holding hands and unholding perception, like we're pigeonholded.

top 4 things on my mind:

1) it's funny how gossip can start an overnight best friend kind of friendship.  the art of being in people's business. 

2) perception is everything.  this sums up my job description as an mp.

3) i have a "beauty list" of things to do. and much gym time.  in a small amount of time.

4) just ate a hardboiled egg.  really need to start setting the timer on these; this batch was so on point.. the last, not so much.


I'm ready to go home.  actually, I'm ready for a lot of things.  I'm at work, where we are 4 days on, 5 days off (3 break days, 2 training days).  i want out.  I'm practically turning green over this word "civilian".  ha, I'm envying no one in particular.  just all the ideals that are "civilian-qualifying".  


I'm not "good" here.  i don't "fit" the job.  it's not my cup of coffee.  and that is exactly the worst part of it all:  not being "good" at what I'm supposed to be "good" at.  I'm failing no one; perhaps myself, i am though.  making military cop-like settlements.  people misunderstand me, too, which I'm beginning to not mind.  i like a reason to be quiet and to keep from having conversations.  i do not think of myself better than anyone; swear it.  there's no such thing as "better".  people though... people are like treasure chests of artifacts and valuables.  but the majority of them are shipwrecked and sunk to the bottom of the pacific.  lost out at sea, tossed by every person around them and by situations they are in.  those uncomfortable ones, or the ones where they have to speak up and put on someone else's hat quick enough because they know not themselves.  be true to thyself?


i cannot begin to tell you how much i love me-time.  i like cleaning things in unmatching clothes, having cups and cups of coffee, planning a low carb diets, and painting my nails while listening to joel olsteen.  all the praying over food that came straight from the earth, holding hands with a boyfriend i never knew i could have.  something about quinoa makes my heart happy.  and something about him makes it happier and happiest.


so about these 4 thoughts.           

people gossip.  people are in people's business.  i wonder why.  it's an honest question.  what is so interesting about others' lives who we know nothing about, but talk like we know everything.  personally, i don't have time to be in people's business.  people do what they do, and they are allowed to do what they do, so let them do what they do and say what they say, and have some grace.


okay, now onto perception.  according to Webster: a judgment resulting from awareness or understanding.  perfect.  so basically, we are entitled to gossip and are all-knowing in our perceptions that provide us productive, intelligent conversations.  "perception is everything".  and, because it is everything, we must alter our character.  i can't decide if i like being misunderstood, or if i like the alterations.  as of late, my preference is the alterations.  conversations and people are unbecoming; I'd rather keep myself on higher ground.  i like the concentration it takes to "become".  


my beauty list?  i need to trim my nails, paint them and apply the clear top coat.  shave my legs and lotion up.  wash the work smell out of my hair.  maybe put eggs and honey on my face, cucumbers on my eyes.  i like having this to look forward to.  i also have a package coming (: my favorite perfume (adrenaline).  it will be like Christmas.  yes, i like that.  today is like Christmas.  i ate excellent hardboiled eggs, AND have a package waiting for me.        

um.. check out my instagram?  lyss.smith17

we're galaxies.

my sneakers are nearly falling apart on me; i'm wondering if this is why they were free in basic.  regardless, they run my legs just fine, an ugly color to me, maybe not to you, I say they're for keeps.  taste is taste.  and opinions and intelligence are one in the same.


i'm sleepless in the middle of nowhere.  I like my nowhere.  I accomplish thinking and practice productivity; hustle and work my body til I've beat the days sin and slack out of it.  which, I have my reasons and i'll keep them to myself.  just know I love the exhaustion at the end of the day.


so I decided we limit ourselves and encase ourselves in glass walls, like we want a divider between us and our purpose, which is the equivalent of our dreams.  we draw lines and set unnecessary boundaries for fear's sake.  perhaps we feel we can't enjoy something and love something.  do something we are unknowingly the master of, because it appeals deeply to us for reasons we are clueless of.  I call it lack of friendship with self.  we wouldn't be living right though, if we did something we loved, or were happy, would we?  I guess dreams are for kids, and the birds.  supposedly, we are to struggle, covet, and admire everyone else and their work, while we have as much, if not more, quality and talent.


i'm annoyed. science and professors, authors with phDs.. they're this group of people with our same brain composition and capacity, who all somehow made agreements on things like "adequate amounts of sleep", egg yolks and high cholesterol.  All these rules, how to's, and silly statistics.  i'm not being ignorant; I love learning.  but i'll read what I want, and i'll take what I want from what I want to read.  life is all an operation of trial and error.  we are just as intelligent as the smartest being to ever exist.


I guess my point is:  i'm bothered I was told by teachers and college curriculum that I "need" 8 hours of sleep to be healthy.  I don't need 8 hours of sleep.  I only need 4.  furthermore, I am my own doctor, psychologist, teacher, philosopher... whatever other competent thing you can think.  And in conclusion?  we don't need outside sources.  the creator of the universe lives in us.  the universe is in us.  that's an incredible massive amount of greatness and intelligence.  there is nothing we cannot do.






three songs worth downloading:
Georgia, by Vance Joy
And if my heart should somehow stop, James Vincent McMorrow
Looking too closely, Fink


sleep well. 

lemons and limes.

i'm waiting on my coffee.  i finally went out and bought myself a small, fits-me-perfect kind of coffee pot.  my days have flip flopped themselves; they are my nights now, and my nights my days.  i love it.  i'm okay with it.  i love my own company.  i clean, eat, and journal.  and i've started wanting to be more.. more thoughtful, if you will.  send out cards to people, pay people more mind, yet still mind my own.  i've also started shopping in the fresh produce aisle, picking up lemons and limes, cucumbers and grapefruits for my water.  please, if you don't, take better care of yourself and love your own company.  you will be happier and will contribute more to this society. 

i found new facemasks to try!  i'm thinking about egg whites and honey.  probably going to try it this afternoon before i go to bed?  so excited.  i also decided tonight i would have coffee in my polka dotted mug.  it takes me back to late nights at mema's, journaling and jotting down my own opinions and thinkings on things.  i never thought i'd be where i am.  in the military.  and in north dakota, the coldest, most indecisive fickle place, i swear.  which, how ironic.  i would avoid at all cost those military booths set up in malls back home, and every time i passed one i told myself i would never join.  i'm amused.  truly.  in all honesty though, i don't mind being in the military, nor do i mind north dakota.  i've grown up.  i do mind my job description though.  i am a cop.  this sounds contradictory to my third to last sentence, but i would rather be a civilian, choose my own silverware and dishes, have a few jobs (i like a lot on my plate) at once, and take care of things, pursue things.  anymore i don't feel i have enough hours in my day for all the books i want to read, the things i want to do and see.  

lately i've been thinking adventurously and the god aspect of it, in the "impossible implication" kind of sense.  i believe i'm going to go somewhere beautiful.  or maybe i'm going to stay and see beautiful.  regardless, i have no doubts in my mind the movement of god is compelling me and being my energy to run and not walk towards all that i desire.  achievement is already my victory.  many things i want, but i don't yet have.  

i started counting my macros yesterday, rather than doing estimations in my head and not writing meals down.  it's amazing already how pure my body feels and how much more in order i feel.  i'd share my goals and what it is i'm after, but i'd rather not.  training has been brutal.  i'm concentrated and focused.  our bodies are temples, and i have a king living in mine.  divine greatness.  so not only is training brutal, it is worship too.  

it's about 0430 in the morning, and wild horses cannot keep me from the things i want:  productivity.  

gym time (:    

in-san-i-ty: (noun) doing the same thing over and over again but expecting to get different results.

i almost bought a coffee maker today.  figured it would be perfect for sweat pants, cardigans over tee shirts, and hands hugging old mugs you find at goodwill, while blogging on 3 day weekends that are normally smack dab in the middle of the week because you have a work schedule to blame.  

i picked up old habits because i missed them.  like blogging at 2 in the morning.  its a different kind of quietness at this hour.  it's the welcoming, comfortable kind that you find yourself wanting to talk to, as if it has a say too, and its conversation tops all others.  we are genuinely crazy.  writers are.  we have many facets and one face.  we like our work and are taught by product.  and words?  they are like projects.  we make them rich or poor.  hang them in art museums or keep them in our attics.  and sometimes, only sometimes, we speak too soon and end up feasting on an outcome we didn't ask for, spoiled or sweet, our words decided either way.  and oh, how we feel.  we feel with passion when we say whatever we say, making sure we have an audience to say things to, in pictures and in imagery.  which, no doubt, comes from the roots of our own quietness.

i'm restless and envious of freedom.  i've stopped biting my fingernails.  i eat well.  i count my blessings when i'm tired of a glass half empty.  but here it is:  life isn't a starbucks dark roast cup of coffee, one shot expresso, and three cream, throughout the week anymore.  nor is it songwriting and performing in small spaces for those appreciative of vintage coffee shops, acoutsics, barefeet and tangled mic chords.  it's not training three times a day either, waking up before the sun and illuminating longer than it.  i had a different kind of spirit.  i was clothed in my soul.  and let me tell you something.  wild horses could never keep me from anything i loved.  but today?  yes.  so i'm on this quest.  it's self-seeking.  some kind of acceptable insanity that will take me back to the places i loved.  perhaps, it's the pursuit of happiness.  or maybe it's something like a war with the wild horses.  regardless, let's be simple:  "do what you did, alyssa".

luckily i'm short, my pride doesn't stand me too tall.  taking falls is still humbling though.  and the way the wind blows, and the severity of its chill in north dakota, hop scotch or four square, you stay in your squares and scratch at the itches of your dry skin.  in the northern teir, that is.  it's incredible though, the amount we learn in our small squared spaces, those most uncomfortable places we were once at before and could have sworn we'd never come back to again.  you are where you are.  do what you did?  in the worst places you learned your loves and binded them to your heart.  don't shadowbox them so soon; love your loves.  your loves help you love, and love helps you live.  so we tame the wild horses, but don't escape their fires.  you do what you did.  you do it again.  only this time, a different state, west of home.

it's this thing called "courage".  i never knew it was required for a person to be who they believe they are.  it's a delicate subject for some and a dead battery for others.  or, a cigarette and a drive to chicago where train stations sit and keep people hanging around its ledges, dangling their feet off bridges close enough to the tracks.  for me, its pensiveness at 3 in the morning, a cup of coffee and a good blog; or a bodybuilding show i want to compete in but tell nobody; unreadable entries in my journal; independence in my heart.  the ideas i have of myself, who i am to myself, there isn't a need to explain myself.  i just am and you just are.  we are allowed to "be".  however we want to be, we are allowed to "be".  know this though:  it's entirely unavoidable.  courage is.  you need courage, because you can't "be", otherwise.  too many people have opinions.  and because you are an apple that fell from a tree, you are expected to be the tree you fell from.  be an apple tree, but don't plant your seeds where you fell.

i love, tonight.  i love, in this morning.  it's 4am, and i should have bought the coffee pot.

shell fish. (2013)

did you ever, like, write a letter to yourself because you didn't know how to talk to yourself, but you had to be the one to talk to yourself because you didn't want to hear what anybody had to say to yourself, because you know your wrong in more ways than just one.  in other words, note to self:  i'm selfish.  and i just decided i am going to title this post Shell Fish.  make the connection, people.

i met another writer today at work.  one of the members who signed himself into rehab.  and he made the most incredible statement.  he said something like, addiction is the chemical of apathy.  i always loved people like him, like absolutely adored them.  still do.  they live raw.  they love raw.  they're intentional in their seeking and end up white knuckled.  pure in their dirtiest form.  oh, the irony.  so to whom it may concern, please don't judge their wars.  thanks.

no men are reading this.  and neither is my mom, right?  i'm selfish, and i'm writing this all for me.  i need liberation.  know that being a blogger is humbling.  and another note to self?... our lives aren't our best picture we've ever taken sitting still in pretty picture frames.  we're attractive people who attract and are attracted to attractive issues.  think about it, an issue wouldn't be so if it didn't attract in the first place,  no?  ha.. let me run on a tangent for a short split second.  for some reason there is beauty in controversy.  that's all.  that was my second.  beauty in controversy.  always.    

it's late, i've just earned my degree in philosophy; bare with me or stop reading.  as of late, i've lost my memory.  i've lost the ability to even spell my name correctly.  act like you haven't, but you have before; i'm just one of the braver ones to write about it.  i call it, DAD.  a.k.a desperate attention disorder.  more irony for us:  wouldn't daddy love to know that.

it's the muscle, the pump, the veins and the cut off t-shirts.  i love men with muscle, proportion, and great form when they lift.  hence, muscle has become a god.  let's just be honest.  gold's gym, for me, would be like the equivalent of the golden calf that created so much controversy in the old testament of the bible.  see, writing this all out turns me off to my life style, that's why i need to do this.  i tried talking to jesus the other day like he was a passenger in my car.  i shut the music off, said hello, started my apologetic, this-is-what-i'm -supposed-to-say-to-you-in-this-situation kind of sentence, but couldn't even finish it.  every sentence was a cut off.  i couldn't even finish them, and to not be able to do that was frustrating.  i could have sworn it felt like i was birthing emotion; it's been that long since i've allowed myself a tear or two to sneak out of my eye sockets.  it was painful.  let me tell you, it isn't easy for me to cry.  i normally refuse it and think its fake, like sad emotion is pretend and tears are theatrical props.  that night it was the blood of my soul, though.

i pinpointed it.  i put my finger on it.  if it was a conversation, that conversation was one-sided.  cutoff sentences turned into complete verbalized thoughts i did not know existed.  i have faith, sure, but i'll be totally honest here:  i've given up on it, one, and two... this thing called apathy.  i told jesus i love my materialistic, superficial life so much that i'd rather beat the air and struggle everyday than have a relationship with him.  i told him it breaks my heart, probably breaks his more, that i've changed so much in the past year, but i don't want him.  then i shut up for about half a minute because i said something about a "heartbreak".  (note:  ever since that awful relationship, "heartbreak" to me has been dumb imagery.)  i heard what i said though, and i didn't like it.  a broken heart.  i tore the thought apart and put it back together really fast like it was an object i wasn't allowed to touch but was curious about.  our hearts are what keep us alive, and when they're broken we can barely function.  boom.  there is such a thing as heartbreak.  i was heartbroken.  no more argument, i finally agreed even though songs on the radio ruined its meaning for me.  i'm still heart broken.  

but i continued.  and i caved.  i get i'm "forgiven", christians; i don't need the speech.  i didn't forgive myself though, and i'm still having trouble.  i carry the guilt everywhere and the shame is heavy, more heavy than you can imagine.  so heavy i avoid going home as much as possible just so i don't have to have a conversation and lectures of alternatives that would somehow improve my life.  so i yelled it all at jesus.  talk about a long car ride.  i have such a pride issue but am nothing to be proud of.  i created the mess; i take full responsibility.  so i said my piece in the car at, like, midnight that night, didn't let him talk, wiped my snotty face with my stiff coat sleeve and left it all where it was.

a few days later.  it's saturday night.  yes, tonight.  i have a great back workout.  the sweat seems to be purifying enough, but i go to church afterwards.  God wants me, but of course i have to swallow my pride and "surrender".  draw near to him, he'll draw near to you.  so give me an image of him that is satisfactory and perhaps i'll consider, christians.  maybe i'll want to then.  make the spiritual world sound more real than this one and maybe i'll appreciate easter sunday and everything that happened.

it happened then.  out of no where i get this vision of God.  because i wasn't going to him, and he couldn't come to me since he respects me and my decisions and is a gentleman, every muscle of his was contracted, veins popping, teeth gritted, like he had to hold himself back from saving me even though he wanted more than anything to do that.  he is not passive or soft and feminine like we see in the pictures we hang in our homes.  he is more fierce than this.  and he loves me. 

happy halloween?

i'm partly fearful of the key clicks and the alphabet.  one, my mind has been absent, so, suddenly, here it is; it is presenting itself in the most informal, spontaneous, uncongratulating and unforgiving way.  and two, thoughts solidified are alphabet-manipulation; we would have no idea of what our thoughts were if we did not spell them out.  so here i am, spelling out my thoughts.  let's begin. 

first, let me apologize.  i'm disappointed i never moved to massachusettes and rented that spacious apartment with the pretty blue walls.  then again, the old mr. and mrs. were scammers.  so i changed my mind; i'm not disappointed.  however, i am disappointed i did not finish my college degree.  life was pending.  and, i'm a fickle woman.  not finishing a college degree though, what does that have to do with fickle?  that has plenty to do with stup-.  we'll stop there; no need to talk down on ourselves.  but yes, stupid.  absolutely.  i wanted spectacular, wanted to give you, my dear reader, something to grasp when i found what i was looking for.  like, some kind of pretty you'd find an adventure that brings you happiness.  simple.  happiness.

it was a rush and a joy to leave mahaffey.  there's something about repression that eases your state of mind.  i dare you to repress any kind of uncomfortable or dislike in your life though, and watch your body unwelcome your spirit.  you will become this haunted temple that has "no trespassing" and "restricted area" signs surrounding your heart, mind and soul.  you will be your own ghost, the way your mind will inconsiderately leave your body and cause all that you feel to vanish.  hash tag... happy halloween?  it's a POS (point of story) we have here:  repression kills us all.  i call it "lively suicide".  i bring this up only because i've mastered repression.  so much that i don't have memories.  not even good memories, because although they are "good" they are still relative to those that are "bad".  mahaffey, i don't remember that place.  when i left it, it was like "applied repression".  the hands on version.  a kind of lab work. 

it's unsettling the amount stress i put on myself because i think perfection is possible, like everybody except for me has achieved it.  i've recently learned that because i am not perfect, i become my own ghost.  escape my body and travel other places.  i had no idea the price to repress would be so high, the amount of people needed to push away and the feelings and emotions needing to be traded, for such a gift as this.  i'll never forget my grandparents 50th anniversary party.  my dad told me i was so gifted to be able to shut people out with no second thoughts and live like i never knew them.  absolute sarcasm. 

and, i dared you to repress?  you caught the sarcasm, yes?  don't repress.  it robs all happiness.  instead, take full responsibility for what you did, what you said, where you went.  own these things and establish yourself so you don't become unwelcomed in your own body.  a ghost.  a haunted temple.  um.. it's february.  carve some pumpkins in the snow, and accept yourself?  you'd swear i wrote this in october, it'd be so much more parallel to the season.  regardless, it's all that can be done.  acceptance, kindness, and painting toes.  love, otherwise, we are nothing.  and why we are nothing?  love is absent. 

sleep well.  it's past my bedtime by a long shot.