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I will share with you a little chinese poem I happened to come upon that I thought was pretty neat...
Substance, Shadow and SpiritSubstance says to Shadow...
Heaven and Earth endure eternally,
Mountains and streams will never change;
The plants know their natural course,
They wither and flourish in frost and dew.
Man should be above them in intelligence,
But he alone is unlike them:
A while ago he was living,
Now he is gone and will never return.
No one ever awakens from the dead;
Friends and relatives will not long remember him.
Looking at the things he used in his life,
Our eyes fill with tears.
I have no moral magic to overcome death:
Certainly death will overtake me.
I hope you will take my advice.
Whenever you have a chance, never refuse a drink.Shadow says to Substance...
Immortality is beyond comprehension,
And it is hard to preserve life.
I would wander on the heights of the Mountains,
But closed is the road to that place.
Since the day I met you we have shared
The same joys, the same sorrows.
In the shade we seem to part for a while,
But in the sun we are always together.
We cannot keep company forever:
Together we shal vanish in the darkness.
The name dies when the body comes to an end.
Such is the painful thought that consumes my heart:
Our descendants will love a virtuous man,
So why should you not exert yourself?
Though wine may melt our sorrows,
Nothing compares with deeds well done.Spirit expounds...
The Great Potter is always righteous.
All creatures appear with fullness and clarity.
Man takes his place between Heaven and earth--
Is it not on account of me?
Though I differ in nature from you both,
Ever since birth we have been together
With intimate sharing of good and ill.
I could not but speak to you.
The Three Emperors were great sages,
But where are they today?
P'eng Tsu enjoyed a grand old age:
If he had desired it, he could not stay.
Old and young meet the same death,
So do countless wiseacres and fools.
Only ceasless drunkeness brings forgetfulness,
Yet it hastens our end.
Virtuous deeds bring happiness,
But how can we be certain of praise?
ponder how all this harms our life.
We should resign ourselves to fate
And drift on the waves of Great Nature,
Niether joyfully nor fearfully:
When the end comes, let it come,
And no more cares beset you.I was browsing through this old anthology of chinese poetry, entitled "The White Pony", that I bought last summer for a nickel, and I came across all sorts of poems like this...I'm an insomniac, so I have a lot of time on my hands. I really like poetry, I wish I was more talented at it...I try, but I guess I'm never satisfied, I always feel that what I make is either contrived or missing something significant. Of course, I really hate letting other people read my work, so I have no way of knowing whether it's worth my time to write it or if its just a bunch of rubbish. Oh well.
With all those sleepless hours I had to kill last night, it would have been nice to have an internet connection. But, sadly, nothing was working. It was quite odd actually, I wasn't even getting reception on my television...not one channel was working.
I had gotten bored and decided to turn on some Adult Swim to pass the time a little quicker. Normally I read, but I had just finished a book that afternoon and didn't have the energy to start another one at 2am. When the reception cut off, I half expected the ground to start rumbling or my door to slam closed, anything bizarre, but I was sorely dissappointed. Nothing ever happens.
Anyways, after waiting for about a minute, I said 'screw TV, I'll go online'...but alas! I had no connectivity. At all.
I ended up painting a small picture with some acryllics and canvas board I recieved for Christmas. The painting kind of sucks, but at least I had something to do.
I finally ended up getting to sleep around 6:30 or so, and slept through my alarm once again and missed a whole day of class. I got up this afternoon at about three to find the apartment empty and not a single roll of toilet paper in the whole damned place.
Last night, I had to use the restroom and I replaced a finished roll with a new roll out of my roomate's drawer under her sink. Apparently, this was unacceptable because not only was the fresh roll missing from the bathroom, but all the rest of the rolls she had were gone as well. Sitting near her sink was a lot note detailing how, while she is gone (until Saturday! YES!), she wants us to take care of her snakes, down to waking up early to turn on her lights, feeding her mice, spraying down her cages with approximately 87 degree water, and all of this other bullshit. She didn't even write 'thanks' at the bottom or anything. Who the hell is this person? Oh, and she also left me a nice little note about how much I owe her for the bills I didn't even know we had recieved yet.
So, I ventured into her room to seek out some TP, and found yet another lovely suprise. The reason I didn't have any service was due to the fact that she must have disconnected her computer to take with her last night, and she didn't even bother to re-plug in the modem and router that is responsible for my internet signal. How considerate. She didn't even tell me she was taking her computer, she could have at least had the courtesy to tell me that I won't have internet for four days. So I ripped all the cables out from under her desk that concerned the modem and router, and placed them under MY desk, in MY room...where I know they will be responsibly managed. I haven't been able to use my internet service, which costs me about $30 a month, for 2 whole months now. I figured the problem had something to do with how faulty my computer is, but it turns out that my roomate didn't have enough plugs on her power tap for her snakes AND my router, and I guess she went with the snakes. All year she has been kicking it over, which I let slide...but this is out of line.
When she returns, I guess I'm going to have to explain to her that her irresponsibility and inconsideration is now going to cost her a pretty penny because she's going to have to invest in a wireless USB adapter. I have one, but if she can't share fucking TOILET PAPER or even a decent attitude, I'm sure as HELL not going to lend her my little $40 commodity. FUCK that.
Usually, I can let things slide, and I could really give a damn about her, her trivial problems that she creates for herself and the drama she creates...but this was too much. I dyed her hair for her on sunday for christsakes, and I did a damn good job...but shit like that doesn't account for anything when you're miserable. My only consolation is that I'm sure she's going to work for Rite Aid the rest of her life. She will never have enough money to do what she wants because she is a walking example of your average, American
consumer whore; EVERYthing she buys is name brand (to displace the void left by her insecurity, I assume) and she will never have a good friend for the rest of her life. Unless, of course, she decides to grow up. Projecting your own misery onto others,
blaming them for it, does not score popularity points...and she just lost a fairly tolerant person whom has tried to stay her friend, help her and humor her. But thats her problem, not mine. She's not taking ME down with her.
Saturday, I guess, will be the day of reckoning. I am going to sit her down, tell her the situation with the internet, express my disgust with her selfishness (regarding the TP, among other things) and her overall negative influence on the atmosphere of the appartment, and that she owes me $85 for a certain tobacco* smoking apparatus, which we split equally at the beginning of the year (which I guess she thinks she was just going to keep because "by the end of the year, Alyssa is going to owe me at least that much money" according to a friend). Oh, and I'm going to tell her that if she doesn't start taking responsibility for her messes, especially in the kitchen, I am going to just deduct out of the monthly bills how much I feel she owes me for my time cleaning up her stupid, disgusting shit. I will leave very little room for compromise.
I can't WAIT.
...fyi, if you couln't already tell...at the moment I am fairly PISSED. I don't normally go off like this about people, but today my threshold has been breeched. I feel much better now that I have written about it, much less hostile, much farther away from violence. I think I'm going to take a hot shower...and maybe get drunk. Sorry about venting, thanks for stopping by and TAKE CARE.
