"C" is for cookie...

...and that's good enough for me.

Today's topic is very light and fluffy and delicious. Cookies are wonderful. Baked goods of all kinds are, actually. But there's something about a nicely made cookie that seems to be filled with magic. You know you have a good job when you're allowed to stand in the back licking cookie dough off a spatula and out of the mixing bowl. And when I say mixing bowl, I mean an industrial sized monster of a mixing bowl.

To me, baking, and cooking in general, is always therapeutic. I wouldn't say that I'm a food snob of any kind, but I was raised right, on home-cooked meals (mostly), fruits and veggies included. I like kitchens. I like how tangible the act of cooking is. You throw a bunch of ingredients into a bowl, mix it up, cook it (or cool it, depending on what you're making) and voila, you have the product. An edible, yummy, delicious product.

11:11! Make a wish.

Anyway, that's going to be about it for today. I've had a long day. Now one last midnight snack and I'll be sleeping away.

Cheers,

-T.A.D.

Somewhere in time

Timing is everything.

Whether you're catching a bus or picking a time to have an important conversation with a friend, the timing has to be right. I'm sitting on a sidewalk, hacking onto the WiFi of some hair salon that is (thankfully) nearby, due to my bad timing. After an appointment, I needed to get online to plan my bus route back home. I went to an espresso shop where they had internet, but foolishly decided that I needed coffee first. Had I merely gone online and entered my information, I would be on my first bus home right now. Instead, I'm sipping on my iced shot-in-the-dark (two sugars and cream) and sitting on a curb by a bus stop, waiting for the 66 express to come, seeing as I missed the first one.

Huh. A man with a braid in his beard just walked by me and said "you'd make a good advertisement for Mac." Um, thank you?

Anyway, back to my topic. While I would be on a bus right now if my timing had been right, I wouldn't have gotten my caffeine fix. I also wouldn't be enjoying a lovely warm breeze and writing about timing. Life is funny like that sometimes.

Time is a fickle thing. It flies when we want it to crawl, it crawls when we want it to fly. Time escapes us, time costs us, time hurts us, time heals us. Time does a variety of things to and around us. And knowing the right way to use your time and timing can be very important. In the workshop I'm doing right now, we're getting ready this week to start rehearsing a show next week. It's a slow tempo show, which means no dialogue. More importantly, it means that if your average tempo (as far as moving goes) is 100%, we're moving at 5%. That is some pretty important timing. We have done a few exercises and spent a little time in slow tempo to prepare ourselves, and while it's hard for the first while, it's really amazing. That's timing too.

Timing means knowing when to say something and when to keep quiet about it. Timing is all about the when. Other aspects of life are about the who and the where and the what, but time is the when. Timing and art, at least performing art, are inseparable in my opinion. Music, dancing, acting, all of these things rely heavily on timing. Relationships are all about timing. I'm not talking romantic, since I don't know much about those, I'm talking about familial, business, friend, whatever. You have to know when to say something, when to listen, when to ask, when to answer. You can't move too quickly or too slowly. Right now, I'm having trouble adjusting to the timing of one of my friendships. We had a tiff recently, and my friend is the type of person who, when you have a fight with her, you just need to give her time to come back to you. So I've been trying to respect that and not annoy her, but in all honesty, it's really hard to have a gap where she usually is. I hope she will fill that gap again, and I will do everything in my power to make sure she does, but most of it is on timing's shoulders.

Time is something we never seem to have enough of either, so today I challenge you to try and make time for yourself every day for a week. Even if it's five minutes or half an hour as you wait for the second bus to come while sipping a coffee.

Cheers,

T.A.D.

Sorrow

Sometimes, the world makes me sad. Maybe not the world so much as the people living in it. The things we as humans do, to each other and the world we live in, are disheartening and disturbing. We (the ensemble that makes up my theatre workshop) have been assigned to research a disaster/catastrophe and present it to the group. (More about why and what we're doing later; it's gonna be awesome) And if I believed in a god, I would be praying like crazy now. I look at our history, our present, and our future, and I see bloodshed, violence, pollution, war, genocide, terror. I cannot comprehend these things. I know they happen, and while my cynical self says "of course we go around killing each other," my hopeful side wants to cry.

Even as a country, our nation has been involved in and/or the cause of so many wars. I know that some of these wars have been deemed "necessary," and without them we would likely be a British colony. If we weren't, we would probably be two separate nations. But war makes me question, do the ends really justify the means? While I understand that Hitler needed to be stopped, and WWII needed to take place for that to happen, I also look a little farther back and think about how maybe it all would have been avoided if, in the aftermath of WWI, we as the winning nations had stopped to consider the consequences of blaming everything on Germany.

Do the ends justify the means when it means the death of millions? Do the ends justify the means when ending the war with Japan meant dropping two atomic bombs on cities? Not military bases, and yes I understand there were military there, but the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are two events in history that I will never agree with. Yes, we "gave them a warning." We told them that ultimate destruction would await them if they did not surrender. But, must I say it, duh? In war, isn't that kind of the point? Destroying someone until they give up? "Ultimate destruction." Those two words were not fair warning.

The "war on terror" is another issue, one that I won't go any further into than saying this: war is terror.

We destroy each other, cruelly. Guns and bombs and gas. Torture. I can't help but grieve for the human race. We are doing this to each other. All the time. What's more, we're doing it to the environment we live in. I don't care if you believe in global warming or not. I really don't. What I do care about are the animals dying because of our actions, whether they be overhunting, polluting their homes, whatever. No other species produces garbage, waste, like we do. People say that it's our prerogative as the most intelligent species, but I say bullshit. You cannot justify the pollution that we produce. The homes we destroy.

On the cynical side of things, if we as the collective human race continue acting in the patterns defined in our past, there will be no us, no earth, no anything, in the future.

But with darkness, there is light, and so there is hope. We have to stop doing this to each other. It's hard when we think about how we are "just one person" but we can make a difference. It starts with us and spreads from there. We have to change and evolve and start being more balanced. Wage peace, not war. Revolt with love. Retaliate with forgiveness. I know from experience, it's easier to fight fire with fire; it's easier to take revenge than put something at ease. But we have to try.

Cheers,

-T.A.D.

Love is...

I started my two week theatre intensive today AND started a massive purge in my room at my dads' house. I actually got done with my workshop at 4 and thought, wow, what a great post I'll have today, but then I got home and got sucked into cleaning.

So, many apologies, but seeing as I already took my sleeping pills and I'm falling asleep as I type, I don't think I can manage a real post for today.

I found a poem that I could post tonight, but I'd rather save it for another time.

Instead, I am going to share with you one of my favorite chain email things of all time.

What does Love mean?

A group of professionals posed this question to a group of 4 to 8
year-olds.

The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined.

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even after his hands got arthritis too. That's love.” Rebecca- age 8





"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.” Billy - age 4





"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.” Karl - age 5





"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.” Chrissy - age 6





"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.” Terri - age 4





"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7





"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss” Emily - age 8





"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen." 

Bobby - age 7

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day.” Noelle- 7





"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.” Tommy - age 6





"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and I saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.” Cindy - age 8





"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.” Clare - age 6





"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.” Elaine-age 5





"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." Mary Ann - age 4





"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones." 

Lauren - age 4





"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." Karen - age 7





"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." Jessica - age 8




“If you want to learn to love better, you should start with someone who you hate.” Nikka- age 6

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Passacaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four-year-old child whose next-door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, “Nothing, I just helped him cry."

(This is T.A.D. again)

I think the innocence and purity of children is amazing when held in contrast with the wisdom and kindness that young ones can show. This is my favorite example of that, and these are some of my favorite definitions of love.

I'll make a real post tomorrow. Now I must go to bed before my dog gets too comfortable and makes me sleep on the floor. (She'll try too)

Cheers,

T.A.D.

Portrait of a girl

This is the long awaited (hahahahaha) part two of my endeavor to explain feminine standards and how I fail to meet them. While last time I talked about beauty and hair care products and makeup and clothing, today I'm going to talk about the more internal aspects of being a so-called girl.

(On a random tangent, I would like to add my complaint to the complaint of Trope Girl's: why is there no word that has really stuck as the guy equivalent of dude? I don't like using the word chick, and dudette seems a little surfer, so there's no real word between "girl" and "woman," which always seems weird to say. I guess it seems too stuffy or something to me, so I don't like saying "as a woman" etc)

Maybe this is a human thing or maybe this is just a girl thing, but I had a conversation with a friend a while back. We were having a little bit of an argument and trying to figure out our friendship, and she was saying that I basically feel too much. Or too openly I guess. She said that I needed to be more passive agressive; that girls are passive agressive by nature. I don't agree. I think that society makes us passive agressive. Boys are given the okay to beat the crap out of each other, but girls have to hurt each other backhandedly, through gossip and third parties. We see it on TV, in movies, passive agression is everywhere in the media.

I hate being passive agressive. I refuse to play that game anymore. I would much rather have a fight with someone, whether physical or yelling, than be silently steaming at them. I hate the way people treat you when they are passively angry at you. I think that being honest with someone and saying "you know what, I'm kind of mad at you right now" is better than sitting on it for months while everything gets worse.

I'm blunt and out there rather than subtle and introspective, which is another tally mark on how I'm not feminine. I'm still, in a lot of ways, the rough and tumble tomboy I was when I was in middle school. It's not like I can't be subtle. I can, and I am, but not in the same ways.

Other than the stereotypical female fear of spiders, I really can't think of any ways that I do fit the feminine stereotype. I'm not giggly and silly. I'm not obsessed with my appearance. I'm not boy crazy. Please, I'm not trying to say that all girls fit the stereotype, but obviously enough do that it exists.

Ah well. I hope at least some of this was coherent.

Cheers,

-T.A.D.

It's so hard

I don't know why, but I seem to be finding myself in the middle a lot lately. It's a sucky place to be, in all honesty. You wind up getting hurt no matter who wins or loses. And it's always hard to see two people you care about having problems with each other. I guess I involve myself too much. I'm a good listener, I know that, but when you're a good listener, you always seem to end up hearing just enough to make you uncomfortable.

Sometimes it's great to be there for a friend and listen and give advice or whatever they need. I love being there for my friends. But being there for a friend when their problem is another friend? That's something I've never quite gotten the hang of. I always seem to end up upsetting the person who I'm supposed to be listening to by defending the person they are talking about. But at the same time, they just put me in an awkward position. Is it my fault for being there to listen and not telling them "look, this makes me uncomfortable" or is it their fault for not realizing that maybe I don't want to hear about how horrible another friend of mine is acting?

The blame game. Ugh, it's messy, it's hurtful, it's all-around awful. I hate playing it. And no matter what, the answer always seems to be both/all of you. I mean, everyone who is part of a conflict played their part, and therefore has their share of the blame.

Back to my original topic. I guess I just really hate it when people put you in the middle, or I put myself there, or whatever, because I always end up being the person holding all the blame. Suddenly it doesn't matter that Person A said this mean thing about Person C, it just matters that I am Person B and I won't pick a side. See, this is part of why I have such a strong feeling about maturity. I think it's bull. I think we learn to censure ourselves and we learn to be polite and respectful, but maturity the way most people define it is something that we say we have achieved, but actually haven't. Because here we are, still acting like five-year-olds. "Pick a side."

So I guess my message for the day is "no." Don't pick a side. Don't let them get mad at you for saying that something made you uncomfortable. You have the right to feel uncomfortable. You have the right to say, "no, I'm not going to be this middle person in this conflict because it's too much and I don't want to deal with this right now."

Funny though, because whenever we have rights, it always comes with a catch.

You always have to have the courage to use that right.

Cheers,

-T.A.D.

Footprints on my heart

Today, too much time and mental prowess has passed by for me to write something between now and midnight that would resemble a coherent blog post.

Plus I've been meaning to put some more poetry on here for a while. Once again, I would like to make a disclaimer stating the fact that I wrote this poem in freshman year, though I do quite like the concept. So, if you like, constructive criticism away! No further comment.

footprints

a man crosses the street

leaving behind dark footprints,

a contrast to the white snow.

soon he has vanished from sight, but his footprints remain.

i think of the footprints i leave behind,

by simply existing.

eventually i know i will be gone,

but will my footprints remain?

breathing in the crisp air i watch.

before my very eyes the man’s footprints disappear.

the only trace of his journey down the street,

gone.

i look behind me at the snow and once more

think of the footprints i have left, not only here, but throughout my life.

i wonder:

when i am gone will my footprints also be concealed?

snow covers things.

it buries the world under a clean white blanket,

leaving no trace of what was once there.

i gaze down from my rooftop, my forbidden perch.

suddenly i realize:

snow covers houses,

roads, and yes,

even footprints. but...

not love.

not laughter.

not memories.

these are the footprints i want to leave behind.

though snow and time

will cover me when i am gone

i finally understand:

i will live on in my footprints.

in the footprints i make when i laugh with my friends

or when i cook for my family.

when i reach out a helping hand,

or when i allow someone else to reach out to me.

the wind sends shivers up my spine

as the snow dances around me.

wonder fills my soul, and i notice tears slipping down my cheeks,

freezing in the bitter cold.

i will live on in smiles

in tears

in laughter

in love.

my footprints will not be hidden or forgotten,

they will be heard of,

and felt.

and remembered...

i will live on in my footprints.

for these footprints are too powerful to be

covered by snow-

or even time.

Okay, so I lied when I said no further comments.

One of the things I love about this poem is the fact that this series of thoughts really came to me just like I wrote it. I was sitting on my roof on a snowy night, which is something I don't get to see very often in my part of the world, and this is where my mind went when I saw a man walk by and then, looking back a few minutes later, I noticed his footprints were covered. We had a snow day the next day and this whole epiphany thing was wonderfully timed because I was supposed to write a poem for my English/Literature class.

Another thing I'll comment on, while I'm at it, is how much I like the shapes of some of the stanzas in this piece. Not all of them, but some of them, namely the seventh and eleventh, just look very appealing to me. I'm not trying to toot my own vuvuzela, but I think it's pretty, for lack of a better term.

Before you comment on it, I know this poem is way too long. Sorry. One other fun fact about this poem was how I wrote it, and we were supposed to (in class) go through our poems and find what kinds of literary devices we used. I mentioned that I didn't find many (we were writing this on a typed copy of our poem). My teacher wrote me back (on the poem) a note saying that I used synecdoche, which, as a 14 year old, was something that flew right over my head. I put away the commented on poem with the rest of my papers. Then in junior year, I had an amazing British Lit teacher, and in preparation for the AP English Language exam, we went over literary devices, and one of the ones she really harped on was, no surprise, synecdoche. Summer came and I was looking through my old papers for some particular one, it might have even been this poem. I read my teacher's note and was like "OH MY GOSH. I WAS A PSYCHIC IN FRESHMAN YEAR."

Wow this has been a disgustingly long post. Thanks for sticking with me, hope it wasn't too painful.

Cheers,

-T.A.D.

(I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I'm getting so comfortable blogging that this is probably the fifth post in a row that I've almost signed my real name on)