Bring Some Paint Brushes

I think I'm ready to crawl inside, sleep with all my clothes on, and wait until winter is over.  The greyness has taken more out of me than I can ever remember. Day after day of it.

Wouldn't it be grand if I could take my paint brush to the sky?  Like when people have those house painting parties, with a puddle of friends who have no desire to paint but do have a desire to chatter with their buddies...

I would have a group over for cupcakes and ice cream sundaes with a buffet of toppings because that's what you have when you're painting the sky, rather than pizza and beer when you're painting walls.  We'd sing along to Disney show tunes which would undoubtedly put us in a fantastic mood.  

Would we wear overalls?  Maybe, or we'd put on our graduation gowns so they would still get some sort of use out of them.

We'd finish the day in lawn chairs with our feet up and sipping cocktails.

I'd tell everyone about how I've always wanted to be a painter, but just never had any real talent for it.  "Nonsense!" you'd exclaim while gesturing towards my flamboyant and captivating sky. Then I'd blush and ask, "You really think?"  But it wouldn't matter because I'd look out my windows to the aureolin, and amber, and amaranth popping over the clouds like headlights and I'd instantly smile.

sigh....I'm wishing Monday didn't always feel like such.




all photos via flicr.

I BELIEVE

I believe in Pink. 
I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner.
I believe in kissing, kissing a lot.
I believe in being strong even when
everything seems to be going wrong. 
I believe happy girls are the prettiest girls.
I believe that tomorrow is another day
And I believe in miracles.

--Audrey Hepburn

"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when i was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it." --Neil Gaiman



I believe in chocolate.  I believe that Autumn is mine.  
I believe that angles walk among us.
I believe my mother makes the best chicken soup you can find.  
I believe children are often smarter than the adults that surround them. 
I believe that all politicians are liars but I'll take any of the ones we've had over the ones we haven't.
I believe when God closes a door he opens another door.
I believe overalls are a valid fashion statement.
I believe this is just a moment in your life, not forever.  I believe forever is a long time.
I believe in honesty when it hurts and I believe in forgiveness when it hurts.
I believe in giving your best even when you know its not going to be good enough.
I believe in a God who gives and a God who takes. 
I believe in a baby's right to live.
I believe snow will always make me feel like a kid and the ocean will always make me feel small.

-- Cassi Klipsch

When God Closes a Door

I think he opens another door.










It just looks different than the last.







So many possibilities.....

Feather in the Nest

The house is a little lonely. Jeremy left the country a week ago, and even though I lived by myself for a bit, and Jam by himself, I haven't really lived in this house without any siblings yet. As much as I can appreciate the silence and privacy,this house seems like it's meant to be shared. All his stuff is still here, but so was mine when I left. Even some of Josh's still lingers...as though maybe we can never really be gotten rid of.
We did have our goodbye, though maybe sloppy and meshed with other things, but it was a sound goodbye. My hope is to revisit Europe in a few months, and explore some of the places I didn't catch the first time around. And have a grand ol' adventure with the younger brother because, well, you need to have a grand ol' adventure with each of your siblings.

A friend told me the other day that what I had, what I have, is not normal. My suburban home with all family members intact is not normal; the small distances between us and stupid squabbles which I've always believed to be burdensome and "not normal" were so far from comparison to the rest of the world's not normal. I've learned over the past , and am still learning, that my "not normalcy" is quite the blessing and one I should be thankful for daily.