4 AM; The Mind Reels

    As my lovely dog keeps me up with her snoring, I venture online to catch up on my favorite blogs since I failed to bring my books in from the car. I've noticed that I much prefer blogs with a small audience, that I simply happen across. I find that major bloggers write less about their life and work more on presenting this image of themselves, or this way they wish to be seen and, let's face it, that is my number one pet peeve. Somehow I found this blog Dysalexia and I highly recommend it. It's so lovely to find people who you feel as if you must have been friends with in an alternate life, or must know on some Twilight-Zone, other plane of existence, and this girl is one of those people. She's the one who actually made me finally switch to Blogger. Anyway.
    I'm terribly predictable lately. I keep busy until late and try to sleep but, like clockwork, at 3 AM my mind begins to fill with all of these ideas. Usually I stumble for whatever utensil is nearest to scribble it down on--a receipt, a dust-jacket, myself--and go to bed. But I'm positively charged with my thoughts, and that no longer seems to be enough to get them out.
    I've missed being in a community of writers terribly, and I crave people to discuss literature and poetry with. Anyone who I have met who claims to, "love poetry!" has read perhaps one or two writers and hardly that. I realize I sound stuck up, but it all ties in with my earlier statement. The problem is this; it seem that the things I love have become some sort of status statement and I have no interest in whatever connotation they seem to carry. It has become fashionable to be 'artsy', whatever that even means... I by no means consider myself 'artsy' or 'not artsy' or whatever other label you care to subscribe to or want to stick on me. I like what I like, and that has always been enough. I have no interest in people who are more interested in the image something perpetuates than the thing itself. 
    I absolutely adore people who know what they're talking about. Let me explain: I have a penchant for passionate people. It really, in the end, doesn't matter WHAT they are passionate about (given or course that it is not nazism or homophobia or something ridiculously horrid like that) and honestly I love people who are knowledgable about things I know little about. What attracts me is the fact that not only can I learn about this person's passion, but it shows me that this person has something that they are willing to throw themselves into completely. That takes courage and it takes love. I want those sort of people in my life; those courageous, loving, knowledge hungry people of the world who will challenge me to grow and and maybe even make me reconsider my beliefs. I believe that constant re-evaluation of yourself and your values is not only the best way to grow, but the best way to develop confidence and integrity in those beliefs.