a lesson in contradictions

inspired by Walt Whitman

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes).

A lesson in self acceptance for me. I always beat myself up about my jekyll and hyde nature. But really, being one thing is boring. My 'other' sides create textures, interest, something that I need to learn to love and not loathe.

Being with my sister always reminds me of this, she is herself, no apologies, no questions. I admire her in so many ways because her confidence seems unshakeable. Of course this can't be true- we all have our vulnerabilities- but she forgives herself and 0thers, because she accepts how they are, not how she wishes them to be.

I'm learning lessons everyday. And this is the one I want to learn today.

Three things I'm grateful for since my last post:

1. Time with my sister. I swear it makes me a better person.

2. The sun is finally out, and I'm enjoying it.

3. Some time to relax at home and soak in the silence.

one day older

I'm one day older than yesterday, but legally, I'm also one year older. What have I learned since yesterday, if age purports to engender wisdom? Well, I've learned that when you start drinking at 1 pm, you have to continue on a steady but moderate pace. If and when you stop, you will be down for the count. I've also learned that I might have a chance with Karma, because I woke up to birthday weather that was out of this world. Sunshine and fresh powder all day. Like the dreams you have where every track is fresh, and the sun is glinting through the trees in the glade, waxing golden on your ride as you float along. Except this dream was real. I've learned that a drive through liquor store is probably one of the best innovations that I've discovered recently. We drove up after dinner and the birthday girl simply rolled down her window, ordered three tall boy Pilsner singles and some shooters. No getting out of the car, going into the cold cooler, showing ID or anything. AWESOME. And lastly, I've learned that unlike my first birthday away from home when I cried like a baby in my dorm room- age has mellowed me out and I was cool with the chill day that I had yesterday.

Three things I'm grateful for as a 24 year old, so far:
1. Powder, sun & beer
2. An awesome father, who as described in the words of dude at the hill; "It's pretty cool that your dad is willing to get crunked to celebrate your birthday". Well said.
3. That the rest of my family, maxing, relaxing and chilling by the pool in the Canary Islands, put down their drinks to give me a call and tell me they were thinking of me on my birthday.

ignorance intolerance

I have a low tolerance for stupidity. I understand it can be construed as difficult to muddle through our modern world, but I have a feeling that it's the modern world that's producing and environment where it's easy to be ignorant. Information doesn't have to be learned, it can be found. With one key word in google, we have information on pet psychatrists at our fingertips. We don't have to learn where things are, we can just gps them or google map them. So if information is so easy to get at, why the prevalence of stupidity? I think it's exactly that. Information is so easy to get, we don't have to retain it, we have the security of knowing we can find whatever we want whenever we want. More and more common sense is becoming a scarce commodity because we don't need it- we just need google.

Why the rant regarding my ignorance intolerance? I've been victim to it several times today and it's still early. The starbucks girl- a long winded debacle that I will confine to my complaint letter. The email from some employee assuming I am the contact for parking concerns because I am listed as the webauthor for the whole hospital website. And to those, who, because email seems so much more modern than a letter, have lost all sense of any type of polite, business-like letter which is clear and concise but contains all of the information needed to reply or act with efficiency.

Our modern tools have most certainly contributed to the downfall of common sense and the diminshed valuation of the traditional learned individual. Back in the day, men and women were trained with a broad but deep knowledge of all subjects and even languages. They didn't have modern conveniences to enable a lazy passivity in honing their common sense and only viewing knowlege for it's usefulness rather than its intellecutal stimulus. Woe to the modern man, who most often loses a sense of poetry in a world filled with need-to-know.

To cap it off on a positive note, here are three things I'm grateful for since my last post:
1. Went to one of my favorite cocktail bars for a girlfriends birthday, and the third member of our childhood trio was there! It was great catching up with an old friend, and the three of us have plans for this weekend.
2. I finally vaccumed my house. Yay for no more super sized dust bunnies!
3. Today is Thursday, and I have a date......as to wheather I'm looking forward to it or not is still in the ambiguous stage.