I love to travel. I love it more than almost everything else in the world. I feel most at home when I'm on the road. Literally, driving, existing in that strange culture that knows how to navigate the gas stations and small places of the US. I drove around the entire country, once. West across the northern states, south down the west coast, east across the southern states, north up the east coast. Of course, that drive I've made so many times I've lost count. But it isn't just that I love it, it's that I *need* to do it. I need to feel the pavement unwind under my tires, to feel the place I was recede and melt into the place I'm going. I need the wind and the quiet and vibration of the car. I need the freedom of it all. I can't even live in the same place for longer than two years. I get restless and I need to move, even if it's only across town. Even if I like a place when I move in I'll find a hundred small reasons - and one or two large ones - to move. I can't pick a place and settle down. Nothing ever feels like home for long. Not really. If I don't obey the urge to just go then I become irritable, unhappy, and restless. It worries me sometimes, this need. What if I can't ever settle down? What's wrong with me?
When I was 17, four days after I graduated high school, we moved away from the house I'd spent most of my life (I lived in one house till I was seven, and then moved to this one.) and halfway across the country. Long Island to St. Louis. Oh, god, I hated St. Louis. I hated almost everything about it. The people, the culture, the terrible driving, the focus on sports, the emptiness, the lack of friends, the stupid accent, the prejudice, all of it. I left as soon as I could and never looked back (my family moved to VA a few months after I moved out of my parents' house). The only good thing was the awesome house my parents had while we lived there.
Sometimes, on and off, I've wondered of my inability to put down roots and stay in one place, my need to travel away, was born of the move to MO from NY. I left everything I was familiar with, all of my friends and extended family too, to go to a place I hated. We all hated it except my dad and my brother.
Tonight I was reading a book (a really really good book that is part of a trilogy that starts with a book called Daughter of Smoke and Bone.) and the main character talks about coming back to a place that she'd left when she was 7 and that she considered home. Out of curiosity I looked up our old house on Zillow, and then Google street view. It hurt, man...it hurt. It hurt like it never had when we'd gone back to visit. It struck me the right way tonight. I saw the tree in the front yard - the one we'd planted when we found it growing out of the foundation of the house. The glass door in the front, the same one my mom picked out. The big bush in the front is gone in google's street view, but there in the older pictures on realtor.com. The rose bushes and other shrubbery that separated our house from the neighbor's is gone too, so is the shed in the back. All of my mom's carefully cultivated gardens are gone - lost to the string of renters who occupied the house. We'd sold it to a landlord, who appears to have sold it to people who are actually living in it. The big bay window is still there, but the street sign by the door that said Wood Ct. left with our family. On and on the changes go.
I went down the street, like I was walking. There's a house in the abandoned lot, and our next-door neighbor STILL hasn't finished his project house. There, the welfare house that was burned for insurance money and then rebuilt isn't pink anymore. The tree I used to "climb" still exists. The lady we sold bread to, her house is the same. My brother's best friend's house is still there too. The houses that were built when we were in Jr. high - the construction sites we played in when we really shouldn't have - they're still abandoned. What was the point in building them? It's been 20 years, no one's ever lived in them. The place where I fell off my bike - in front of the nice man's house - and busted my knee, my best friend's house, the house that used to be completely covered in ivy is clean now. The house that gives out full candy bars on halloween. I'm going down the street and I can smell the pavement, feel the road under my feet, and remember the piles of sand that lined the edges - a consequence of living a few blocks from the south shore and the beach. It's winter in the images, and I can feel it in my lungs and on my skin, and taste the cutting salt of the cold air. I remember exactly how it smells in the winter. There's a sparse, abandoned look to beach towns in the winter - even when they are inhabited year round.
Hundreds of times I must have walked this route. I could do it, even now, in my sleep. Sometimes I do, because this neighborhood and this house are featured fairly prominently in some of my dreams. Always when I feel I'm being chased and need to go someplace where I'm powerful. I always come back here. I've never known a place this well ever again, the lines of those streets are carved deep. Because I can't. It still hurts that we left, that I can't go back. I miss it so much, even though my neighborhood sucked. I still trip over my current address...but I can write out 122 Orchid Dr. Mastic Beach, NY 11951 without any hesitation. Because it's home, and always will be.
When I was 17, four days after I graduated high school, we moved away from the house I'd spent most of my life (I lived in one house till I was seven, and then moved to this one.) and halfway across the country. Long Island to St. Louis. Oh, god, I hated St. Louis. I hated almost everything about it. The people, the culture, the terrible driving, the focus on sports, the emptiness, the lack of friends, the stupid accent, the prejudice, all of it. I left as soon as I could and never looked back (my family moved to VA a few months after I moved out of my parents' house). The only good thing was the awesome house my parents had while we lived there.
Sometimes, on and off, I've wondered of my inability to put down roots and stay in one place, my need to travel away, was born of the move to MO from NY. I left everything I was familiar with, all of my friends and extended family too, to go to a place I hated. We all hated it except my dad and my brother.
Tonight I was reading a book (a really really good book that is part of a trilogy that starts with a book called Daughter of Smoke and Bone.) and the main character talks about coming back to a place that she'd left when she was 7 and that she considered home. Out of curiosity I looked up our old house on Zillow, and then Google street view. It hurt, man...it hurt. It hurt like it never had when we'd gone back to visit. It struck me the right way tonight. I saw the tree in the front yard - the one we'd planted when we found it growing out of the foundation of the house. The glass door in the front, the same one my mom picked out. The big bush in the front is gone in google's street view, but there in the older pictures on realtor.com. The rose bushes and other shrubbery that separated our house from the neighbor's is gone too, so is the shed in the back. All of my mom's carefully cultivated gardens are gone - lost to the string of renters who occupied the house. We'd sold it to a landlord, who appears to have sold it to people who are actually living in it. The big bay window is still there, but the street sign by the door that said Wood Ct. left with our family. On and on the changes go.
I went down the street, like I was walking. There's a house in the abandoned lot, and our next-door neighbor STILL hasn't finished his project house. There, the welfare house that was burned for insurance money and then rebuilt isn't pink anymore. The tree I used to "climb" still exists. The lady we sold bread to, her house is the same. My brother's best friend's house is still there too. The houses that were built when we were in Jr. high - the construction sites we played in when we really shouldn't have - they're still abandoned. What was the point in building them? It's been 20 years, no one's ever lived in them. The place where I fell off my bike - in front of the nice man's house - and busted my knee, my best friend's house, the house that used to be completely covered in ivy is clean now. The house that gives out full candy bars on halloween. I'm going down the street and I can smell the pavement, feel the road under my feet, and remember the piles of sand that lined the edges - a consequence of living a few blocks from the south shore and the beach. It's winter in the images, and I can feel it in my lungs and on my skin, and taste the cutting salt of the cold air. I remember exactly how it smells in the winter. There's a sparse, abandoned look to beach towns in the winter - even when they are inhabited year round.
Hundreds of times I must have walked this route. I could do it, even now, in my sleep. Sometimes I do, because this neighborhood and this house are featured fairly prominently in some of my dreams. Always when I feel I'm being chased and need to go someplace where I'm powerful. I always come back here. I've never known a place this well ever again, the lines of those streets are carved deep. Because I can't. It still hurts that we left, that I can't go back. I miss it so much, even though my neighborhood sucked. I still trip over my current address...but I can write out 122 Orchid Dr. Mastic Beach, NY 11951 without any hesitation. Because it's home, and always will be.
Hm, well, the last time I posted on LJ was to post my traditional message. I think that's probably a sign that I have migrated away from Livejournal. I still read it from time to time, but the people I follow hardly post.
That said, I think this will probably be the final year for this, it may be time to retire the tradition. It's ok though, over a decade is a good run. :) So here you are, for the final time (unless I randomly start participating in LJ again.):
"May angels lead you in
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads
The sleepless go,
May angels lead you in."
Via youtube:
That said, I think this will probably be the final year for this, it may be time to retire the tradition. It's ok though, over a decade is a good run. :) So here you are, for the final time (unless I randomly start participating in LJ again.):
"May angels lead you in
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads
The sleepless go,
May angels lead you in."
Via youtube:
My annual update...it's going to be a quiet new years. I always feel like I want to go to some big party or something, and then I remember I kind of hate parties that aren't full of people I know...
Anyway, here you are, as per my annual tradition.
"May angels lead you in
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads
The sleepless go,
May angels lead you in."
And this year, via youtube:
At this point I think it might be ok to re-explain why I post this every year, since it's been a decade since I started doing this. New Years tends to be a kind of wild anything-can-happen sort of night, and this is my way of saying that I hope my friends and loved ones arrive to their harbors safely.
Anyway, here you are, as per my annual tradition.
"May angels lead you in
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads
The sleepless go,
May angels lead you in."
And this year, via youtube:
At this point I think it might be ok to re-explain why I post this every year, since it's been a decade since I started doing this. New Years tends to be a kind of wild anything-can-happen sort of night, and this is my way of saying that I hope my friends and loved ones arrive to their harbors safely.
Once again, I'm coming to LJ to vent because FB is not really the place for something this long, and cause it's less likely to cause bitching here. This is more a sort of profanity-laced rant than the statistically-driven logical arguments I usually make, so reader be warned.
( 99 problems, but an election ain't 1...Collapse )
( 99 problems, but an election ain't 1...Collapse )
I posting this here, because if i posted it on FB it'd be big ass brawl probably and i don't really fell like people being like "OMG WHY YOU HATE OLYMPIANS."
I don't. i think they're hard-working people who are the best in their fields. They have basically 0 support system here until they start winning medals, so it's actually harder here for them than it is other places. Still, we're the best anyway. Literally, as the US has apparently won more medals than any other country in the world. Ever. As in, cumulatively across all olympics: http://www.nbcolympics.com/medals/summer-all-time-standings/index.html By more than double, and I do think that that's a cool thing. But sports are a leisure activity. They mean all of, what? Exactly?
The US is still ranked 37th in healthcare quality and 24th in life expectancy by W.H.O., despite spending more than any other country (as both a % of GDP and dollar value) on it. Something tells me we're not getting our money's worth.
US students are ranked 17th in reading proficiency, and 32nd in math. And, while I couldn't find science numbers for the purposes of writing this LJ entry, the US ranked 33 of 34 countries in terms of acceptance of evolution. Say what you will about science, but we landed a rover the size of a car on a WHOLE OTHER PLANET, and no one was standing in the streets in times square watching the olympics. Science is the future of the planet. Period, full stop. We live with too much technology for it not to be. Yet, we're not emphasizing STEM fields much, and our educational system is in the toilet.
We don't mandate maternity or paternity leave, and we're the only first work country that doesn't. Other things first world countries (and some second and third world ones) have that we don't? Mandatory vacations, paid day care, and socialized medicine. All things that are the basis of a support structure put in place to help everyone be better at whatever it is they choose to do. To allow people the freedom to be better human beings.
Our infrastructure is aging and is on the verge of beginning to collapse if we don't invest more in it. We're in personal and national debt to our eyeballs. We are, culturally, still very racist and sexist. We just ended one war, are embroiled in another, and may possibly become involved in a 3rd. We spend more on the military than the next 25 or so (I think. It's a high number.) countries *combined*, and this doesn't bother some people (details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures).
The price of college is skyrocketing, becoming nearly impossible for anyone who isn't upper middle class or higher to pay for without debt. Making it harder and harder for people to become educate and to contribue to society. All the while, congress goes on and on about slashing pell grants and federal loan budgets. This year i qualified for a Pell grant, but didn't get any money because there wasn't any left. It would have been nice to have some money to use for school that i wasn't going to need to pay back, but alas...it was not to be. It's ok though, I'm going to be a minimum of 100k in debt by the time I hit residency, so what's another 2k or so on the pile?
Do you know, oddly, the other thing that we rank number one in? Number of incarcerated citizens. Oh, and obviously, national personal debt (strangely though, not in national debt. Just in privately held debt.).
So, whilst Gabby Douglas and her fellow competitors are amazing at what they do, i still think that the fact that we're good at sports and terrible at basically everything else should say something about how completely out of whack our national priorities are.
Ok. I'm done ranting. I just needed to get it out of my system. Kinda tired of hearing a bunch of crap about how awesome the US is, because we're not. However, I believe that we COULD be if we could figure out how to agree on the methodology.
I don't. i think they're hard-working people who are the best in their fields. They have basically 0 support system here until they start winning medals, so it's actually harder here for them than it is other places. Still, we're the best anyway. Literally, as the US has apparently won more medals than any other country in the world. Ever. As in, cumulatively across all olympics: http://www.nbcolympics.com/medals/summer-all-time-standings/index.html By more than double, and I do think that that's a cool thing. But sports are a leisure activity. They mean all of, what? Exactly?
The US is still ranked 37th in healthcare quality and 24th in life expectancy by W.H.O., despite spending more than any other country (as both a % of GDP and dollar value) on it. Something tells me we're not getting our money's worth.
US students are ranked 17th in reading proficiency, and 32nd in math. And, while I couldn't find science numbers for the purposes of writing this LJ entry, the US ranked 33 of 34 countries in terms of acceptance of evolution. Say what you will about science, but we landed a rover the size of a car on a WHOLE OTHER PLANET, and no one was standing in the streets in times square watching the olympics. Science is the future of the planet. Period, full stop. We live with too much technology for it not to be. Yet, we're not emphasizing STEM fields much, and our educational system is in the toilet.
We don't mandate maternity or paternity leave, and we're the only first work country that doesn't. Other things first world countries (and some second and third world ones) have that we don't? Mandatory vacations, paid day care, and socialized medicine. All things that are the basis of a support structure put in place to help everyone be better at whatever it is they choose to do. To allow people the freedom to be better human beings.
Our infrastructure is aging and is on the verge of beginning to collapse if we don't invest more in it. We're in personal and national debt to our eyeballs. We are, culturally, still very racist and sexist. We just ended one war, are embroiled in another, and may possibly become involved in a 3rd. We spend more on the military than the next 25 or so (I think. It's a high number.) countries *combined*, and this doesn't bother some people (details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures).
The price of college is skyrocketing, becoming nearly impossible for anyone who isn't upper middle class or higher to pay for without debt. Making it harder and harder for people to become educate and to contribue to society. All the while, congress goes on and on about slashing pell grants and federal loan budgets. This year i qualified for a Pell grant, but didn't get any money because there wasn't any left. It would have been nice to have some money to use for school that i wasn't going to need to pay back, but alas...it was not to be. It's ok though, I'm going to be a minimum of 100k in debt by the time I hit residency, so what's another 2k or so on the pile?
Do you know, oddly, the other thing that we rank number one in? Number of incarcerated citizens. Oh, and obviously, national personal debt (strangely though, not in national debt. Just in privately held debt.).
So, whilst Gabby Douglas and her fellow competitors are amazing at what they do, i still think that the fact that we're good at sports and terrible at basically everything else should say something about how completely out of whack our national priorities are.
Ok. I'm done ranting. I just needed to get it out of my system. Kinda tired of hearing a bunch of crap about how awesome the US is, because we're not. However, I believe that we COULD be if we could figure out how to agree on the methodology.
So, I think I don't update this as much because most of the people I have on this list are also on Twitter/Fb/Tumblr and so there's no need. It's weird, because I read LJ every day, I just never post. But just in case, what the hell. It's been since January.
I was looking back through my entries and I realized that I never wrote about the road trip and it's been a year already! A quick year. Maybe I'll write about it later, maybe not, but it was pretty life-changing for me.
I've gotten my own place, no roommate, and I moved in here sometime around last november. I'm still working at the academy, and although I like it, it has it's own set of BS problems. I'd like to, just once in my life, work someplace where the keeping of my job rests with the quality of my work instead of a set of random factors ranging from gossip to congress. Yes, congress. When the republicans decide they don't want to spend money and that those of us who do real work and have real jobs don't need to get paid or have budget for materials we need, it directly effects mine (and pretty much everyone I know in the general area) job. My company has to rebid on the contract they've carried for like 10 years and not only can they not bid on it without bringing in a small business to partner with them, but they've pretty much said that their only concern is budget. This means that we'll likely be taking pay cuts, and let me tell you how I can't afford one. Every time I hear people who don't live around her bitching about federal expenditures I want to punch them in the mouth, because they have no IDEA what the impact of what they're advocating will have on real peoples' lives.
Anyway. On a more up note, I'm still in school. I'm not doing as well as I was because the classes are much harder, but I'm not doing badly either. I'm probably going to have to retake chem 111 for a grade that isn't a C, but that's ok because it'll be a breeze now. I still have two more chem classes and two physics (non-calc ones) classes, but I'm looking forward to them. I just finished chem 112, which I hated and it was a truncated summer class, but my teacher was awesome. It's my last general chem class, thank god, cause organic is so much better.
So...school and work. That's about where I'm at right now. Really wish I could quit and go to school full time, but that's not possible, so I just slog through trying to do good in school, not get fired, and not go insane from lack of social interaction. Luckily, I've got a month off! And I went to NY this weekend, and it was awesome.
Anyway, I'm really tired now so, sleep! =D
I was looking back through my entries and I realized that I never wrote about the road trip and it's been a year already! A quick year. Maybe I'll write about it later, maybe not, but it was pretty life-changing for me.
I've gotten my own place, no roommate, and I moved in here sometime around last november. I'm still working at the academy, and although I like it, it has it's own set of BS problems. I'd like to, just once in my life, work someplace where the keeping of my job rests with the quality of my work instead of a set of random factors ranging from gossip to congress. Yes, congress. When the republicans decide they don't want to spend money and that those of us who do real work and have real jobs don't need to get paid or have budget for materials we need, it directly effects mine (and pretty much everyone I know in the general area) job. My company has to rebid on the contract they've carried for like 10 years and not only can they not bid on it without bringing in a small business to partner with them, but they've pretty much said that their only concern is budget. This means that we'll likely be taking pay cuts, and let me tell you how I can't afford one. Every time I hear people who don't live around her bitching about federal expenditures I want to punch them in the mouth, because they have no IDEA what the impact of what they're advocating will have on real peoples' lives.
Anyway. On a more up note, I'm still in school. I'm not doing as well as I was because the classes are much harder, but I'm not doing badly either. I'm probably going to have to retake chem 111 for a grade that isn't a C, but that's ok because it'll be a breeze now. I still have two more chem classes and two physics (non-calc ones) classes, but I'm looking forward to them. I just finished chem 112, which I hated and it was a truncated summer class, but my teacher was awesome. It's my last general chem class, thank god, cause organic is so much better.
So...school and work. That's about where I'm at right now. Really wish I could quit and go to school full time, but that's not possible, so I just slog through trying to do good in school, not get fired, and not go insane from lack of social interaction. Luckily, I've got a month off! And I went to NY this weekend, and it was awesome.
Anyway, I'm really tired now so, sleep! =D
Not that I post every day or anything, but this is important so I'm participating (on FB & other places anyway). Here are some links w/ info:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/01/17/national-post-editorial-board-how-not-to-stop-online-piracy/
http://sopastrike.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative#Summary_and_conclusion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopa
Those pages are some of the only ones on wikipedia working right now, the rest are blacked out. Behind the cut, some screenshots of blacked out websites (Wikipedia, IMGUR, Google, and Reddit. Twittpic is also participating, but I didn't get one of them).
( Stop SOPACollapse )
Time for my yearly update. I'm heading out shortly, so I'll just leave you all with it now. Have a good new year! :)
"May angels lead you in
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads
The sleepless go,
May angels lead you in."
And this year, via youtube:
See you next year, and be safe everyone! :)
"May angels lead you in
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads
The sleepless go,
May angels lead you in."
And this year, via youtube:
See you next year, and be safe everyone! :)
You know, I have this awful habit of making things complicated. Well, when it comes to guys anyway. Why do I do that? I really wish I was one of those people who could just have relationships and not get totally crushed by the bad ones. I just...don't know how to have a casual (at least at first) relationship, or just date. Like...literally, have no idea.
I think something in me permanently broke after Justin and I'm not quite sure what to do about it.
I think something in me permanently broke after Justin and I'm not quite sure what to do about it.
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