My Window


My Favorite Windows, originally uploaded by alachia.

it's lonely looking out of a window
made of flickering lights
a screen of twenty four wide
and infite deep

a world in here and a world out there
this divide
a wall of zeros and ones
how to collide?

you're here and I'm there
and we pass each other everyday
look at all the waves we make

hello to infinite space
goodbye to possibilities
you share you and I'll share me and
only in words do we ever touch

beautiful
this illusion of connection
as we pretend we're people

The Fantasy of Friendship

All the time people say, you know I'm here for you or I got your back. The truth is that unless you're sitting across the room from me and I can see you laughing or you'll buy me ice cream when I'm feeling like the world is ending, it's all just words.

It's always just words. For years, I've been telling myself that words are enough but honestly, they aren't. After awhile, you want the real thing. You want to feel human..even for just an hour.

And in the end, it all comes down to that bottomless empty feeling which I think most people refer to as loneliness only I try not to use that word because it sounds so pathetic. Lol. How fucked up is that line of thought right? It's like you can kind of buy "feeling empty" as this great intellectual introspective state which might be considered tres chic but lonely is preventable, simple, and petty. In reality, they're both pretty much the same.

I've got an RL friend but I can't monopolize all of his time and I'm grateful for the times we do get to hang out. We have fun and I get to be my 100% physical self around him.

It was kind of funny, on the way to the airport to pick up a friend, we
were both listening to our favorite album at the time Owl City. It's this cute synthetic poppy type music and we have this thing where we both pretend we're flash animation and dance around to it. I had his iphone in my hands and put on the glow stick app and we were having a techno party in the car but the real fun we usually have is laughing at ourselves.

I love being a goofball and hate getting that stupid look from people when they don't get it and just think you're weird. Anyhow, on the way back after we picked up the friend, it was a different ride back. The goof-mobile turned into polite chatter which was actually pleasant because I got to catch up with an old friend but the difference is definitely there.

The only problem with my BFF is that while I feel like I can talk to him about just about anything, I don't think he's interested in a lot of the things I am. He'll listen but when someone doesn't share the same passion as you, it's just not the same.

And this is where I loop back around again on myself and back into the meta right? It’s where I say fuck what I just said. This is why connections are actually valuable to me even though they are JUST words… Because much like Hollywood love, I think glorified all encompassing friendships are also just a nice fantasy. There is no soulmate who you’re gonna meet and they’re going to be everything to you. You have to appreciate the connections as they are…whether it be in the flesh or words and in all the various pieces you can get your hands on.

Through the Looking Glass

One day I sat down and realized I wasn’t the me I was supposed to be. This girl is the girl who is on the other side of the parallel universe where everything is upside down and backwards.

Somehow, we switched places and I can look back through the mirror and see a glimpse of the girl I was supposed to be but only for a moment.

Friends are always saying that we are the happiest when we are the most centered with our true selves. I’m not entirely sure who my real self is but I know that this isn’t it. I think a lot of my angst, anxiety, and sadness comes from knowing deep down I’m on the wrong side of the mirror.

I almost took off today to drive downtown to the University of Texas campus to take random photos of people hanging out since school is still in session. It’s something that’s been on my list for quite a while now. I wish I had been into photography more when I was at grad school there.

I still have a lot of vivid mental photos I took while I was hanging around campus of the people and things I saw. I used to pass by this woman doing tai chi on the way to class all the time. That would have made a great 1 Minute Video capture.

Then there is this nice lawn on the south side of campus where tons of students would just lay around. I never understood the whole sprawl on the lawn thing but I definitely took many mental photos of it. The sun is my enemy so places where there is long exposure of sunlight I tend to avoid. I just think it’s funny because those are usually the places most people flock to.

I’ve also been craving this strawberry banana smoothie I’d always get at The Chippery on campus at Dobie Mall. That thing was awesomeness multiplied by 1000. Great, now I’m really craving it. Even after I left grad school, I went back there often to get a smoothie for lunch since it was only 5 minutes away from where I was working. I spilt so many of those cups of smoothies in my car. Whoever owns that car now probably can still smell strawberries.

I think I need to start experimenting with my life to test some theories out on who I am. I think I’ll start with what flavor am I really and go to the ice cream store and sample every single flavor they have. lol. Okay maybe that’s not an experiment so much as a great excuse to eat lots of ice cream. hehe.

Going Nowhere on Purpose

Today has been one of the quiet days and yet my head still has managed to bounce around quite a bit. At least I’m not that emotional today which is quite nice for a change. 

I prefer days when I don’t experience extreme highs or lows. I started to wonder something about myself today while catching up on all the flickr pictures I missed last week.

Everyone is always out and about and doing stuff and I’m always so envious of these pics. Yet, when I think about it really hard, I realize there’s a reason I’m always viewing the world from my monitor and not actually experiencing it.

I might just be one of those people who just doesn’t like doing much. You know, those types who always stay home and just bum around all day and never go out. I might actually like this, to be honest.

As much as I love seeing things, perhaps being a homebody is in my blood. I take the best of both worlds I guess, the convenience of a place I feel safe and comfortable and the sites of things that thrill me to no end.

Well, it was just a thought that passed through my head.. a theory as to why I’m bound to these four walls + two monitors. :)

Vacation + Week of Disconnect= Head Full

--an excerpt from the 14 page log of my vacation (Friday April 16, 2010)--

This vacation has been quite surreal for me because nothing about this vacation has really been about me. It’s like living in someone else’s shell. The worst part about it is being isolated and alone with my thoughts. I’ve been trying to rationalize everything and wanting to find solutions in my life. I want so desperately to be like them, to find happiness in the most simple of things.

Just as I watched my parents dance last night, I thought to myself how easy things would be if I could take pleasure in the everyday moments. I could shut my eyes and pretend I’m smiling.

----shit missing here (taken out to not piss family off)----

I was sitting outside of the Windjammer CafĂ© waiting for the rest of my family to show up for lunch. I was next to these old ladies. They were commenting on these young girls trying to enter the cafeteria with their bathing suits on and no shoes. I was amused at their commentary about how “they should know better than to try and go inside to eat without proper attire.” They were glad when the attendants turned them away because they weren’t properly dressed for the eating area. One lady made a comment about how she didn’t want nasty sun tan lotion on her seats.

I love people watching and eaves dropping on people. I kind of do the same with my camera. I try to capture moments of strangers just being themselves. It’s lovely to watch people when they don’t think they’re being watched. I noticed throughout the ship those who I believed were truly happy, truly bored, and some that looked downright miserable. None of them saw me though.

I often want to go up to people and explore their minds. That’s what I love about the meta so much. It’s much easier to pick at people’s emotions and thoughts than it is in the RL. At one point, I almost sat down next to these two men who had lunch with each other and said nothing to the other the whole time. I wanted so much to ask them what their story was. Who were they with? Where were they from? What do they do? What were they thinking?

I write too much I think. I can’t help it thought. My head is full. I’ve had no one to share any thoughts with for the past week. Even the little details I keep in my head. For example, I love the facial expressions on Trax’s sister’s face. She has such vivid and beautiful expressions. I took lots of pictures of her. I wanted a chance to talk to her privately but we’re just not that familiar. She’s gay but I often wonder if she’s borderline transgender like my friend Ren. I’ve seen her physically make the same changes he did when he finally knew he wanted to make the full transition. Who knows though, she might just be butch and that’s all there is to that.

---more shit missing----

I’m looking at the plastic sack on the bed at the moment. Sahd’s mom bought me a journal and a purse hook. It’s one of those cute little hooks you put at a restaurant table to hang your purse from when there is no place to put your bag so you don’t have to set it on the floor. The journal is cute too. It’s blue with colorful circular shapes on it. I’m not sure what to write in it since I never put pen to paper anymore. I thought about maybe using it to journal what makes me happy or sad on a daily basis? I thought about sketching in it.

A part of me thinks I should go outside and stop staring at the waves. Another part of me wants to save this bit of writing and then open up a fresh document and begin writing again with diverged thoughts. I live in my head too much. All I can think of now is how much I want to go home and hold my cat and drink my Diet Sunkist. Oh crap. I have no more at home. I’ll have to run out and by some as soon as I return.

3x5 is one of my favorite John Mayer songs because it’s about how we experience life. It’s how I think life should be spent, with both eyes open and truly enjoying every moment. I hide behind my camera a lot because usually I’m not wanting to be noticed or I’m trying to find something to appreciate. I have to create games with my camera to find the beauty in something but I’m never really enjoying the moment if I have my camera with me. It’s those times in life where you would never think to take pictures that are actually worth capturing.

I once watched a special on tv about this street peddler, Joe Ades, who sold random shit to people on the streets of New York for decades and decades. He made a lot of money doing it and could have gone on to do something else if it weren’t for the fact that he loved his job so much. He loved meeting people every day, seeing the street life, and just was able to enjoy the simplicity of the small connections he made. He was in his seventies and he had never taken a vacation nor was looking to retire. I remember the journalist asked him, “Do you ever take a vacation?”

I still remember the look on his face, the smile he had as he said to the journalist, “Life IS a vacation! Every day is a vacation.”

I reeled I think when I heard him say that. I thought to myself what an amazing fucking way to view life. How lucky was this man? Was he delusional or had he really found a happiness in his life that made life that wonderful?

---Dinner tonight was the second formal night. I hate wearing a dress. I like my new high socks a lot though. They’re a lot easier to wear than stockings though. I think I’m going to buy more when I get home.

I figured out my binaural recording from the other night didn’t work because I forgot to set the recorder to use plug-in power for the mic. I decided to try again tonight. I think the recording turned out quite well. You can hear all my annoying clicking of the camera. I have no idea what everyone thinks of all the picture taking my brother and I have been doing during dinner.

I think once they see the pictures they’ll appreciate it…I hope.

Tonight for dinner was lobster which a lot of people had tons of. I opted for the prime rib instead and the mushroom pastry something or other for the appetizer. My dessert was the cake sampler plate.

After dinner, Taint, Tivi and I played around with their flash and I took a crap ton of pictures of them. It was a lot of fun experimenting with flash and lighting. The rest of the family wanted me to go see the show tonight, an old doo-op band, The Drifters, but I stayed to take pictures instead. I would have gone to the show with them had we not been taking pictures. I think Taint and Tivi really wanted me to take pictures of them. They turned out quite well I think. One of my favorite pictures taken from the cruise I got that night.

Tomorrow is the last day on the ship. We’re all supposed to meet up for lunch. I’m really looking forward to going back home…

TBF

by Kevin Mitchell

"Look at the bridge. You see the two towers?"- Jeppy
"yeah"- me
"You see how each of the tower carries the load of the structure equally?"-Jeppy
"yeah"- me
"That's what a real relationship should look like."- Jeppy
"that's awesome"- me

This Tower Bridge is now on the top of my list of places I want to go see. I hope to one day take my own photograph of this bridge and frame it to hang on my wall.

It's such beautiful, symbolic icon of what I've realized has made me fail so badly at relationships all my life and what I should always be striving for instead. You have to seek true balance and structure between both parties. Sure, there will always been imbalanced relationships and partial/quasi casual friendships.

Tower Bridge however is the epitome of an amazing friendship. It requires both parties to grow strong together and want to hold equal part in the relationship. You can't fake connections. You can't bypass the construction of the structure as much as you'd like to because then you just create something weak and temporary.

It's such a simple but beautiful concept of a partnership in any connection you have in life. Forget BFF! It's TBF! Tower Bridge Friends :)

I'm not exactly sure what it means to try to repair bridges that have long swept away though. Do we reconstruct from scratch or take a lesson in the fact that the relationship didn't have the structure it needed to begin with? I have an enormous amount of flaws. My emotional shortcomings prevent me from my own self-repair at times...... other than that, I'm not all together sure about much. I just know that relationships require a good sense of continual assurance which require a degree of emotional presence....get what you give...lalalalala. I'm working on it.

poohandpiglet

Ice Queen

“Sometimes I wish I could allow myself to be more human.” Yeah, so I tweeted that and meant to expand on it but exceeded my 140 character limit too swiftly.

I’m an incredibly analytical person. For years and years I’ve fine-tuned the art of intellectual back loops and theory crafting life in my head. It’s rare that I do anything that I haven’t already run through six test loops beforehand. Even when I do express slight emotions of joy or excitement, you can believe those are programmed to some degree.

I hate it. I once had a friend who would refer to me as the Ice Queen. As much as it stung to hear that, I wonder if there isn’t quite a bit of truth to it. I’ve spent so long fine tuning the art of suppressing my emotions. It frustrates people around me to no end.

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking.” “Are you mad?” “Do you care?”

@Jeppy told me awhile ago that people get scared of me easy. I kind of thought he was talking out of his ass and didn’t believe him at all. Then three other people admitted they were afraid of me and then I was like “fuck, Jeppy was right?”

It’s true, I’m not fluent in emotions. I’m good at expressing excitement or amusement. I am not good at expressing that I care about people though. I’ve gotten so that I don’t even have the ability to show own my family I love them so you can imagine how handicap I am with friends.

People close to me say I am cold and indifferent to the large part of the world around me. The reality is that I feel a lot, it’s just that by the time they bypass all my logic filters, the only thing left of an emotion is a mild smile.

If this is a defense mechanism, I want to disable it and try being more human for awhile. I just don’t know where the damn off switch is.

No wait, I take that back. That is illogical! I must have some bugs.

"One day I'm going to meet you again on the street and look into your eyes and see you are just a shell of what you once were."

Sandwich Rounds


Sandwich Rounds, originally uploaded by alachia.

So this morning I was going through photos I wanted to upload and really hated them all. That might be a bit harsh. I didn't hate them but none of them really felt all that great. I even tried my hand to do some post production to make them to my liking and wasted another two hours.

Sometimes I get in this mode where I feel like pictures have to be perfect. Those are the times I have to remind myself that ultimately this is really just about the art of sharing... we're either sharing a moment, a thought, a picture, or random part of life. In fact, I look forward most to the flickr photos from friends that are about sharing their lives via pictures.

Not all photos need to be about being artsy, stylistic, or perfect composure. A hasty snap shot of someone's bed, a pic of the shampoo you use daily, or even what the inside of your car looks like that day is as awesome as and HDR image of a skyline :)

So....I present.. my new favorite bread!

Rise

So it wasn’t until @Azyxa was like “omg Alachia. new song. do it” in the WoWcast bindpoint channel that I realized I had been spam playing “Rise” over and over again. He had given me a new version of the Rise remix so I decided to create a Rise playlist with the three versions I have: The Original, The Acoustic, and the Remix. I pretty much listened to that all day yesterday. (thanks to Azxa, I now have at least 10 version of the song)

It’s such an amazing song and once again I didn’t even bother to look at the lyrics much because like Eros (452 plays) I just naturally get obsessed with the way a song sounds or feels.

So this morning I decided to finally look at the lyrics and create my own assessment of the meaning.

You should believe me
And everything I choose to do
You should believe that I'll
Always come back to you

I think this is an expression about being yourself. I think the YOU is actually the core self that is safe and grounded. Believing in yourself is the first part of personal growth.

Life is discovering
The love that we create
Life is a mystery
We need to embrace

The love we create and the discovery I assume pertains to the things we find that make us full of life. That we should pursue things that we love to do. The mystery of life being the discovery or ourselves and experiences we can explore if we embrace them.

In every way
You need to let go
You'll see all your dreams will follow
In every way
You need to let go

“Let go” is referring to fears, inhibitions, or anything that might stop you from opportunities. “Dreams will follow” are the possibilities of happiness when you aren’t held back by fear.

(Chorus)
People rise together
When they believe in tomorrow
Change the day to forever
This life keeps movin'
(Repeat 2x)

When you share that belief with other people in changing your tomorrow based off the messages from the previous lyrics, you rise as a human being. “Rise” could mean increase in personal happiness, human betterment, and/or the ability to inspire. Life isn’t stagnant and neither should be how we live our lives.

Open your mind and see
We have everything we need
Dream or reality
Fulfill its destiny

Despite our inhibitions, all we really need is to believe in ourselves. Dream or reality sounds like a play on our perception of what is dreamed and what is possible. I assume this song is trying to express that it doesn’t matter- the point is to seek to make it happen….whatever that is.

In every way
You need to let go
You'll see all your dreams will follow
In every way
You need to let go

(Chorus)
People rise together
When they believe in tomorrow
Change the day to forever
This life keeps movin'
(Repeat 2x)

You need to let go...
You need to let go...

(With instrumentals)
People rise
When they believe
Change the day
This life keeps movin'

(Chorus)
People rise together
When they believe in tomorrow
Change the day to forever
This life keeps movin'
Yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah...

This was Samantha James’s explanation as to what the song meant to her:

Nu-Soul: What was the inspiration for the song “Rise”?
Samantha James:
My mom passed away when I was 13 and once I was 19 and over partying I decided it was time for me to grow spiritually. I felt this desire to connect with my mom’s spirit again. I went on a journey to connect with my mom and along that process after working on my music for 8 years I crossed paths with my producer Sebastian Arocha Morton. When I met Sebastian it was totally undeniable that my mom has put us together to make music. That first song “Rise” is about us rising together with my mom’s spirit right alongside us. It’s about people rising together when they believe in tomorrow. And even if you die your spirit lives on. “Rise” has so many different meanings to me. But I have discovered that we created a song that was really needed in the world right now.