Shipped My Soul to Ireland

I haven't posted on my poetry blog since November 24, 2012.  And I haven't written any deliberate type of poetry since within a month's time of that date. Not in doodles, not in notebooks, and not really in any blog drafts.

People say "Do what makes you happy" because we only have a few minutes here to make our mark. At this exact moment in my life I am doing everything opposite from that advice. If I decided right at this moment to do exactly what would make me happy, I would save every penny toward a plane ticket, fly to Ireland, find a job, and live off of every penny I could collect, and rampage around with my camera, breathing in every second of the bliss. I know you're thinking at least one of the following things:

i. That's unrealistic.
ii. I don't think that would be as blissful as you think it would be.
iii. Hahahahahahalfd kllkfja e;l.  Cute
iv. You're in school, in endless debt, and you need to have realistic goals that involve swallowing everything you don't want and look toward a career, a family, and a budget that doesn't even make sense to you.
v. Then do it Bethany, nobody is stopping you. Go risk it all and we'll be here for you with a tissue and "I told you so" smiles when you figure out it's not as easy as you'd like it to be out there.

But guess what, children. My invincibility complex, my romantic mindset, and my passport will make it happen. No attempts at giving me a reality check, please, because those are already my life's only constant.

[But just give me a minute to get this all figured.]

I've been in my own head thinking about mostly nothing

Thoughts on my mind today:

I. This picture we discussed in Art History today by Caspar David Friedrich, Der Mönch am Meer. I find it absolutely breathtaking and calming.

II. I took my first art history test of the year. I woke up this morning with all of what I studied swimming all over in my brain. My ability to recall minute details was unordinary and I'm blessed for it. I feel great about the test. My hand is still exhausted from writing.

III. I think we've gone over this one before.

IV. Aside from getting my degree faster, I think why I keep insisting on taking 17/18 credit semesters is because it's my own way of making up all the ambition I went without for so long. I've never strived for anything exceptional, and I have never been driven to do anything exceptionally brilliant or amazing. I just have always had a comfort zone that I work within. But with taking so many classes in a semester: I'm proving someone wrong. Myself? Who knows. But it's the one thing I can take and run with enough risk involved to keep me on my toes.

V. Waking up is sometimes the most challenging part of the day.

VI. Last, This music video:

Wrapping

Twitter stole my blogging career. We just need to accept this fact and move on. Also, if you don't use Twitter, use it. If you don't understand Twitter, you're doing it wrong. Feel free to follow anyone I follow, then you'll probably feel a little more confident with things.

I am taking two art history classes taught by the most fascinating professors. No, really. They are brilliant and I spend most of the class time drooling over their intelligence, wondering what it is like knowing so much information. And not just knowing the information, but having the knowledge just wrapping itself around their souls.

I want soul-wrapping knowledge.

Maybe even soul-rapping knowledge. I don't know how that would be, but I imagine it would be very gangster.

This week I made groundbreaking records of passivity and motivation-plummets. I'm not sure how to fix it, but I am sure donuts are in the solution someplace. I will keep you posted on the number of hours I spend lying on my bed, donutless, writhing in agony as I keep a fair distance from anything with a deadline.

Limit Less & Less

What artwork or artist made you step back and re-evaluate your definitions and views about the definition of art?

It was in my poetry class, actually, after I wrote a reflection on a book by Dallas Clayton. My professor wrote on the paper in response to a comment I mentioned, "But does that make it poetry?" I thought, Who are you to decide what is and isn't poetry?

I think that people have some sort of right to claim what is poetry, or in this case, what is art. If someone creates something, whether it is a painting, an idea, or a cluster of words, they have a role in deciding where it belongs in the world. I do not really see the fairness in a poetry professor or an art teacher or a world-renowned artist debating it simply because they have more experience or knowledge in that field. If those people actually know anything, they will understand that change, adaptations, and alterations in those fields are necessary for progression and necessary to stretch the mind. Art lacks boundaries and that's what keeps it moving.

Shopping List

toothpaste
makeup remover
gum/mints
box of tissues with the goldfish on it
facewash
snacks and food for work
sanity
an eating routine
an exercise routine
photos
a love life
good dreams

A Dream is a Wish to Wake Up

I don't know what it is about this week (just kidding, I do: Everything.) that is throwing off my sleep schedule. Usually my sleep schedule goes as follows:

Read (okay, that was only last week).
Turn off lamp.
Tuck covers under chin.
Close eyes.
Have a relatively dreamless sleep
Wake up to alarm.
Snooze.
Snooze.
Repeat.
Wake up.

But this week my schedule has gone, more or less, like the following:

Try to finish last few pages of book.
Read three words.
Turn out lamp because my eyes hurt.
Tuck covers under chin.
Close eyes.
Open eyes.
Roll over.
Close eyes.
Think about everything in the world and how it applies to my life.
Open eyes.
Think about how I could be reading the end of The Scarlet Letter.
Remember how tired my eyes are.
Close eyes.
Open eyes.
Repeat last eleven steps.
Fall asleep.
Dream about everything I don't want to dream about.
Dream about scary things.
Wake up, grateful that it was just a dream.
Think about how I don't want to go back to sleep just so I have strange dreams.
Fall asleep.
Last five items of the first list of this blog post.

And tonight, after suffering from a lovely headache and the onslaught of heartburn because I chose a really fat, delicious, fresh-from-the-oven slice of homemade bread and a glass of milk instead of vanilla coke and a chocolate-chocolate doughnut from 7-11, I'm sure tonight will contain many of the items from my second list. But hopefully my dreams will contain doughnuts and maybe I'll wake up in the line at 7-11 with a coke and a doughnut in my hands.

Discovery

Current pressings upon my mind:

School. I have two classes I thought I'd have to take, but I don't. Then I found out I have to take another art class, though. That means I have to add three credits to semesters that are already packed full of credits.

So. This also nudges one door a little wider: Study abroad in the good land of Italy. It would potentially cover 6 Art History credits that I need to take, knocking off three credits from the next two semesters, each.

You follow?

AKA, if I don't take Art History during my next two semesters (if I do study abroad instead), then I have room for that art class I have to take, and all is well and good.

Potentially.


Another thing on my mind. The Scarlet Letter. I was assigned to read it during the summer before my junior year of high school for honors English. It didn't work out. I read Cliffs Notes. I took the tests. I listened to the class discussions. I was immersed in the plot from discussions as much as I could be and subsequently was surprised when I learned the plot twists by ear.

Ever since then I was curious as to how it all turned out in the end.

I wanted to read a book the other night. I browsed through Google Books' free books. The Scarlet Letter was there. And so began my journey into reading a book.

A BOOK.

I think the last book I read was the seventh Harry Potter a couple years ago. Tragic, I know.


I just deleted the final thing on my mind from this post and put it into my drafts. It is a discussion for another day. Just a string of thoughts from my brain that is unimportant and will not change your life, most likely. I have spoken too much on this post already, and maybe you didn't even make it through to where I am typing, now.


Pity that our modern society thrives on instant entertainment and instant gratification. Gone is the savoring of words and thought, and withering is the patience to sift through others' thoughts in order to discover our own.

Goals: Revised

Be(lieve you are) beautiful

Be(lieve you are) memorable
Be(lieve you are) kind
Be(lieve you are) pleasant

Be(lieve you are) happy
Be(lieve you are) thoughtful

Be(lieve you are) awake

Be(lieve you are) adventurous
Be(lieve you are) bold
Be(lieve you are) intelligent

Be(lieve you are) wise
Be(lieve you are) punctual

Be(lieve you are) well dressed
Be(lieve you are) well rounded

Be(lieve you are) brave
Be(lieve you are) attentive
Be(lieve you are) mindful
Be(lieve you are) creative

Be(lieve you are) rare

Be(lieve you are) inspired
Be(lieve you are) inspiring

(Because it is probably true.)

[original]

Fearsome

When asked what my biggest fear is, I normally respond with

blindness.

Besides the physical fears,
I think my biggest fear is actually incompetence.
Not necessarily fearing being incompetent.
But fearing
to seem incompetent.
Incapable.
Inadequate.
Inept.

I think there is a good number of people 

who probably bring to pass my fear.

Because I get nervous in a lot of 

social settings. So I am usually quiet or awkward with 

[name any person who is not a family member/close friend].

Not because I am afraid of talking. But 

because my brain freezes 

And I think,

"Did I ever learn how to speak this language?"

To which I think, 

"Yes. I did learn how to speak this language, as a matter of fact."

Anyway,

Moral of the story,

I wish I could break out of that

because there is more to me than I think a lot of people know or see.

And I am not quite sure how to change that.

Breakfast

On mornings like this
I wish I were at home
eating oatmeal I've never really liked
and watching the morning news
with my mom,
talking about how Grandma used to call it mush.

Goals

Be beautiful

Be memorable
Be kind
Be pleasant

Be happy
Be thoughtful

Be awake

Be adventurous
Be bold
Be intelligent

Be wise
Be punctual

Be well dressed
Be well rounded

Be brave
Be attentive
Be mindful
Be creative

Be rare

Be inspired
Be inspiring



(see revised)

This Is Your Brain On Dreams

For about the past week, I keep having vivid & kind of bizarre dreams. The kinds of dreams that when you wake up, it's the biggest relief that your life is way better than the ballet solo, all-your-belongings-are-missing, Batman/Joker, alligator, wolf-attacked dog, Clifford-sized Samoyed dreams you've been having.

Also, over the course of the last two mornings, I've woken up at least an hour before my alarm is set to blare. And I feel wide awake.

So I go through this conflict in my brain. Part of me says, "Well. You could just get up. You know, enjoy the morning." Then the other part of me is like, "Haha, no."

Then I toss and turn, and I feel like I will never sleep again.

And all of a sudden, my alarm is daintily chirping like a fool, and I wake up and feel like throwing my phone at the wall but there's no way I'm taking my arm out of my warm blanket only to exert energy that I don't want to exert because I want to sleep through the rest of every winter.


I think I should erase my life goal of becoming a morning person.

Alligators Gonna Alligate

Last night I dreamed that there was a big, fat alligator living down the street. But "street" here means "tree house-ville" because that was what my neighborhood was like. This alligator hunted by smell, and I told my little sister that. Because apparently younger kids have a more obvious smell, or something, so she needed to be aware of this. Then my mom told the two of us to bring the alligator a Christmas present. But we didn't want to, because who wants to give the alligator down the street a Christmas present if there's  a chance he is going to eat your little sister?

Lung

Ever feel like when you breathe in

the breath finally clears your lungs?

Tip

I got a twenty-dollar tip today. From one rockin' Argentine. Sometimes people are so nice. Like the people who read my name tag once, then they address me by Bethany every time they see me. And they don't have to read my name tag again.

Also it's weird when I'm at work and the guy I just checked in walks up to me and asks if I'm interested in earning some extra money. And he gives me his card for his phone business.

I threw it away.

In other news,

I'm so tired I could eat a horse. That doesn't make much sense. Either way, my eyes are drooping. And I have laundry to do. And one whole hour of the night is going to disintegrate into nothing and become forgotten and irrelevant. I am going to miss that little hour.

Also I'd never eat a horse.

Reflection

Why is it so hard to not do the things that you want to do

And so normal to stick with the hard things that you want to change?

P.S. Welcome, March. Just the fact that we're now in the same month as the first day of spring

 makes up for the fact that it seems like we're still in the same month as Christmas.

Secrets

It's hard when I'm tired
When I have work tomorrow
And it's late

And almost everything is
Just almost in its place

But there are those little
Envelopes I sealed in my brain

Because too bad they'll maybe
Probably
Never be opened.

Wake Up

Some of my brain thinks that if I don't go to sleep, I won't have to wake up.
Which is true, if you think about it.

The other part of my brain is thinking that if I don't go to sleep right now, I am probably never going to be able to wake up.


There's also a little bit of my brain thinking that I'd be okay with eating a doughnut right now.

Also, I'm dreading work, a little bit, right now.

Where's that doughnut?

Title

I ain't no photographer.

I have so much to learn.

Sometimes I look at the loveliest of others' photography.

And I think, 

"I feel like something like that's in my brain..."

But it doesn't seem to always show when I look through photographs taken.

Art is confusing.

I'm an artist; I swear I am.

I claim the title.

But sometimes it's hard to claim the term "art" when 

photographs taken perhaps lack it more than I'd like.

reminiscence Emerging

Sometimes I think about how I wish things were
And nostalgia wraps itself around my brain.

I miss it, even though I don't know it.

Then,
Even though I can only pluck the strings and strum half-songs the guitar

Blisters on my fingertips

And play the same bundle of songs over and over on the piano

If I don't think, I don't stumble on those notes

And imagine book-writing and photographing, music-filming, song-covering and traveling

Impending-wheels reeling

The nostalgia somehow drifts away, inside my brain
And a comfortable anticipation emerges.