Currently Listening Antidote for Irony By So They Say Overexposed Photo see related

I believe

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy,
a quickening that is translated through you into action,
and because there is
only one of you in all of time,
this expression is unique.
And if you block it,
it will never exist thourgh
any other medium and it will be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is
nor how valuable it is
nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep yourself open
and aware to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open. ... No artist is ever pleased.
There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction,
a blessed unrest that keeps up marching
and makes us more alive than the others."

-- Martha Graham

Aside from the fact that she was an absolutely amazing dancer,
Martha Graham was also a very very smart lady.

So many people discount their ideas, opinions, beliefs, feelings, just because they don't think they're worth doing. They don't feel like expressing themselves in whatever way they can is worth the effort. And that makes me very sad.

I read an essay once, by someone who's been dead 50 years, and still has the ability to make us listen to him. In the paper, he talked about how everyone is born with the same abilities that everyone is, before the world begins taking them away. Maybe a disability, maybe a horrible home, maybe a lack of motivation, maybe a desire to be good at one thing and not so stellar at another....but whatever it is, we begin shutting off parts of our brain before they ever even got a chance to work. And in that shutting off of parts of ourselves, whether by our choice or our situation, the Channel begins closing. And we lose bits and pieces of what we had to offer to the planet, until we stop caring about it at all.

That's what makes me sad.

It's kind of like when someone dies young. At the funeral, you know you're guaranteed at least one person who goes on and on about what the deceased person could have done if they'd lonly lived a little longer...but what about everyone who's still here? What is we just TRIED a little harder?

I don't know. Either way, I love the fact that my favorite dancer wasn't an airhead, and I love the idea that everyone has something to contribute, if they only let it out.

<3, Emily

Currently Listening Coach Carter By Various Artists take a wild guess :] see related

Hopeful, Part 2

If you're reading this right now and you haven't listened to the song below this yet, then you're obviously either really bad at following directions, or seriously missing out.

I wish I could teach a soul to fly,
take the pain away out ya hands and help you hold 'em high...

I wish that God could protect us from the wrong,
so that all the soldiers that were sent overseas come home.....

Take this music and use it...
I know it ain't easy, but that's okay.

Ya know, sometimes losing something or leaving something or quitting something isn't as bad as it seems. We've all got this idea that change is so horrible, and yeah, it's not always a picnic, but sometimes things look brighter once you're out of the tunnel.

And sometimes even the simplest facts of life, like The Sky is Blue and The Grass is Green and I Am a Girl and You Are a Boy can make you the happiest. Because whenever you're not sure of something that you used to take for granted, that's when everything turns into a tailspin. I mean, I know the whole thing about how "Whenever a door closes, a window opens," but sometimes when one of your constants changes, your world suddenly feels more open and raw than it ever did before. And sometimes it hasn't even changed, it's just gotten a little vaguer around the edges, and you miss the black-and-white lines that you used to have instead of these hazy gray shapes floating around the edges of your vision.

Oh, and for the record, the sky is still blue, and I'm pretty sure the grass will still be green when the snow finally melts, and I'm pretty darn sure that I'm still a girl, but seeing as I can't tell who's reading this, I'm not really in a position to say which one you happen to be.

Life is good :]

Sure, it's confuzzling sometimes, but it's like a book you can't put down or a movie you can't turn off -- you've gotta know how it's going to wind up, and the only way to ever find out is just to keep going.

<3, Emily

Hopeful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv1sRFbsKDY

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

I wish the way I was living could stop, serving rocks,
Knowing the cops is hot when I’m on the block, And I
Wish my brother woulda made bail,
So I won’t have to travel 6 hours to see him in jail, And I
Wish that my grandmother wasn’t sick,
Or that we would just come up on some stacks and hit a lick, And I (I wish)
Wish my homies wouldn’t have to suffer,
When the streets get the upper had on us and we lose a brother, And I
Wish I could go deep in a zone,
And lift the spirits of the world with the words with in this song, And I (I wish)
Wish I could teach a could teach a soul to fly,
Take away the pain out your hands and help you hold them high, And I
Wish God never gave the men power
To be able to hurt the people inside the Twin Towers, And I (I wish)
Wish God woulda turned they hearts righteous,
When they started to take innocent lives and become snipers, But uh
We will never break, don’t devastate, we shall motivate,
And we gotta pray, all we got is faith.
Instead of thinking about who gonna die to day,
The Lord is gonna help you feel better, so you ain’t gotta cry today.
Sit at the light so long,
And then we gotta move straight forward, cuz we fight so strong,
So when right go wrong,
Just say a little prayer, get ya money man, life go on!!!
Let’s HOPE!

Cuz I’m hopeful, yes I am, hopeful for today,
Take this music and use it
Let it take you away,
And be hopeful (hopeful) and he’ll make a way
I know it ain’t easy but that’s okay.
Let’s be hopeful!

I wish that you could show some love,
Instead of hatin so much when you see some other people commin up (I wish)
I wish I could teach the world to sing,
Watch the music and have ‘em trippin of the joy I bring, (shiit)
I wish that we could hold hands,
Listen instead of dissin lessons from a grown man, And I (I wish)
Wish the families that lack, but got love, get some stacks
Brand new shack and a lack that’s on dubs, And I
Wish we could keep achieving wonders,
See the vision of the world through the eyes of Stevie Wonder, (you feel me) (I wish)
And I hope all the kids eat,
And don’t nobody in my family see six feet, (ya dig)
I hope them mothers stain’ strong,
You can make it whether you wit him or your mans gone, And I (I wish)
Wish I could give every celly some commissary,
And the po po bring the heat on them priest like they did R. Kelly, And I
Wish that DOC could scream again
And bullets could reverse so Pac and Biggie breath again, (shit) (I wish)
Then one day they could speak again,
I wish that we only saw good news every time we look at CNN,
I wish that enemies could talk,
And that super homie Christopher Reeves could still walk, (I wish)
I wish that we could walk a path, stay doin the right thing
Hustle hard so the kids maintain up in the game,
Let’s HOPE

Cuz I’m hopeful, yes I am, hopeful for today,
Take this music and use it
Let it take you away,
And be hopeful (hopeful) and he’ll make a way
I know it ain’t easy but that’s okay.
Let’s be hopeful!

Wish the earth wasn’t so apocalyptic,
I try to spread my message to the world the best way I can give it,
We can make it always so optimistic,
If you don’t listen gotta live my life the best way I can live it,
I pray for justice when we go to court,
Wish it was all good so the country wouldn’t have to go to war,
Why can’t we kick it and just get em on,
And in the famous words of Mr. King “Why can’t we all just get along”,
Or we can find a better way to shop and please, And I
Hope we find a better way to cop a keys, And I
Wish everybody would just stop and freeze,
And ask way are we fulfillin these downfalls and prophecies,
You can be wrong if it’s you doubting,
With the faith of a mustard seed you can move mountains,
And only the heavenly father can ease the hurt,
Just let it go and keep prayin on your knees in church!!
And let’s HOPE

Cuz I’m hopeful, yes I am, hopeful for today,
Take this music and use it
Let it take you away,
And be hopeful (hopeful) and he’ll make a way
I know it ain’t easy but that’s okay.
Let’s be hopeful!

Twista feat. Faith Evans -- Hope.

Listen. Just do it.

It's one of those "Headphones on, Volume up" songs. It seems like whatever isn't right, or is right, or is just not-the-way-it-used-to-be, feels better after it ends. Kind of like a band-aid set to music. Because really, everyone needs a little bit of hope now and then.

<3, Emily

Currently Listening Lunch for the Sky By Socratic it makes me smile :] see related

Swing Life Away
--Rise Against--

We've been here so long,
I think that it's time we move.
The winter's so cold,
summer's over too soon.
Let's pack our bags and
settle down where palm trees grow...
I've got some friends,
some that I hardly know.
But we've had some times
I wouldn't trade for the world.
We chase these days down with talks of
the places that we will go...

I've got cabin fever, BAD.

I want to go to Nashville, to Florida, to Mexico, to India, to anywhere that I can get a tan, and remember what it feels like to be too hot instead of freezing. I want to swim, and run and jump and dance and stop being cooped up in a house. I want my trampoline set up again. I want to leave school and know that I don't have to step foot in it for a long, long, loooooong time.

It's time to shake things up, I know that much. I'm just not sure what to go about shaking.

Today was a great day....Chance's car wouldn't start last night, and we almost got to maybe have a sleepover until his daddy come to fix it. ((I've always wondered what boys did at their slumber parties, and this would have been the perfect opportunity to find out.)) This morning he came over super-early, so we just had chocolate-chip pancakes and watched dance movies....YAY SUGAR!

Anyway, we hit up Office Max for labels ((I bought those little shiny star stickers that teachers used to put on our papers in, like, kindergarten....
remember those?? I have no idea what I'll do with them, but they were too awesome to walk past and not pick up.)), then Barnes & Noble, where I had to ask the worker-dude how to find a certain book because a certain someone wouldn't do it, hehehe. After that was the mall, then Fazoli's....mmmm, pizza

And now I'm showered
and nail-polished
and hair-straightened,
and it's not even 8 o'clock yet....
....weeeeeird.

Yay for random updates with no real point to 'em!

<3, Emily

1.14.2007

.....it feels so much longer.
It's like there's no way every
memory I have with him,
from swimming to snowball fights,
can be held in a span of time
small enough to be counted on our fingers.

I know him, and he knows me
like we've been dating for years
instead of only ten months.
And maybe, maybe it's because
of all the time we spent before,
kind of circling each other.
Trying to tell, once and for all,
"Is it just me, or do you feel it, too?"

.....it feels so much shorter.
We're still in the new, exciting,
"You like me and I like you,
how awesome is THAT?!" phase.
With anyone else, that lasted
10 days, maybe...

It's still that Christmas-morning feeling
every time I open the door
and see him standing there.
I'm not a particularly religious person.
But I'm smart enough to know that
things like this don't just happen.
And I'm smart enough to appreciate
whoever it is Up There
who's being so nice.

So, that's the end of my update
about January 14, 2007.
Part thank-you note,
part sappy-song-lyrics,
part I-just-can't-believe-it,
and part Man,-I-wish-he'd-get-off-of-work-already.

<3, Emily