'Cause the walls start shaking...The earth was quaking

I woke up to the news of yet another earthquake, major one, hitting our little floating rock in this twisted universe.

I have nothing to add to those news aside from the lingering thoughts of the world going to hell in a hand-basket one earthquake at a time and the sadness at the loss of life. It might not mean much to those who don't live there, but I'm sure someone lost someone dear to them that was squashed under a giant McDonald's sign.

Am I making light of things? Perhaps. But what else can you do, but think of AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" and accidentally find this cover on youtube - prompting you to share it with the world?

Sorry for having a sense of humor.

Who Stands A Chance?

I have a way with my words. Oh, and what a way it is!

I say too much, or not enough. I think I'm saying it right, and I try my best to ignore the little voice in the back of my head reminding me how my words usually end up being received on past occasions. Disaster.

It's hard to come off sane, being me. People tell me to be honest and never, ever, be afraid of saying what I think or feel. But it's hard. It's a fine line to walk on...and to be in the receiving end is much worse. Sometimes others are being honest with me and, again, that little voice in my head that resists against any kind of compliment or sweet gesture forces me to raise my eyebrow doubting what they are telling me. Or perhaps I feel I don't deserve it, not good enough to hear it...Maybe, I'm just tired and afraid. I've accepted them before and let people in, to quickly find it was just a cruel maneuver for a greater mean.

But I guess I have to work on that and hope that whatever cynicism is left in the world bypasses me a few more times.

I'm going to bed, and if it's like last night...I'm in for another eventful evening of waking up screaming, or crying. I don't wanna dream anymore.

“I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?” - John Lennon

Last night, again...

I can always tell when it's about to hit me like a ton of bricks, right square on my chest.

The proverbial ton of bricks usually comes in the shape of my head playing a continuous loop of Counting Crows songs. So between my Raining in Baltimore replay, and the burning in my eyes I usually get when I want to cry, I find myself getting bronchitis again. Again as in, didn't I just get over my first episode of it 2 weeks ago? This time, however, I skipped right over to the antibiotics right away...I can't put my lungs through that again. I went to bed feeling a little disappointed in some things, people, memories...but mainly loathing myself in a way that all of you may have found familiar at one time or another. I realize that - in general - I'm a good person, and that as a human being it is understandable one is not perfect in any definition of the word. Instead of sitting up all night crying, feeling sorry for myself when in reality I could be much much worse off, I just read for a bit and forced my eyes to close even when I wasn't sleepy. Bad move.

The images were haunting, desolate. I dreamed I was in an abandoned military base out in the desert and there was no life around me. I kept screaming and my voice just echoed off the empty buildings around me. The sun was high and I went down into some underground bunkers for relief from the intense heat. Everything is garbled. I just heard throaty groans, looked behind me and saw a few dozen 'bodies' following me. They made these horrifying noises and the scuffling of their steps got closer, as I cried out. Not really for help, but just cries. Sobs, dry screams of desperation and realization that there is nothing left. Just endless darkness, horrors, and I have no air to breathe.

I woke up feeling like all the joy was sucked out of the world forever, and I would've killed to run out my door barefoot as I was and head over to the nearest soul that could hold me until I was tired of crying/shaking. I have people I "know" in town, about 2 friends...but they probably wouldn't take it happily to have me calling their cell phone at 3 a.m. asking for a hug in a high hysterical voice. I tweeted desperation, out into the cyber atmosphere...I wished for courage to close my eyes again. But in the end the tears won, the fear won.

I don't feel so good. Which is probably the hugest understatement of the century.

Chords and Phlegm

I used to dream,
that there were faces on the moon
But then I'd cry
because they all would look like you.

When we danced
I loved to feel your hand on mine
Now when I wake
I know that nothing will be fine.

I've come to find
That the world's a lonely place
No, nothing fills the space
I'd give my life for your embrace.

Naked and lost
With these eyes that feel so old
Like a broken, tortured soul
That's been left out in the cold

Without you...without you.

Oh, since you left
These hollow nights, they seem so long
I spend my days
Writing silly jaded songs.

I know that you
Have found the one that drives you wild
The one that's finally worth your while
I can see it in your smile.

I've come to find....

by Yaritza Irizarry '02/10

I'm feeling a little retired...

CLICK ON THE PIC.

Trust the Yari.

There's Things I Remember, Things I Forget

Today was a pretty full day, emotionally speaking.

I seem to be getting sick...again. The same bronchitis/sinusitis crap I had a few weeks ago. My head and lungs are super congested, and I'm exhausted. I'm "sleeping" some at night, if you consider drifting off and coughing myself awake every 4 minutes "sleep". This morning I got to work a few minutes early to realize someone had scheduled a class for me to give, and I had not prepared for it. Giving the class is easy, it's making sure that the staff has enough security access to the computers and login IDs for the software what makes it a bit hectic to put together in 3 minutes.

I turned on the PC and projector...only to realize the image was projecting perfectly behind me...but my screen was black. Lovely. The 2 ladies I had to give a class to were ladies that had already been trained for several weeks but are just not getting how the system works. That's fine, I rather them be trained again than fixing mistakes but: a) One was texting the whole time and b) the other one was falling asleep. How rude. Sigh.

I finally spoke on the phone to Arelys. I met her the first day of kindergarten and we were pretty much stuck at the hip until I moved to the US. After that, we still called and wrote frequently and saw each other yearly. About a year and a half ago, she got pregnant and lost her baby. She texted me to call her that day she lost it, because she needed me, I was her sister. I never texted...I hid from her calls. Until today. I heard her voice and closed my eyes, almost seeing her pointy button nose and beautiful black/asian features. She didn't bring up why I disappeared or why, after being like her sister, I've become this stranger she never hears from. Instead she fussed over my diabetes (both her grandmothers have passed away from it, painfully slow) and simply said "I miss you". It broke my heart. I remembered everything from the time we were 5 and I found her crying inside my play house because her dad beat her mom, to my first "experiment" in kissing...which was with her. She was a great kisser. Alas, I stuck to boys.

She kept going on about finding pictures of us as little girls in different field trips and if "oh my god do you remember those horrible white shoes I wore to the fair?". I couldn't help by busting out laughing, for I did. Yes, they were quite horrible. Did I remember the time we were 8 and she shaved her eyebrows off...completely off? Yes, now its her turn to laugh. She's coming to TX next year to visit me, and my heart just burst and shattered into a million pieces. How could I be so selfish, and leave her behind? Many congrats on her wedding, the one we always planned I'd be the maid of honor for.

I'm even more homesick now...and Valentine's is around the corner. Happy quarterly profits to Hallmark and Godiva. Arelys' birthday is on Valentine's...so I guess I can be happy about that.

Happy Birthday, nena. Here's to us turning 26 this year...Here's to you, David and me still being the three musketeers, even oceans apart.

Tick...Tock

It's like trying to predict when it will erupt, down to the exact moment in time it will happen.

There's signs under the surface, tremors...steam, that give out this eerie feeling that something big is brewing.

The days are ticking, and it almost seems I just opened my eyes in the morning...when in reality it's time to close them again at night. I am running, I am thinking, and I am trying.

I am nervous about the clock reaching 00:00, then it all explodes. The countdown until then does not give any sign of slowing down, and my question is:

When it happens, when the most frightful sight you've beheld finally reaches past the boiling point and the day of doom is finally here...

Will you be here hugging me tight, holding me up?

"O Do Not Love Too Long"

Sweetheart, do not love too long:
I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.

All through the years of our youth
Neither could have known
Their own thought from the other's,
We were so much at one.

But O, in a minute she changed -
O do not love too long,
Or you will grow out of fashion
Like an old song.

~ William B. Yeats

Låt den rätte komma in

It is a masterpiece. The simplicity of it, the sadness and beauty in this TRUE vampire film just brought me to tears last night.

Once payday hits, I'll buy the book, which I'm told is even more striking than this Swedish film was. The novel was written by John Ajvide Lindqvist and the movie directed by Tomas Alfredson. Is it even proper to call it a coming of age story? No, but it has a little of that mixed with my favorite thing about horror movies: creepiness. I'm not much into gore or cheap shocks, so the emotional depth involved in the eerieness of this story was just fascinating.

Oskar is a shy, withdrawn 12 yr old that is often in the receiving end of school bullying. He spends his days plotting revenge, and really, who of us that have found ourselves in that situation haven't entertained a few thoughts of self-glory? He finds himself in the company of a 12 yr old friend...who happens to be a vampire. No, not a sparkly vampire. A head-snapping, doe-eyed, gentle souled, ruthless killing machine. She is Eli.

Watch it. It's available instantly on Netflix, you'll find it somewhere online...just...watch the thing. Thank you, Sweden. You have restored my faith in the beauty of well executed films. The scenery, the blood...Jag har nej orden!