I can't be the only person who used to leave her window open as a little girl, hoping maybe Peter Pan would show up and take her on magical adventures.

I didn't have a big fancy picture window like the Darlings had. Mine, in fact, wouldn't have left much room at all for anyone to fit through and they would have to bust through the screen. But, still, from about the age of five until eight I used to sometimes dream I'd be off to Never Never Land with the whole gang. It wasn't so much that I didn't want to grow up, but that it seemed like it would be a very exciting place to be.

I saw this variation on the "Keep Calm" sayings recently and laughed because surely whoever designed it might have some of the same memories, the same need now to find a similar way to escape into something less...ordinary. I used to think finding your happy place had to be finding an actual place (say Hawaii), but now I realize you could picture the most beautiful, exotic place in the world and still not find your spot, if you don't have inner place.

 

 

Then, one of my favorite songs, "Further" by Correatown, came on my iTunes shuffle and I really listened to the words as if I hadn't heard them only a few hundred times before.

 

I think part of the problem is that sometimes we don't want to leave our dark places behind because we're so used to them and the light seems too good to be true or we believe that we don't deserve it.

 

I wish everyone, even the most mean and thoughtless people in the world, true inner peace because if you don't have that, if you can't leave the darkness behind, how can you ever live, except mechanically?

 

 "Further" by Correatown

If I can't let this go

I'm telling you I won't make it another year

If I go all the way

I'm telling you I can see all these things coming clear

'Cause we have so much love

But we need so much more

'Cause we have so much love

But we need so much more

If we go on like this

I'm telling you we won't make it another year

But if we go all the way

I'm telling you we'll finally see all these roads coming clear

'Cause we have so much love

But we need so much more

'Cause we have so much love

But we need so much more

We have a fascination with the darkness

Although we're standing in light

We have the strongest sense of kindness

But still we can't treat our own selves right

We have so much love

But we need so much more

We have so much love

But we need so much more

We go further

We go further

We go further

We go further

'Cause we have so much love

But we need so much more

'Cause we have so much love

But we need so much more

We have a fascination with the darkness

Although we're standing in light

We have the strongest sense of kindness

But still we can't treat our own selves right

We have so much love

But we need so much more

We have so much love

But we need so much more

We go further
 

My Internet is fixed. I'm almost sorry it is because I kind of liked being detached from the online world and getting all my errands done quickly. And I'm also sorry because it's once again easy to hop on here and confess things I probably shouldn't.

I love people, I really do. Even if I'm not always good with them, I love them and I love the concept of connecting with others.

Yet, I'm often horrible at socializing. Shy people come in all forms and some of us may not seem seem shy but we really are and secretly quake a bit inside when we talk to certain people.

And when someone doesn't like me I only want to try harder, which really can get kind of unintentionally creepy on my end. I don't mean to, I don't.

It takes me a while to get the "leave me alone" message sometimes. But I do get it and I just wish this one particular person I'm thinking of all the best. 

She is a nice person, hard-working and decent so if she doesn't like me I can't help but think I've done something wrong. I long to ask her if I have, but I can't help but think it would make things worse.

So I just literally walk on by, sometimes with a smile if I can muster one, and hope this uneasiness is all in my head. With her, at least, I can't help but think of that saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin109276.html#Xstsidt6Xwf8qw8S.99

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin109276.html#Xstsidt6Xwf8qw8S.99

Happy Monday (and anniversary of the Rubik's Cube)! If you go to Google and click the cube, you can actually play with it.

My home Internet has been down for almost a week now and I've been typing posts at home, then uploading them here when I have a chance with a public computer. I may be away for a while since I've discovered not having wifi in my place is actually a good thing and I'm getting lots of non-electronic things done. 

Have a great week! :)

Back in the late 70s, every Friday night my sister, mom and I would put records on the turntable and dance in our living room. (Please don’t laugh, okay?) Chic’s C’est Le Chic was one of the LPs we constantly rotated, even more than the Bee Gees or Thelma Houston (other disco staples of the time). 

Six of the songs from that album appear here on Chic: The Definitive Groove Collection and of those, the most well-known are: "Le Freak," "Good Times," and "I Want Your Love," still sounding fresh all these years later. (Boy, does "Le Freak" sound good and "Good Times" seems like more than just a song you heard at Skateland at your tenth birthday party.)

Of particular interest is the second disc which contains songs I’m surprised didn’t become more famous when they first arrived on the scene. Among the strongest tracks are: "Real People" (about figuring out who your true friends are); " Will You Cry (When You Hear This Song)" (very pretty and quietly emotional); "You Can’t Do It Alone" (oh so smooth and relaxing); "Your Love is Cancelled" (once you stop laughing over the title, you’ll love it!); "Soup for One" (my favorite and coincidentally, I’m sure, the most disco-sounding one); "Hangin’" (very catchy in that way only your foot knows!) and the quite addictive "Your Love."

As a rule, I’m not big on nostalgia…but I have to say that as I played The Definitive Collection I welcomed the happy childhood memories that drifted back as I listened to the music and danced in my living room.

There's nothing especially remarkable about this book except for two things: that the narrator, Helene, is genuinely likeable and that it (uncomfortably and unfortunately) is easier than you would think to really like someone who is aloof and only likes you on her own terms (if she likes you at all.)

If I hadn't personally known what it's like to be attracted to emotionally distant women who are (when you get down to the nitty gritty of it) not worth one second of your suffering over them I might have been more irritated by The Illusionist.

Tamara, the older woman our narrator is hopelessly (and I do mean hopelessly) fascinated and possibly in love with, is a few shades shy of psychotic. She has never quite gotten over her affair with a woman named Emily so she takes out most everything that makes her miserable on other people, especially Helene.

Like anyone else who understands that indifference, not hate, is the complete opposite of love, Helene appreciates it more when Tamara treats her badly. Rather than think the older woman just doesn't care, Helene decides she is hurtful so she can "reduce her to despair." Malice is far preferable to nothing.

Tamara is so unpredictable that Helene never knows which version of her she is going to encounter each day: "I wondered if she would have the closed look of her bad days, or the charming look of melancholy which sometimes clouded her eyes, or a smile that I had never seen, but which would be my revenge if I could glimpse it for a moment, that shameless smile of a woman..."

Later on, an understanding and surprisingly sympathetic outsider advises Helene: "Listen, there are people who are in love, miserable and worthy of pity...say what you will, there's nothing very loving and gentle about her." 

Sometimes you need an outsider (or maybe a book that speaks to you) to remind you that not everyone is worth falling in love with, no matter how oddly appealing she may be. Easier to listen to than follow, but this kind of advice (so starkly laid out here and with Tamara as such a good example of what not to like) can stand out when you distance yourself a bit from it all.

On a side note: different covers for the same book can be so intriguing, especially when used from different eras. The top picture covers the spirit of the book far better than the older one which only seems to focus on the forbidden nature of it all and how the subject was seen at the time the book was first published. And another stark difference is that Tamara never once (that I can recall) looks so openly at Helene. Helene could only dream of being looked at that way.