my uncle wanted to give me this for xmas....oh how i wanted to take him home with me...

holiday wishes from marco...

this was supposed to be posted 2 days ago...been backed up since conversations with family and working have overtaken the last 24 hours - but i think i'll just list a few highlights/updates of what has been going on the last week or so:

*my anomaly called last monday and i was able to fill in all the blanks since thanksgiving. funny cuz when i answered the phone i was greeted with a "hey, fellow partner in crime..." so true. anyhow, after a careful exchange of dramatic storytelling, the conversation drew to a close and i longed for green tea in aqua pots and a cracked aqua cup. i missed waking up for a moment to a bright, sunshiny room and watching the windswept leaves dance outside the window.

*i spent a few days after finals were over relaxing and walking the streets of alexandria. it snowed and cleaned me of thoughts and the brisk air filled me with a sense of renewal. a friend had a party at his house the evening the snow and freeze came, a little celebration and good-bye to those who will be going back to chile & germany. so sad, and yet such a good time was had. although, i must admit, i may, er...um, i mean, i definitely had a little too much too drink. the combination of 1/2 bottle red wine + 1/2 bottle of champagne + 1 too many questions and comments about how well i'm doing in spite of everything = an embarrassing and tough few moments going home. so happy and grateful to have surrounded myself with such understanding and supportive friends. i am truly blessed with the most awesome friends and companions. if it weren't for these beings, i would truly feel like it were me versus the world. (note to self: do not let adorable, german boys keep pouring champagne into your glass!)

*went to my old office's holiday party at salo's house with different boy this year...it did stir up a slight amount of questions but they were for the most part avoided and understood. so glad i brought the one and only e.k. (he came out number 1 amongst the handful of options i had in mind)...dressed the part as always - and in the most awesome stripes, was confident to mingle that i didn't have any need to worry at all throughout the night, whipped out the multi-lingualness that impressed a few, sparked a conversation with the coolest structural engineer ever that later led to the structural guru's very in depth conversation with me, totally bragged the next day about how i was part of one of the most awesome houses he's ever been in...thoughtful, very thoughtful. and though we are merely friends, an understanding runs between us that if he ever finds the right ashton kutcher, he's introducing me to him in a sec...now how kewl is that? and what boy is confident enough to acknowledge that some boys are just too pretty for words?! e.k. you are just way too cool.

*on other boy notes...i've realized that i need to be a little more sensitive towards others feelings, as i am beginning to see that some are not at the same maturity level or have had the depth of experience as i may have encountered in my so far 26 years of life. while some say, "eh, we are young and we are supposed to have fun!" others are overwhelmed by feelings that may lead to...um, well uncomfortable "i dunno's".

*after the day of the party, i woke up extremely early and walked in what i later found out to be 8 degree weather, back to school to speak some words with 2 individuals in particular. isn't it just the most wonderful feeling to know that honesty and a complete openess of conversation can be the most healthy thing when tough times are to be faced and obstacles/feelings to be overcome? i have met some of the most amazing individuals (note the emphasized plural of individuals) these last few weeks. and for this reason, i am very happy that certain things transpired this past semester. it is only through the conversations and shared experiences with other people, that our own eyes can be opened up. speaking with my father, who shares this same notion, that the more people we choose to expose our lives to, the better and more growth we ourselves can experience...perhaps this is what i have been lacking these past few years. i think that i shut myself out to the world...whomever i wish to be with in the longterm future should not hinder this growth, but have the same enjoyment for exposure and ever-expanding friendship.

*since i've been back, my dad proposed a money making operation to mybrother and i. so, since i am over budget these past few months, how could i turn down the offer. in turn then, today, as well as the next few days, will be filled with dreams of drywall and paint and spackle. fun, fun, fun. actually, despite the fact that it is my vacation at home, i can't imagine not coming home and working on some sort of project with dad. it is part of what makes home home.

*i really want to spend some time in the city while i am at home this time...last time i didn't get too much of a chance to do so...or to have coffee with peoples and long talks, nor have time to take a trip to my beach. sigh.

*spent some time yesterday with my brother and his friend. we ate pho, and went to fry's, and goldilocks to pick up some filipino mamon. it was pretty cool and i felt a boost of confidence when my brother's friend told me that i'm one of the few actual "adults" that knew of his past life. does that make me the cool oder sister? hope so.

*(stretch) i need a massage....it's been a long, long, long while since someone gave me a really, really, enjoyable, and completely relaxing massage.

*i really have no desire right now to put any effort into any kind of friendship my no-longer-other-half. it will take some time to not cringe when the phone rings and i see his name. it will take perhaps more time to have a really meaningful conversation where netiehr of us says something that hurts the other in some manner. he does not realize this right at this moment, and feels that we can sugar coat and make everything better instantaneously. after almost 4-1/2 years of hurting one another, it wouldn't surprise me if it takes just as long to heal what has been hurt. from past experience, it takes almost this time to start something new, to have a friendship where you can talk about what has transpired during your day without any attached emotion to the past. but there are still some issues of forgiveness that must be dealt with and a true, real friendship cannot ensue or begin until these things are left behind for good.

*just tried to called my latvian princess...but my phone is having issues here in california. she is a devoted follower to my blog though and hopefully will read this and know that i have not forgotten her. although i do have some stories for her to be jealous of that i have to share. we really need a girl-talk session soon. january 12 i will be back...when can we go get our nails done?
*ali, the playa, called to check up on me...seriously, i have the most awesome of friends.

*ok, i should start writing my paper for marco....time is counting down, and i really need to begin again...

there are good days and there are bad days. yesterday started good, had a very bad episode, and then turned good again. it's amazing what a phone call to mom, making dinner with some friends, and shooting a few rounds of pool, and then a drink and venting session with the roommate on the back porch can do to cheer a person up. not to mention, a few random phone calls afterwards to clear up the air and make sure things are straight and no one is mad or feelings are not hurt, etc.

someone told me this morning that i had mad love, just no one around to give it to. there is so much truth in this statement that it almost quite nearly hurts.

"I witness with pleasure the supreme achievement of memory, which is the masterly use it makes of innate harmonies when gathering to its fold the suspended and wandering tonalities of the past. I like to imagine, in consummation and resolution of those jangling chords, something as enduring, in retrospect, as the long table that on summer birthdays and namedays used to be laid for afternoon chocolate out of doors, in an alley of birches, limes and maples at its debouchment on the smooth sanded space of the garden proper that separated the park and the house. I see the tablecloth and the faces of seated people sharing in the animation of light and shade beneath a moving, a fabulous foliage, exaggerated, no doubt, by the same faculty of impassioned commemoration, of ceaseless return, that makes me always approach that banquet table from the outside, from the depth of the park —as if the mind, in order to go back thither, had to do so with the silent steps of a prodigal, faint with excitement.

Through a tremulous prism, I distinguish the features of relatives and familiars, mute lips serenely moving in forgotten speech. I see the steam of the chocolate and the plates of blueberry tarts. I note the small helicopter of a revolving samara that gently descends upon the tablecloth, and, lying across the table, an adolescent girl's bare arm indolently extended as far as it will go, with its turquoise-veined underside turned up to the flaky sunlight, the palm open in lazy expectancy of something —perhaps the nutcracker. In the place where my current tutor sits, there is a changeful image, a succession of fade-ins and fade-outs; the pulsation of my thought mingles with that of the leaf shadows and turns Ordo into Max and Max into Lenski and Lenski into the schoolmaster, and the whole array of trembling, transformations is repeated.

And then, suddenly, just when the colors and outlines settle at last to their various duties —smiling, frivolous duties —some knob is touched and a torrent of sounds comes to life: voices speaking all together, a walnut cracked, the click of a nutcracker carelessly passed, thirty human hearts drowning mine with their regular beats; the sough and sigh of a thousand trees, the local concord of loud summer birds, and, beyond the river, behind the rhythmic trees, the confused and enthusiastic hullabaloo of bathing young villagers, like a background of wild applause."

Vladimir Nabokov in Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (1966),(A reflection from his Russian childhood, around 1912). (1899-1977); novelist, poet, scholar, translator, and lepidopterist (he enjoyed chasing and collecting butterflies). A cosmopolitan Russian-born émigré whose linguistic facility, erudite style, and eloquent prose helped to establish him as one of the most brilliant and respected literary figures of the 20th century. Nabokov's best-known novel, Lolita (1955), shocked many people but its humor and literary style were praised by critics. Nabokov produced literature and scholarship of beauty, complexity, and inventiveness in both Russian and English. Nabokov himself used to say "My head speaks English, my heart speaks Russian and my ear speaks French". *Synaesthesia: Vladimir Nabobov was a synesthete, as was also his mother, his wife, and his son Dimitri.

The song for today comes from Pedro the Lion's "It's Hard to Find a Friend Made in Mexico" -

The Longest Winter
Spring comes slowly to this old friend. Still I'm frozen, I still live alone.
In time memories fade, senses numb, one forgets how it feels to have loved completely.
Love well young man, while you still can. Once your leaves turn you won't love again.
In time memories fade, senses numb, one forgets how it feels to have loved completely, completely.

Is it special when you're lonely, will you spend your whole life in a studio apartment with a cat for a wife? The seasons, when they call you do you barricade the door? Are you stubborn, stubborn, stubborn to the core? Is it your way or the highway? Is it your way or the highway? Is it your way or the highway? Is it your way or the highway? Then the longest winter is on her way, you called her without knowing it but now it's too late.

my response to the old man -

From: jenn ludwig
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 2:47PM
To: lawnmoyer@hotmail.com

funny but i was just thinking of you. i was thinking of this impending christmas vacation that is near approaching and how i would spend my time. i thought it would be nice to see those faces for once that i have been neglecting for so long. i am trying to relearn how to stretch my wings and regain the freedom of mind that one tends to lose when relying on someone else for so long. i spent the thanksgiving holidays with giuliana at her potluck feast, and stayed with an old friend and walked the city streets with him. it was beautiful to see the streets of new york transformed instantaneously over night. the day after thanksgiving the christmas season appeared in one blast. the trees and decorations magically grew out of the ground and the window displays constructed mechanical trains and scenes of winter bliss in the blink of the eye. i refused to take pictures of this trip merely for the fact that i wanted to remember it for the "blurred memories" that always seem 10 times better than a picture. i am glad that you wrote me of your bird flocking girl. it reminds me a lot of me these past couple years, trying so hard to make the birds fly around me. when i just need to realize that the birds are already used to me, and i need to find a new source of entertainment. thank you for reminding me of this.

on another note, i was in california for a pre-thanksgiving wedding. i have pictures on my site. i felt like a princess, getting all dressed up like a doll. have a wonderful day, my very dear friend.

love,
jenn