Categories
humor internet love personal webcomics

You can’t handle the tooth!

Darbey Conley can do amazing things
with four little panels. Be sure to check
out today’s comic if you haven’t.
It’s pure genious; like smores.
Also pure genious: tokyoplastic v.2.

So, waiting by the phone for my big lunch date.
A few butterflies, but mostly a solid calm.
I haven’t even had the date, yet it’s already
been a positive experience for me;
an excellent chance to examine my thoughts,
question my ideals and assess my values.
You know, all that stuff.

There’s a lot still there to learn and
my faith in the beauty of this world is unshakable.

Categories
love personal

… checking it twice.

1. When I was about 2-3 years old, I tried to eat a slug. I say “tried” because they’re sticky and very hard to swallow.
2. Because I was born April 2, I’m an Aries. Because I was born in 1980, I’m a Monkey.
3. I’m convinced this gives me incredible super-powers.
4. I was born in Port Townsend, Washington.
5. The nearest doctor when I was born was on the other end of the phone-line, talking my dad through the process.
6. My name is Ahniwa Dawn Ferrari.
7. I used to hate my name. It’s hard to be different.
8. Now I like it. It’s fun to be different.
9. My name comes from a conversation my father had with a cloud.
10. He used to tell me that it means “Man of Peace.”
11. I went to the Evergreen State College, where I got my BA with a major in Comparative Literature and a minor in Francophone Studies.
12. It amuses me that most people don’t know what “francophone studies” means.
13. I feel a little guilty that that amuses me.
14. During High School, my best friends would always date my ex-girlfriends immediately after they broke up with me.
15. Strangely enough, this didn’t give me a complex. Nor did it ever affect my friendships.
16. I’m better at video games than you are.
17. I first started playing video games at the Bowling Alley in Port Townsend, long before I was tall enough to see the screen. I stood on plastic crates.
18. Teenagers would stand around me, as I stood on this crate, and “ooh” and “ahh” at how awesome I was at Super Mario Brothers.
19. I feel no guilt or shame in saying that video games have been and are an important part of my life.
20. I think that the benefit of video games is often overlooked.
21. I’ve always owned a Volkswagen. Well, you know, since I was 16.
22. I had an ‘84 VW Rabbit from ‘96 ’til ‘01. I’ve had a ‘93 VW Fox from ‘01 to the present.
23. If I bought a new car, it’d be a Toyota Prius.
24. Though I’d feel I had betrayed my beloved Volkswagens.
25. I’m confident, but I’ve no idea how that happened.
26. I used to be incredibly, incontrovertibly shy. I think I still am, deep down inside.
27. I’m an existentialist. You can figure out what that means to you.
28. I like to write poetry and I’m perfectly happy with the idea that I’ll never publish a single scrap of it.
29. Arthur Rimbaud is my decadent hero.
30. Albert Camus is my existential hero.
31. Dostoevsky is my russian hero; Gogol too.
32. Erik Satie plays piano in my living room; or I wish he did.
33. Growing up I had huge crushes on female rockstars, particularly Gwen Stefani and Shirley Manson.
34. One day I’ll write a novel. Maybe tomorrow.
35. November is national write-a-novel month, so maybe I’ll do it then.
36. If you want to get technical, I have five half-siblings.
37. If you ask me, I’ll say I have a brother and a sister.
38. They’re both awesome people in completely different ways.
39. I look up to Theo.
40. Unless I’m standing on a chair. He’s really tall.
41. I love games, video and non. I’m particularly fond of Pinochle and Canasta.
42. I miss my friend, Kas.
43. I work in libraries, and I love it.
44. I plan on getting my Masters of Library and Information Science (MLIS).
45. One day, I’d like to be the director of a small-town public library.
46. Or head librarian in an academic library. Both sound fun.
47. I’ve kissed a guy (kissed though, not made out with).
48. I get crushes easily. I rarely act on them.
49. I’m very calm. Sometimes this annoys people.
50. I’m stream-lined for the new millenium.
51. Actually, I have an italian belly that I really need to work off.
52. I had long hair for a long time, then I cut it off in Ohio.
53. I think I’m growing it back out again.
54. I’m convinced that Washington is quite simply the best state there is.
55. I’m easily annoyed by falsity, particularly in people.
56. I tend to automatically follow ideas through to their logical conclusion. This tends to annoy people also.
57. I’m very honest, though not so brutally as I once was. I’m trying to treat the world more gently.
58. I think I may be incapable of experiencing regret.
59. I like swing-dancing, and I’m good at it.
60. I’m a bit out of practice, though.
61. In general, I’m patient. I’m trying to be moreso with people that annoy me.
62. I prefer naive faith to practical cynicism; well, maybe.
63. I lost my virginity at 19, and at 24 I’ve only had sex with two different people. This seems about right to me.
64. I’m an agnostic; because I think it’s arrogant to say that God does or does not exist.
65. I haven’t read more than 30 pages of Douglas Adams, though I’d like to.
66. The favorite quotes I can think of off the top of my head are by Henry Miller, Albert Einstein, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Rimbaud, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
67. I think that makes me an obvious literary dork.
68. I spent three months in France.
69. I promised a friend that while I was in France I would kiss a beautiful French girl on the Pont Neuf.
70. I never did, and despite the fact that it was sort of out of my control, I’ve always felt a little guilty about it.
71. Eddie Izzard is my absolute favorite stand-up comedian.
72. I like mimes, particularly when they’re a little creepy.
73. I don’t sing in the shower. Not usually.
74. I don’t get bored easily, except when people try to talk to me.
75. I speak an absolutely tiny amount of Russian. It’s a very cool language, though.
76. I’d really like to be able to speak like 10 different languages, but I’m too lazy to think that’ll ever happen.
77. I don’t feel depressed often. When I do it’s from a sense of overwhelming loneliness.
78. I believe that all experiences can be good experiences.
79. I hate being judged, and especially misjudged.
80. I’ve got a spare smile for a stranger.
81. Cowboy Bebop changed my life. I can’t explain how.
82. I’ve a pet, stuffed lizard whose name is Crookshanx. He’s awesome.
83. I love the rain.
84. I’m scared of the ocean, despite having lived by it my whole life.
85. It’s almost killed me twice.
86. I would like to learn how to draw, and particularly how to sketch people.
87. I would also like to learn how to play the guitar, better.
88. I’ve an incredibly over-active imagination.
89. I’ve written children’s stories, and I’d like to publish them one day.
90. I’ve got all the time in the world.
91. I prefer a small group of good friends.
92. I’ll try anything once, and most things twice; hardcore drugs are the exception.
93. I think it’s more important to feel great things than it is to do great things.
94. I would die for my friends.
95. I don’t think anything can justify war.
96. I don’t even think anything can justify violence.
97. I’ve never been in a fight, even though Joe Kirby really wanted to fight in the middle of the highway after the closing night of the play.
98. I’m slowly getting better at keeping in touch with my friends.
99. I believe in loving freely, and forgiveness, and that everything’s a choice.
100. I’ve got a hankering for cheesecake.

Categories
love personal

Then began the rainy season

Our rainy season is like 8 months long.
I love it. We’ve had some sunny days yet,
but I don’t think we’ll get many more.
It’s almost October!

On Halloween, Theo and Tim and I were thinking
about decorating our house for Christmas;
just to be tricksy. I added that we could even
dress up as the Christmas versions of
The Nightmare Before Christmas characters.
We could even dress Toby up like Zero, though
I doubt he’d appreciate it very much. Of course,
that’s why it’s fun. *evil cackle*

I’m driving up to Port Townsend tonight to
visit my family; even my dad’s up there at the moment.
Also, I think my swing shoes may be hidden in
a box up there somewheres, and I’d like to find them.
I tend to sock-hop, as it’s much better than dancing
in sneakers; but last week the floor was all gross,
so shoes have become something of a necessity.
I have some nice ones; if I could only find them!

Our website is coming together well. Though it looks
the same right now, yes, we’ve scanned a lot of images
and Tim made an awesome banner for us. Like, really awesome.
I’m not too sure yet what format the homepage will take;
but I’m hoping it will grow somewhat organically,
adding this and that, one bit at a time, ’til somehow
I realize it’s really an official full-on website.
I suspect I’m naive and fooling myself. *sigh*

So, what’s going on, right?
Honestly, I feel like this last week
has been caught in Limbo, a little bit.
I did, however, get my job application sent
out on Thursday, and the final postmarked deadline
was Friday, so that’s like,
not even procrastinating for me.
Way ahead of schedule. Rar.

I meet Danielle for lunch on Monday;
a new encounter with an old stranger.
What could be stranger? I’ve managed to get
rid of most of my expectations for our
meeting; now mostly just hoping we get along
well and it isn’t horribly awkward.

Tuesday night is swing night,
and even now on Saturday I get butterflies
when I think about it.

The absurd is the result of man’s battle
to make sense of a non-sensical world.

Sisyphus, don’t fail me now.

Categories
love personal poetic

Swing this!

Wow. So, the most fun I’ve had swing-dancing
in a long time. I wasn’t expecting that, honestly.
Also the most smitten I’ve been with a new acquaintance
in a long time. I wasn’t expecting that, either.
With dancing only once a week, life
forces patience on me. Wait it out; reflect.
If I had it my way, there’d be swing-dancing every
night, and my questions would be answered within a week.
Still. Still; still. Still.

I say it, but my heart doesn’t know still right now;
it’s taken up the dance where my feet left off,
crazy like a dervish, nervous,
palms sweaty in the charlston.

I’m such a sap.

Categories
love personal

Unquestioned answers

Looking back over old blog posts,
I remember that I always knew the score.
I came to an understanding before I needed to,
like a shephard moves to higher ground before the rains.
When you wait ’til the last minute,
the last minute is always too late.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to say;
trying to answer the questions that you want answered.
And I’m at a loss for words.
I’ll keep trying if it will help bring peace of mind.

Categories
love poetic work

Who the fuck are you to turn me on!?

The poetry reading was awe-to-the-izzm.
There’s this guy that comes weekly
(i.e. the last two weeks), who’s a
singer/songwriter/guitar-player/poet
and that title is his line;
and he’s awesome and inspiring and neato to boot.

I’ve been thinking a lot about sexuality and
gender roles in our society, and with our
generation in particular. I’ve come to no conclusions,
per se, just rambling thought and speculation.
So why did I bring it up?
I’ve no idea.

In other news: an absolutely spectacular job
opened at the Olympia Public Library,
and I’m super-psyched about it,
and I’m going to get it,
and then my life will be peaches
and rose-fuzz, or something like that.
Go me. Good night.

Categories
love poetic tech work

Stranger than the stranger

So I found out this morning that
swing dancing is on Tuesday nights.
Now I have to wait a week, but at least
it doesn’t conflict with the poetry readings anymore.
The reading last night went swimmingly;
about 10 people read, including myself,
and every reader was worth listening to.
It’s good to remember that there are
other people out there, writing poetry; doing this thing.
Sometimes I forget.

I got a G-mail account today, which makes me happy
because stupid AOL bought Mailblocks, and
I figure it’s only a matter of time before they ruin it.
What with Google owning both Blogger and G-mail,
I’m now completely dependant on them
for my two biggest internet addictions.
Go go gadget Google.

To Emily: I’m sorry about mixed messages
and vapid arguments. I’d really like us to
interact positively. I’ll wait to hear from you.

In the employment world, a temporary position
opened here at St Martin’s in the Advancement Office
(I don’t know what that is, but okay), doing data
verification 20 hours a week. It’s a job that lasts
4-6 weeks and they’ve pretty much already hired me
(just need to work out the schedule).

That should help the old pocket-book for a pinch.

Categories
love personal poetic

Remembrance of things present

Today feels like a dream,
of which tomorrow is the memory.

So I admit, I have no idea what that means.
Being tomorrow, that means that
today is the memory of yesterday’s dream.
That doesn’t make any sense either.
Anyway, it sounded nice when I wrote it.
Perhaps one day someone can explain my mind to me.
Moving on.

My dad left today, after a few-day visit.
It’s been a couple years (since I moved to Ohio),
and it was nice to catch up and see each other.
On the other hand, after more than a solid week
of visitors, it’s going to be nice to be able to relax
and get done what I need to get done. I really, really
would like to be able to sit down and finish my book sometime
soon! I’ve been reading the damned thing for over a month now,
and with a book as good as this is, that’s pure torture.

So, I’ve been thinking over my thoughts and reactions
on relationships and the female species. I’ve always believed
that some level of naive optimism is healthy in an
approach to relationships; indeed, I prefer optimism in regards
to all things, no matter how ridiculous.

Everything’s for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

Optimism – Positive Thought – Hope – Rarr…
… it’s such a challenge to keep these emotions from
feeling sophomoric; to avoid cynical detatchment and a cold
perspective on the world and human interaction.
I want to believe in the basic goodness of the human spirit!

Why is this sometimes so difficult?

Categories
love personal poetic

Je t’aime, potates.

Two poems I wrote yesterday at Vita.

– Like drawing with a white pen –

Sketches capture souls,
like photos to the tribesmen,
like poems capture sentiment.

I’m the rough draft of my life,
shading incomplete;
random lines thrown out from my form
like an etch-a-sketch aura.
I offer myself up for completion.

My colors: white on white;
a gray-scale mentality;
high-contrast invisibility,
like a chameleon blending in with itself.

Come paint me with your impressions:
my skin in hues of music;
my hair: tendrils of blue-period bleak;
my shadow: melting sunbeams over wildflowers.

Sketches capture souls
like poems, sentiment;
like you, me.

– Colors of the flesh –

Spines fluid; weaving mobility,
sweat down the backbone:
rain flushed down pipes; smells like Summer.
Gutteral chants to hearts’ drumbeats,
an ancient rhythm.

You: sultry, sticky-skinned siren;
me:

Hand hover over hope,
rub the flesh-colors out to expose
God’s palette.
We scream denials of external divinity.
Our colors are our own.

As breaths become strong and fragile
and break against the window-panes;
fingers interwine like spider-thread,
tighten, knuckles pale and red.

All energies collapse, eventually:
stars to suns in the cold black,
skies fall under their own weight.
We fall in gasps,
break windows with our silent screams,
and release our fire into the air
so that the day might rise.

A lot of realizations lately,
some hard to come to terms with.
Ideals to aspire to,
but I’ve come to realize that even ideals,
in and of themselves,
can be treacherous.

Struggling quietly with Voltaire’s:

“Everything is for the best,
in the best of all possible worlds.”

Categories
love personal poetic

Apollo, meet Dionysus

I’d not set out to be angry;
nor bitter ex-love,
nor petty penny-pincher.

Just leave me cast away these colors;
garish, defying hues that are not mine.
Then we can start this process anew.

Yesterday I wrote:

“Dionysus rests in deep pools of wine & slumber;
waits for you to lift your cymbals and,
with great passion, become a fabulous opera.”

On 8/3:

“Lend me your ears and your discontents.
Life’s in arrears as I make amends and
new friends. Cat Stevens tells me it’s
a wide world; hard to get by with just a smile;
but I’ll try for awhile.”

Categories
love personal poetic

Re:Café Muse

It may have been shallow, trite,
slightly chauvanist[?];
but not meant to be serious, nor art;
not attackable.
I’m stunned by waves of hostility
coming from the east.
When did things become petty?

Tooth and nail;
knives out, muthafu**a.

I know the next blow to fall;
I expect it. It’s still a sack
of bricks to the groin,
bringing up all the bile.

Even so, don’t hold back.
I know now that that’s been done
for far too long.

In the news today on NPR:
anarchists met in Athens, Ohio;
agreed against Bush & Cheney,
didn’t fully agree whether or not
to support Kerry & Edwards.

My point: even they remember how to agree. 

Categories
love personal

So long; farewell; baby, bye-bye…

Well, this is it, here and now.
I’ve packed, and I’m ready,
and tomorrow morning begins a grand adventure;
or at least a long, long drive.

Farewell Ohio.
Farewell Oberlin.
Farewell Emily,
you most of all.

No updates on this blog ’til after Friday.
Cope, I know it’s hard.

I love you all –
goodnight!

Categories
love personal

Li-ke-Ho-rn-bl-ow-er-sl-ed-er-ho-se-n

Twenty-six hundred miles from now,
my life will have changed,
incontrovertibly; what’s more,
irrevocably. And your life too.

I feel a bit like I’ve been pulled into the wrong war. My body ripped to shreds over a conflict that is not, fundamentally, mine. So do soldiers feel on the battlefield: whose war is this?

I’ve got a lot of anger now,
that I need to learn to deal with.
I’ve got too much silence that
I need to learn to control;
or let go. It leaks from my pores.
Expect from me but silence,
at least for a little while.
I have no marks to differentiate:
my silence from my noise.

Goodbye; Farewell, Ohio.
Partings are bitter,
salty. I hope that when I emerge,
newborn, on the new frontier;
that you will see a stronger side of me.

“I am here to live out loud.”
-Emile Zola

Categories
love personal poetic

Battle without honor or humanity

She knows that all spinning tops
must fall. Nonetheless,
she snaps her fingers;
begins to fit the noose.

Had I the choice, I
would have mastered perpetual motion.

Categories
love personal

The hiatus is back off, again

The house is strangely empty as I prepare my departure. Only one week now. The dining room table is gone, as is the futon, the chest in the movie room, drawers and plants. Too empty to be austere. Emily and I have spent time together these last couple days, preparing for the best of all possible break-ups … still a break-up and I shouldn’t try to fool myself about that.

People at work threw me a bonfire going-away party.
It was an eye-opener, but these things always
come too late. Too late, really, to discover
the humanity surrounding those I work with.
Soon enough, they’ll be but shadows in my memories,
as I will be in theirs.

Categories
love personal work

My endless numbered day off

Sometimes it’s difficult to keep silence at bay.
It threatens to overwhelm me.
Especially this long Friday,
my day off. The house is empty,
save for Moko and I. The Sun makes
fraudulent attempts at cheer –
sunlight and shadow, coins and paradox,
everywhere elements of duality.

Today my car got its “summer care” package.
A first step in what may soon become
a mad flurry of activity, centered around
my leave-taking. I am ready for a new beginning,
but am forced to procrastination.
A work-ethic sense of responsibility,
to a job that’s never given reason to
deserve it. True, I enjoyed my job;
and I am leaving none too soon.
Responsibility and compensation;
an employment duality. It is too often
skewed towards responsibility.
Compensation gets the shaft.
What a world, what a world.

Two Mormon missionaries came to my doorstep today.
I stood out on the porch and spoke with them
for about 10 minutes. I told them that I
was in a good place, spiritually, and that I
begrudged no-one the right to their own beliefs.
They said it was nice to talk to people,
even those like myself who had no particular interest
in church; better than getting doors slammed in their faces.
They were nice, and it served me well to remember:
we are all suffering through our own experiences,
fighting to determine our unique senses of humanity.
Make the best of today, speak with the people
who knock on your door. Belief systems aside,
we are all struggling to be human.
Existential to the bone, am I.

The Oberlin Library is going through something similar
to what the Grafton Library is going through.
The Board meets, middle management is cut –
everyone will do everything like a true
communist state. But again, compensation is never equal.
All these decision-makers, deliberating,
and they’ve no idea how a library runs.
Those who run the scut-work of 9-5 understand;
and are kept far from the decision-making process.

Olympia beckons like a dream;
one with too much reality.
After all, these are not the problems
of living in a certain place.
These are the questions that haunt my humanity.
They will surely follow me.

Emily keeps me at bay.
We held each other for an hour,
shared a beautiful moment – now
she wants nothing that will make
parting more painful.
I want anything that will make
these last two weeks less so.

The fatal difference of perspectives.

Categories
love music personal

“Love and some verses”

“Love is a dress that you made
Long to hide your knees
Love to say this to your face
I love you only
For your days and excitement
What will you keep for to wear?
Someday drawing you different
May I be weaved in your hair

Love and some verses you hear
Say what you can say
Love to say this in your ear
I’ll love you that way
From your changing contentment
What will you choose for to share?
Someday drawing you different
May I be weaved in your hair”

– Iron & Wine, “Love and some verses”

A quiet night – no thunder over my lawn,
mini-lightning strikes feel soft,
like pillows to rest my thoughts.
I’d lie in bed,
curved at the stomach and
hungry, but
I know I will go unsoothed.

Instead, I sit out on the deck,
watch lightning strike –
like it once did.

Categories
love personal

Up too late …

It’s not that late, yet, but my brain feels fried by: time off, future considerations, watching “24″ entirely too much, and general uncertainty. It’s hard to pack up your life and move, but perhaps it’s even harder still just to consider it. The doing is easier than the thinking about. So, for now, I’ll stop thinking about it.

Eyes wary, like I was a wolf wandered in from the wilderness, unpredictable. I’m fairly calm, simple; I don’t feel much like a wolf at all until those eyes are on me. Still, I wonder how much of it is all in my head. I wonder how my eyes portray my vision, and I’m not even sure of what it is I see. That’s all a bit vague, I realize, but my brain is numb tonight – a pulsating, electric cotton-ball; synapses not firing, but perhaps – letting off the occasional back-fire.

I told Emily that I think she made the right decision:
that we need time and the chance to change,
and to become the people we yearn to be.
I still don’t know how our relationship
slowed this down. But I think she may be right.
From my perspective, it was not the only decision.
It is, however, the decision that has been made.
And I do, I really do, think it was one of the right ones.

All that’s left: take advantage –
all things in life present an opportunity.
Carpe Diem you know,
and all that.

Categories
love personal

Dr. Device

There’s a doomsday device in me,
like in Dr. Strangelove;
an inert part of me that rests
until a bomb is dropped.
Then it lashes out and destroys the world.

It’s a hateful, petty part of me.
It’s a wounded animal in the
pit of my stomach, knives out.
RAR — it’s my Mr. Hyde.

I have many, many failings;
I’ve a veritable horde of faults
and pettiness and cruelty.
I’m neither perfect nor wise.
I’ll be the first to admit it.

no life but that which we make

I’m doing the best that I can ….

Categories
humor love personal

Familial Support

Thanks so much to all my family for the support they have given me over the past few weeks. I’m very, very blessed in this regard. You’re all super-awesome 🙂

My eyes turn west of late,
I remember a cheesy line from Shanghai Noon:
The Sun may rise in the east,
but this is where it sets.

Even so, westward lies new beginnings,
not an end. My purpose is not clear.
Like the lightning bug,
I do a courtship dance on instinct –
my thunder has always been too quiet,
and now: no need, no need, no need.

I try to contemplate useful things
that I might do if my butt could light up.
Gluteus Maximus Phosphorificus
Hmmm, a handy acronym that sounds like gimp.
I guess I’ll pass, look into more
lucrative super-powers — like,
retractable hair. I’d never have to worry
then about male pattern baldness.

I’m not sure whether I should
envy the lightning bug, or
pity him.
At least for him, courtship is only
a matter of whose butt
glows the brightest.