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inheritors of this
He’s got his life planned out. He’s got a plan. At least a little one. Me I just like looking at vague blurry pictures on Tumblr. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not mad about that, it’s just a fact. A terrifying one. He speaks well and is still going to school and I’ve been out for a year and a half now and I don’t talk nearly as smart as he does. I need to work on my vocabulary, I tell myself. I need better words.
I tell my young friend that it seems to always be like this. We talk about graduating from high school. She’s younger than my little brother by a year and a half but I like him and I still like her. I tell her all my wisdom, all that I’ve stored up and learned. Life’s like this, I say. You don’t know what you’re doing. You never do. That’s how it is. Wise stuff like that.
I look at this picture of birds flying all scattered about. It’s like that, I think. That’s exactly what it’s like.
I read terrible poems by young Bukowski and shake my head at them. I look at pictures of my grandma’s grandma and shake my head at them. No one knew what they were doing. Maybe they figured it out eventually, maybe they didn’t. Maybe there’s nothing to figure out. We’re a pack of birds or a flock of them, and here we are, all together and winging and scrambling anywhere and everywhere. Making plans and worrying and crying and reading bad poetry and trying to learn something before we take off for the real world or winter vacation or before our parents die and leave us alone here, inheritors of this.
Be Kind or Shut Up, Hey Infinity #36
1. How to not make friends: refer to someone as “ethically flexible”. Oops.
2. There are a lot of terrible things happening in the world. People are allowed to talk about/mention/feel sad about different things, even if you feel like those things are not as important/tragic/terrible as the things you think are terrible/tragic/important. Just like people are allowed to be happy, even though there are terrible things happening. No one has to wallow in all of the misery at once. You are not the director of the world’s actions. You don’t get to proclaim what’s important and what’s not. Basically, shut up!
3. sometimes it is forever; other times it is nothing at all.
4. Do some people just enjoy being cynical? I can’t understand it. How can you even have the energy to be so mean-spirited, hateful, angry, blunt, wrong, foolish? Does it give you some kind of pride? Does it make you happy? Does it feel like you’re doing the right thing? Are you lashing out at some unknown attacker? What are you doing?! What. Are. You. Doing. Just stop! Good grief. Do you need a hug?
5. At some point, no matter how nice/funny/smart/good-looking someone is, the little things they’ve done or said that you’ve disliked in a deep-down sort of way add up. And it’s sad, heart-breaking, whatever. But it happens. And they just aren’t the person you thought they were/you didn’t know who they were to begin with.
6. good things from the past month of my life: sparklers in the middle of the road at midnight, polite strangers, tiny presents of tiny stickers from tiny children, mail from Panama and America, learning possessives in French (but please don’t ask me to actually prove it!).
7. You can do it all differently tomorrow.
8. Orange Is the New Black is a great show! I never believe it. It’s always true.
9. It’s real fun living in the middle of a giant city, especially at night, when you hear murderous screams/manic laughter from outside your window and you’re never sure if it’s either or both or just a crazy alley cat.
10. We’re more than halfway through the year, World, and I’m not really sure if we’re being any kinder to each other. Let’s try harder. Let’s all keep going.
Call Me! Hey Infinity #26
1. Last week someone accused me of being “deep into the art scene”, and I wasn’t so sure that was accurate. This week I hammered a pencil onto a wall as part of an art project. So there’s that.
2. It’s the people you’re with, not the place you’re in. I heard some lady in a store say something similar a few days after I realized this to be true. You’re onto something, lady.
3. You don’t always have to go to school to learn. A lot of times, the world can be your classroom. At least that’s what I’m telling myself as a college graduate.
4. Tip of the day: don’t talk/laugh/grin to yourself when other people can see you. At any other time, go for it.
5. My favorite thing to do is travel, but oftentimes it leaves me sad, knowing more street names and parks and lovely people, knowing them and leaving them behind.
6. When does a song stop belonging to someone else? “Your song”, “his song”, “our song”. When does ownership end, with the memory?
7. After spending 8 hours on a megabus traveling across two states, an 8 or 12 hour flight to the other side of the globe seems less daunting. (Also megabus is freaking cheap/awesome BTW!)
8. Remember disposable cameras?
9. Sure you’re busy driving your car through heavy traffic trying not to crash into that guy who just pulled in front of you, and sure you’re busy trying to pass your accounting exam that seems super important to your life right now, and sure you’re creating a cure for cancer — just remember to look up at the stars at night.
10. Overrated or Underrated? Skype. Pickles. Blue eyes. You.
mental image
I don’t have photographs of any of the most beautiful moments of my life. At the time, I either didn’t have a camera or didn’t believe I should take a photo of that moment or both. Now all I have are beautiful memories, beautiful photographs in my head of you looking at sunlight reflecting off a lake or you laughing at me or her and him and me creating a semi-circle of friendship in the middle of a smattering of drunk people at a party. Sometimes I wish I had pictures of those moments. Sometimes I understand why other people want to take pictures of everything, every moment. But there’s only so much storage space on an SD card, only so much room on the walls of your home or bedroom or staircase to hang photographs. Memories blur and fade but they can still be much more powerful than any attempt a camera or photographer can make at recording a moment in time.
And maybe in a year I won’t remember what it was like to watch you watch the sunrise. Maybe I’ll forget what my feet looked like and felt like covered in dirt and sand from Lake Huron after a long day of shoe-less trekking. I’ll forget, and you’ll forget, and my children or great-grandchildren will never see the photograph that I hung only on the walls of my mind.
But so many other moments have been forgotten. Cemeteries are full of those who watched the sun rise and set over the centuries; full of people who didn’t feel the need to snap a picture or open Instagram to capture something they felt was beautiful or important. They just lived it, just watched, just appreciated the moment and let it slip, keeping that photograph in their mind until another moment took its place.
Let Him Go and Keep Yourself, Hey Infinity #25
1. Everyone needs that one friend who has excellent taste in movies/music. If you don’t know that person yet, go find them! They won’t come to you, they have too many movies to watch!
2. Kindles/other electronic readers are so not as handy as people claim. “Now I can read without carrying a book around!” Yeah, right. If you say that, you definitely never carry a book around anyway.
3. Sometimes it just seems like it’s always too late.
4. Don’t give yourself away so easily. Stick up for who you are. After all, that’s all this place is is people and other people who follow them around.
5. That awkward moment when someone introduces themselves and then you immediately forget their name.
6. Why are all the cool/successful people 32 or 35?! Does it take that long to become cool/successful?!
7. Words of the week: clarity. grandiose. honky. tragedy. expectations. tetanus.
8. Let him/her go, but not completely. Just enough.
9. Let’s be honest here, food pics are great. Don’t be ashamed! How are selfies ok but not food pics? No way. Let’s start a revolution.
10. I still think you’re beautiful.
Home Depot and Other Things You’ve Never Done Before, Hey Infinity #24
1. Take what you can get. Something is definitely better than nothing.
2. It all depends on proximity and timing.
3. People are never going to act the way you assume they will. If you stop expecting people to live up to your expectations, you’ll be a lot happier, and live a better life.
4. Nothing lasts forever. Including friendships/relationships. People leave, or move on, and it’s ok. Even if you KNOW that the person you’re spending time with won’t be in your life for too long, you should still be happy and be with them and treat them like a great human being who you’re happy to be with, for however long you’ll be in each other’s lives.
5. Do something today you’ve never done before.
6. Seriously, I am super funny. I just wish you could understand how funny I am. I am so funny.
7. “Smile! Don’t look so depressed, it’ll be OK!” – guy outside the drug store, to my retreating self. Uh, two things. First of all, no one smiles all the time, so why should I be smiling as I walk out of a rite aid? Second, rite aid does not carry muffins, so why the hell would I be smiling/not looking depressed as I walk out of my local rite aid at nine in the morning, muffin-less?!
8. I’m (re-)learning French on this super cool app I just got on my phone (Duolingo). Je suis une femme blanche. So useful! I’m off to France!
9. Do people really listen to the radio these days? I don’t believe it. Who are you?
10. The closest anyone can come these days to visiting another planet is to go to any Home Depot late at night. Just try it. This sort of thing you just have to experience first-hand.
Instagram is to infinity, Vol. 6
A few days ago I woke up and somehow almost immediately decided that a good way to become a more active Instagram-er would be to take one picture every hour — sort of a documentary of a day in my life, in pictures. It went well… for a few hours, anyway.
“8am #adayinpics”
A hotter-than-normal Michigan summer morning, therefore, fan on full speed.
“9am #adayinpics”
Eggs for breakfast with the morning email scan-through.
“10am #adayinpics”
Tiny potted plant gardening.
“11am #adayinpics”
Running work errands, sweating profusely, examining the beautiful city I live in.
“12pm #adayinpics”
Heading back home, stopping to admire the potential of a once-abandoned building that’s already being realized.
“1pm #adayinpics #resume”
Working on my resume, attempting to create an image of myself on paper that shows my own potential.
“4pm #adayinpics #walden”
A resume rest and Walden in the living room.
“6pm #adayinpics #naptime #hidinginsidethehorribleweather”
Finally retreating back to the relative comfort of my bedroom and box fan.
follow me on Instagram: @ohnewfree
Short and Sweet and Difficult Words, Hey Infinity #22
1. I’ve never believed anyone when they said it couldn’t be done.
2. My spirit animal is sticky velcro dots. Those things are amazing.
3. Love where you are, or leave. Love the people around you, or find new people.
4. You might be a grammar nerd if a stylishly placed comma in an email makes you a little bit gleeful.
5. If Hell exists, I bet it is in the middle of a never-ending casino filled with old people pushing slot machine buttons over and over again and grinning wildly.
6. Remember Adele?
7. Every additional person you love takes a small part of your heart with them when they leave you. You’re never a whole person until you’re surrounded by every single person that you love.
8. They say friendships are give-and-take. Right? So if you find yourself doing all –and I mean all– of the giving, it can’t really be a friendship. Maybe it was once. Not anymore. Let it go.
9. I’ll say it again: Only you find your pet stories hilarious. Only I find my pet stories hilarious. Some things, you just can’t share with other people. Or, at least, you shouldn’t.
10. Saying what you mean is sometimes the hardest thing to do on the planet.
Brain Sounds, Hey Infinity #21
1. Don’t ever wave at cars without the driver/passenger of said cars waving at you first. Otherwise the person driving won’t see you and you’ll end up having waved at a car. This is an important life lesson.
2. Nope. I still don’t like babies.
3. In High School you’re told to choose what you want to be when you grow up. In College you’re told to pick a major that will help you become what you want to be when you grow up. Then you graduate and do whatever the hell you want. People find themselves in places they didn’t expect to be back in High School, or even in College, but it turns out alright.
4. Just do what makes you happy. Don’t over-think it.
5. I think the sort of music people listen to matches the beat of what’s usually going on in their heads.
6. Every day that you’re hesitant about doing something is another day that passes you by. Life rolls on. Keep moving.
7. Make it happen. The days of waiting for someone else to do it, or, “You know what’s a good idea?” are over. Who’s going to do it if you don’t? No one. Exactly. Or, someone else will steal your great idea and become super famous and successful and happy. (Probably not.)
8. Life rolls on. Keep moving — but slowly enough that you head in the direction you truly want to go.
9. Know when to get out of the way.
10. Can we (we= everyone on the entire planet) please stop (over-)using the following words: “gentrification”, “millennials”, and “creatives”. I must have missed the please-use-these-words-every-other-sentence-in-order-to-sound-hip/intelligent memo. Stop. Just stop.
Hey Infinity 