Journal & Musing

  • Zah fewtchah

    is out of reach.

    When it gets here, it changes to later. Just after the now. Always after the now.

    It’s plans we make and that others make for us. It’s expectations and anticipation. It’s the unknown, and if we are honest with ourselves, it’s the source of our fear.

    We are never living our future but what transpired from the past. And there are so many variables at play, most of which we are never aware of, which is why plans usually fall through, disappointment is often inevitable, and why things are rarely as bad as we thought they would be.

    We adapt and improvise, find the good, step up, and conquer. The future is an image, and the past is a lesson learned. The now is where we action happens. The now is the preparation for the next now and the battle against, or for, what currently is.

    Fear is most often a choice. We can’t control what will be. We can, however, embrace where we find ourselves.

    . . . . . . .

    I am currently terrified of reaping the consequences of inadequacy. And maybe failure and humiliation will in fact come to pass. I will prepare myself for the worst. I will be proactive. That is my plan—my endeavor for the immediate future—to alleviate my current fear.

    In the meantime, I will toss my cares aside. The now is all that matters. And what I do now is a choice.

    . . . . . . .

    I am a beast. If not by way of actual competence unacknowledged then by the ability to push through. I’m pretty decent at dealing with humility after a lifetime of experience. There is more to my life than what I fear, and there is more to my life than past sorrows. I have a choice to bring either one into my present, and I choose not to. I choose peace.

  • Do, or do not, …

    I’ve been watching movies. The past three nights I have watched the first 5 episodes of Star Wars. I’ve never seen them back-to-back before. The series is outstanding when watched in order. Even better having watched a bit of The Mandalorian beforehand.

    I watched Jaws last Saturday night. I always get wrapped up in Quint’s story about his experience on the USS Indianapolis. He gives me chills when he tells it. And every time I wonder whether the fate of those sailors was punishment. I heard once that Oppenheimer felt great regret for his involvement in the making of the bomb. I wonder whether Feynman did, too. I really like him. He saw the world as a beautiful and wondrous place. How could he not?

    No sense wondering whether the evils that combat evil are justified. Maybe Spock was right. You know, “The needs of the many,…”

    I have read about the tunnels in Japan. My brother saw them. He felt the evil living in them, and he was terrified.

    I don’t like to think about such things. I’m not qualified. I’m more of a Yoda fan.

    “Train yourself to let of go of everything you fear to lose.” That’s my favorite Yoda quote.

    He told that to someone powerful who felt too much. The man’s fear turned to hate, just as Yoda said it would, and that man’s fear destroyed his very soul.

    Fighting fire with fire is a response to fear, is it not?

    This is too much to dwell on on a Tuesday night before bed.

  • Say Hello To My Little Friend

    Ah the stress. The emotions that pour out as verbal abuse. Not like that. But snapping, Yelling. Someone gets hit with it if they are within listening range. Someone becomes an unintended target. Then on and on until the dog gets kicked. You know the story.

    And the things we let get to us that cause the stress…some valid, others contrived. Mostly contrived, but maybe not.

    I need a baseball bat and a room filled with fragile things. The inanimate kind. The kind I can smash without feeling bad about afterward. Without feeling regret. Like I do with the snapping and yelling at people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    This is why I hide. But hiding doesn’t go over so well, either.

    I’ve been walking in 100+ degree heat (that’s 38+ Celsius for most of you) twice a day since summer began. Okay, not every day, but a lot of days. The heat burns off the negativity.

    I should have walked longer this time.

    I just erased a rant that would rival Scarface. I needed to write it. I needed to erase it. No one should be subjected to that level of anger. No one should feel it, either. I watched Anakin Skywalker turn into Darth Vader last night. I don’t want that to happen to me.

  • Dentes anguis Romanian

    I’m pretty sure my cat got bit by a snake. I can almost make out fang marks under her fur on her neck. Maybe it was a vampire.

    Silly cat.

    I might rename her Friedrich Nietzsche.

  • 1 am prompt

    What’s the oldest thing you own that you still use daily?

    My brain.

    I could say any other part of my body, but sometimes I do nothing all day and make little to no use of my legs. I’ll go an entire weekend without muttering a word if I have the house to myself. I have the autopilot mechanisms that my body uses to stay alive, like breathing and pumping blood, but I don’t think it makes sense to say I use my lungs or heart. Those get used. Se usa el corazón. They use themselves.

    Even to say I use my brain daily is a stretch. Some days I just watch TV. Often I misuse it. Abuse it. Se emborracha.

    I do use my pillow to sleep with. And I use my cats for entertainment. Pero ellas son flojas. And cranky.

    And now I will use the muscles in my face to close mis ojos y dormir.

    Buenas noches, El Mundo. Sleep well.

  • Feynman And The Art of Letting Go

    What notable things happened today?

    “Notable things” has a positive connotation, I believe, and perhaps that means I’m an optimist. “Notable” is another way of saying “noteworthy,” which is in fact neither good nor bad. To me, if something is worthy of recalling, a positive implication is arguably the reasonable assumption. This quality of distinction is important for the sake of this post because today, which is now yesterday seeing as it is now after 3 am, there were only two things worthy of note among a plethora of bad, unworthy things. I got to spend more time with my family than I would have had I not driven to Dallas at all. I had planned to stay for two nights, but an unfortunate situation came up that required me to drive home today instead of tomorrow, and upon arrival I discovered my cat’s face is swollen, likely from being stung by a wasp or something. She’s been in the house for two days, so hopefully she killed the thing in the process of being stung, lest I lie here in danger of being stung, myself. I also received a disturbing text on my way home and another unsuspected, unrelated delay in seeing my husband. And I don’t feel well. Fortunately, a second thing “of note.” meaning a second positive thing to write about, is that I came home to a clean house and a cozy, made bed.

    I started a book (two, actually), written by Richard Feynman. They are audio books, which I’m not sure count as books, but they should. I listened to them on my drive.

    When I was a young physicist, I worked with Nikola Tesla’s great nephew as an analyst. He asked me once about my thoughts on Dr. Feynman, of whom I had to admit I knew nothing. I felt humiliated, undoubtedly the most humiliated I have ever felt—and I’ve spent much of my life humiliating myself. I was a good analyst, and I knew a lot, but I did not know anything about the most prolific scientist of the twentieth century. And I had to meekly admit this dreadful lack of knowledge to Tesla’s great nephew.

    I have been doubting myself quite a bit lately, and yesterday, while dwelling on my self-doubt during my long drive across Texas, I was reminded of that horrible moment that solidified the fact that I have good reason to doubt myself. I asked myself why I never took the time after that encounter with Dr. Tesla 2.0 to educate myself on Feynman and his work. So I searched a bit and found that he wrote a few books, one appropriately and rather ironically titled, What Do You Care What Other People Think?

    I listened to him speak through the voice of some random voice-over guy, and I was comforted. I also listened to a couple of lectures he gave and discovered that he is probably the most knowledgeable person I have ever learned about. Ever. Though he was a theoretical physicist with a strong background in chemistry, he lectured on the role of physics in all other sciences. He explained how specific enzymes determine physical traits of all living things and how quantum particles determine the enzymes. I should have been fascinated by the content, but more so I was fascinated by the man. His approach to science in general was so simple. So practical. He made me feel that not knowing things is more interesting than knowing things…something he actually stated again and again. I still need to know more. I still have much to learn. But I don’t feel inadequate anymore. There were many things he claimed to not know, not because those things were unknown at the time but because he hadn’t learned them yet.

    This from a Nobel-Prize winning physicist.

    My peek into the mind of Richard Feynman today was most notable, and I feel vindicated in some way. What I knew nothing of, what humiliated me most of all, actually made me feel worthy of being a physicist. Not because I learned more physics but because I was told to not worry about what other people think of me and my not knowing.

    After considering my terrible day, I now see how good the day actually was. I let the many bad things overshadow the few good things. And I’m now realizing this is my cozy, made bed. 

    Don’t run from things that scare you—I said that once. What scares you likely doesn’t exist and probably won’t come to pass. And if it does, this great man I met today told me not to care what other people think about my shortcomings. So don’t do that, either.

    Life is full of notable things if you pay attention.

  • It all adds up.

    If humans had taglines, what would yours be?

    I imagine my tagline would vary depending on the day, the time, and of course who is referencing me. I have been called Jessica Day, Leslie Knope, and on occasion batshit crazy. Once I got a mom award from people who aren’t my biological children. I’ve been called inspiring and at times exhausting. My favorite, however, is “so weird.” I also like hot mama, but no one has ever called me that. Combined, these adorations might add up to:

    “An oddball empath with a tendency to go overboard for the good of others as a guise for overcoming boredom, she plods along with staff in hand leading the masses in a claim to victory over the ordinary.”

    That’s a bit much, but even this commentary proves the point.

    My dad asked me once why everything had to be so extreme with me. Well, Dad, there ya go.

  • June 8: day 8: I did this one thing today

    I hadn’t written a story in 99 words until today, The task wasn’t easy, but it was lots of fun. If you want to read it, click here.

    I still have not painted the room.

  • Prompt at 2:07 am because I can’t fucking sleep

    Describe your dream chocolate bar.

    When I was a kid, there was a chocolate bar that had holes in it. They advertised it as being a chocolate bar that was like Swiss cheese. I guess it was Swiss chocolate? Seems dumb now, which is maybe why that bar doesn’t exist anymore (I haven’t seen it), but when I was young I wanted one baaad. I never got to eat one, though.

    What I did get my hands on was a Zero bar. I ate one with a Pepsi after every swim lesson when I was 7 years old. I would drown in sugar while waiting for my ride home.

    My favorite now and forever is a Skor bar, though I settle a Heath bar when I can’t find a Skor. I like toffee. A lot.

    Snickers will do when I’m hungry, but those are too sweet. Nougat makes my teeth feel like they are about to fall out from instant cavities.

    In truth, I haven’t had a chocolate bar in a really long time. I save my calories for ice cream.

  • June 7: day 7 + 3 minutes:

    Today I had planned to paint my bedroom. This is what actually happened:

    There is tape around the edges, a plastic cover is precariously shielding my furniture and whatnots that were shoved into the center of the room, window treatments are down, and a little bit of paint is visible on few edges. The paint can is closed, and the brush is soaking.

    In other words, I spent most of the day watching TV.

    In other exciting news, I wrote a flash fiction story! Yay me! If you are interested in reading it, here’s the link. I wrote it in response to a prompt by this guy.

    That is all for today.