notes: *eileen wrote the kind of post that made me join and come back. thanks for that. this post will pale in comparison. further commentary: they say that when you lose a part of yourself -- a limb, perhaps, or a fingertip -- you still feel it, even though it's no longer there. i think we feel this way about all parts of ourselves, physical or emotional; the funny thing about it, though, is that all we have from day one until the very end is what we were born with, what was always there. most emotions, or emotional attachments are not like that -- we create them ourselves. and when we lose one, we feel the pain of loss quite purely; we know it isn't there, and we doubt whether it ever really was. we don't feel like we still have that missing part; it is just gone. perhaps we can only truly lose those parts of ourselves that were always there, those fingers and toes and inclinations with which we were born. we cannot make additional limbs or fingers, though some days we might like to, and have them feel real and right. we can only adapt in what ways we know how and know, when some emotional attachment is severed, that that raw, freshly unadorned place in us is like an outlet on a wall, waiting for a new plug to be inserted, a new use. we all have those little holes to be filled when born, and, at that time, we have, too, a specific mold for which plugs must fit. we cannot force keys or forks or those little lite-brite pegs into our outlets without getting shocked. when we lose what we create, we must be comforted knowing that we can always create more with what we have, and have coming. *ian said he hoped that one day, people would still be twee. or something like that. i'd imagine if someone were to walk around my town carrying a teddy bear, of any size, he would be five, or considered 'odd.' i embrace oddities. i try to celebrate mine. and while sometimes overwhelming tweeness annoys me, i am that, i suppose, and i hope that everyone everywhere will someday retain that capacity to hold a teddy bear in public, which is just as good as saying i hope everyone will be able to remember what it was like to see the world colored by something more than things like war or images of what we are supposed to be in order to be deemed heroic and right. *music, in any form, should be the proper center of everything. if it comes from conversation or radios or mtv or a list, to dance and to sing without form is to be happy for a moment. i sing when i write, and i imagine that sometimes i sing always, even when sleeping or brushing my teeth or kissing some stranger in the basement of a house at a party. *elizabeth should buy light blue knee socks. i myself am wearing some right now, even though the cold outside warrants full stockings, and i wonder that i never managed to enjoy these when i was small. well. smaller. *** a thrift store in town closed this weekend, and i didn't know until today, when i went there to buy a dress, and found the windows covered with wide sheets of white paper. later, i heard the salvation army had bought the building, fired all the workers and sold the clothes and sundry goods inside at 75 percent off over the weekend. now i imagine fifteen or twenty people at home, fired and looking for new jobs two weeks before christmas thanks to, of all things, the salvation army. perhaps they can get jobs ringing those bells beside red buckets, raising money to help the needy through the charitable efforts of....oh. the salvation army. it's on days like these, with news like this, that i wonder about people and our inherent senses of right and wrong, animosity and goodwill. business versus pleasure. science versus romance. or something like that. *** for two years i was enamoured with a certain boy who i could find throughout the week at a certain coffee shop in town. he poured my tea and i flashed toothy smiles and i thought all would be well if i waited it out long enough. and one day not so very long ago, he and i sat on his porch, enclosed by a screen, on a couch with a bottle of wine and a pack of camel lights. he lit my cigarettes and i soothed his ego, and, in the end, he took my hand and led me inside without saying much. three days later, he said he hadn't meant it. he was drunk, of course, and i, like i generally do, read into things. gave meanings where there were none. i tried to get over it. in traditional girl fashion, i and my best friend got together over smokes and drinks and dissected, found all the asshole qualities with singleton glee and damned fuckwits worldwide. a few nights ago, at a party i chose not to attend, she and the boy kissed. and kissed. and kissed more. there is a date. that, apparently, will not be a "date," per se, just a jumping off dinner for discussion of friendship betwixt said parties. she won't care, they said of me. she'll understand. she loves us. she'll be ok. and so here i am, forty-eight hours later, wondering why it's ok to shit on someone you say you love in your own attempts at happiness. why, because that person loves you, you can assume that all will be forgiven out of love and the mutual human goal of attaining such happinesses. i'm not ok. i don't understand. and i feel as though i should. but now, through an act i did not create, nor would have chosen, i have lost something -- not necessarily a complete part, but a fraction of what i thought was a whole, honest, unconditional belief. i thought people meant the things they said. and the things for which they stood. perhaps, because i do mean the things i say, because i have the integrity of a non-falsified belief system, i am the minority after all. even the salvation army embraces hypocrisy these days. *rae __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+