What more can I say? this is how I feel today.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
To Bridget, Just As You Are
To friends.
Just as they are
To relationships.
Just as they are
To words
Just as they are
To discussions.
Just as they are
Not ignoring, Not transcending, Not replacing.
to laughter
to tears
just as they are
to spontaneity
to monotony
just as they are
to pondering deeply
to daydreaming lightly
Just as they are
To 1-am conversations and four hours of sleep
To watching TV and eight hours of sleep (in college?!)
Just as they are
To puddles and puddle-jumping.
To writing English papers about that stupid space system
Just as they are
to eerie circumstances that give you a reality check, catharsis
to the rest of the time were you just “are”, control
Just as they are
for past and present and reality and reconciliation of the three.
Just as they are
To the beautiful and
deep, the
superficial and
mild
equally valid they are.
Not all poetry
or thinking
or learning
or stretching
We can enjoy silly puddy, too.
Don’t write eloquently
Don’t talk grandiloquently
Don’t keep it all together.
Just be.
You can just be.
We can just be.
Just as they are
To relationships.
Just as they are
To words
Just as they are
To discussions.
Just as they are
Not ignoring, Not transcending, Not replacing.
to laughter
to tears
just as they are
to spontaneity
to monotony
just as they are
to pondering deeply
to daydreaming lightly
Just as they are
To 1-am conversations and four hours of sleep
To watching TV and eight hours of sleep (in college?!)
Just as they are
To puddles and puddle-jumping.
To writing English papers about that stupid space system
Just as they are
to eerie circumstances that give you a reality check, catharsis
to the rest of the time were you just “are”, control
Just as they are
for past and present and reality and reconciliation of the three.
Just as they are
To the beautiful and
deep, the
superficial and
mild
equally valid they are.
Not all poetry
or thinking
or learning
or stretching
We can enjoy silly puddy, too.
Don’t write eloquently
Don’t talk grandiloquently
Don’t keep it all together.
Just be.
You can just be.
We can just be.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
cool building in chicago
I'm still thinking about Chicago, as I'm browsing through joe's pictures. I love this one...the sharp contrast of shapes and colors. me encanta.
cities
Chicago in the winter...sigh. So i decided that i really like cities. especially in the winter. winter cities. Kudos to Joe for being so into photography...isn't this a stellar photograph?
foreign countries and capital letters
Foreign countries are appealing.
When life gets rough, tedious, unbearable, dull, or meaningless you can “fix” your current disposition by…what else?...escaping. Grab that weathered green army duffel (whose rugged image makes you feel cultured, experienced, and tragically wise) and haphazardly throw together a pile of those rudimentary items that you’ll need abroad. Five things, perhaps: your toothbrush, a handful of decrepit green dollar bills, a pocket-atlas, a hunting knife, and a travel journal. Don’t you feel wonderful? Exotic? Daring? Living on the edge?
When you have much, less seems better. Downsize. Ignore Excess and other Plentiful Ideals from the Land of Plenty. (For this is easier than dealing with the deeper issues).
Or so it seems.
Wh are we like this? Why am I like this? I am culpable: I romanticize foreign countries, I romanticize Nature, I romanticize Tragedy and I really like using capital letters to sound exotic…natural…tragic.
But I’m really not. I just use the letters to feel ______(insert impressive adjective). I am not tragic though, nothing about my life IS overtly “tragic.” Heck, I had a glorious childhood full of playdough, American girl dolls, and scented markers…my mom would read me books to lull me to sleep, my sister and I would concoct ridiculous soap-operas with our very real, living toys in the playroom. High school was good, too…I went to Spain, I never scored a goal in Lacrosse but had a heck of a good time trying, I moshed at a Muse concert, I cultivated meaningful relationships with friends and teachers.
But what do you do with this? I was and still am never satisfied…I long for more, even if that more is “tragic.” (ah, I know nothing of life).
I am immensely blessed: I’m not poor, or starving, or homeless, or crippled by some debilitating disease, or physically abused by a crack-addict of a father.
Yet I prefer to have my head stuck in the clouds. I sit in my oversized pink, cushioned chair from Target and wish it all away. I think, “wouldn’t it be lovely to break a leg? Everyone would bring me flowers and I would feel pain and sadness and love all at the same time.” It sounds enticing.
BUT IT’S NOT. I wish for something bad just so I can….feel. This needs to stop. There is nothing beautiful about breaking a bone. The end product, what I romanticize…is just that. A romanticization.
Therefore, the end product elusive…I don’t really want it (toil, dissension, sickness, death). I just rename it (experience, not toil; strife, not dissension; malaise, not sickness; relief, not death). Then I capitalize each word to feel better about myself: Experience, Strife, Malaise, Relief.
Isn’t this stupid?
This isn’t tragic, or cultured, or beautiful. It’s shallow, myopic, and self-serving. In romanticizing, I distort reality and use the process of romanticization to feel good about myself. Sick.
Going to a Foreign country doesn’t solve anything. Escaping is not the solution. Even if I did cast aside all materialism, Americanism, technologyism, etc, and escape to “simplicity,” I’d still be miserable in that new environment.
This is what I’ve realized: it’s not the environment that matters. Wishing away the problems of America doesn’t do squat. They aren’t even the problems of “America”…they are MY problems. It’s all in me. Materialism, Americanism, Technologyism…these are just ways of avoiding my deeper issues of greed, selfishness, lethargy, insecurity….i could go on forever. I would carry these same problems with me to Spain, or China, or Djibouti.
So what am I going to do about this? Well, I need to stop romanticizing things. I’d like to bring my mind and heart closer to reality. “I have learned to be content in any and every situation…whether in plenty or in want….etc” Embrace this.
Oh, and I think I should stop capitalizing.
Like I said before, I’m only eighteen. I’m pretty naïve.
When life gets rough, tedious, unbearable, dull, or meaningless you can “fix” your current disposition by…what else?...escaping. Grab that weathered green army duffel (whose rugged image makes you feel cultured, experienced, and tragically wise) and haphazardly throw together a pile of those rudimentary items that you’ll need abroad. Five things, perhaps: your toothbrush, a handful of decrepit green dollar bills, a pocket-atlas, a hunting knife, and a travel journal. Don’t you feel wonderful? Exotic? Daring? Living on the edge?
When you have much, less seems better. Downsize. Ignore Excess and other Plentiful Ideals from the Land of Plenty. (For this is easier than dealing with the deeper issues).
Or so it seems.
Wh are we like this? Why am I like this? I am culpable: I romanticize foreign countries, I romanticize Nature, I romanticize Tragedy and I really like using capital letters to sound exotic…natural…tragic.
But I’m really not. I just use the letters to feel ______(insert impressive adjective). I am not tragic though, nothing about my life IS overtly “tragic.” Heck, I had a glorious childhood full of playdough, American girl dolls, and scented markers…my mom would read me books to lull me to sleep, my sister and I would concoct ridiculous soap-operas with our very real, living toys in the playroom. High school was good, too…I went to Spain, I never scored a goal in Lacrosse but had a heck of a good time trying, I moshed at a Muse concert, I cultivated meaningful relationships with friends and teachers.
But what do you do with this? I was and still am never satisfied…I long for more, even if that more is “tragic.” (ah, I know nothing of life).
I am immensely blessed: I’m not poor, or starving, or homeless, or crippled by some debilitating disease, or physically abused by a crack-addict of a father.
Yet I prefer to have my head stuck in the clouds. I sit in my oversized pink, cushioned chair from Target and wish it all away. I think, “wouldn’t it be lovely to break a leg? Everyone would bring me flowers and I would feel pain and sadness and love all at the same time.” It sounds enticing.
BUT IT’S NOT. I wish for something bad just so I can….feel. This needs to stop. There is nothing beautiful about breaking a bone. The end product, what I romanticize…is just that. A romanticization.
Therefore, the end product elusive…I don’t really want it (toil, dissension, sickness, death). I just rename it (experience, not toil; strife, not dissension; malaise, not sickness; relief, not death). Then I capitalize each word to feel better about myself: Experience, Strife, Malaise, Relief.
Isn’t this stupid?
This isn’t tragic, or cultured, or beautiful. It’s shallow, myopic, and self-serving. In romanticizing, I distort reality and use the process of romanticization to feel good about myself. Sick.
Going to a Foreign country doesn’t solve anything. Escaping is not the solution. Even if I did cast aside all materialism, Americanism, technologyism, etc, and escape to “simplicity,” I’d still be miserable in that new environment.
This is what I’ve realized: it’s not the environment that matters. Wishing away the problems of America doesn’t do squat. They aren’t even the problems of “America”…they are MY problems. It’s all in me. Materialism, Americanism, Technologyism…these are just ways of avoiding my deeper issues of greed, selfishness, lethargy, insecurity….i could go on forever. I would carry these same problems with me to Spain, or China, or Djibouti.
So what am I going to do about this? Well, I need to stop romanticizing things. I’d like to bring my mind and heart closer to reality. “I have learned to be content in any and every situation…whether in plenty or in want….etc” Embrace this.
Oh, and I think I should stop capitalizing.
Like I said before, I’m only eighteen. I’m pretty naïve.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
"I'm glad we're friends"
The infamous quote from first hour AP world literature...sigh. so thanksgiving break has certainly been a return to memory lane. This photograph sums up my current disposition more accurately than any number of words. Indeed, I'm glad we're friends.
I changed my mind.
So there’s this quote from Sister Act 2 that I’m way too lazy to look up online. Roughly paraphrased, it says something like “If when you wake up in the morning and all you can think about it singing, then you should be a singer.”
What a great quote.
Actually, it’s kind of bogus.
Who thinks about just one thing? When I woke up this morning I thought a newspaper’s worth of words, complaints, and a good share of those really random pointless thoughts that humans just ignore, but really, those are what make us real people and not super-focused robots.
Here’s what my morning looked like (All of these thoughts overlap like in those 3D movies where you wear sexy plastic glasses):
“It’s too early” “I skipped church again” “Colleen is talking a lot upstairs” “I feel like saying ‘hella tight’” “crap, colleen is leaving and I’m not going to have a hairbrush or any of those essential bathroom necessities that I didn’t pack” “harry potter’s hair is ridiculous…”
And so the list goes on. None of those thoughts are profound. SUE ME.
If you wake up each morning inebriated with life, romanticizing the future, and gushing molasses-like insights about “Your Spiritual Path” or “Your Great Plans for Life” then call me so I can laugh at you.
I used to be like that.
Actually, I was like that a few days ago. My first blog entry reeks of unrealistic sappiness.
So here’s my conclusion: “Thinking” is not the solution. Neither is a single, driving passion. And while I can’t fully embrace the carpe diem mindset, I think it is realistic than Whoopi’s schmaltzy conception of passion.
Life should not be a tragedy. Catharsis is only so helpful. I think I am finished with that mindset…I think I ought to embrace Comedy a bit more. And I don’t really feel like ending this with a profound statement, because that defeats the purpose of Comedy, of laughter, of sheer stupidity and randomness.
I hope what I have said doesn’t change your life. That would be retarded. I’m only eighteen, and I’m pretty naïve. So are you.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Meet the quasi-sane creator of this blog
I am a conformist.
I solemny sweared that I would never succumb to this ostensibly "fake" technological world of online writing, but obviously something has changed.
And so I write.
?Quien es esta chica malinformada?
(and why can't i use the correct accents on this american computer??)
Some call me Chut, hence the title of this website. I am officially deemed "Courtney Ann Potter," aka the brown-eyed beauty who pines for her native land...the cobblestone streets of Kirkwood, the tasty steakburgers from Steak n' Shake, the midwest accent (wait, we don't have one)...in other words, all that is St. Louis. La mejor.
My favorite color is green. I have a tendency to pick up a book, read the first few pages, will to read it, then desist. I can make tortilla de patatas. I am double-jointed. I passed out from heat exhaustion at my first cross-country race. I can't pronounce "moustache" correctly. I am a partisan of the nineties...carebears, full house, my little ponies, blossom, pogs, beanie babies, and the great flood of '93 (for all you fellow st. louis enthusiasts). I like analyzing, thinking, pondering, ruminating, dabbling, gazing, romanticizing, snoozing, and dreaming. Photography, creative writing, art history, greek history, poemas con rima asonante, and reformed theology...these are a few of my latest pursuits. The major of choice for today is Spanish and a little bit of Writing. Specific, eh?
If you haven't noticed, I like Spanish. In fact, I like words. I may be nonconfrontational in speech, but I am assertive and (perhaps even) eloquent in writing. Relatively speaking, at least.
When I was seven I played constantly with a group of headless, naked Barbie dolls. They were awesome. (Clothing is so over-rated). They inhabited the top drawer of my dresser, named "the den" and stirred up mischief among the Barbie families. They were my comic relief: the court jesters, the gremlins, the strangely likable antagonists, the quintessence of Creativity and Imagination. Sometimes I think that childhood was the peak of my life...that singular time in my life where i could just BE. Fuck conformity. Fuck societal regulations. I could just be Courtney Ann Potter; the writer, the artist, the devious plotter, the tinkering imp, the sociable seven-year-old. I miss childhood.
How do you reconcile your past with the present? How do you just BE? This is my challenge; this is my hurdle; this is my "meta especial." I seek to find that creative, unquenchable Courtney of the past and ressurect her care-free spirit, bringing her to my present, my reality.
I am not the first to dabble in such endeavors. Have you ever read Emerson? You are missing out on life if the answer is "no." (Besides, his middle name is Waldo; this is reason in and of itself to go read his books). He encapsulates my plight in "Experience," one of his essays...oh it is so beautiful! He writes, "So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the pith of each man's genius contrcts itself to a very few hours....So in this great society wide lying around us, a critical anlaysis would find very few spontaneous actions."
Spontaneity.
Sigh. This gives me such trouble. I made this my idol during senior year...i ended up in bad places. But when i'm not spontaneous, I'm miserable in such hackneyed normality. Routine, monotony, work, work and more work. I am a conformist who longs to be a nonconformist.
Oh dear. I ought to go. No tengo ganas de escribir mas en ingles porque mi mente suele caminar sin destinacion especifica.
Read on, if you so wish..
Yours truly,
Courtney A. Potter.
I solemny sweared that I would never succumb to this ostensibly "fake" technological world of online writing, but obviously something has changed.
And so I write.
?Quien es esta chica malinformada?
(and why can't i use the correct accents on this american computer??)
Some call me Chut, hence the title of this website. I am officially deemed "Courtney Ann Potter," aka the brown-eyed beauty who pines for her native land...the cobblestone streets of Kirkwood, the tasty steakburgers from Steak n' Shake, the midwest accent (wait, we don't have one)...in other words, all that is St. Louis. La mejor.
My favorite color is green. I have a tendency to pick up a book, read the first few pages, will to read it, then desist. I can make tortilla de patatas. I am double-jointed. I passed out from heat exhaustion at my first cross-country race. I can't pronounce "moustache" correctly. I am a partisan of the nineties...carebears, full house, my little ponies, blossom, pogs, beanie babies, and the great flood of '93 (for all you fellow st. louis enthusiasts). I like analyzing, thinking, pondering, ruminating, dabbling, gazing, romanticizing, snoozing, and dreaming. Photography, creative writing, art history, greek history, poemas con rima asonante, and reformed theology...these are a few of my latest pursuits. The major of choice for today is Spanish and a little bit of Writing. Specific, eh?
If you haven't noticed, I like Spanish. In fact, I like words. I may be nonconfrontational in speech, but I am assertive and (perhaps even) eloquent in writing. Relatively speaking, at least.
When I was seven I played constantly with a group of headless, naked Barbie dolls. They were awesome. (Clothing is so over-rated). They inhabited the top drawer of my dresser, named "the den" and stirred up mischief among the Barbie families. They were my comic relief: the court jesters, the gremlins, the strangely likable antagonists, the quintessence of Creativity and Imagination. Sometimes I think that childhood was the peak of my life...that singular time in my life where i could just BE. Fuck conformity. Fuck societal regulations. I could just be Courtney Ann Potter; the writer, the artist, the devious plotter, the tinkering imp, the sociable seven-year-old. I miss childhood.
How do you reconcile your past with the present? How do you just BE? This is my challenge; this is my hurdle; this is my "meta especial." I seek to find that creative, unquenchable Courtney of the past and ressurect her care-free spirit, bringing her to my present, my reality.
I am not the first to dabble in such endeavors. Have you ever read Emerson? You are missing out on life if the answer is "no." (Besides, his middle name is Waldo; this is reason in and of itself to go read his books). He encapsulates my plight in "Experience," one of his essays...oh it is so beautiful! He writes, "So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the pith of each man's genius contrcts itself to a very few hours....So in this great society wide lying around us, a critical anlaysis would find very few spontaneous actions."
Spontaneity.
Sigh. This gives me such trouble. I made this my idol during senior year...i ended up in bad places. But when i'm not spontaneous, I'm miserable in such hackneyed normality. Routine, monotony, work, work and more work. I am a conformist who longs to be a nonconformist.
Oh dear. I ought to go. No tengo ganas de escribir mas en ingles porque mi mente suele caminar sin destinacion especifica.
Read on, if you so wish..
Yours truly,
Courtney A. Potter.
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