Kahlil Gibran and an analogy comparing reading Dickens to running at a waterfall

I love Kahlil Gibran.

I have loved him since I was in middle school and came to visit my Grandma at the Matheson Courthouse for Career Day (I didn't really want to work at the courthouse, I just wanted to hang out with my Grandma because she loves me the most.)  There was a guy working doing I don't even know what who had the coolest sleeve tattoo, and winding around his arm was this quote.  I wish I could remember which quote it was now, but I remembered he said it was from a guy named Kahlil Gibran.  So of course I went home and looked him up and I've loved him ever since.  Kahlil Gibran is awesome.  He is the third best-selling poet of all time behind SHAKESPEARE and Lao-Tzu.  Suffice it to say, the guy can write.

Today I was trying to read Hard Times on my Kindle (and having a "Hard Time(s)" of it, amiright?) and I decided to take a break and for some reason that break led me to read some of my favorite pieces of Kahlil Gibranese wisdom.

Here are some of my favorite Kahlil Gibran quotes:

"Poetry is a great deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary."

Seriously, I don't think there's a better way to describe poetry.


"Love is trembling happiness."

I just think this is a pretty image.

And finally, one of my favorites:

"When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. "
How true is this?  Things go sour after a while, and we can't truly mourn that which we've never known, so when we know true sorrow it is because of the loss of something that once gave us joy.  I'm not as articulate as Kahlil, even restating his points, clearly.

Anyway, just thought I would share with you guys.  Are you feeling inspired now?  I hope so.  I, for my part, am not that inspired, or at least, not inspired to do what I SHOULD do, which is either a) read Hard Times or b) go to bed.  Not like I wasn't forewarned.  I took an entire Dickens course from this Professor before, and this semester he told us that reading Dickens is like running at a wall of water.  If you go full speed it will smack you in the face, but if you take you're time you'll be fine.  AND I STILL DIDN'T LISTEN.  Anyway.... adios.

Dramatic Poem written from my Cold Bedroom on an October Evening

Decided to take a five minute break from my Titus Andronicus essay to write a blog...couldn't think of anything to write, wrote this poem real quick.  Hopefully it is not the worst poem ever (clearly I do not think it is the worst EVER or I wouldn't post it.)

I think I am going to call it, "Dramatic Poem written from my Cold Bedroom on an October Evening"


The feeling you get when you realize
Those you thought you knew, you don't:

You see it in the way that dust settles on your dresser
When you swept it away an hour ago,
And you realize your life is covered through and through
In a fine layer of grime no matter what you do.

And you think, how can it be so?
I'm disorganized, distressed, distrustful
But I am water in a shell of skin
Surely I can cleanse myself of this memory of sin...

But you give up because all things considered
At the end of the day
Though your heart is dirty and grey
Some things you don't want washed away.

Keepin' It Positive (Sasha Fierce)

Sometimes, you have a bad day.  I know, readers, you're all, "what?! That happens to people?! Those poor people."

Anyway, there are many, many things I do when I have a bad day.  Sometimes I go to McDonalds with Colton and MayLynn and we eat hot fudge sundaes and Colton makes me sit in a line of sight with a McDonalds worker that he says was checking me out, and we try to eat seductively with our plastic spoons so that if he looks over he will be uncomfortable.

Sometimes, Colton sends me Beyonce songs over facebook and I listen to the same one like, 100 times because it is the best and she is SOOO Sasha Fierce (a term that Tess and I coined when her album, I Am Sasha Fierce came out--it means she is strong and takes no crap from nobody!)

Annnnnd sometimes I think instead of being negative, I will make a blog about all the things I am loving right now.

And so here it is, the blog about things I am loving right now!

* The fact that it's raining right now.
* PUMPKIN EVERYTHING!!

THIS STUFF

Reeses Pumpkins...because the best Reeses are seasonal, shaped Reeses.

Vegan Pumpkin Mac

Pumpkin Hummus

She is the cutest and the best.

* New Girl!  This season is so good!

* And in that vein...Zooey Desch and everything about Zooey Desch!

* Writing!  I am getting some really good writing done and I am loving the drafts I'm turning in.

* Nanowrimo is coming up SOON!  I really want to finish this year.  We'll see how busy I am.

* All the new movies coming out!  Especially Cloud Atlas.  I really want to see that.

* Pitch Perfect... I've seen it not once, not twice, not even three times, but FOUR TIMES.

* Tattoos in these places:

* These songs:

* This

Oh, and this.

* Getting to use my space heater

* Playing D&D every Sunday

* The way Sardine Canyon looks right now when you drive through it

* Taking hot showers when I'm stressed out, or reading a book in the bathtub...which is what I'm going to do now.

Love you all!!

Manifestoconfessional. It's like Dashboard Confessional, only not at all like Dashboard Confessional.

I'm a little bummed out because I was thinking of what to write in this Manifestoconfessional, then I got in the shower and forgot it all.  Iknowright?  Stupid.

So anyway, on Sunday night I had a friend over and we were talking about our religious beliefs (or lack thereof) to my roommate and good friend, MayLynn.  Or I guess I could say he was mostly talking and I was saying affirming things like "me too" and "yes."  But regardless, today when I was in my room, I heard my other roommates talking about how they "wished I wouldn't talk about my beliefs in the living room."

At first, I found this really funny.  Then I was a little bothered by it.  I know I shouldn't have been.  It's just a fact of life that when you have different beliefs from the general population, some people are going to resent them, and by extension, you.  I was bothered because they get to air their beliefs whenever and wherever they want, and they are praised for "spreading the word," whereas when I talk about what I believe, I get shut down, some people don't want to talk to me any more, and there's a general feeling of discomfort even among those who are more accepting.

However, instead of shutting me down, actually experiencing a little piece of this disdain for the first time (or I should say, for the first time with people I don't really know or care about) only spurred me on to say what I want to say and just let the chips fall where they may.  Hopefully those of you who are reading this are open minded enough to realize that religion, like sexuality or whether or not you like green beans, is really, truly, nobody's business but your own.  Whether someone believes in God, many Gods, no God, or doesn't know what they believe it should in no way affect how you treat them, how you perceive their morality, or whether or not you get to know them.  Religion is personal and private, and for some reason we as a society refuse to let it stay that way, to the point that I have to write something like this, though I hardly think I need to justify myself, to explain what I believe just to get it out there in the open and see who can deal with it and who can't.

It's important to know, first of all, that I grew up in an interesting family dynamic.  My mom is a Mormon, but my dad is Atheist.  I actually consider myself very lucky to have grown up this way.  It allowed me to see vastly different sides of the religious spectrum.  Additionally, I already had a very inquisitive personality, and I was never quick to accept that something was true just "because it is."  I was never OK with just hoping for an explanation, I wanted to know.  Having two parents with beliefs that differed in the extremes only made me more curious.  I'm grateful for that.

That's not to say that growing up torn between two "extremes" wasn't difficult.  I wanted to make both of my parents happy, like most children.  However, my mom was the one who got to decide our religious upbringing, and she raised us Mormon.  Of course, I had all of the Mormon guilt that comes along with being human, or as I've often heard people described, "the natural man."  However, I was never quite as guilty as I "should" have been in order to be a "good" Mormon.  Sure, I felt bad when I had thoughts pertaining to anything against the Word of Wisdom, and when I swore, sometimes I felt a little regretful.  But overall, my inclination against being told what to do and a universal, objective morality kept me from really, truly squashing my desires.  I've heard it said that some people just do what they do out of fear of being punished.  I think that I lost that fear at a young age, at least when it came to church.

The older I got, the more I got the feeling that church didn't really hold anything for me.  I remember skipping Seminary in middle school to walk home to eat lunch because I felt so uncomfortable trying to express opinions that I didn't share just because I was expected to by the teacher.  I remember pretending to be sick every Sunday so I wouldn't have to go to church and being so excited when I finally got a job that would require me to be at work during our meeting time.  And I remember being fourteen or fifteen and changing my myspace (I know, right) page to say that I was "agnostic," because at the time I was still afraid to question religion beyond simply the existence of one "correct" religion.  I thought that organized religion takes up too much of people's time and dictates too many of their opinions for them.  The more I saw people get in to organized religion, the less individuality I saw.  That always really bothered me, especially since, though Mormonism claims to be "the one true religion"  there were huge, HUGE parts of Mormon doctrine that I fundamentally disagreed with (particularly their views on women's roles and marriage.)  I wondered what the point was of belonging to a church that I couldn't be behind 100 percent.

Anyway, my mom found my myspace (because this was middle school/early high school, and that was still a thing that happened...moms found your secret myspace pages) and I got in a LOT of trouble for having put "agnostic" as my religious preference.  I understand now that she just wanted what she perceived to be best for me--to be part of a religion that she thought (and thinks) is pure truth from a divine creator.  I also remember her saying "does this mean you don't believe in God?" It was the first time I let myself really form that thought in my head.  I was too scared of what it would mean if I didn't believe in God to let myself pursue the idea further.

During high school, my mom basically gave up on trying to make me go to church.  I was no longer even asked if I wanted to go to girls camp, and no one made me take seminary.  I don't know to this day how I got off scott free, but I managed it.  Throughout all that time I played with the idea of the non-existance of God, I even talked about it with one of my friends.  Any time I brought it up, though, I was shut down.  It was pretty lonely, and I tried to push it back as much as possible.  I genuinely thought that there was no way for me to be happy if I didn't believe in God, and I felt so sorry for my Dad that I often cried because I was sure that he must be so  miserable, knowing there was nothing to look forward to after death.

In college, I lived with my best friend, Tess.  She, like me, had had some issues with the church.  I felt we were really on the same page--that is, we both assumed that we were Mormons at heart that just couldn't accept the full truth of the gospel yet, and obviously we'd go back to being Mormons in the end, but for the moment we wanted to do whatever we wanted to do without regard to religion.  I believed that, to an extent, or at least, it was easier to believe it when she was around.  Secretly, though, I knew I wouldn't ever go back, and I feared that if and when she did it would sever all ties between us.

By the time we got into our junior year, I knew from enough research (which I had been assured by multiple persons was blasphemous--there's always something wrong written about the church on the internet for you to find, apparently, even if that "something wrong" is scientific fact...) and enough personal feeling that I was no longer willing to accept anything that could not be conclusively proven to me until such a time that it could, in fact, be tested and proven true.  Unhappily, that included the idea of a deity.  Still, with no one I felt like I could talk to, I kept my mouth shut.

I have been so lucky in this last year.  Tess moved out and is going on a mission, and I'm happy she's happy. I miss her all the time and still love her to death.  However, when she moved out we both got to grow and develop into more full versions of ourselves.  With more or less no one left in Logan that I knew from my formative years, I felt more comfortable delving deeper into feelings I had previously left unexplored.

Then, in the last couple of months, I met a person who shares my beliefs, and is free and open and willing to talk to anyone who will listen about those beliefs.  Seeing that kind of "eh, whatever, this is who I am, deal with it" attitude made me feel better about expressing myself.  It's always nice to know you have an ally.

So before now I've only let a couple of people in on my dirty little secret.  Really, I shouldn't have to tell anyone, unless they ask.  But such is the way of the world.  Again, I am so lucky.  No one I've told that really cares about me has shied away from a friendship with me just because we are different.  We can respect one another and focus on all the many thousands of things that make us who we are instead of the one stupid, insignificant detail that everyone seems bound and determined to get stuck in their teeth.

I could really go on and on and elaborate on this post forever, but as I have a midterm tomorrow, I feel like I should probably just call it a night.  To whoever is reading this, don't be afraid to question what you know.  If you don't question and search beyond your comfort zone, how will you ever know for sure what you believe?

Sometimes, it's 7:45 in the morning and you have to write a poem because you haven't slept yet.

Sometimes me and Nate write a poem by flipping a coin and having the heads or tails person write the next line, then flipping it again.  Sometimes I have to write 1000 lines in a row.  But then Nate has to write 200 lines in a row so it's fine.

Sometimes this is the poem we wrote:

Strings

But tight, I am strung through the room so bravely

But soft, my chest is strung up to your rising sun

You are my morning

Do I dare to rise, share the light?

Or cloud over, could I even lock myself up so dark and so tight?

But stop, think of the sky to cover

Your horses are tired and so are mine

And you are not Apollo

Thoroughly labored, pretty and petty

Unable to swallow my treason

Forgetful, unable, revived and unstable

So wretched in thinking my friends are the reason

What is true, what is myth

Who can say for certain?

Honestly, I tried once before

Though my score was settled, I ached for more

Fuck you, Jekyll

I've no reason to Hyde

I'm both monster and man, God and Godless

So brave in my pursuit of you, truth, time

This vague repetition reminds me of rhyme

But why asked the heckler I tried to repress

Why can't I detach these strings from my chest?

Surprise, you won Tic Tac Toe!! : A new game from the makers of the game where you throw the ice into the hole in the soda machine at U6

Today at work, I taught my roommate slash bestie slash work colleague MayLynn how to play Ultimate Tic Tac Toe.

For those of you who don't know, Ultimate Tic Tac Toe involves drawing a tic tac toe...square? Board? Whatever you want to call it....inside each of the squares of a large tic tac toe square/board/whatever you want to call it.

Now, before today I had played Ultimate Tic Tac Toe precisely one time, but for some reason, I thought I was totally awesome at it.  Not the case.  Or I guess yes the case, but MayLynn and I were perfectly evenly matched.  Or perfectly evenly bad?  Whate'er.

Then the most beautiful thing happened.  It just exploded out of my brain and onto paper.  We looked at the ceiling and on the count of three wrote three x's or o's on a paper, then looked down to see who got the most.  Surprise, you won Tic Tac Toe!! was born.

We refined it over several game playing sessions.  First, you must rotate the paper with the tic tac toe on't while looking directly into your opponents eyes.  After the first round where you draw 3 x's or o's, you may only draw one per round.  You must draw your x's and o's at the same time as your opponent.  You may not break eye contact for any reason.

I don't know if I am properly conveying how fantastic this game is.  Anyway, here's a picture of what it looks  like compared to Extreme Tic Tac Toe.  As you can see, we are evenly matched in the Extreme version, but X (me) is clearly better at randomly writing on a piece of paper without looking.

Conspiracy?

I can already tell this post is going to make no sense.

I'm supposed to get up tomorrow bright n early (7:30) to go to the library and look in special collections to make sure I have my two minute presentation right for my 9:30 class.  I know, that sounds like overkill, but this professor is writing one of my letters of recommendation, so I have to be awesome at errything, which is hard to do when you are me and you'd rather die than be up and learning at 9:30.

Anyway, instead of going to bed right now, I used sleepyti.me, which is a sleep calculator, and it told me I didn't have to be falling asleep until 3 for maximum efficiency in sleep cycles, SO I AM STILL UP AND BLOGGING TO YOUUUUUU.

So I dunno if this happens to you, but it happens to me ALL THE TIME and I think it's a conspiracy of some kind concocted by the universe and/or by tiny devious aliens that we can't see with the naked eye because they have...invisible spaceships.

When I wear a lot of eye makeup, after 10 PM it starts migrating towards the center of my eye like it's the Land Before Time 17 or whatever...or Ice Age 4.  Something where dinosaurs and other things like mammoths have to migrate somewhere.  And then, no matter what color the makeup was, it will turn very, very black and greasy, like it was mixed with vaseline.

So now I wonder, did the makeup perish?  Is eyeshadow alive but for only 1 day like a house fly or something, and then it dies and turns into black goop?  I don't understand.

On that note, why do the tiny invisible spaceship aliens come to earth for the express purpose of making me look like a crack whore after 10 PM?  Do they not know how infrequently I see people that late?  Do they not know that I typically wash my face clear of makeup around then, thus making their plan totally totally stupid?  I don't think they know, so I hope that all the pageviews I'm seeing are from these aliens because they are totes into blogs, and they're like oh, PSA, maybe we shouldn't do that any more!  Thanks Mighty Over-Mistress Chloe!

That's all I wanted to say to you right now, the Internet.  I think when I read this tomorrow I am going to be perplexed.

October is the best.

Do you know why October is the best, dear reader I'm still assuming I have?  October is the best because it is PUMPKIN TIME.  I try to drag pumpkin time all the way through February or March if I can.  I'm talking asking my mom and grandparents to buy me canned pumpkin that I can take home and use to make things.  I know that pumpkin is available year round in the can, but mostly it's just the pie-filling variety which, while delicious, is not always conducive to my pumpkin needs.

ANYWAY.  So tonight I was fully prepared to either
a) eat carrots and hummus and chips and salsa for dinner, as I have the past couple of nights...whatever.
or
b) make stacked vegan enchiladas and have food to eat for many moons.

But then I realized I was pretty much out of carrots and I was too lazy/scared to make vegan enchiladas because it seems every time I try to cut a sweet potato, part of my finger is in grave, grave danger of being chopped off.  Plus, I was feeling fall-ish.  My roommate lit a fall-smelling candle.  It was seasonal as all get out in my apartment.  That was when I remembered I didn't make vegan pumpkin mac and cheese the other day.

Vegan mac and cheese has plagued me for a long time now.  It always seems like it's right on the cusp of being FREAKING PHENOMENAL, but one little thing went wrong, like the sauce got too thick or I used too much turmeric.  I decided, however, that it would be worth trying again once pumpkin got involved.

I would seriously put pumpkin in my cereal, just so you all know.  In fact, as I'm typing this I'm thinking, would it really be so bad if I put pumpkin in with my rice crispies and a little agave nectar tomorrow??? And then I am thinking stop it Chloe, you are not going to have any friends if you can not get it together.

So yeah, back to my story.  I figured that someone somewhere on pinterest would have made a recipe for vegan pumpkin mac and cheese, and sho' 'nuff, lots of people had.  Hooray!

I adapted my recipe from http://ohsheglows.com/2011/10/13/vegan-pumpkin-mac-n-cheeze-sauce/

Basically, I didn't use djon mustard, I used regular mustard powder and a bit of season salt.  I also added cinnamon, nutmeg, and sage.  I don't know how much.  I got all Next Food Network Star with it (which, if you haven't seen it, is a fantastic show and I love it)

So I had the sauce all assembled, tasted it, heard Amy Grant in my head (Breeeeath of heeeeaven hold me togeeeether) and then I realized oh yeah, I hadn't done the noodles.  So I had to pause for the noodles.  Longest pause ever.

Let me just say this about my vegan pumpkin mac and cheese...if I could marry it, I would.  I would let it be the bride.  I would let it have a custom Vera Wang wedding gown and I WOULD PAY FOR THAT GOWN because I love it so much.  It is quite literally the most delicious thing ever.  I think that if there were angels present right now, they would weep as they sang the melody of Ode to Joy in their tiny angel voices.

That's all.