If, by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!


Ten points if you can tell me what else he wrote...without looking it up!

Ohio

booked a ticket home.

feels like this...




doesn't feel anything like this...

Seeker of Truth

 

I've sort of been thinking about getting a tattoo. I'm thinking about this one on the top of my foot with the dandelion seed wrapping around my ankle.

The phrase comes from an ee cummings poem, Seeker of Truth




seeker of truth

follow no path
all paths lead where

truth is here


what do you think?

A random assortment of thoughts

Well, it is November 5. The day after the election, as I'm sure you are well aware. Obama has been elected president...and there was much rejoicing...yay. Well much rejoicing from my little corner of cyberspace, but perhaps, not from the entire country. A little traipse through facebook status' proves this point. Although I have refrained from any political talk, so far, I will say a little about my disappointment with most of the religious right. Perhaps most eludes to more than is really the problem; some of the religious right. In particular those who are so fearful of an Obama lead country that they forget that God is well aware of our tiny little country and our tiny little politics. He's prepared for Obama. Trust that his will is better than ours. Stop acting like you have giant a gherkin thrust up your backside. The more you segregate yourself from the leadership of our country, the more you divide our country. Don't blame the president if we can't be united. Blame yourself for not looking past differences and working together as a body. Moving on...

My story for NaNo WriMo is coming along...slowly. Perhaps way too slowly. At this point I'm approximately 6000 words behind schedule. I don't have anything to do tonight, so I'm hoping to catch up. Although I'm not really sure what's going to happen so Susan, so I'm finding it difficult to write.

In honor of NaNo WriMo, and in an effort to keep myself from being too distracted, I've decided not to read any books this month. This is a big step for me. I generally average 2-6 books a month. For the past two years. Going cold turkey might be a bit extreme, but so far it seems to be OK. I guess I'll have to see what kind of state I'm in at the end of the month. Maybe I can break my addiction to books, and return it to the hobby state. That would probably be a good thing.

I think I'm going to make it home for Thanksgiving this year. It would be the first time I've been home in almost a year. And the first thanksgiving with my family in two years...three years? I'm not sure. But it's been awhile. It would be good. Hopefully plane tickets will keep dropping, or at least stay the same until I get paid on Friday.

In other news, according to my mom, gas prices have dropped to an astonishing $1.98 in Northwest Ohio. How amazing!

California voters turned down a constitutional amendment to allow gay marriage. I'm not sure I should type how this makes me feel, but I hope someday we'll all be allowed to make our own choices, and our own mistakes. Gays and pregnant women included.

Ok, I said I wasn't going to talk politics, I guess I haven't done so well adhering to that claim. Maybe in the next post.

I just wrote 518 words in like 5 minutes. Why can't I do that with my NaNo? I'd be caught up in like an hour.

Ok, last piece of random information. I've discovered another new musician. Meaghan Smith. She sounds a lot like Nora Jones, except she has this amazing music video. Watch. Listen. Enjoy.

Untitled

Susan looked down into a puddle that was quickly forming in the steady rain. She saw a reflection of herself. Her nut brown hair; her nut brown eyes; her nut brown freckles sprayed across her button nose. Everything seemed so, ordinary, So boring. She thought. Something’s just stay the same, but why do I have to be one of them?

She sniffed, and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve and looked in the puddle one more time. There she sat. Sad, and lonely, looking sour as a lemon. But then, quick as a flash she winked. Or rather her reflection winked. Susan froze unable to tear her eyes from the doppelganger staring up at her from the watery mirror. There it was again! Definitely a wink! But that couldn’t be possible, Susan hadn’t winked. And then the most extra-ordinary thing happened, her reflection grinned, tilted her head and beckoned Susan to follow her.

“What? Do you want me to follow you?” she asked the puddle, her voice cracking with uncertainty. Her reflection grinned from ear to ear and nodded her head. “But…how?” The reflection smiled at Susan, and then lifted her hand and pointed one slender finger at her. Susan stretched out a finger gingerly touching its tip to the surface of the puddle.

If Susan had been paying close attention, perhaps she would have seen the reflections eyes twitch, just slightly, barely noticeable. If her mother had been there she would have noticed the twitch, she always noticed when Susan twitched; and the twitch always meant the same thing. It meant that Susan was up to no good. But her mother wasn’t in the alley, and Susan wasn’t paying attention the reflections eyes.

Her finger grazed the surface of the silvery water, just for a moment. Just long enough to tell that the water wasn’t water at all. It was something much thicker, much colder, and much more frightening. And with a whoosh, and a splash, Susan was gone.