because, journalism

i've been working for the toledo city paper for about two weeks and written in exactly one issue.
so i may be taking some risks with what i'm about to do.
they asked to me to write about this:
http://www.artofprevention.com/Index.html

last year's article looked like this:
http://www.toledocitypaper.com/September-Issue-1-2012/Prevention-and-promise/

i want to write about this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/30/ohio-abortion-restrictions-budget-bill_n_3526844.html
http://www.toledoblade.com/Editorials/2013/08/21/Heart-failure.html

it doesn't seem like a big jump to me. planned parenthood was stripped of their funding last week. it's an article about a planned parenthood event. i'm going to write more than "hey look, art made of condoms." because if we're going to do the news, i think we should do the news.

internships n shit

i've been back in new york since tuesday interning w igor of drivenbyboredom.com and it's been pretty fantastic.
in my first two hours he taught me how to get paid for freelance work, and it's been all education all the time since.
so things are good.
i'm in the city for two more weeks just to hang starting this tuesday, so hit me up if you wanna hang out or need a gogo.
also, the gyms here are terrible. i went to that spot on delancey and was not impressed. i'm gonna try out an actual mma gym this weekend and see if that's better.

MMA

so as i've mentioned about a thousand times, i've been training in mixed martial arts for the past couple weeks. I've always loved the sport, and now that I'm training I'm fully in it.
i just went to my first live fight tonight. one of my instructors fought and kicked ass. knowing what's going on makes it so much more interesting to watch. before i was in it for the show of strength and, you know, dude-sweat, but now i realize how intellectual it is. you have to think SO fast.
because if you dont, there are serious serious consequences. in the title fight tonight dude took a left hook to the jaw that echoed through the arena and immediately went down. medics came in, put him in a neck-brace and tied him to a stretcher. he was breathing, but definitely not moving. and this was one of the two best fighters of the night, just didn't react quickly enough and got popped in jaw. went straight as a board and fell directly backward, like a cartoon. except you could hear his skull hit the mat.
all in all, great sport. if anybody knows a good place to train in brooklyn, i'm gonna be out there for the next three weeks and do not want to get soft. let me know.

i leave you with this. watch the master earn the title he has never lost.

and then there are those other things, which for several reasons, we won't mention

Saudade

Saudade (European Portuguese: [sɐwˈðaðɨ],Brazilian Portuguese: [sawˈdadi] or [sawˈdadʒi], Galician: [sawˈðaðe]; pluralsaudades)^[1] is a Portuguese and Galicianword that has no direct translation in English. It describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic or deeply melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing will never return.^[2] A stronger form of saudade may be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover, or a family member who has gone missing.

Saudade was once described as "the love that remains" after someone is gone. Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an emptiness, like someone (e.g., one's children, parents, sibling, grandparents, friends, pets) or something (e.g., places, things one used to do in childhood, or other activities performed in the past) that should be there in a particular moment but is missing, and the individual feels this absence. It brings sad and happy feelings all together, sadness for missing and happiness for having experienced the feeling.

posted in september, 2011

"Summer's almost gone.
We had some good times, 
But they're gone.
The winter's comin' on.
Summer's almost gone.

Morning found us calmly unaware."

helping out around the house

so my parents have a pond in their front yard, and near this pond is a large tree stump. until two days ago, an old, very weather-worn white(ish) post leaned against the stump. slung from this miraculously-uncollapsed post was a definitely rotten styrofoam lifesaver tube that would definitely sink if thrown to a drowning person.

so i bought a new lifesaver tube and painted stripes on it, dug a hole in the ground to make the pole free-standing, painted and finished the pole, and added a warning sign and a hook for the lifesaver.

i am crafty as all fuck, and highly concerned for the safety of people trespassing onto my parents' property to swim in their pond.

you're welcome, trespassers. swim at own risk. probably no one will throw this flotation device to you.

the trauma of being half-awake

I just woke from a terrible dream. I had lost my love, or he had left me, it was unclear, but I spent the whole night chasing after him, looking for him, wondering where he had gone.
Then when I began to wake up, my first thought was "it's ok. it was just dream. he's right here."
Then I woke up completely and realized he wasn't right here at all.

I'm doing so much better during the days, but the dreams still hunt me at night.

bravado - lorde

today was a day, i guess.
i got my first edit on my first story for the paper and it was overwhelmingly positive, so i'm going to re-write it and resubmit it tomorrow morning.
I also wrote a few new pieces for submission to a few different writing competitions and am looking forward to seeing how that goes.
i'm working on lining up a trip to the city, internship for a week and then a week catching up with some friends (you know, friends, people who you like and don't go out of their way to hurt you).
speaking of, I had a great night out at the greatest dive drag bar in toledo with a couple girls i've known for - jesus christ - ten years. so that lifted my spirits a bit.
nothing is really new, but i'm very much looking forward to getting back to new york.
oh also sensai told me today that i have a remarkable roundhouse kick and credited it to my long history of ballet. so don't fuck with me, i'll break your knees.

Things I like

Trees.
Roots and bark and leaves.
Dirt.
The moon.
The color of the sky when there's a storm coming in the afternoon.
Fields full of things growing.
Mountains. Large bodies of water. Small creeks.
Pine trees with their roots underneath the dirt underneath me and their trunks standing perfectly straight and their top branches in the sky.
Trees.

Macbeth

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

yesterday (+free advice)

yesterday was, overall, pretty great.
i think i was still high on endorphins from martial arts the night before, when i refused to crush my instructor's face with my knee, despite his insistence that he gets kicked in the face all the time by people much stronger than i am.
i had a dream about reincarnation, where i was walking around what was essentially a fancypants arcade with lots of little rooms i could walk into and plug my soul in, and then i would live that life and die and end up back in the arcade. i dont remember living all the lives, i think in the dream i was just in the arcade looking at all my options. glimpses of reality.
then i successfully went out without having a panic attack! i saw some bands and met some people and talked to my new editor (!) bc i kinda work for a newspaper now. and when i came home i fell asleep right away.
probably my first genuinely good day, my first day that was Good from beginning to end with no terrible parts, in... let's see... ever? i think i had some Good days before rehab? I had a few on my road trip with nelson.


in other news, if you're ever giving yourself a sticknpoke tattoo, do not tattoo words unless they're really huge. you're going to want to make all the lines far away from each other, bc it will bleed into one black blur.

I'm reading the best book

and also I didn't sleep at all last night. bad dreams kept waking me up. same face kept showing up.

anyway, so maybe this idea is insomnia-inspired, but i've decided to start posting book reports on here when i finish the book i'm currently reading. it's so fucking incredible, it's really shaking my entire world, and if i can't write like this at least i can write about it. plus it'll build me a body of non-fiction writing.

and my ultimate goal in life is to be paid to read books and take bubble baths - read books while taking bubble baths - so maybe this will be the start of an illustrious career as a reclusive book reviewer.

that right there is called 'optimism.'