Today was okay. I felt good about the work I did, and it wasn't too, too stressful. I've even come back from my little brain slump on lumosity. Unfortunately I feel kind of whooped, so its been difficult to concentrate much this evening, and I've somehow turned down another chance to see a local band I've been wanting to see for a while now. I guess I am just not feeling the bar scene tonight. And anything that requires me to be on my feet just doesn't sound appealing as of this moment.

Oh, but Tuesday wasn't so bad. I feel like I don't include enough of the days where I'm okay, or at least not feeling so shitty that it affects my entire day. That includes about half of the days where I don't write.

My heart has been pounding for the past hour. I feel like my body is displaced, floating in and around objects. I'm a little dizzy, but not too bad. Mostly I've been staring into a dark window into a hall for the past fifteen minutes, seeing if the void really stares back. I keep thinking about the exchange I had with Sam earlier, about my state of mind. Of course psychology and psychiatry is rife with inadequacies and inaccuracies. I don't even know that I need SSRIs, but at this point I'm willing to try them if it will help my daily attitude and motivation. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired already, but now that I know its something that can be altered, I plan on doing what I can to obliterate this sense of despair, and I'm reaching for the tools available to me. I don't pretend that a pill is going to fix my problems. What I am hoping it will do is eventually get me to a consistent state of motivation so that its easier to work through the many personal issues I'm now confronting in the open. I wish that I could say I know what's best for me. I don't. But I need to at least try to look out for my own interests in the way I see fit, even if it goes against trusted advice. I feel just a little in over my head with this medication, but I also feel my stress catching up with me in a way that causes a very dark sensation to creep into my chest and steal my breath. I'd rather deal with the former at this rate.

I can't help but notice I feel the need to write often after talking with Sam. What can I say? The bastard stimulates my brain.

Bad Metaphor

The acceptance
The realization
The wisdom I seek

Is like the sunlight
which filters through
the blinds in my house

Of which I dare not open
Not yet, for I know
I will show all how naked I am

Buuuuuh...

This doesn't even apply to a relationship, but its still an idea I've been trying to wrap my head around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8SOQEitsJI 

Someday I want to be able to have new connections for myself. I already have new eyes on me. They aren't necessarily the ones I want, but its a reminder that the world is large and that I can forge new paths, even if there's still someone close to my heart. I've even thought that perhaps I'm meant more for a polyromantic path, and perhaps polysexual, but its too early to tell. I just cling too dearly to one fabric in particular right now and until I can love it without dragging it into an abyss, I don't think its a good idea to forge anything new.

There is no *enough*. No one person can ever be enough, because they are only human. I put him on a pedestal so high into space that I likened him to a distant star, of whose virtue I could never even touch, and I think I likened myself to a servant after a while. I would even punish myself if I didn't do something the way he asked it to be done(not physically, just mentally). How sickening, and how horribly appropriate for an ambitious narcissist and an appeasing depressive. 

I feel like I should not be alone right now. I need someone who I can talk to, face to face. So far I've had no luck reaching anyone though. Night before Easter at 11:30, I don't expect many people to be up. Not the singers at the very least. Jessi isn't answering. Most of the people I see online have no car or are out of the area. I need a friendly face.

I hate this, I'm making myself ill. I sincerely hope I'm wrong and I hate that I assume every female he interacts with is someone he could be intersted in. And yet I don't think I'm wrong, and that makes it feel as though the bottom of my stomach has dropped out. And he's been out of town with this person since Wednesday, and the chances of them having times by themselves are likely, even alongside a group of people. I want to be outside of myself so badly right now.

Empty hands
with which we have only tears to fill
The remnants of a mosaic of dreams

Dry lips
No longer embraced
No more romantic thoughts implanted

Untouched body
No longer explored, admired
nor of wondrous curiosity expressed
more cursory or habitual

Empty eyes
No longer are side glances returned
No excitement
No expectant joy
No flicker of a lasting impression

Lonely Breath
on a cold sheet
in a dingy room
by a leaden heart
to an indifferent stone

I'm miserable and stupid for writing this

I strongly desire to just look at my face in the mirror and be proud of it. Be content with its form, and accepting of its flaws. I believe there was a time I could do that. I catch a glimmer, sometimes. I've found that its difficult to describe my own face. I've actually tried on many occasion but I tend to stop myself short. I don't want to make myself sound more ideal than I am, but it gets to the point where I can't own up to the qualities I truly believe I possess. This obviously applies to more than just my face. My therapist asked me to make a list of positive qualities I think I possess. She also said to put marks next to those I'm afraid to own up to. So far I don't think I've found a single one that I am confident of. This is about more than presumption(as in, the worry that my view of myself does not reflect reality), and is instead focused more upon confidence. The first is not actually as important as I make it out to be. Humility is nice, but its those who believe in themselves who get so far so easily, even if their confidence betrays their actual skill. And I'm afraid to take the risk of being wrong. I'm not going to get anywhere with that attitude. :/

Attempts

I try not to post work from other people on here. It's about my reflections, typically. However, I found in this little writing a reflection of myself. http://8-bitreality.com/archives/2691

Granted, Ive neber tried to take my own life. But I've experienced those moments of despair, of suffering so deep and often unprovoked that it turns you cold. You don't know how to enjoy things. You know there may not even be a good reason, only that you feel horrible and would just rather die than to keep experiencing a numb, foggy existence.

The worst part is when someone asks you what is wrong. Its not that the question itself bugs me, I just often feel mute. I'm not entirely sure what's wrong, nor do I know how to express it. But most people don't want to know or don't know how to publicly deal with the fact that you're in the midst, so you just fake like you're tired. I've never attempted but I've certainly been tempted during bleak times.

Well, I've been attempting to explore the large and fascinating world of avant-garde film I've decided its really difficult to find and try to watch all good films by period, so I'm just going to try and stick with a few good directors from each era. So far my exploits have consisted of Luis Bunuel(pretend there's a tilde), Jean Cocteau and Man Ray(what a name). I enjoyed all of the films I saw so far far different reasons, though most of them have to do with innovation in the cinematography.

Just for reference, I have watched(all French so far, unsurprisingly):
la Ballet Mecaniste
le Sang d'un Poete (this was probably my favorite)
L'Etoile de Mer
L'Age D'Ors
 
 At some point I'll move past the title "The ___ of ____".

I'm trying to decide who I should focus on next. It looks as though Bunuel does work for a long time, up into the 80s it looks like. There's also Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger who have already piqued my interest just by descriptions of their work, but that's leaving a pretty big time gap. Those are both from the sixties. I still wanted to try and do this chronologically. Perhaps I should try to find more films directed by Orson Welles? I don't know that his work is particularly experimental. I suppose the story for The Trial was a bit more abstract, but I don't know that he made it habit. Same goes for Alfred Hitchcock. Even though he didn't start off as a "Hollywood" director, I can't say whether he was avant-garde or not; I haven't really watched anything of his. I suppose that's part of my problem in this, I'm just going in blind. I have no background in film, really, aside from the basic concepts I learned in that ethnicity class and the theatre stuff I know. I guess I'll just start watching what little I have compiled, and hopefully that will take me down different paths and I'll stumble onto something magnificent by accident. That's sort of how I got started.

Holee SHEEEEEEIIIIT. Note to self: when having to take an emergency contraceptive, expect a much, MUCH more painful period that usual. And I'm out of acetaminophen  and sodium naproxen, so all I have is shitty ibuprofen which hasn't worked on me in eight years. I did chug some stinging nettle dilution, so hopefully that helps a little. But most of my pain mitigation routine has had little effect. The pain is almost unmanageable like it was back in high school, though I haven't felt like crying yet at least. You do start to feel ridiculous after a while, because you're suffering the same as someone with a fatal stab wound or something and you realize you shouldn't be such a baby, its just your period, and then you find out that some women actually have to go to the ER for serious pain med injections, and you wonder why the hell you never went in to get one, especially that one time when you were fourteen and you were screaming and crying for six hours and in so much pain that you nearly blacked out.

I'm partly writing to distract myself as much as venting my frustration. I feel like I can't even get up. I do need to eat something soon or I'll start to feel really anemic, and then I really won't be able to.

Well blogspot, you win this round. I was patient enough to wait and just make sure you weren't being a total fuckup.

I'm already surfeited by these long-ass and extra opera rehearsals. If I were being paid it wouldn't bug me, but as it is I'm giving away some work hours when I really need the money. I don't even like this opera but I'm a fucking professional and I'm going to do my best job no matter what, and I also really want to see the opera production to be in an actual theatre, which is what I wanted from the beginning when I came to this school. I'd sing Gilbert and Sullivan if it got us under a proper proscenium arch.

Anyway I'm just stressed and tired and barely focusing on actual courses I've been taking because I'm worried about how I'm going to get money to pay June's rent and all the other bills and I've been trying not to give in to a few of my vices because I've been trying to take care of my voice for a competition that could win me some money to at least stay out of the hole. However I feel like I have very few ways to mitigate the stress. Nothing particularly bad has happened aside from my little "scare", I'm just busy and I think maybe that gets to me a little more than the average person. But today in particular I just wanted to cry and drink and smoke and eat a shit ton of chocolate and skip rehearsal tomorrow and tell everyone else to eat shit and die.

So, I really just took a moment for myself. I stopped thinking about what I ought and ought not to do; or about what a horrible person I think I am or what I need to do to improve myself. I let myself give in to those little vices. I left my phone inside, poured myself a vodka tonic, went outside, drank, listened to the sound that gave my kreteks their name, looked at my surroundings as always and tried not to think about anything in particular. And you know, I didn't have any sudden revelation. I didn't feel any less depressed, or suddenly come up with a solution to fix a worldwide issue. But I did do what I had wanted to do, and that was to relax. I also realized how the top of one of the trees in my complex looks line a swirled tip of a soft-serve cone. I wanted to stay out there all night and smoke, but my sense of responsibility towards my singing voice did pop in and tell me to take it easy.

All those days I had maybe several hours to spend, and yet I couldn't get myself to settle down and play a single game either because I wasn't in the mood, or because I was so stressed about what I should be doing that I couldn't settle down even though I knew I wouldn't be doing any work. My innate sense of guilt keeps me on the edge of my seat, and so I waste valuable hours of possible self-fulfillment and discovery noodling on fucking facebook because I don't want to commit to any sort of time for a hobby or project. Which is partly why I'm enjoying the finger knitting .

I'm drunk and I need a burrito. That's it for tonight. I have a wacky dream to recount but I can save that for later. <3>

That's the daily struggle!!! 

merpmerpamerp

I'm annoyed. I've begun to take a real interest in the larger world of art film. I love the things that other people have shown me, and my interest has been piqued enough that I wish to expand my knowledge. However, I'm annoyed because I wanted to start with a historical view, so I was going to view "The Blood of a Poet" directed by Jean Cocteau and other avant-garde films of the time, and youtube has been utterly non-compliant. It stopped four times in five minutes, and is still being a bitch. Boo.

I was just sniffing his pillow. Wow, I think I've gained my creep points for today. Restless energy is bad for me. How did I become more stressed after my recital? Is it the money thing? That is a major concern. All I can say is that I hope I win the Dinsmore competition. I don't relish asking my family for money. I'll probably quit my job if I find something better as soon as opera is over. I did talk to a girl who works at a dessert counter connected to a Greek restaurant. She said they're always accepting applications, and they are already tiring of the high school girls that often work there. It seems like a nice place. I've also seen liquor store hiring signs, as well as a couple of bussing/dishwashing "for hire" signs in local restaurants. I haven't even been looking, but now that I'm noticing signs the little lights go off in my head that I should be pursuing some other work. If I begin applications and resumes now I may have offers/interviews by the time I have more of my schedule free.

No matter where I've gone today, the scent of gardenias is overwhelming. A reminder of specific moments in time. I could believe that smell is the strongest memory trigger.

Aaand there goes my audition time. I was really looking forward to the competition, especially as I put more work into the pieces and realized how much I loved them. But you know what? I fucked up. I didn't notify my accompanist soon enough. And I can honestly say that I don't think I deserved to be part of this competition due to that fact. Always treat your accompanists well, kids. Or collaborative pianists, whatever they choose to be called.

I can stil become markedly jealous over someone's ability to just unashamedly be themselves, despite how stupid, silly or superficial they may be at times. I've been guilty of taking myself far too seriously, and trying to posture myself for others in every role of my life. I heard a saying once, that if you find yourself as being a chameleon, that is, you can change yourself into anything for anybody, then you likely have no identity of your own. I think that's a little simplistic, not to mention I'm paraphrasing at best, but it has some salt to it. I think "I" went into hiding for a while. Though its been long enough that the "I" needs a little redefining.

It's always a nice feeling when I acquire a new craft skill. It may have just been for a class assignment, but it's still a new skill that I've acquired and can use and potentially build off of. There's a certain satisfaction that comes from seeing a direct result of your knowledge. It's the same feeling of slightly giddy pride that I get when I look at my poetry, my art, my cooking, and even the sets I used to help build. Anything I think has been done well. I enjoy making, building, and  creating.