i think your response to #1 is very insightful... probably since i am the type to brood over something like not being greeted in return, or to at least feel a little prick like a brief touch on a thorn. grr.

on the other hand, i think have to disagree with the generalities of the second point. personally, i think it's about comfort. now i know comfort isn't exactly something one i supposed to strive toward in a set of goals like this, but sometimes it's a matter of the way things are... um, like intuition or aura. some people you just don't get along with and there's no particular reason why - in fact all signs point to the fact that you should be best friends or lovers. you can't force that. and you consider this guy a friend, but you can't force how you feel around him. does it do anyone any good to do so? maybe you do owe him enough to explain this, but if it harms you internally to be around him, surely that shows. or surely it means sending bad vibes into other parts of your life. i guess i just mean to say that it isn't fair to blanketly say "you should always accept every invitation because it might make someone feel better." phew. i'd better stop...

There is a lot to it, isn't there? Just like you, I just felt like I should stop.

What is odd about me is, I am moderately clever about seeing from others' perspective but often quite horrible at looking through my own eyes--so your thoughts would never have occurred to me.

Thanks

Hmmm. This is the part I like most:

And while I'm tempted to say you're being too hard on yourself with that list, I suppose that quote puts me in my place. You know better than I why you think your motives are wrong. Still, when you call into play words like "right" and "wrong", I feel like you're treading on dangerous territory... doesn't that still suppose a higher definition of the words? Some ultimate right and wrong?

Anyway, do you think your neighbor was kicked out or fled in embarrassment? My apartment neighbor has noisy sex every once in awhile, and while we don't cheer her and her off-again-on-again boyfriend on, we certainly don't mind a little background noise to our own orchestra. I think she's of legal drinking age, though.

p.s. like the new profile pic!


[Edited on May 27, 2006 10:12AM]

alright, your response was dead-on. i think the "does this bring me closer to my goal?" is the single best way to put it. and i get it now. sadly, i agree about the president more, but honestly... do we know for sure that he doesn't think he's actually trying to do what's best? he might be that dillusional. quite possible. then again, we do know he's a filthy liar about plenty of things, and he certainly wasn't innocent going into it all. he just seems to have gotten stupider as the terms have worn on. i once saw a side-by-side video of a speech he gave back in the gov'na days and a very recent speech - day and night, he's totally fried his brain.

congrats on the computer luckage. for some reason i always feel like when i'm typing here, everyone can see into my computer - as in, they know what kind of computer i'm using and what's playing, etc. not a paranoid kind of thing, just a childish kind of thing. somewhere along the lines of how a kid thinks you can't see him if he has his head hidden and not the rest of him...

anyway, that's good you are so kind to your books. sometimes i feel guilty for marking in mine, like i'm not respecting them enough. (and of course i wouldn't bring a pen within ten feet of my antique books.) but then i console myself by considering it as a conversation with the text, and maybe there's more respect in really being engaged and using a book than setting it pristinely on the shelf. what say you?

no, i haven't read either of those authors i'm sorry to say. it sounds like stuff i'd like though. i've been spending the past couple of months rereading old college books that i couldn't stand the first time i read them. just absolute crap. and it's making me sick. i just couldn't really afford new books, and Half Price didn't have In Cold Blood.

Bonnaroo sounds like it definitely has some plus sides to it, but i think there is a lot of stuff i wouldn't want to deal with as it gets bigger every year. but that's the way things go. lots of amazing acts, though, indeed.

about marking in books - if it really, really moves me, i just can't let it go. and by having my favorite lines marked, if i'm ever looking for inspiration or just happen to remember that there's a delicious quote in a certain book, all i have to do is flip.

i might try to find those books, but that'll have to wait till funds pick up. that's why i'm rereading old college books - even ones i can't stand. and Oprah has picked a winner or two. The Corrections was awesome (even though Mr. Franzen tried to turn her book club offer down until he was pretty much forced to accept) and of course Toni Morrison is the most eloquent novelist ever.

Are you one of those types who underlines all the passages and lines in books that make your eyes start out of your head in recognition? Me too. (Good for you for the Neverending Story ref.)

I'd say my favorite of those quotes, and they're all incredible by the way, would have to be the one about Here and Now. I guess I feel that way pretty often because, when it comes down to it, we generally put off most easily the things which matter most. Why is that? What disease have we all contracted? Mr. Bach eloquently proved it to be the myth it is.

at least you're thinking about it and considering it. carefree-ness might be a sign of something worse. good luck.

there are lots of reasons....bamboo blinds eh? sounds exciting!

yes, bamboo blinds do liven up a place. thanks for your comment, but it's not a very happy poem for me. not a very happy time right now which is why i've been gone. i'll be back someday.

i know that feeling. sometimes i think it would be simpler without family - i've always been closer to friends anyway. i would have made a good hermit, but alas, i think i have always at least had one friend in my life it would have killed me to leave. i'm sorry for your situation - i hope things come back to life for you. wait till you see them, maybe you'll warm up.