"life is what happens when you're making other plans"

it's absolutely astounding how quickly things change sometimes - even when you are forewarned of a thing coming to pass, it's like you never really knew until it sneaks up on you, throws a bag over your head and proceeds to beat you senseless.

picture me, just plodding along, making a few choices here, a few decisions there, and then - BAM! there i am writhing in the middle of the street as blow after blow lands on the head of the little clock-maker who sits in my soul staring out at the world. insignificant decisions can really get you if your not careful. know what i mean?

no?

well, i go through this about every year or two. one of these episodes is why i have a spiral tattoo:

- from summer 04

this was a few years ago. in the course of a few months, a series of small impulses had changed who i thought i was. i started eating fish for the first time in 13 years: i started wearing a watch (only to spite the time i still do not believe in) for the first time in 12, i bought a wallet - 12 years as well; wore tank tops - 10 years and threw myself into a very strange living situation with nearly total strangers - never.

(it's funny how our habits are such integral parts of ourselves and yet, they are not ourselves - change almost everything about yourself and you are still, well, you). after all these little changes, i felt that i knew myself much better and was therefore at the point in my life that i could get my spiral.

the path is understanding
the method is the spiral

i recently explained this concept to livewire - the spiral is understanding. i believe that the only way you ever understand something is by coming back around to it again and again - and even if the thing itself never changes, you do and so your worldview expands in spirals. but its more than that as well. for there are times that the thing does change - this happens a lot with people and places - they change and yet are more the same - like you - and it forces you to understand yourself better. get it?

now? now i think "it never rains but it pours" is a good description of my life. it's like the universe sensed that i was making a change and decided this seemed like a good idea.

ok ok - over the past few months i made one big, but seemingly innocent decision: i decided to go to school for graphic design and BAM! i now have a car - which, cause it's been a few years since i've needed one, has changed nearly everything superficial about my life. spring is here, with it's aura of change, and so my housing situation is different: the woman that i've spent far too much time and energy bitching about is out of my life! and this super cool dude is gonna take her place. he's even decided that he wants to stay on for another year if we do. so this means I DON'T HAVE TO MOVE!! woohoo! (mysfit's note: if you could see me now, i be doing the happy dance of not packing)

and here's the kicker - i haven't told you much about my work situation. mostly it just is. but for more than a year i have been working two part-time temp jobs (the same two) and apparently they like me. both of them in the course of a week have talked to me about the possibility of full-time employment! neither has made an offer yet but this promises that sometime in the near future, the lurking mandate of change is going to once again pound my head into the pavement of the future. and this time... forewarned as i am... i will definitely... be totally... and utterly... surprised.

for all our presumed magnificence, man always stands naked before the thunderstorm