Everything Old Is Poem Again

Those of you who know me know that this past weekend (pre-frog voice) I went shopping for a new car...for the first time in 10 years. And I ended up buying a new car -- and saying goodbye to the Mazda Protege that, for some reason, I was (and still am) apparently VERY attached to. Every time I see one on the road now, I actually get teary. Anywho...I digress.

Of course, though I knew it was a possibility, I didn't really mentally prepare myself for the scenario of actually buying a new car the day I started looking...and, in turn, saying an abrubt goodbye to this silly little compact car I REALLY loved. So...of course, the situation found me buzzing around, filling the empty boxes I luckily had in my trunk with the contents from the inside of my car. Among the cassette tape mixes, myriad maintenance receipts, sunglasses, etc... was a folded piece of paper. Later in the weekend I got the chance to go through all my accumulated crap, and got around to investigating the piece of paper. Turns out is was a rogue poem I wrote in August of 2000 (a year after getting the Mazda...so far from becoming who I am today). Why I wrote it is a mystery. Why I printed it out and stuck it in the glove compartment of my car, only to find it nearly 9 years later...well, that's a bigger mystery.

So...I figured I might as well share this find with the three people who read this blog :) For better or worse...here is the state of my insurance-company addled mind circa the new millennium (sp?)...maybe you can help me solve the mystery...enjoy:

FAIRA CRIES
Early on the girl had spirit...dreams of summer days and better things, the same
Life -- a plan that wasn't her own, hidden -- a turmoil no one had known
Tragic artist, tortured soul, ballerina barely five years old
Why wait for the future when it comes for the past? Wait, just wait...it won't last

Old soul, young heart, start the wheels turning in motion -- in yearing
Always for that elusive wisp of meaning and feeling -- and ice cream
Over and over before it began -- she ran, she ran, our Faira she ran

Through the meadows of youth and the tunnels of time, crying inside
She tried. Cheerleader girl, basketball chic, winner, achiever, movie-of-the-week,
Truth hides, we seek, we lie, life cheats. Pretty young thing taking the ride
Such a long time between living and life

Faira -- she wonders what little girls become, when growing is over and becoming --
It's done. To be what fate meant, does it mean what we say is our final decision? For all of our days?
Closeness melts and the tree starts to fall, of all the illusions, intrusions...confusion
the fairest of all. Over and over before it began, Faira she tries to face why she ran

Fear keeps pace with a path traveled well. Dreams not promoted become tales to tell. Do it well.
Do everything well. No matter what's done, for duty, for fun,
it matters least when along for the ride the passenger errs -- attempting to drive

A ballerina now thirty years old -- the future, it ambushed the girl. She folds.
Playing for keeps. Having to hold. Round and round our girl she goes.
Looking back to a future -- where are the dreams? Why didn't they hear her pleas to just be...
At night she lies, eyes wide with the folly of fate and waits. And in the day...our Faira, she cries.

GB

Three Words

Fork. Stick. Done.

Change is good...right?

I admit, I'm somone who has always clung to the status quo. Same old same old has always been A-OK with me. In the past 4 years, however, I've pretty much completely strayed from my former anal-retentive self. From having to have just the right colored file folders, just the same PC setttings, just the exact right pen. Flying by the seat of my pants is more the norm now...no two days are ever alike (they used to be cookie-cutter) and even in a given day, I know what is on my calendar as of 8 a.m. will most likely change before day's end.

So...you'd think I'd be ok with change in other arenas. And I am...but for some reason I have this weird thing about inanimate objects. My cell phone...I just got a new one...and miss my old one terribly. It worked the same way, yet I still get teary thinking of it. I know, I'm one cuckoo for cocoa puffs bee! So, within two weeks of the new phone, I up and get a new car. I had the same one for 10 years. I loved that car...it was the less-than-stellar gas mileage and the feeling that at any moment the car would implode as I drove to a client that cinched it for for me...time for a new, safer car. I like the car I got a lot...in fact, a lot of the things about it are better than my other car...yet I can't help looking out the window for my old, dented Mazda.

This, my fellow bees, is why I haven't parted with my VCR. Yes. You read correctly. I still have -- and use weekly -- the VCR I was given as a gift the summer before freshman year of college (and I still use my alarm clock from when I was 16). I love the whole tangible quality of setting it...knowing I will physically have to "handle" a tape...that I can program it in the dark without looking at the remote more quickly than I can get my darned bluetooth to work on my cell. One day I'll have to switch to some form of DVR...but until then, it's VHS all the way for this bee!!

I'm old school. And I love it. I long for the days when filling up your car with gas meant having someone else do it, and heck, check the oil and clean the windows too. My windows and oil haven't been the same since the days of self-serve pumps. Mainly because I refuse to do one thing I don't want to do (when I can get away with it) -- and this Bartleby-ness just doesn't fit well in modern society. Oh well...I'm off to defrost my fridge...the non-frost-free one I have that, to my eyes, appears to be a holdover from the 1950s. Ok, THAT I would part with. I'm taller than the darned thing...good thing I don't cook! Where would I store the food? :)

Peace out on a beautiful Chicago Sunday.

GB

Hi B Community,

This B is buzzin in circles these days. Not sure if it's honey overload or just plain tired-ness at being swatted at all the time. This B is zonked. In human terms...I'm tired. Life these days has been kicking my stinger in a way that's quite unexpected. No huge issues or traumas or ordeals...actually, this B finds she can deal with those quite well. It's the everyday stuff...the day by day sitches...that get her all in a buzz-spin.

I find adulthood a rather lonely and solitary affair. And even though I've finally started "putting myself out there" I find, or rather fear, it might be too little too late. Facebook is a blessing and a curse. I've reconnected with the lost high school, junior high, grade school and college friends who've drifted away...yet it reminds me of whence I came and who I've yet to become.

Every marriage announcement or birth announcement is a reason for celebration and at the same time feels like a knife to the heart. A parade of what I will never have. I'm a good writer, a good person, and a hella creative individual. I don't, in a vacuum, feel at all sorry for myself. I have a lovely life...yet I can't help but covet that which my friends have. Does that make me a horrible person? Perhaps. But in the end, all I want is to be happy...to love what I do...and to love someone else.

My greatest fear is that I'll never love what I do or another person. We've all become so expendable and interchangeable. We all fall for the latest fad or trend. Where is individuality? Or preference? Or necessity these days? Am I a dying breed...she of the VCR and tape deck in-car and NO dishwasher? Am I crazy to be sad and mourn what we've all lost in this digital age? I participate, I admit...but deep down I loooong for 1985.

I just want to do what I love and be hapy with the result...but it appears that will never be possible. So I love the result...and bear the process. Please note...this diatribe refers to life as a whole -- my life -- not just one aspect of it.

Somehow I feel uniquely qualifed to play "the outsider." As an adoptee...I can never be certain of anything or anyone in my life. So I pick and choose. Somehow, I think I've encapsulated the best traits of someone on my lot...and I don't sneeze at that. Intelligence, altheletic ability, creativity and poise...good deal. Being an outsider, that's just just peripheral collateral damage. I love Buffy and Stephen King and Harper Valley PTA and Justin Wilson's Louisiana Cooking...I am the anamoly. And it's ok.

GB

Neverending Test

Ok, I admit. I'm getting tired. Tired of how everything seems to be a neverending test. Always having to prove yourself. If you're dedicated, and it's obvious, why is your dedication constantly tested. And if you're intelligent and hardworking...why are you consistenly forced to jump through an ever-increasing number of hoops? Is it spite? Or boredom? Or a rite of passage? Why can't someone believe that you are capable and trustworthy and take that at face value? Or am I just a cockeyed sarcastic optimist? Ha :)

Case of the Mondays

What can I say...I had to pay homage to one of my all-time FAV movies. Don't jump to conclusions (ok, my dorky banter has run amok...so sorry!).

I guess it figures that after a day as fun as yesterday (went skydiving for the first time and loved it) I would run, head on, into One Of Those Days. Purses forgotten at home. A burnt out headlight on a rainy day. Power outage during a favorite evening show. Arm pain causing me to type this, and most e-mails today, with one hand.

Guilty pleasures of late?

• Facebook
• Iced double shots at Starbucks
• Ice Road Truckers marathons
• The Kinks, Kid Rock and Lifehouse (yet again)
• High Life Adventures
• Gelato
• Reading "The Thing About Life Is One Day You'll Be Dead"
• The Hills (my name is Green Bee and I'm a Hills-a-holic)
• Shopping online
• It's Me or the Dog

I could post about more salient topics. The election. My best friend's awesome talent and huge success as a writer (go Stacey, it's almost your birthday). The environment (heck, Green is in my name). But I won't. Because one-handed typing is hard! :)

Peace out. It's all good...everything always is.

Live like you mean it. That's my motto and challenge to y'all :)

GB

BEEEEEn Silent

I apologize for my extended blogging absence. I plead colony collapse disorder...after all, it ain't easy being a green bee. Ok, end dorky repoirte here :)

There's so much to write about, and at the same time, nothing at all. Which makes for thrilling reading, I'm sure. I'm a study in contradictions (or is it dichotomies? sp? bueller?). I want to get married and have children...yet I don't date. I want to be more creative (write more, paint more, make jewelry more, etc.)...yet all I do is read or watch TV. I want to look more polished...yet I haven't styled my hair in years. I love watching the Food Network...yet I've never cooked a day in my life. Oh well...I digress...or not :)

Ok, I have to give a shout out to Joss Whedon's online-only "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog!" For those rabid musical-episode Buffy fans...this will SATISFY. It's Neil Patrick Harris mixed with other Whedon-verse usual suspects...singing along to the Joss-iest lyrics ever. It's awesome. 'Nuff said. They, indeed, gave me something to sing about!

My newest musical obsession, other than Dr. Horrible (as of tonight) is Delta Goodrem -- I LOVE her new album...and having never heard her music before (save for her new release "In this Life"), that's saying something in my book.

Ok, that's all for now. Green Bee bids you good night...
GB