10-17-05 @ 9:10 am EDT

I just haven't felt like writing in here lately. -_- I'm anxious of everybody at the moment, and feel like I should be replying to so many people, but at the same time, I don't know if it's expected. I owe at least two people thank you's but haven't said them yet. I've probably never said it before so nobody knows, but I don't write to people when they're busy (or even if I get the IMPRESSION that they're busy--recall the incident with the penpal girl). I feel like I'm burdening them too much when I do so. So I prefer to wait until they're not busy and they write to me to pick back up where we left off. The thing is, nobody knows that, I don't think. So there are probably a lot of people out there who thought I was snubbing them, or got really confused or pissed off because I never replied. :/ I have no clue how to react in such situations. People usually either get back to me, or they never write to me again, so it's never been a huge problem. But maybe it's sometimes the reason why people DIDN'T get back to me. (Though more often, I know it wasn't. The last handful of people who never replied, I wrote them plenty of times and still never heard back.)

I've just been very worried about everything lately. The temperatures are dropping and the heater is running more and more and all I can think about is how gas prices in Michigan are to go up an estimated 50% and electricity about 11%, I think. I calculated it and even with us turning the thing down we aren't shaving even 10% off of our bill. -_- And Dad keeps getting mad at me for turning it DOWN! Why does it bother him so much that I turn it down when I'm the only one home and I'm sleeping? Does he REALLY think I can break the thermostat just by turning it down now and then? Why does he seem to believe I can do a great job flipping burgers or taking orders but I can't turn down a thermostat? The only important thing I've ever broken in this house was the electricity in the dining room/utility room, and even he said that wasn't (entirely) my fault. Why does he think I can break this thing? I thought it was meant to be turned up and down. :(

-_- ...so...I finally brought up the issue of disability with Ma. I wish she had gone through with it years ago when she first brought it up. The thing is, we both seriously misread each other. When she first brought it up I admit I was not encouraging. But it wasn't because I didn't WANT to apply. It was because I didn't think I stood a CHANCE. And you know how I am when it comes to chances. If I don't stand a REALLY good chance of at least placing, I won't even bothering entering the contest. (The last contest I entered, I won lousy third place, and that was enough to convince me not to bother again. I didn't even get a single RATING or REVIEW out of the damn thing. Person running the contest didn't even bother giving their reasons why they decided as they did! Lazy idiot. Why run a stupid contest if you're not going to offer one dinky comment? Sorry for the aside. >_< ) And Ma never brought it up again.

So all this time, I thought that SHE wasn't interested (she doesn't follow through on a lot of things), and all this time, she thought that *I* wasn't interested. -_- We need better communication. Maybe if we had applied BACK THEN, and IF they deemed me qualified, I could help with the bills this winter. As it stands, even IF I'm accepted (which I do not believe I would be), it wouldn't be in time to help.

And that's a huge IF. I was never diagnosed with the very problem that keeps me from being employed! I was only diagnosed with OCD, and that is NOT my problem! I have no idea what to do. Even IF we get as far as filling things out, what will I say? I can't lie or fudge anything. And even Ma doesn't believe I have social anxiety. ("You can't diagnose yourself over something you read on the Web!" Um...I figured out that I had it BEFORE the Internet...I did take two years of ab psych, after all. And *I* know my emotions a HELL of a lot better than anyone else. I am the one so afraid that I haven't even been writing in my own journal! I can't diagnose myself PROFESSIONALLY, but I rather DO know what's wrong with me!)

The problem is, it just doesn't count officially. And I feel so cheated over that. I can't afford to get a second opinion. I rather wish sometimes I had a physical condition. At least with those, people actually BELIEVE you need help. With me, people just think I'm...shy...and should get over it. -_-

So that's why I'm so quiet and worried lately. I don't even know if I'll post this stupid thing! I must have started four or five entries since falling quiet, the last one starting out almost exactly like this, and haven't posted a one because I always chickened out. Do entries count as entries if they never see the light of day? Anyway, that wasn't what I was going to write about. I was going to write about going outside a little bit ago. The moon is (almost?) full and remarkably bright today. I've lately discovered the zoom on the camera and took some GREAT macro shots of leaves with raindrops on them--I can't believe I took them, they look so cool. Too bad I'm too stingy to upload them to WC and too lazy and strapped for time to upload them to Yahoo! right now. Ask for an attachment and I'll send one wallpaper sized. Anyway, I've never seen the moon look so clear. I could actually see craters. It's so bright that on one of the webcams I check nightly, the Sutton's Bay cam, I can actually see the boats parked there just barely illuminated, and at the Granite Island cams I can see the water and rocks just barely lit up. I wish the Island House cam on the island was so well illuminated but it only picks up streetlights. :/

I got the camera and tried looking at the moon through the zoom lens and it was bigger, but the LCD is small, so it was just a big white ball. I took a shot but it was through a wet window. I decided to go outside and try it. It was 6:30 and still dark but for the moonlight. I've always wanted to hang around outside at night when there's a full moon; if I had more guts, and if it weren't probably illegal, I would go walking in the moonlight. You haven't really gotten close to things outside until you've done it at nighttime. There are a lot of things you have to leave to trust at night, which you take for granted during the day. Like where you're going, for example.

Anyway, I went outside (FREEZING) and into the yard to take a few pictures but all they look like is...white balls. :/ I used the zoom, but the moon is like 240,000 miles away, and I don't think you can get a $100 digital camera THAT sophisticated. Oddly, the moon has a haze around it when I turned off the flash (slower shutter speed--even taking motion into account, it was hazy), and when I left the flash on, it looked like a round egg, no haze. Hm.

After that I turned the camera off and just really wanted to get back inside, and not because of the cold. I was starting to freak out out there. >_< The dark scares me. I can't really figure out why. What's the worst that could happen in the dark around here? I could trip and fall on my elbows (and break the camera -_- ), or I could startle a raccoon or something. (I found two of them assaulting my birdfeeder a while back. They're cute, and I don't really mind them, but I wish they'd leave my birdfeeder alone. The chickadees are hard enough on it.) Anyway, nothing really bad can happen in the dark, but it was really starting to scare me, so I had to go back inside. So much for getting close to nature or walking in the moonlight. :/

I got inside and got to thinking, why does the dark scare me so much? It always has. When I was little (and yes, sometimes even now), it was because there could have been things under my bed--things waiting until I couldn't see them to reach out and grab me. "Bloody Mary" made me terrified of confronting mirrors in the dark lest I see something behind me. (An episode of Amazing Stories scared me so badly that I couldn't look into mirrors PERIOD for months, but now it's mostly because I just don't like looking at myself. :P ) I had lots of nightmares as a kid, and that didn't help any. Oddly I think the lamp we kept burning in my room contributed to those. I used a nightlight for years. I had this two-pack of them once. The first one lasted the expected several months. The second, I had that thing plugged in for YEARS! It was STILL working when I finally just stopped using nightlights. What a great nightlight that was!

ANYway...I tried going over the possible reasons for being so scared now, when I'm practically 30 years old. (29. Close enough. -_- ) Maybe there was a murderer or worse, a rapist out there? I looked over my shoulder more than once rather fearfully when I thought I heard leaves rustle. Nothing but my shadow. (Remember, the moon was really bright.) And the chances of a murderer or worse, a rapist being out there are so slim as to be ridiculous. What murderer or worse, a rapist would be waiting out there expecting me to emerge? I never go out in the dark. If a murderer or worse, a rapist were to be stalking me, he would rather be doing it during the LATE MORNING, when I always go out like clockwork to check the mail. So that's a stupid thing to worry about.

Maybe I would run into a wild animal, startle it, and it would attack me? A better chance of this, but still, how dangerous could that really be? The visitors we've had to our porch have been birds, rodents, rabbits, opossums, raccoons, skunks, and stray cats. Nothing any bigger or more dangerous. All of those animals tend to just turn and amble or run off when you come across them. (The raccoons, I had to tap my fingers on the door for quite a bit before one of them decided to leave the birdfeeder alone and move on, and neither was in any hurry. Rabbits, decidedly more in a hurry whenever they leave.) None are particularly violent animals. They just want to get some free food and move on. (I felt guilty after shooing off those raccoons. -_- They would've been welcome to stay if they hadn't been knocking my birdfeeder around.) Even skunks don't tend to spray until they've given ample warning. I would stand a greater chance of one of the CATS attacking me than of any wild animals doing so. The worst I think one would do is make a lot of noise running off, and that would scare me. (I had a deer do this once. At least, Dad said it was a deer. All I know is I went outside after nightfall to check the mail and something crashed in the plantation and then WHISTLED. I bolted back inside. Thought for sure it was a Sasquatch. O_O I did not know back then that deer whistled. Now I do. I write about it all the time, in fact.) So to be afraid of wild animals is silly because it's not like we have bears or cougars around here! I hear coyotes all the time, but I've never even seen one of those, and I doubt they would be much of a threat either!

Maybe I was too embarrassed of being seen, or thought somebody would report me to the police as an intruder if they saw me walking around in the dark? Very real worries. I even hesitated going out at first because the neighbor chose right then to pull out into the road, and I took the long driveway into the yard rather than the short one because it wasn't illuminated and nobody could see me, and I kept close to the house when a car went by. I hate the thought of people seeing me and thinking, "Hey, there's that freak girl! Wandering around at night!" So yes, that's a worry, but it's not like I meet these people or anything. :/ I'm pretty sure the only ones who saw me, if anyone did, were adults, not stupid little kids. As for being reported as an intruder, another very real worry. But it's MY property; what would police do, come and arrest me for being in my yard? "You are under arrest for taking moon pictures without proper ID!" There were also schoolbuses going by, so if any passersby did see me, they probably thought I was just a schoolkid walking out to the stop. At least, no police have called us yet, an hour later. So these worries are rather dumb.

And I REALLY don't believe that some...thing...is going to drag me under a bush or down a hole or tear off my face or anything. Trees scared me after I saw Poltergeist, but I like trees now. I've never had one try to tear off my face just yet. :/

So after all of that I still didn't figure out why the dark scares me. It was a combination of all those things, yet none of those are the full reason, and that's perplexing. It's dumb to be afraid of something for no reason...but then again...my whole LIFE is being afraid of things for no reason, so who am I to speak. -_-

I think I'm going to edit my bio sometime soon to include a notice for people NOT to tell me that I am wordy or that I write a lot. I'm just getting tired of being told this. I had somebody comment on the thing the other day and I do not understand the sarcastic tone they took with me; I hope they were just trying to be amusing, but it really hurt to be told that I go on and on, when I already know that. It's like people go out of their way to say, "You write a lot!" or "Jeez, this is long!" like I can't TELL for myself. Do they really think I CAN'T tell? Because if they don't, then aren't they being rather pissy pointing it out? And how would I not NOTICE that I write long things? I'm the one writing them!!

As if it's a BAD thing that I write a lot. I'm tired of feeling like I should apologize for writing such long things. Maybe those people should apologize to ME for having such short attention spans. And for insisting on pointing out the painfully obvious.

My writing being so long is, I believe, the primary reason behind me having so few readers--even 99.99% of those who insist they will return to read more because "It's SUCH a great story!" never, EVER do so...I've said thanks to at least three or four in the past month alone...haven't heard back from any. So much for the story being SO great that they'd read more the very next day. -_- I don't know why I keep falling for it. In any case, the length of my writing is its main detriment, and so when people insist on pointing this out all the time, it's much akin to being told, "Hey, you've got a big ass! Look at that big ass! Big ol' ass! CAN YOU BELIEVE THE SIZE OF THAT ASS?" If you were to say that to somebody, you would KNOW you were being rude! So just in case people don't know this is a sore spot with me, I think I'll edit my bio to mention it, because I am frankly sick and tired of people pointing it out. I WRITE LONG THINGS! I ALWAYS HAVE! GET OVER IT!

*deepbreath* Sorry...just thought I'd get that out too since who knows how long it'll be until I write in here again. -_-

Before I leave here's some poetry I found recently! :D

Girdled by Huron's throbbing and thunder,
Out on the drift and lift of its blue;
Walled by mists from the world asunder,
Far from all hate and passion and wonder,
Lieth the isle of the Manitou.

Here, where the surfs of the great lake trample,
Thundering time-worn caverns through,
Beating on rock-coasts aged and ample;
Reareth the Manitou's mist-walled temple,
Floored with forest and roofed with blue.

Gray crag-battlements, seared and broken,
Keep these passes for ages to come;
Never a watchword here is spoken,
Never a single sign or token,
From hands that are motionless, lips that are dumb.

Only the Sun-god rideth over,
Marking the seasons with track of flame;
Only the wild-fowl float and hover--
Flocks of clouds whose white wings cover
Spaces on spaces without a name.

Year by year the ages onward
Drift, but it lieth out here alone;
Earthward the mists and the earth-mists sunward,
Starward the days, and the nights blown dawnward,
Whisper the forests, the beaches make moan.

Far from the world and its passions fleeting,
'Neath quiet of noon-day and stillness of star,
Shore unto shore each sendeth greeting;
Where the only woe is the surf's wild beating
That throbs from the maddened lake afar.

--Lake Lyrics & Other Poems
William Wilfred Campbell

I know a pathway through the pines
Where, when the sun declines,
The shadows take on dreamy hues,
Deep violets and blues.

And there is incense that beguiles
Borne down the pillared aisles
From unseen censers, fragrant rites
Of hidden acolytes.

And there is music full and fair
Upon the dusking air,
As though there were an organ grand
Played by a master hand.

This my cathedral is. I crave
No other architrave
Than this majestic vaulted span
Shaped by no skill of man.

Here are my holy altars; here,
Prayerful I may revere,
Feeling about me flutterings
As of angelic wings.

For well I know God walks the wood
Clad in beatitude;
In light and shade and sound I sense
His loving imminence.

And when I go I take with me
Peace, hope, humility;
And when I pass I leave behind
Doubt, and the darkened mind.

--Ballads: Patriotic & Romantic
Clinton Scollard

Let me have a scarlet maple
For the grave-tree at my head,
With the quiet sun behind it,
In the years when I am dead.

Let me have it for a signal,
Where the long winds stream and stream,
Clear across the dim blue distance,
Like at horn blown in at dream;

Scarlet when the April vanguard
Bugles up the laggard Spring,
Scarlet when the bannered Autumn
Marches by unwavering.

It will comfort me with honey
When the shining rifts and showers
Sweep across the purple valley
And bring back the forest flowers.

It will be my leafy cabin,
Large enough when June returns
And I hear the golden thrushes
Flute and hesitate by turns.

And in fall, some yellow morning,
When the stealthy frost has come,
Leaf by leaf it will befriend me
As with comrades going home.

Let me have the Silent Valley
And the hill that fronts the east,
So that I can watch the morning
Redden and the stars released.

Leave me in the Great Lone Country,
For I shall not be afraid
With the shy moose and the beaver
There within my scarlet shade.

I would sleep, but not too soundly,
Where the sunning partridge drums,
Till the crickets hush before him
When the Scarlet Hunter comes.

That will be in warm September,
In the stillness of the year,
When the river-blue is deepest
And the other world is near.

When the apples burn their reddest
And the corn is in the sheaves,
I shall stir and waken lightly
At a footfall in the leaves.

It will be the Scarlet Hunter
Come to tell me time is done;
On the idle hills for ever
There will stand the idle sun.

There the wind will stay to whisper
Many wonders to the reeds;
But I shall not fear to follow
Where my Scarlet Hunter leads.

I shall know him in the darkling
Murmur of the river bars,
While his feet are on the mountains
Treading out the smouldering stars.

I shall know him, in the sunshine
Sleeping in my scarlet tree,
Long before he halts beside it
Stooping down to summon me.

Then fear not, my friends, to leave me
In the boding autumn vast;
There are many things to think of
When the roving days are past.

Leave me by the scarlet maple,
When the journeying shadows fail,
Waiting till the Scarlet Hunter
Pass upon the endless trail.

--Ballads & Lyrics
Bliss Carman

I fled in tears from the men's ungodly quarrel about God: I fled in tears to the woods, and laid me down on the earth; then somewhat like the beating of many hearts came up to me out of the ground, and I looked and my cheek lay close by a violet; then my heart took courage and I said:

"I know that thou art the word of my God, dear Violet:
And Oh the ladder is not long that to my heaven leads.
Measure what space a violet stands above the ground,
Tis no farther climbing that my soul and angels have to do than that."

--Poem Outlines
Sidney Lanier

The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them,--ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood.
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down
And offered to the Mightiest, solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences,
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why
Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore
Only among the crowd, and under roofs
That our frail hands have raised. Let me, at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,
Offer one hymn--thrice happy, if it find
Acceptance in his ear.

Father, thy hand
Hath reared these venerable columns, thou
Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down
Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose
All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow,
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches, till, at last, they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,
These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride
Report not. No fantastic carvings show,
The boast of our vain race to change the form
Of thy fair works. But thou art here--thou fill'st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds,
That run along the summit of these trees
In music;--thou art in the cooler breath,
That from the inmost darkness of the place,
Comes, scarcely felt;--the barky trunks, the ground,
The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.
Here is continual worship;--nature, here,
In the tranquillity that thou dost love,
Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around,
From perch to perch, the solitary bird
Passes; and yon clear spring, that, 'midst its herbs,
Wells softly forth and visits the strong roots
Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness, in these shades,
Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace
Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak--
By whose immoveable stem I stand and seem
Almost annihilated--not a prince,
In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
E'er wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower
With scented breath, and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.

My heart is awed within me, when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence, round me--the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
For ever. Written on thy works I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.
Lo! all grow old and die--but see, again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth presses--ever gay and beautiful youth
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost
One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch enemy Death--yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant's throne--the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.

There have been holy men who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived
The generation born with them, nor seemed
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks
Around them;--and there have been holy men
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.
But let me often to these solitudes
Retire, and in thy presence reassure
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,
The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink
And tremble and are still. Oh, God! when thou
Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill,
With all the waters of the firmament,
The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,
Uprises the great deep and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms
Its cities--who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?
Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad unchained elements to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate
In these calm shades thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.

--Poems
William Cullen Bryant

^_^ !