ILY

My door, originally uploaded by Mario Lemafa.

I am like a ceramic bowl when you heat it up in the microwave. It's doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing: holding in the food, heating the food, making the food taste better, looking great while the food is being cooked.

But there's a little crack on the ceramic bowl. A tiny crack that just got bigger and bigger. I'm on the verge of cracking and I just can't seem to hold it together.

Little ceramic bowl which holds so much goodness, reliable as you are as a constant source of nourishment, you are cracked.

Talking to Dagmara about myself, I have had to acknowledge a lot of the underlying issues. She asked me straight up, "Are you happy with yourself?"

Nobody has ever asked me that question directly. I ask myself this question so many times and the answer is always, "Yes."
I have had to rethink.
I have for all my life given half answers regarding my feelings and thoughts. I never completely gave myself away. It was my way of keeping myself from being too involved with any one person. That way I didn't have to have them see what was really inside. Inside me is the most beautiful place with the most wonderful dreams and aspirations and hopes and the kindest words and thoughts.
I was so afraid that all my life changes would destroy that purest part of me.

I think everyone is suicidal at one point in their lives. Not that they will act on their inner thoughts. I imagine a great many people secretly drowning themselves, falling from buildings, overdosing, and crashing in their minds.

In life, I am vastly happy and joyful.
I decided to write about the grief in my life because it is very much a part of me.
It is so brief, but everlasting, such that love contends with it fairly.

Now that I have written, I will go outside and see if I can help solve some problems in the world while enjoying the sun and friends.

ILY

~m~

Wonder Breadth

I haven't ever told anyone this, but I feel terribly guilty.
I think it's the right time, now that I am a little distanced from my childhood.
When I was in elementary I cheated at Heads Up, 7 Up.
All the time.
It was such a sneaky and calculating way to win that I dared not tell anyone about it.
There weren't too many ways to articulate how I felt about any given moment, but I knew what I was feeling, just not the words.
Playing that game, I felt gratified for winning, but afterward, the spike knell pang of guilt would cling to me. It was always this feeling that I could never really talk about. Sometimes, as a defense mechanism, I just lied to protect my view of the world. If I could describe it to you it would be like if you were opening your eyes in the dark, but your eyes keep opening wider and wider, ever widening for eternity.
When any of my classes played Heads Up, 7 Up, I would always put my forehead flat on the desk with my thumbs up. Before we were asked to actually put our heads down, I would first look for details about each thumb pickers' clothing and behavior. If he was wearing baggy pants, epic win. The same for flip flops. It was always a disadvantage to wear anything that made the slightest sound. But that's common Heads Up, 7 Up knowledge.
With my forehead flat on the desk, I wrapped my head with my arms, my eyes meeting the edge of the desk. From this vantage point, I could see the floor. Before the game even started, I would carefully memorize the shoe each player wore, noting the size, estimating the weight, listening to the sound the shoe made, and of course, how it looked.
Whenever any of the player's came toward me, I knew who it was. From the players view, I looked like anybody else, a kid with his thumb up, waiting to be picked.
Nobody ever did pick up on how I kept winning.
To hide my secret, I just lost on purpose.
Not a single soul knew this about me.
I never told anyone.

I guess that's the point really.

Maybe part of why I love watching people has to do with that inner satisfaction I got from knowing who's shoe was who's.
My big hope is that against all odds, something so unfamiliar and foreign can be understood. Part of my childhood actually, was spent looking down, a lot of that behavior coming from my voyeuristic love of seeing what's on the ground. I have to this day a fascination with the shape of the human leg.

I completely forgot where I was going with my writing about my Heads Up, 7 Up experience. Ah well. As soon as I remember, I'll begin writing about it again.

I have made really great friends while attending college. Adam, Cat, and Oliver wrote me a note!
Awe! Look at how cute they are!

Adam, Oliver, and Catherine

That note cheered me up a bunch guys, thanks!

Because It's You

I am generally very accepting of people's personal style. I must, if I wish to continue being and dreaming of becoming a designer of sorts, (I am in no way a professional designer, though that is one of my goals.) view people in a different manner. I like a view point that is not necessarily judgmental and predisposed to stereotypes. Rather, I would say, a point of view that questions "WHY" a person wore this particular garment and "WHY" he/she feels so good in their clothes.

I always say this to friends and family when discussing clothes. And this is an indirect quote from Coco Chanel just so you know.

As fashion comes and goes, style as it is for every individual, is forever.

There's the essence of a person in what they wear that animates and shows what is about him that makes him so alluring and attractive. I don't just believe that clothes should be well tailored to fit you, I think they should also show people what it is that makes you essentially you.

I raise a red flag before I go further. In any commentary or critique of fashion, it has nothing to do with style. I will never attack personal style, but I will be on the offensive when it comes to atrocious choices.

The most reprehensible crime to date that I am seeing in Seattle:

Those f'ing Shemagh Scarves

I have no qualms about a person who knows how to wear a Shemagh scarf. It's people I see who don't give too much thought about the scarf's design and print that really heats my griddle.
My personal ire in seeing the misuse of this really nifty scarf is only exacerbated because I attend the University of Washington, a campus with over 40,000 students. On a daily basis I will see five or six people rocking the Shemagh. Out of those six, only two actually looked great wearing it.

What does my ranting about improper use of Shemaghi-ness imply?

When wearing clothes, make sure to give some amount of thought to how one piece will look with the other. It's awesome to be adventurous, but some adventures really don't need that much exploration. If I see you blatantly abuse the Shemagh, be forewarned, I will shudder after seeing you.

Dark Notations

a, originally uploaded by Mario Lemafa.

Today I counted over 20 people at the Quad taking pictures of the blooming cherry blossoms. I can't help but feel a little annoyed. Thousands of pictures of cherry blossoms. ...Cool...

Well, so long as they do their pictures justice.

Things I ate:
Yogurt
Veggie Subway Foot Long
Peppercorn Ranch Sun Chips (delicious)
An Apple
A Pear
A Fruit Salad
A Protein Bar
Lots and lots of water.
That seems to be it, surprisingly.

I'm starting to feel much better now.
Everything seems to be all right.
My days just seem to be filled with new and exciting things to do.
Hope I can stay on the same track. I rather like the change.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.