Remember me to the one who lives there...

Random thoughts before I doze off:
  

• I hope my bulletpoints aren't pink when I publish this...in the textbox they've chosen to take the shade of fuschia I set as my default text color and I can't change them back. I kind of want to just change the default back to black or something. I already have a pink computer to make me feel sillily girly. Since the drag show I went to on Saturday night, where I dressed up as a(n emo) guy and had the look down but couldn't get the mannerisms for the like of me, I've been really conscious of how gender-typed  I am (maybe the color pink shouldn't be considered girly, though...it's a color. I find it pretty. Why are colors gendered?). I don't think being one of those people who constantly deconstructs the gender of everything would be very becoming on me (and constantly intellectualizing everything is an awful way to live), but sometimes I want to do exactly that.Even if I've been known to snark on people that look at things that way. I mean, I'd love to just "be" and not have to worry about social constructs and blah blah, but once you're conscious of that sort of thing it's hard. Reason why ignorance might be bliss #34628
• Is it possible for things to happen at the wrong time? Like, does "too little too late" (or, conversely [and I'm finding equally as problematic] "too much too soon") hold any real weight? I've started wondering if there's actually something to the notion of destiny, but I tend to apply it only when a positive force enters my life, but then I turn around and respond to bad things with "whatthefuckpeopleareintrinsciallystupidandmakebadchoicesontheirowngrumblegrumble". If I'm going to start believing in something as implausable as fate, I'd better start believing in it fully. And I guess you do learn important lessons from bad stuff...though I wish I could learn those lessons and apply them now, in a current (or past) situation instead of for later, in some undeterminable time and place with who knows who or what.
• In high school I thought the notion of "community" was utter BS (mainly because I didn't feel fully a part of the community there...probably because of my own social ineptitude), but now that I'm in college I'm a part of so many great communities and it's super! Every time I go to Quaker meeting or have a rehearsal for my kids theater group or sing Disney and 80s songs all the way back to my dorm from a party with my lovely queer family, I just love the idea of a close-knit community more and more! The only problem lies in them being horribly exclusionary, and I know being outgoing and welcoming people in isn't my strong suit.
• I can't belive I hadn't seen The Graduate before tonight...I mean, I love the 60s and 60s music and everything that went into that movie. Everything about it was so disorienting...the soundtrack, the way it was filmed with shaky camera work and weird tracking shots...the way the narrative arc was totally weird. I mean, he started his affair with Mrs. Robinson like 10 minutes into the movie with no real set-up to it. (Oh, sorry if I spoiled the movie there for you, y'know?) And by "disorienting", I mean "awesome!"

I sold the car to a guy named Peter...Peter Cottontail...

I can't believe I did it, but in that post on Media I forgot to mention one of my favorite things, if not my absolute favorite thing about my hometown: The Great Media Garage Sale! I think I know why I left it out, actually, since I haven't been since like the 11th grade. But I still miss it like whoa every year; I don't think there's a day when Media's sense of community (I just typed "cummumity"...make of that what you will) is stronger.

September's never been one of my favorite months. Fall's coming, everything in nature is dying, it means the beginning of the school year, which before college was a very bad thing, and even though I'm fine with school nowadays it still signifies some kind of disruption of life, which I've never been a fan of. But before the weather gets too cold, yard sale day comes around and everyone puts stuff out for cheap and you can walk around and talk to everyone and run into random people you hadn't seen in ages and it's great fun! Unfortunately, the street on which I grew up didn't attract many shoppers since it was relatively far off from the center of town and housed some unfriendly people. The upside was it gave me full reign to shop shop shop 'til I drop drop dropped. The downside was it meant I bought tons of junk every year and then had no means of selling it the next time garage sale day came around.

Anyhow, to exemplify how awesome this day is, here's an excerpt from my *gulp* Xanga from ages ago...Okay it's too poorly written so you won't get an actual passage of text, but here's the list of stuff I got when my friend and I walked up and down 10+ streets, all around town, to satisfy our packrat urges, complete with the ~s I used as flouncy bulletpoints when I was 15:

~ A bunch of old records (Boston, Billy Joel, Stevie Nicks, Steppenwolf, Jackson Browne )...Lydia bought the Captian and Tenile's greatest hits so that she can now play "Muskrat Love" whenever she feels the need to torture me.
~Lots of jewelry (IIRC it was a necklace that looked like a purse and some obnoxious tropical-looking earrings I wear to this day...as well as pineapple clip-on earrings that I've since lost)
~ Awesome Clothes
~And this wonderful movie:

The movie and a few records, and if I recall correctly, a few trashy novels I found (though the deluge of Jackie Collins books didn't come til next year...I'd problably be a much more intellectual person if I'd never gone through that phase), were free. Gotta love getting free stuff that you actually use (I still watch Santa Claus is Comin to town every year, and since ABC Family is being flaky with their holiday specials, the VHS comes in handy).

And then more free stuff comes the next day. Monday is trash day, so on Sunday everyone puts out the stuff they didn't sell and don't want to keep so people can rummage through it, and the day after that whatever's left over conveniently disappears, to sit in a landfill for 100 years. Actually, maybe that's part of why I like buying people's old stuff so much; I don't want it to go to waste so I let it clog up my closet in big boxes for years on end instead. Then, one day, I'll need, say a portable walkman tape player/AM radio, a bedazzler and a pair of clown pants (that'd be a fun night, wouldn't it?) and I won't have to go buy new ones. I also like old music and love the sound quality of records, so it makes sense to buy them for cheap. And I love the smell of the old paper of books and album liner notes, even if it's pure mildew. And, you know, cheap stuff is awesome by default.

More than anything, other people's stuff makes me feel connected to random strangers, people in my own town that I wouldn't say more than "hello" to otherwise. I like to know who else listened to that record (and create stories about how old they were and where they were when they first heard it), whose kids watched movie XYZ and when they decided they were "too old" for it (and one day they'll be my age and find it at a yard sale and decide to relive their childhoods like I did), and perhaps most importantly, who last devoured that Jackie Collins book and if they were reading it to laugh (this one's me when I judge the books' titles and covers), to escape (this one's me when I sit down in an airport and read one of them), or because they actually thought it was good literature (This one's not me, but sometimes I like to pretend that it is, especially with English teachers and the like). And the surprising number of people with trashy novels on their garage sale tables is always comforting; it's good to know I'm not alone. And I'd never actually pay money for an Engleburt Humperdink album or a formerly $5.99 Bejeweled CD-rom or someone's old perfume, I'm glad to know they're out there. To each their own?

And, of course, garage sales lent themselves to this gem from That 70s Show:

Line my eyes and call me pretty

Random thoughts...I've been very thoughtful lately...and to think of all the work I have to do! But busywork will always be there, and the things that pop into my mind seem to be so fleeting, so best to write them down now:

-In high school a Myers-Briggs personality test I took told me that I was a very strong INFP. Our teacher had told us that most people would be in the middle for most of the categories, and that it was perfectly normal to not be a strong anything. I'm sure he didn't mean it like this, but I left the room feeling like a totally weird, unbalanced person (especially since Wikipedia then told me that only 1-5% of people are INFPs of any intensity). I mean, I love being an "idealist" as INFPs are labeled and wouldn't want to be any other way, but I feared (still fear) that having that extreme a personality would alienate me from everyone. I guess being like 97% introverted was what bothered me the most. I mean, being (or not being) thinking and sensing and judging are important, but human interaction is like the essense of life. Anyways, I'd still say that I'm very much an INFP, but that test is self-reported and I was probably in one of my many "down with people" phases...senior year of high school...yeah, definitely was. But for some reason I have a lot of faith in everything right now, even though sometimes signs point elsewhere.

TL;DR? Right about now I really like people. In another time and place, recent events in my life and the lives of many of the people I care about the most would've led me to shut myself off from the world and the awful creatures in it, but I guess I'm realizing that that's always made the situation worse for me. And this time I really didn't want to revert to being that lonely, so I looked around me and realized how many great people I have in my life. It's foolish, but I find myself forgiving everyone for everything. Life's too short to hold grudges. Some anger's good, but you don't want it to be a driving force. I can't say if people are intrinsically good or intrinsically bad...people are just intrinsically people...all living a series of ups and downs. Funny how alive you feel after a cataclysmic event; I'm just trying to embrace it all. There's really nobody I can never see myself forgiving for anything they've ever done to me(forgetting is a different story, but w/e). Logically it might be an unhealthy way to think, but INFPs aren't very logical. Really, the only people that have done unforgivable things in my life aren't people that have hurt me, but those who have hurt the people that I love. The Cancerian trait of keeping everything and everyone in my life might also play into this...also, I don't know where to squeeze this in but I just thought of how sometimes introversion/extroversion is determined by whether someone gains or expends energy from being around people, and for the first time in a while I'm seeing people as a gain and not just a drain of energy and time. So maybe I'm more extroverted in that sense, but just quiet and unassuming at the same time. If I weren't quiet and unassuming I'd be telling people about all the things in this blog instead of writing. But I am a better writer than a speaker, and maybe that's independent of personality.

-My facebook interests, once upon a time, were listed as "pretty people, pretty places, and pretty things". Part of me wrote that to be facetious, but another part actually valued that stuff. I guess I still do; well, everything in life is worth valuing and aesthetically pleasing things are so forthright that it would take a ridiculous amount of energy to ignore them that really isn't worth the missing out on something so lovely.

Okay, sorry for that awfully worded sentence. Anyways, I don't think anything in life is superficial, but sometimes I think we just label things as pretty or beautiful so that we don't have to think about what we really mean to say about something or someone we find attractive. I mean, for me pretty things aren't of value because of material worth, but because somebody took the time to make something in hopes of it bringing joy to others. And pretty places, especially in nature, connect me to everyone who's ever seen what I'm seeing at that moment; I wonder who they were and where they came from and what they felt as they stood there. And while I'm seeing God in people more and more (what would I do without Quakers?), the closest I've ever felt to a higher power was when trekking through the rocks of Capri. The walk itself that I'm referring to was actually pretty hellish, but the sight cliffs, birds, and crystal blue water are the only things that have nearly brought me to tears based on appearance alone. I mean, maybe things can come to fruition by chance, and I'm sure the islands were manipulated by humans to maximize their potential as a tourist destination (thanks, Rich Nations and Poor Nations), but that shade of blue had to have been mixed by somebody until they got it right...and people can't do that.

But what about the "pretty people" part? I mean, being attractive gets people attention and admiration and sometimes can result in a career as a model or someone's muse, but what does it really bring someone in life? I mean, there are people who I could stare at for days on end and it would bring me some sort of joy knowing that such beauty exists, and I'll admit that whenever anyone tells me I'm attractive I feel a little pang of pride. But I'm sure some of the people I find attractive are quite unpleasant and someone finding me attractive doesn't necessarily mean that they appreciate me for everything I am (though I like to think I'm a likable person in general). I consider the word "beautiful" to encompass more than just outside prettiness, but every time someone tells me I'm beautiful I wonder if they just mean "attractive". Yet I'm trying my best to believe that there is not superficial anything. I guess "attractive" is just another trait like "nice" or "honest" or "athletic" or "smart" and just another part of the world. And it should be taken as such, and should be placed on equal footing as any other characteristic anybody has. Nothing wrong with pretty things, but nothing super special about them either.

-Yet I have still felt a little empty lately. Like, I can think of all these things and I can go about my daily life and learn things and have adventures, but it seems vapid without having someone to come back and tell it all to. But I guess I'll find that someone some day. For now, that's what blogging is for...