Wedding Bells Just Won't Quit

....as of today add another boy I dated briefly to the "marriage" side of things.

Traitors.

I Heart Ira Glass

Podcasts are my new obsession. As I struggle with motion sickness, and reading only aggravates the situation when on moving transport, I have turned to my trusty ipod and NPR to deliver stories and news alike. I recommend, in ascending order of preference:

WNYC’s The Fishko Files

RTE’s Documentary on One

PRI’s Fair Game with Faith Salie

WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show

WNYC’s Radio Lab (Oh so good!!)

And, it is a sin for anyone not to listen to, Out of Chicago:

This American Life

(Dreamboat)

Every time I finish listening to an episode of This American Life I get a feeling I haven’t felt in a very long time- something I rarely feel: I am proud to be a person living American. I am hooked and intrigued by people’s stories. I love the diversity, the struggle. I love how it is the tale of the everyman mundane, yet always unique, interesting, and individual. It makes me want to study people even more closely, make documentaries, and hear people share themselves. I want to know what they do and care about, how they live. I believe it is only through attempting to understand an individual-all of them- that we can make steps at becoming better ourselves. I find the most interesting people are the ones with the best foibles and the articulation and openness of these flaws allow for a sense of kinship. Somehow, in the honesty of the shortcomings, one can find a strength of character, which can allow one to know and admire someone for their talents. It’s this human reality- both for better or worse- that is depicted on the show. It’s understanding, loving, despite….

Wedding Bells

So two of my ex boyfriends and a boy I went to prom with are married. MARRIED. (Oh the things you can keep up on via facebook.) Now granted my relationships with them took place in early high school, but part of me (the narcissist) is confused how they could have possibly gotten over me. I am a great girlfriend. How could my 8^th grade boyfriend find someone better than me?!? The world may never know….

Timaeus

I just recently finished “What is the What” by Dave Eggers.

For anyone who has not read it, please do. It is such a must read. The story is of a Sudanese refugee who orally told his life account to Eggers who used it to create his fictional work. It is so very touching (it made me start to cry on the subway no fewer than twice and made me feel guilty about my lap-of-luxury-life always.)

I think the book has helped me make some realizations about why I feel so unsettled in my life. I do not have to struggle every day to keep myself alive. I know I will eat, I know I will have a place to sleep. I know no one is out trying to kill me and my loved ones. I have not had to witness my home, my family, and my country flung into chaotic despair. My human struggle is not about survival.

When you are past attempting to survive you are in a position to thrive.

And how should I thrive?

How do I prove my “thriving” in this society? There is something in my competitive nature that makes me want to “win” by society’s rules. Americans generally find the thriving through material possessions and in that excess I am disgusted. Yet still I feel the pull.

There is something very sick to it, and I hate to sound like I am not thankful for all my good fortune, but I would make such a good survivor. I would live, I would plow on through. I feel like I would know how to do that- emotionally and physically. I feel like it makes sense to me.

Work, work, work- What are you working for?

I am working to keep myself alive.

That makes sense.

Work, work, work- What are you working for?

Paying the bills, pretty little things, a lovely couch.

There is something phony about it. I feel like it is almost lying about our mortality in a way.

Perhaps it all comes down to guilt. If I was “surviving” I would feel less guilty about my current state of discontent. If people were getting plucked left and right I would at least have an excuse to feel unsatisfied with the state of affairs.

I feel like I always have to end my writings in “I really am happy…really…not kidding…” because I am.

It’s in the board strokes that I find the forlorn. I find it in a soul which longs to be part of the universe however trapped in a body belonging to the earth. And in that aren’t we all in the same struggle?

In any case, read the book.