I Love You

I love you.

I can't help it. I know you can't help feeling the way you do, but neither can I.

I love how you make me feel special, and I love how much we've grown together.

I love that you bring out the best in me, and I love that you allow me to be myself.

I love seeing you interact with other people, and I love that their lives are happier because of you.

I love how patient you are with those it is hard to be patient with [although this does exclude your family sometimes].

I love to feel your arms around me, and I love how my heart does "wowzer" flip flops when I see you.

I love to see and hear you smile and laugh, and I love knowing that I've brought laughter into your life.

I love you despite your flaws, and I love that you've continued to be my friend despite mine.

I love you depsite your past.

I love you for our present and what we've had the last few months.

I love you for the future we could have.

I hurt when you hurt, I'm happy for you when you are happy, I want nothing but the best for you.

I LOVE YOU.

Another Excerpt

Here is another excerpt from my semester abroad:

Types of Music

Squeak squeak [pause] squeak squeak [pause] squeak squeak squeak. The rain we've been walking through has left a layer of wetness on the streets, creating the perfect medium for us to make our own music. Squeak squeak [pause]. Our legs provide the rhythm, a small twist of the ankle generates the sound. Squeak squeak [pause] squeak squeak squeak.

I keep looking for music in each of these ports, and feel like I've failed. But I've come to realize that there are other types of "music" that we hear every day. Car horns honking in Beijing; the squeak of bicycle tires in Vietnam; people chattering in restaurants—sometimes in English, sometimes not; bugs chirping/singing near the Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto, so loud you can hardly hear yourself think (What kind of insects are these? Can they be found in the United States, or are they native to Japan?); the silent rhythm of kids who can't hear speaking to each other using sign language. These are all types of music. Sometimes, they can be breathtaking and absolutely beautiful; other times, you want to rip your ears off. But if you truly listen to what is around you—the annoying clicks of keyboards, the sounds of vacuums at 3:00 in the morning, the rhythmic pounding of waves upon the shore—you will realize that the music of this world is everywhere, it transcends all realms of race, gender, class, place of birth, language, etc. (And if you listen hard enough, you can hear my favorite music—the sound of a smile.)

Taking Chances

Don't know much about your life.

Don't know much about your world, but

Don't want to be alone tonight,

On this planet they call earth.

You don't know about my past, and

I don't have a future figured out.

And maybe this is going too fast.

And maybe it's not meant to last,

But what do you say to taking chances?

What do you say to jumping off the edge?

Never knowing if there's solid ground below

Or hand to hold, or hell to pay,

What do you say,What do you say?

I just want to start again,

And maybe you could show me how to try,

And maybe you could take me in,

Somewhere underneath your skin?

What do you say to taking chances?

What do you say to jumping off the edge?

Never knowing if there's solid ground below

Or hand to hold, or hell to pay,

What do you say,What do you say?

And I had my heart beaten down,

But I always come back for more, yeah.

There's nothing like love to pull you up,

When you're laying down on the floor there.

So talk to me, talk to me,

Like lovers do.

Yeah walk with me, walk with me,

Like lovers do,Like lovers do.

What do you say to taking chances?

What do you say to jumping off the edge?

Never knowing if there's solid ground below

Or hand to hold, or hell to pay,

What do you say,What do you say?

Don't know much about your life

And I don't know much about your world

Free Days

Let's face it. I'm a simpleton. I like things as simple as possible. I'm not one to insist on getting all dressed up and going out to fancy restaraunts every weekend -- I'd much rather sit in jeans and T-shirts eating a $5 pizza fresh out of the oven. I'm not one to insist on going to clubs with hundreds of people I don't know just to hang out -- I'd much rather stay at home and DJ my own music in my living room with just a few people. I'm not one to insist on a huge wedding that costs thousands of $$$ -- I'd much rather have a smaller-key wedding with lots of fun with lots of people. I'm not one to insist on a huge diamond ring -- I'd much rather have a smaller diamond and be able to go camping for a week with the money saved. I'm not one to insist on expensive gifts and jewelry -- In fact, I'd much rather spend time with someone vs. getting any gift at all.

Because of this, my best friend and I have come up with Free Days, days in which we do something new and completely random -- but doesn't cost anything [save the cost of gas to get to and from -- and which has to be purchased prior to Free Day]. We've gone to the library to learn sign language while sitting on the floor in the middle of the aisle. We've talked for hours sitting on the side of a hill on a golf course in the middle of the night. We've gone to a park and watched fireworks. We've window shopped at the D.A.V.

We've both been super busy the last few weeks and haven't been able to have a Free Day in quite a while. . . I hope we can find time to have one soon.

Modern [In]conveniences

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate modern conveniences. . . indoor plumbing, wireless internet, cell phones, digital photography, etc. But some modern conveniences are, well, laughable. . . or I guess they create laughable situations. . .

I work in a building that has put in automatic toilets and sinks in the bathrooms. And while these are immoderately more sanitary, they sometimes don't work so well. I don't know how many times I've gone to the bathroom with the automatic toilet, and after I leave the stall the toilet proceeds to flush the entire time I'm washing my hands. Is it really that necessary? Aren't we wasting water that way? One morning, in fact, I entered the empty bathroom to the sound of a toilet flushing. And flushing. And flushing. I bet that thing flushed for ten minutes straight. Again, is it necessary? Aren't we wasting water that way?

Then there are those situations in which you find yourself laughing and checking to see if anyone is watching. . . After getting used to a self-flushing toilet and a self-watering sink at work, I find myself expecting those things everywhere I go. I go to the bathroom at home and then spend three or four minutes waving my hand trying to get the sensor to read that I'm done and that the toilet needs to flush. Hello! There is no sensor! It's not gonna do it itself!! I go to the mall or other business and wash my hands and I sit there for thirty seconds, waving my hands under the faucet to get the water to turn on. Hello! There's a handle! It's not gonna do it itself!! That's when I look around to make sure no one is laughing at you.

[Of course, then there are the times when it IS an automatic sink or toilet and you CAN'T get it to work, no matter how many times you wave your hand in front of the sensor. . . And you find yourself laughing because you know how absolutely ridiculous you look and you hope no one is watching. :) ]

A VHS Morning

So I got home last night from my best friend's house around 10:30. I had a thought that wouldn't go away rolling around in my head, so I tried to research an answer. Didn't really find the answer I wanted, so I went to bed around 11:20, which means I didn't fall asleep until probably close to midnight. Then, around 1:45 a.m., a loud clanging crash from my bedroom woke me up. My heart was seriously about to beat out of my chest because I had absolutely no idea what had happened [coupled with the fact that I have to wake up slowly in the morning, so my sit-up-straight-in-bed-terrified act doubled my pulse, I do believe]. I knew I hadn't moved, knocking something off the bed, and I didn't hear the cats scurrying [guiltily] around in the bathroom, but I knew that I was "safe" because I hadn't heard my bedroom door or the bathroom door open. But that was definitely enough to keep me wide awake for at least an hour, and since I left all my weekend work to the last minute, I had to get up WAY before the buttcrack of dawn to get that done. Boo.

So here I am, sitting at my desk, dog-tired and superduper hungry since I've been awake more this morning than my body's used to. A great start to a Monday morning. Wahoo!!

And it was just something in my closet that had fallen over. . .

Excerpt #1

In honor of the five year anniversary of when I shaved my head, here's a taste of one of the papers I wrote for a music class while studying abroad:

Where's the "Ma"?

Silence. A moment of silence. Tears stream down my face. It is September 11th, 2003, the two year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. And I'm sitting in Japan, a country of my ancestors, a country we gruesomely attacked sixty years ago, killing my own ancestors, having a moment of silence for the victims of the U.S. terrorist attacks. I'm blown away. Japan, so forgiving of our sins, as Hiroshima clearly shows. Japan had a deadly earthquake only eight years ago, killing thousands. Do I remember? Do I even remember the date it happened? Did I have a moment of silence for all that they had lost? Of course not. Yet here we are, in a moment of silence—for us, in their country. Tears stream down my face.

Silence can be very profound and intense. In India, we were somewhat mobbed (at least it felt like it) every day by children and adults begging for food. Eventually, we pretty much learned to ignore them. Yet there were always the ones who tugged at our heart strings—maybe the very young children in tattered rags, maybe the old crippled and invalid. For me, it was those who never said a word. Tap tap [turn around]. Hand to mouth, hand to mouth. Silence. Turn back around. Tap tap. Ignore them, just ignore them. Silence. Deafening silence. Good, they're gone. So many things communicated, never a word spoken.

Silence can be a very powerful tool. We use it to honor, we use it to relax, we even use it to create tension. Silence can be found in music as well as everyday life: those two or three seconds between tracks on a CD; those awkward moments of the phone or on a first date when nothing is said; the sound of nothing you fall asleep to. Yet if you think about it, is there ever really complete silence? When you turn off the radio, you can still hear the hum of electricity. When everyone else is asleep, you can still hear the creaking of the ship as it rolls from side to side. There's always the sound of the other person breathing on the other end of the telephone, even when neither of you is talking. Silences can be both useful and disturbing. . .