Life lessons from Doctor Who

I've recently been enjoying watching the rebirth of the british television series Doctor Who introduced to me by a friend at work. I noticed an uptick in Doctor Who apparel this year at GenCon and I wondered what all the fuss was about. This friend is a big fan of the series and he's graciously shared his DVD collection of the series with me. So each weekday afternoon, I heat up my lunch, grab my DVD and sit down for an episode of The Doctor.

I was a bit unsure in the very early stages, but I have to admit that Christopher Eccleston drew me in as my first Doctor.  When David Tennant took over at the end of Season 1 (the Doctor doesn't ever die. He just regenerates), I was crushed and swore my eternal allegiance to CE, but now I love DT.  Sigh. A girl can be fickle, right?

Along with the Doctor, there are also the Doctor's companions. The first companion that I was introduced to was Rose Tyler. She was a somewhat simple shopgirl from London. She was fun, but a tad clingy and always dumping her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Micky, whenever the Doctor glanced in her general direction. She ended her run with the Doctor scratching and clawing trying to get back to him, essentially.

His next companion was Martha Jones, a medical student and a woman with her own mind. Her run with the Doctor only lasted one season with him and I most definitely related to her closing lines as she left the Doctor standing in his Tardis setting out on his next adventure:

Martha Jones:   I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but you know what? I AM good.... Are you gonna be all right?

Doctor Who:      Always. Yeah.

Martha Jones:   Right then. Bye.

{leaves the Tardis. Returns a moment later} 

….’Cause the thing is….it’s like my friend Vicki. She lived with this bloke. Student housing. There were five of them all packed in and this bloke was called Shawn. And she loved him. She did. She COMPLETELY adored him. Spent all day long talking about him.

Doctor Who:      Is this going anywhere?

Martha Jones:   Yes! …’Cause he never looked at her twice. I mean, he liked her. That was it. And she wasted years pining after him. Years of her life. Because while he was around, she never looked at anyone else. And I told her…I always said to her…time and time again, I said, “Get. Out.” ......So this is me. Getting out.

Christina Perri - The Lonely

The Lonely

2am; where do I begin,

Crying off my face again.

The silent sound of loneliness

Wants to follow me to bed.

I'm a ghost of a girl that I want to be most.
I'm the shell of a girl that I used to know well.

Dancing slowly in an empty room,
Can the lonely take the place of you?
I sing myself a quiet lullaby.
Let you go and let the lonely in
To take my heart again.

Too afraid to go inside
For the pain of one more loveless night.
But the loneliness will stay with me
And hold me til I fall asleep.

I'm a ghost of a girl that I want to be most.
I'm the shell of a girl that I used to know well.

Dancing slowly in an empty room,
Can the lonely take the place of you?
I sing myself a quiet lullaby.
Let you go and let the lonely in
To take my heart again.

Broken pieces of
A barely breathing story
Where there once was love
Now there's only me and the lonely.

Dancing slowly in an empty room
Can the lonely take the place of you?
I sing myself a quiet lullaby
Let you go and let the lonely in
To take my heart again.

"As it seems"

"As it Seems" by Lily Kershaw

Well I knew what I didn't want to know; and I saw where I didn't want to go.

So I took the path less traveled on and I'll let my stories be whispered when I'm gone..

When I'm gone

When I'm gone

When I'm gone

Well in this life you must find something to live for, cause when the darkness comes a callin' you'll go back to where you were before. Cause this life is as fragile as a dream, and nothing's ever really as it seems...

As it seems

As it seems

As it seems

Well I lost my innocence when in I let him dive, but the way that he looked at me made me feel alive. And now I know nothin' at all, but the release that comes when you're in mid fall...

In mid fall

In mid fall

In mid fall

Cause in this life you must find something to live for; cause when the darkness comes a callin' you'll go back to where you were before. Cause this life is as fragile as a dream, and nothing's ever really as it seems... 

As it seems

As it seems

As it seems

Tristan Prettyman - New album out October 2nd!

"I Was Gonna Marry You"

I gotta go
Time to spread my wings and fly
Higher than the blue sky
Never did me any good
Waiting around
Only so much that my heart can take
It doesn’t matter what you say
Wishing for all we could-have-been

Just so you know just so you know
I never thought you'd let me go
I don’t even know the truth
Yeah we were fine, yeah we were fine
Then all at once you changed your mind
And I was gonna marry you

I gotta stay
As far away as I can get
Cuz a part of me hasn’t left
If I get too close you're gonna pull me back in to
Thinking everything you said was true
But the ring around my finger proved
That I was your girl
But in the end it wasn’t what you wanted

Just so you know just so you know
I never thought you'd let me go
I don’t even know the truth
Yeah we were fine, yeah we were fine
Then all at once you changed your mind
And I was gonna marry you
Yeah I was gonna marry you

Take all the words you’ve spoken
And the promises you’ve broken
And throw them all into the ocean
Just to let it be
And late at night
When you're lying in your bed alone
Wishing you were still at home
But we both know its too late

Just so you know just so you know
I never thought to let you go
I don’t even know the truth
Just so you know just so you know
I never thought you'd let me go
I don’t even know the truth
Yeah we were fine, yeah we were fine
Then all at once you changed your mind
And I was gonna marry you
I was gonna marry you.

Reduce, Renew, Resuscitate

source

Sometimes silence is golden.

Sometimes silence is lonely.

Sometimes silence is just an opportunity to catch our breaths.

I've been silent on here for a while. This isn't an apology and I'm not going to offer any excuses.

For me, this blog is at times a diary, a confessional, a scrapbook, a release valve..... It's here for me in a way that I don't have the courage to ask any people in my life to be. It does not judge. It's not too busy. It doesn't care if I call it at 2 in the afternoon or 3 in the morning.

But sometimes I need a break from even the best of listeners, I guess. So I went away...sort of. In some ways I think I was just trying to find cover until the dust had settled.

source

Back at the beginning of January when I begrudgingly welcomed in the new year, I complained about this sort of cloud that seemed to cover everything from my physical and financial well-being to the sad state of my bedroom and love life. Little did I know that my world was going to be turned upside-down in the month and a half to come.  In that time, many people and possessions moved out of my life. Some I chose to discard. Others were things I would have preferred to hang on to.

 Either way they are things that the universe knows I no longer need for the future ahead of me.

So I come here now having cleaned out the purse that is my life. There are new people in my life. There is a new list of adventures to keep me busy and interested in life. There is a new future ahead of me. I have no idea what it looks like, but perhaps it's time for me to stop being silent and to start making noise again.

101 in 1001 List #3

101 in 1001 List #3

04/16/2012 - 01/11/2015

1. Answer 100 questions from Proust.com
2. Ask 3 people what their favorite movie is and watch it with them
3. Ask someone out on a date - Completed 5/11/2012
4. Attend a family reunion
5. Attend a late night movie premiere
6. Attend a spinning class
7. Attend my 20-Year HS reunion  - Completed 9/29/2012
8. Attend Trivia night at a pub
9. Build a sand castle
10. Complete 3 incomplete items from List #1 - (1/3)
11. Complete 3 incomplete items from List #2 - (2/3)
12. Complete a 1000 piece puzzle  - Completed 7/15/2012
13. Complete a coloring book
14. Complete the 100 Snapshots list #2
15. Create an inspiration board
16. Crochet a sweater
17. Crochet socks - Completed 7/3/2012
18. Crochet something for charity
19. Decorate my bedroom in a way that is totally me
20. Do 3 minutes of stretching each day
21. Do something fun and fabulous for my 40th birthday
22. Do something fun at 12:12 on 12/12/12
23. Do brunch  - Completed 12/1/2012
24. Do the 200 sit-ups challenge
25. Dress up in a homemade costume every Halloween
26. Eat at 10 new restaurants - (5/10)
27. Eat no fast food for a month
28. Feed an animal at the zoo
29. Fold 1000 paper cranes - (955/1000)
30. Get a tattoo
31. Get asked for my phone number  - Completed 12/12/2012
32. Get up without hitting the snooze button for one week
33. Give a 100% tip
34. Go on 10 first dates  - (2/10)
35. Go on 5 second dates - (2/5)
36. Go on 2 third dates - (1/2)
37. Go on a scavenger hunt
38. Go to a roller derby match  - Completed 12/29/2012
39. Go to Burning Man
40. Go to the ballet
41. Go to the opera
42. Have $xxx,xxx in my 401k plan - (83%)
43. Have a maid service come in and clean 3 times
44. Hike 5 miles of the Appalachian Trail
45. Host a game night
46. Join RPUMC
47. Kiss someone at midnight on New Years
48. Kiss someone in the rain
49. Kiss someone under the mistletoe
50. Lay at the edge of the water on a beach and let the tide wash over me
51. Learn how to decorate a cake
52. Learn to make one really great appetizer
53. Learn to make one really great salad
54. Learn to make one really great entrée
55. Learn to make one really great dessert

56. Learn to play 3 songs on the guitar 57. Learn to play 3 songs on the piano 58. Learn to roll sushi 59. Learn to swim under water without holding my nose 60. Make 3 things from instructables.com 61. Make a 100-song play list that I never get tired of listening to 62. Make a list of 10 great things about me and post it somewhere I'll see it 63. Make a pie on Pi day (March 14th) 64. Make a video about a day in my life 65. Make homemade doughnuts 66. Make pasta 67. Meet someone famous 68. Paint a picture and hang it in my house 69. Participate in 4 breast cancer fundraising events 70. Participate in 6 Devour Downtown menus 71. Participate in a mini-triathalon 72. Participate in Project 333 73. Ride in a gondola 74. Ride my motorcycle across the Mackinac Bridge 75. Sew a dress and wear it 76. Sew a shirt and wear it 77. Sew a skirt and wear it 78. Sew some pants and wear them 79. Spend a day at the beach 80. Spend a day in the desert 81. Spend a day in the mountains 82. Spend no more than $8/day on food for the entire 1001 days ($59/$8,008) 83. Start a birthday tradition 84. Take a 1000+ mile road trip 85. Take a photo in the capital of each state in the contiguous US  - (1/48) 86. Take a photo of the same place every month for year and then turn it into a calendar       for the next year 87. Take a vacation by myself for at least 2 days at least 100 miles from home 88. Throw a Cinco De Mayo Party 89. Throw a New Year's Eve party 90. Throw a Superbowl Party 91. Throw away all of my underwear and start again 92. Unplug for a weekend 93. Use the Wii once a week 94. Visit 26 cities - one for each letter of the alphabet and take a photo by a sign with       the city name on it 95. Visit 3 National Parks/Monuments/Historic Sites/etc 96. Walk Sasha an average of 20 minutes every day 97. Watch 26 movies I've not seen (1 for each letter of the alphabet)  - (9/26) 98. Watch the sun rise and set in the same day 99. Win more than $10 on a lottery ticket  - Completed 1/18/2013 100. Write Madi a note every week 101. Create another 101 List

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is 

you must lose things, 

feel the future dissolve in a moment 

like salt in a weakened broth. 

What you held in your hand, 

what you counted and carefully saved, 

all this must go so you know 

how desolate the landscape can be 

between the regions of kindness. 

How you ride and ride 

thinking the bus will never stop, 

the passengers eating maize and chicken 

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, 

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho 

lies dead by the side of the road. 

You must see how this could be you, 

how he too was someone 

who journeyed through the night with plans 

and the simple breath that kept him alive. 

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, 

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. 

You must wake up with sorrow. 

You must speak to it till your voice 

catches the thread of all sorrows 

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, 

only kindness that ties your shoes 

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread, 

only kindness that raises its head 

from the crowd of the world to say 

It is I you have been looking for, 

and then goes with you everywhere 

like a shadow or a friend. 

—Naomi Shihab Nye