lullaby & good-nite, sing me to sleep

When you’re away
And I’m asleep
Be the one I know
Next to me
When you’re alone
And I am gone
Believe in the things
that are here to come
Everywhere and allover
On top and under my skin
I felt something like infinity
With you near by

"Everywhere & Allover" by Lali Puna

time to hang up my stripes...

the new arrival from the library for me - "art & artifact: the museum as medium",
originally uploaded by prettyjjbean.

a very productive day indeed:


- 2 drawings accomplished (not fully finished, but substantially enough to keep me rolling for the next 4) still need to find materials to use, make an ikea run for the photo frames to be used in my "great wall of minute proportion" + take the appropriate photos, and a home depot run is in the works too (keep your eyes open for purple electrical tape)...
- a good morning chat with my liz
- had an even earlier, or late-late-night chat with him that made me smile all day
- reminiscing old memories and sharing hopes for my b.g.
- sipped my coffee and watched a movie
- catching up time with mom & dad
- checking up on brother session
- paperwork for degree application + figuring out the just-in-case-i-don't-graduate-in-may-&-have-to-defend-in-august details/potential costs, even talked it out with dad-doo
- secret preparations finally completed and ready to be mailed tomorrow
- morning spring-like walks in the sun with the birds chirping above me
- another successful day of not eating out (it's been nearly two weeks now! well, with the exception of one chipotle...oops)
- paid bills, thanks to a little birdie reminding me
- happiness was today...i was more carefree than i have been for quite some time, a great accomplishment. i give some, if not most, credit to the striped tights and shoes...if my mother could only see me, i have sinking feeling i would be hearing, "you look just like when you were 5...only instead of pink and purple, you've grown up into orange and yellow!" *little girl smile*
- night time reading awaits me ..."the little house: an architectural seduction"...perfect for goodnite dreaming *wink*

i told you today was gonna be a good day!

she said, he said

beanie-bean & her stripes,
originally uploaded by prettyjjbean.

conversations from yesterday:

she said, "yeah, beer, booze and weed...plus movies. mmmmm....."

he said, "alcohol is my medicine."

today is going to be a good day...i can feel it. it's noon already and i barely just woke up. but i am energetic (perhaps from our conversation last night??) and ready for my "morning" coffee. i hear birds outside and the recycle truck going by. for the first time in a long time now, i feel complete and as if i have my whole mind back...thus the stripe wearing for today! woo-hoo!

sweet love notes in my inbox

it's love that makes the world go 'round & 'round,
originally uploaded by prettyjjbean.

yep, your last email was in my Spam folder, not sure why, I guess as I said yesterday because of the a** word:) so...thank you also for calling me and updating me on the charger status that is very sweet of you:)

I was listening 5 min. ago to Dave Matthews "Crash" and I realized that I got that CD with this song when I started working at Shinberg. Levinas about 2-1/2 years ago and I was thinking...WOW...it's been already more than 2-1/2 years since I know Jenn:)....I never would have guessed that this relationship will continue like this. In fact I remember when Milton first talked about you that "one of his workers lives in Alexandria and I might ask you for a commuting advice" since I lived in Alexandria at that point too:) I imagined you to be big:) with glasses (still ) extremely grown up looking, married with kid's and in constant rush. But then I met you and you were nothing like what I had made you up to be. In walked this tiny little person hiding behind square glasses, who was very grounded, had cute sweaters and skirts and introduced me to my very first Chipotle experiences, and that has pretty much been true for things that followed...Jenn showing me many first things in my life:)....

Actually if I think of our relationship in terms of a road traveled you are for me like a light pole by the side of the road. Without one it is very hard to see in the dark and stay safe on the chosen course. You have illuminated my way in DC for the past 2-1/2 years...(making sure I don't run off the road in the dark) shining sometimes brighter, sometimes dimmer, illuminating the hot spots to entertain, showing the wisdom that I needed at difficult times and receding when I needed to do my own thinking, but always constantly being there. So that's what I was thinking about today and just thought I'd share with you since it feels like a mile stone is approaching - you soon graduating and who knows in what direction our roads will turn. I hope both of our continued paths will be good and gratifying.

Thank you for your friendship for these past 2-1/2 years:) Love, BG

sunsets over the lietzensee in berlin

sunsets over the lietzensee in berlin,
originally uploaded by prettyjjbean.

i've been counting the days. 47. forty-seven is a long time to be counting days. to discover the number of what-if's and why-me's that occur in that time period one must mutiply the number of days counted x a factor of one thousand. so let's see...47 days counted x 1000 = 47,000 what-if's & why-me's. 47,000. even now, that number seems miniscule in comparison to the clutter and noise that has been filling my head.

*sigh*

but the relief from such pains and worry is finally over. perhaps now i can proceed forward again with a clear mind, now that i can finally stop counting. how torturous this waiting can be. like a stand-off between me and the calender. i stare at it, asking the why's, how's, where's, when's, probing mr. calender for an answer. in return, all i get is a blank stare, days shown as an empty box.

those days on the calender which have already past, now are like boxes which seem to have opened up and spilled their contents all over the street...like a garbage truck whose bed has rusted thru and a trail of trash lingers for moments before the wind can sweep it away. the past contains work, sweat, toil, sacrifice, determination...i have filled up those days past with all these words.

the future dates on the calender, once were boxes waiting to be filled. with plans and dreams, hope and possibility, love and sincerity, with whatever it was that i chose for myself. once the counting of days began, suddenly the future was filled to the brim. but there was no room in this new calender for hopes and dreams, no room for plans. but rather a much different kind of toil and sacrifice than i previously filled the calender with.

anyhow.

the days of counting are over. 47. forty-seven days of long-awaited torture. the what-if's and why-me's have finally subsided. the horrible thoughts of what i am possibly capable of are gone. there were even voices from the past that lingered in my ear, whispering taboo words and making the battle within myself even greater. but now, it is finished. the calender can return to normal, where the past is filled and the future is empty.

hopes and dreams can once again abound.

"but when i was a alone i could be afraid. why should i pretend that those nights had never been, when in fear of death i sat up, clinging to the fact that sitting at least was still something alive: that the dead did not sit. this always happened in one of those chance rooms which promptly left me in the lurch when things went badly with me, as if they feared to be cross-examined and become involved in my troubles. there i sat, probably looking so dreadful that nothin had the courage to stand by me; not even the candle, which i had just done the service of lighting it, would have anything to do with me. it burned away there by itsellf, as in an empty room. my last hope then was always the window. i imagined that outside there, there still might be something that belonged to me, even now, even in this sudden poverty of dying. but scarcely had i looked thither when i wished the window had been barricaded, blocked up, like the wall. for now i knew that things were going on out there in the same indifferent way, that out there, too, there was nothing but my loneliness. the loneliness i had brought upon myself and to the greatness of which my heart no longer stood in any sort of proportion. people came to my mind whom i had once left, and i did not understand how one could forsake people. my God, my God, if any such nights await me in the future, leave me at least one of those thoughts that i have sometimes been able to pursue! it is not unreasonable, this that i ask; for i know that they were born of my very fear, because my fear was so great. when i was a boy, they struck me in the face and told me i was a coward. that was because i was still bad at being afraid. since then, however, i have learned to be afraid with real fear, fear that increases only when the force that engenders it increases. we have no idea of this force, except in our fear. for it is so untterly inconceivable, so totally opposed to us, that our brain disintegrates at the point where we strain ourselves to think it. and yet, for some time now i have believed that it is our own force, all our own force that is still too great for us. it is true we do not know it; but is it not just that which is most our own of which we know the least? sometimes i reflect on how heaven came to be and death: though our having distanced what is most precious to us, because there was still so much else to do beforehand and because it was not secure with us busy people. now times have elapsed over this, and we have become accustomed to lesser things. we no longer recognize that which is our own and are terrified byt its extreme greatness. may that not be?" -rainer maria rilke, "the notebooks of malte laurids brigge"