things left undone

Jo

Sat, 04 May 2013 11:07:33 -0700

Jo:

I’ll

Uku w Kn

Sat, 04 May 2013 11:05:48 -0700

Uku w
Kn

Photo

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:31:51 -0800

"It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living, I want to know what you ache for. It doesn’t..."

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:41:55 -0800

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living, I want to know what you ache for. It doesn’t interest me how old you are, I want to know if you are willing to risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine. It doesn’t interest me where you live or how rich you are, I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and be sweet to the ones you love. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and truly like the company you keep in the empty moments of your life.”

- Jon Blais (via rainydaysandblankets)

Video

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:13:02 -0800

Words to get through a hard day

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 14:47:00 -0800

The Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful.

Strive to be happy.

"We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is..."

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 14:41:00 -0800

““We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns”.”

- Tom Waits

Children wake up, hold your mistakes up, before they turn the...

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 22:13:29 -0800

Children wake up,

hold your mistakes up,

before they turn the summer into dust.

The times, they are a changin'.

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:06:00 -0800

It’s that time of the year again - the time where we take stock of the high and low points of the preceding year and pledge to make something more of ourselves in the upcoming one. January is a blank canvas, an opportunity for reinvention, for washing out the old, and fostering in the new. Call it mundane or cliche, but we all do this to a certain degree. We are conditioned for it.

2012 was good to me. I started my roller derby career, played on the beaches of Costa Rica and sang my heart out at my very first Pearl Jam concert. I crawled further out of credit card debt and even managed to save a nice little chunk of money. I ran in several races and found a softball team. I lost some weight. I overcame some personal demons. It was a year of many new experiences with friends old and new.

Call me optimistic, but I have high hopes for 2013. In the past, I have made some grandiose resolutions and through diligence, most were attained. I’ve spent considerable time thinking about what is next for me and I’ve settled on goals surrounding simplicity. At this point in my life, it seems like simplicity is a far more complex and multi-faceted effort than the more elaborate goals I have made like trying out for roller derby and learning to skate. I want to do more with less. Eliminate unneeded items. Let go of past heartbreak and disappointment. Get outside. Make a plan for the future. Create. Write. Read. Love. I will say “yes” more often than “no”.

Happiest of new beginnings to you, friends and kind readers.

Photo

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 21:59:40 -0800

Self-talk

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 20:29:00 -0800

I will never be a size 6

It’s not very likely that I will ever be comfortable in a bathing suit

I will be forever camera-shy

But…..

I have run a thousand miles

I have lunged a million lunges

I have skated more laps than I could possibly count

I have done things I never thought possible and that outweighs any negative self-talk that I can come up with

Audio

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 20:19:47 -0800

Inspiration shortages

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:27:00 -0800

It was Ernest Hemingway who famously said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed”. Oh, Ernest. You make it sound so easy, but then, you were a scoundrel and scoundrels have the luxury at looking at their own lives for material. You were a womanizing drunkard. You were selfish and jealous of others talent. I still love you though.

Audio

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:59:22 -0800

I'll start my diet tomorrow.

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:53:00 -0800

The new and improved Amberlee will be a force to be reckoned with.

There will be more:

Reading

Writing

Picture taking

Roller skating

Follow through

Water drinking

There will be less:

Social networking

"But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our..."

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:33:29 -0800

““But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!””

- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Consolation prize

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:23:00 -0800

My pre-adolescent years were nothing if not awkward. I was a tomboyish sort with ill fitting jeans and grubby hands. I had unruly hair and zero interest in learning how to use a curling iron. I had no sense of style, unless you consider baggy flannel shirts and high tops to be passable which I suppose, for the early to mid 1990s, it was. To make my situation even more cringe-inducing, I didn’t have any kind of verbal filter and every day was a new adventure in verbal diarrhea. Excruciating stuff, I tell you.

Fast forward to high school: My hair is still misbehaving, but I develop a natural curl that is easier to contend with. I also manage to get a better command of my verbal filter. I start to seek out female companions instead of my usual male cohorts and I befriend the beautiful and/or gregarious girls. You know the type: the ones that can pick and choose with ease. Their effortless degree of cool dictated an hierarchy of sorts - an unofficial hierarchy, but one nonetheless. With natural selection in action, it was predetermined that I would I would be the shadow friend, the friend that made them shine so much brighter. I was a supporting actor. I played the part well. I suppose that one could speculate on a variety of reasons why I clung to these types of girls. I sometimes feel sorry for myself, but I am made choice to stay.

During that time, boys would seek the attention of my friends and I was either the consolation prize or passed over completely. I had a handful of boyfriends, but most of my time is spent single or in unrequited, one-sided relationships.

Fast forward to present day: I’m far less awkward, I make better fashion choices, and I take pains to make sure that my verbal filter is on before I leave the house in the morning. More importantly though? I’m confident. I’m happy. I’m thriving. I was so content to be the shadow friend for so long, that I lacked the courage to be the star of my own life. Far from perfect, I am but a work in progress, forever striving to be more.

"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to..."

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 21:54:39 -0800

“Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”

- Ernest Hemingway (via -jamesfrancospenis)

korraful: Date a girl who writes. Date a girl who may never...

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 16:09:19 -0700

korraful:

Date a girl who writes.

Date a girl who may never wear completely clean clothes, because of coffee stains and ink spills. She’ll have many problems with her closet space, and her laptop is never boring because there are so many words, so many worlds that she’s cluttered amidst the space. Tabs open filled with obscure and popular music. Interesting factoids about Catherine the Great, and the immortality of jellyfish. Laugh it off when she tells you that she forgot to clean her room, that her clothes are lost among the binders so it’ll take her longer to get ready, that her shoes hidden under the mountain of broken Bic pens and the refurbished laptop that she’s saved for ever since she was twelve.

Kiss her under the lamppost, when it’s raining. Tell her your definition of love.

Find a girl who writes. You’ll know that she has a sense of humor, a sense of empathy and kindness, and that she will dream up worlds, universes for you. She’s the one with the faintest of shadows underneath her eyelids, the one who smells of coffee and Coca-cola and jasmine green tea. You see that girl hunched over a notebook. That’s the writer. With her fingers occasionally smudged with charcoal, with ink that will travel onto your hands when you interlock your fingers with her’s. She will never stop, churning out adventures, of traitors and heroes. Darkness and light. Fear and love. That’s the writer. She can never resist filling a blank page with words, whatever the color of the page is.

She’s the girl reading while waiting for her coffee and tea. She’s the quiet girl with her music turned up loud (or impossibly quiet), separating the two of you by an ocean of crescendos and decrescendos as she’s thinking of the perfect words. If you take a peek at her cup, the tea or coffee’s already cold. She’s already forgotten it.

Use a pick-up line with her if she doesn’t look too busy.

If she raises her head, offer to buy her another cup of coffee. Or of tea. She’ll repay you with stories. If she closes her laptop, give her your critique of Tolstoy, and your best theories of Hannibal and the Crossing. Tell her your characters, your dreams, and ask if she gotten through her first novel.

It is hard to date a girl who writes. But be patient with her. Give her books for her birthday, pretty notebooks for Christmas and for anniversaries, moleskins and bookmarks and many, many books. Give her the gift of words, for writers are talkative people, and they are verbose in their thanks. Let her know that you’re behind her every step of the way, for the lines between fiction and reality are fluid.

She’ll give you a chance.

Don’t lie to her. She’ll understand the syntax behind your words. She’ll be disappointed by your lies, but a girl who writes will understand. She’ll understand that sometimes even the greatest heroes fail, and that happy endings take time, both in fiction and reality. She’s realistic. A girl who writes isn’t impatient; she will understand your flaws. She will cherish them, because a girl who writes will understand plot. She’ll understand that endings happen for better or for worst.

A girl who writes will not expect perfection from you. Her narratives are rich, her characters are multifaceted because of interesting flaws. She’ll understand that a good book does not have perfect characters; villains and tragic flaws are the salt of books. She’ll understand trouble, because it spices up her story. No author wants an invincible hero; the girl who writes will understand that you are only human.

Be her compatriot, be her darling, her love, her dream, her world.

If you find a girl who writes, keep her close. If you find her at two AM, typing furiously, the neon gaze of the light illuminating her furrowed forehead, place a blanket gently on her so that she does not catch a chill. Make her a pot of tea, and sit with her. You may lose her to her world for a few moments, but she will come back to you, brimming with treasure. You will believe in her every single time, the two of you illuminated only by the computer screen, but invincible in the darkness.

She is your Shahrazad. When you are afraid of the dark, she will guide you, her words turning into lanterns, turning into lights and stars and candles that will guide you through your darkest times. She’ll be the one to save you.

She’ll whisk you away on a hot air balloon, and you will be smitten with her. She’s mischievous, frisky, yet she’s quiet and when she has to kill off a lovely character, when she cries, hold her and tell her that it will be alright.

You will propose to her. Maybe on a boat in the ocean, maybe in a little cottage in the Appalachian Mountains. Maybe in New York City. Maybe Chicago. Baltimore. Maybe outside her publisher’s office. Because she’s radiant, wherever she goes. Maybe even outside of a cinema where the two of you kiss in the rain. She’ll say that it is overused and clichéd, but the glint in her eyes will tell you that she appreciates it all the same.

You will smile hard as she talks a mile a second, and your heart will skip a beat when she holds your hand and she will write stories of your lives together. She’ll hold you close and whisper secrets into your ears. She’s lovely, remember that. She’s self made and she’s brilliant. Her names for the children might be terrible, but you’ll be okay with that. A girl who writes will tell your children fantastical stories.

Because that is the best part about a girl who writes. She has imagination and she has courage, and it will be enough. She’ll save you in the oceans of her dreams, and she’ll be your catharsis and your 11:11. She’ll be your firebird and she’ll be your knight, and she’ll become your world, in the curve of her smile, in the hazel of her eye the half-dimple on her face, the words that are pouring out of her, a torrent, a wave, a crescendo - so many sensations that you will be left breathless by a girl who writes.

Maybe she’s not the best at grammar, but that is okay.

Date a girl who writes because you deserve it. She’s witty, she’s empathetic, enigmatic at times and she’s lovely. She’s got the most colorful life. She may be living in NYC or she may be living in a small cottage. Date a girl who writes because a girl who writes reads.

A girl who writes will understand reality. She’ll be infuriating at times, and maybe sometimes you will hate her. Sometimes she will hate you too. But a girl who writes understands human nature, and she will understand that you are weak. She will not leave on the Midnight Train the first moment that things go sour. She will understand that real life isn’t like a story, because while she works in stories, she lives in reality.

Date a girl who writes.

Because there is nothing better then a girl who writes.

"The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.The joy of life comes from..."

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 20:54:23 -0700

““The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to having an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.””

- Into the Wild, John Krakauer