the kickeer, because I'm passionate about coming out on top in a challenge, and because there is no greater day-to-day challenge than enhancing your vocabulary to include such important words as, 'anchovies' and 'ferris wheel'.  It could just be that my passion includes a more simple lifestyle, one which I grew accustomed to in a country that is so similar to my own, but with so many more human customs than we still embrace, here.

Do you see?  It isn't that I don't like America, it's just that I'm more passionate about someplace else.  And in choosing love, would I ever be accused of being a girl who would choose he for whom I care, over he for whom I feel deeply passionate?  I truly hope that the answer is no.

Don't worry, anyone, I'm not flying away and leaving you all alone, tomorrow.  Nor next week, either.  It's just that I've finally realized that I found my happy thought,  the one which will fly me right out of URI and into that new world which awaits us all, as soon as we find it in ourselves that we are ready.  And in the meantime, let this be notice that I will probably be declining many an expensive invitation, in the interest of saving up and being ready when that day comes.  It's sad when there is so little that one can do to nurture a passion, but I am doing my best.

Et pour les français qui lisent mon blog, je veux que vous sachez que je ferai un petit voyage avec Jared... on viendra en Sept ou Oct, et nous sommes vachement contents!

mood: ecstatic

This has officially been the best week ever.  These are the wonderful things that have happened in it:

¤ The MVD (Minivan of Doom, for those of you who are not Jamie) stunned us all by passing, nothing short of miraculously, what will most likely be it's last state inspection.  
¤ I found the apartment that I will live in, this semester.  Or rather, I was invited to live there by my new friend, Simon.  It's in a lovely neighborhood in Providence, complete with really awesome roomemates or apartmentmates or housemates or whatever it is that we'll be.  We even had a great adventure making sad fortune cookies.  The process, however, was quite happy.
¤ I have a job interview at the Newport Marriott on Monday, for which I have good reason to believe that I will be hired.  It would be 25 hours a week at 9 dollars an hour, which would not be at all bad when combined with my 16 or so hours at Hot Topic, each week.  Plus, I could probably transfer later to one of the hotels in Providence for the school year, and the real bonus is that I may find opportunities to speak French, which was my incentive to apply in the first place.
¤ However, conflicting with the prior awesomeness, we have the fact that Angela wants to promote me to part-time manager at Hot Topic.  There, I'd get a bit more than 9 an hour, plus health benefits, and a minimum of 24 hours a week.  The pay and hours would be great, and the job title would look great on future resumés, but I'm not sure if I can take it or not.  To accept at all, I would have to do so for the long term, and that requires a car for the whole school year, something that I'm not sure I'll have.  Also, we have the added downside of no opportunities to speak French, and a relatively long commute.  Angela is leaving the choice completely up to me.  
¤ Dave wants me to record with him if he ends up having a band in the near future.  I'm totally thrilled even to have been asked.
¤ And the icing on the cake.  For those of you who somehow don't know, I've wanted to learn to play the violin for quite a long time.  In fact, I've wanted to play to the point where I've been planning on borrowing Adam's violin once a week or so in order to take lessons.  I mentioned this to my cousin Charlene, last night, and she surprised me by running back into the house after leaving, just to tell me that she is going to Vermont this week, and she'll bring me back her old violin.  

I'm thinking I should just buy a lotto ticket, but I'm afraid that would be pushing my (exceptional) luck.  Honestly, I'm just beside myself.  Any one of these things would have made me a very happy girl, but at this point, I'm practically beside myself.  Not to mention that I went to that incredible Matt Costa show on Weds, or that I finally got to hang out in Prov with my Jamiegirl, whom I miss supermuch.

J'adore la vie!

(Ne t'inquiete pas, La France, tu me manques toujours vachement, et je reviendrai bientot te voir!)

mood: wonderful