Empty

Among the Darbies

I do not believe in fatalism. I understand cause and effect and believe wholeheartedly that a decision as simple as whether or not to board a bus could very well change the entire course of your life. And yet: I cannot help but deny a certain untouchable defeatist element to existence.

And: yes, yes. I know. Everyone feels this way at some point: or else we wouldn’t have clichés about camels and straw; or laws like Murphy’s.

But it’s this precise realization that makes me so quick to wonder: why bother at all.

Imagine for a moment that you did everything to create a comfortable life for yourself: the life you wanted, even. But what if the harder you tried, the further that dream went away?

Just another classic case of Tantalus, you might say.


And I say this: I’m not talking about water and grapes. This is life: a vacant and meaningless existence treading dangerously close to an irretrievably crushed spirit.



Recently someone said he admired me because no matter what happened, nothing ever gets to my core.

I appreciate what I consider to be a compliment, but I doubt its accuracy.


Because these things, little by little, are getting to me. And with so much of everything collapsing around me, I feel at times I have only myself to blame. And yet: I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. I don’t know what I could’ve done differently.



And so: day after day, these experiences tear at me from the inside. I try to heal old wounds and a new one arises; I stop one leak, and a bigger one begins.



But if I must be the girl who serves as a godmother – but never a parent – so be it. If I must be the girl who has to choose between backpacking across Scotland alone or not going at all, I will choose the former.


And yet: why it is come to this, I will never understand. These shelves of unwatched books; lists of “must see” movies and unseen vistas. Hopes and dreams that once seemed inevitable have somehow become insurmountable peaks.


They grow; they loom; they taunt. Fates approach in the distance; growing larger and larger, scissors poised before my string.

This is not the life I fought for. This is not the life I wanted.


This is the life that found me.



But tell me why – like Sisyphus – I scale the mountain all the same.

And People Call These "Weeds"

I'll never understand.

Every Day is Different. Every Day is the Same.

The Wind in Slow Motion

I shot these at the "wrong" shutter speed and almost deleted them. And yet: I wound up preferring them over most other photos I took this past weekend. Not to mention, my camera broke some 30 minutes thereafter, and I figured I may as well post the last images my Canon G7 produced. It'll be awhile before I can afford another.

Variations of the Same

It's not that I'm back. It's just that I know, deep down, I won't be safe anywhere.

Love Before the Ruins, Part II

The story continues.

Love Before the Ruins

If you'd like to see me be momentarily optimistic -- and believe me, this is a rare occasion indeed -- then be sure to check this out.

(And then check back in a day or two for the continuation.)

Soccer Fashion

Shameless Plug

It's true I couldn't draw to save my life, and my comics are about as useless as man-teats. But for whatever reason I'm particularly proud of the one I posted today. Check it out.

Super Bowl Commentary

As I watched the Super Bowl tonight, at best half-interested in the game and mostly just sticking around for the commercials, I couldn't help but wonder:

Have Omar Epps and Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin ever been seen in the same room at the same time?


Because I'm pretty sure they're the same person.

Music 2000

Imagine it's early 1980s and a group sets out to predict how music will sound in the year 2000.

This, my friends, is the result:



(And for the record, that apparition is the ghost of Tchaikovsky -- one of the judges for the Music 2000 contest).

High Five!

HIGH-FIVE INAUGURATION! - watch more funny videos

Voices (a Q&A with the author)

What does it mean when nearly every voice in your head is screaming for you to get the f*ck out of Chicago?


(Only to be followed by a whisper, "But to where?")

And why, pray tell, does all this news about salmonella leave me craving peanut butter?

That Which We Do Not See

Even the most intelligent of our species fail, time and again, to appreciate the beauty of the world around them.

They rush from Point A to Point B with their faces in cell phones,


and their heads so far removed from the best of their reality that they dream only of alternates: bigger homes; bigger paychecks; more beautiful spouses.

But what of perfectly formed snowflakes, glistening on windshields? What of shadows and sunspots

-- simple smiles or autumnal leaves forever orange (frozen in ice)?

It has taken me a long time to realize that not everyone sees the world as I do.


Which isn't to say there's anything special about me; only that it's with good reason that words such as "weird" and "quirky" are so often used to describe me.


But it is this same personality trait that compels me to seek out the like-minded,


ever hopeful that I will stop to take a picture and the person beside me will understand precisely why I'm fascinated by complex equations,

or a certain slant of light.


Together we will slay dragons with our laughter, run circles around Lake Michigan, and wiggle our toes through the morning dew.


But emotion, as with life, is a one-sided beast:

a landslide that consumes the very thing it loves, leaving eternity-old lessons in its wake.

You can depend on no one in this world.

Which is to say:

You are alone.

It is this very lesson that I find myself confronting again, even as I try -- perhaps now more than ever -- to disprove lifelong hypotheses.

But am I falling again?

Failing?


Cornering myself into the circumference of infinity?


There's no denying it, I think, staring out of my window and into stained glass: this life is a loop, doomed to repeat itself.

And so I do, the record and the needle bouncing inconsolably between the bitter and the sweet;

the beautiful laughter and the desolate sigh.

Which is to say, there's only one lesson to be had here, and you already know it:


The people you love will not recognize you even as you stand before them:

And yet they will remember you, beautifully and painfully,

when you are gone.