I just found out that the first American woman to win four gold medals for swimming has asthma. Does that help?

That a gold medal winner got to use inhalers?
?!?
i think we speak of different things, but i'm just pausing between equipment movement right now.

Every time I watch Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind I get a renewed sense of purpose and desire to be a genuinely better person. It doesn't last because in the end that kind of thing has to come from inside.

You may now all point and laugh.

eth, I would also like somebody to encourage me to become a better person. Maybe we can make some kind of pact?

box, how are you not a good person? How do you think you can raise your "better person" quotient? I think you're good enough as is. :)

i think i should clarify my meaning but am slightly tipsy, so bear with me if you must--
i was speaking of a muse as a kind of constructive crush, someone or an idea of someone you do things for or in spite of, in the name of or in honor of or consciously not involving--
i'll get better at this once i can think of it in word form.

Sure, box, i think we could easily make a pact. Mail me, i've hoped we could talk again.

So you're looking for your Beatrice? A lofty and perhaps satifying goal.

Thanks, Lori.

I don't think I'm a bad person (or that there's such a thing as 'bad people,' really), but I wouldn't mind being a better one, either.

Among other things, I'd like to give more gifts (and spend less money on myself), and be better at keeping in touch with my far-flung friends (and visit 'em more often), and write more brief reviews of the books and movies and albums and games and whatnot that I consume (here's a brief review: that new Antibalas album, Security, is amazing).

eth, check your email. But I'm no Beatrice. I'm not even a Bea Arthur, or an Aunt Bea, or a Beezus.

i dunno about lofty conceits, but consumation isn't as necessary as some amount of reciprocation.
Something to do with hopes and goals and deathless executions.
More of encouraging endeavors and finding an honored but limited and appreciative audience.
Ascending to a new plane of perception and existence is almost always experienced alone.

On a slightly sidestepped stance, i think it's easier for people to focus on a single person rather than the wealth of humanity in many endeavors. If nothing else, the results are more easily observed.

box - I didn't know Antibalas had released a new album. Who is this America was my number 2 album of 2004.

Bad girl! Go to your studio and make stuff! Either that or go to my room!

if i had a studio, i'd be there. If i could go to your room, i'd set it on fire, possibly figuratively.
And yet never shall there be anything between us, loq, as marxism is not new to me, and verbosity will never be a substitution for the well chosen word.

i am a very bad girl with all the best intentions.

Sorry, loq, but i'm tired of shutting up overly intellectual boys so they can be in the moment, and tired of hoping the unintellectual boys would just play video games in the other room so i can read and get things done until i have use for them.
i could detail out my problems and needs right now but i don't want to hear it.

What i would like right now is a big bag just for listening to all the music i haven't heard, room to make a mess and the proper tools for it, not to have to be the entertaining one but to be entertained without my spacing out as i came up with ideas being rude, a fan and an interesting scent in the air, a kitten and a lack of allergens, a spell that removes all dust always, the ability to be invisible and teleport, and so many many things that i would explain if you gave me the outline and or boundaries to explain it in.

i would like everyone to be happy but the means to making myself happy would be good as i use to be good at making other people happy or at least somewhat intrigued as to what there was outside what they knew that could make them more intrigued or at least momentarily distracted.

if i had a studio, i'd be there. If i could go to your room, i'd set it on fire, possibly figuratively.
And yet never shall there be anything between us, loq, as marxism is not new to me, and verbosity will never be a substitution for the well chosen word.

Ouch! Oof! You're probably way too interesting and inflammable for the likes of me, anyway. I'm tungsten and magnesium - you, perhaps ether - or ethylene.

Spirited. If exposed to fumes move victim to fresh air, keep away from heat, sparks, flame or other ignition sources.

not to have to be the entertaining one but to be entertained without my spacing out as i came up with ideas being rude

If anyone solves that one, let me know. The best I've come up with is solitude. Which is nice, but not forever. Good communication and understanding or likeminded friends is a close second place.

would like everyone to be happy but the means to making myself happy would be good as i use to be good at making other people happy or at least somewhat intrigued as to what there was outside what they knew that could make them more intrigued or at least momentarily distracted.

As for others, so for yourself.

By all means do make people happy. I know you know how, and certainly why, and perhaps you remember when and where. Whom is always the question, and the answer is - of course - "anyone", and it's always the littlest things that mean the most.

I could stop here and be relatively precise and less verbose, but there's more.

I may be stating the obvious but to be perfectly clear I don't speak of pair-bonding, shacking up - or, least of all my clumsy and cliched anti-flirtations - but I speak of friends and neighbors and strangers and humanity.

People need to hear good things about themselves. More than ever, at a seemingly critical moment, we need a great deal of light in this world, a deluge of it, a cresting tidal wave of it. But moreso, rivers, streams, creeks and springs of it, here, there, and everywhere, lacing together across the land.

There's enough of the world trying to tear people down, TV/media and advertising in particular, not to mention all the lost, bitter assholes - neither contemptible nor weak nor pitious, but depressing and annoying, certainly.

People simply knowing that someone knows they exist matter. Kind words matter, compliments matter. Little art gifts matter. Things of hand and heart and soul, but not always any particular meaning or importance outside of giving/sharing - enlightening.

Enlightening as in weight-sharing, of a greater lightness of spirit, as well as to illuminate.

I know you know what I'm talking about - while there are a great deal of things I could never dare to assume about you, there are a fair amount that I could, and one I'm pretty confident in assuming about you, ethylene, from reading your posts and comments for some time is that you're neither evil nor malicious, but very probably rather well intentioned and soft of heart for the broad spectrum of human experience, and the myriads of sufferings there among the joys. Probably uncommonly so. No matter how zig-zagged and baroque and colorful the cloth you cut yourself from or present yourself in.

So, do your making people happy thing. But remember to include yourself in the picture, and well and thoroughly. Not just nibbling, famishing on the crumbs and crusts while others feast.

It seems to me that learning to include oneself in that sphere of outgoing love is important, and it isn't easy.

It seems easier to give, than it is to effortlessly and gracefully receive. And even harder to do both all at once.

So, try again. It's the same exact skillset you've used to make others happy, to intrigue or inspire them. Just include yourself in the fun and it pretty much seems to take care of itself from there.

Best skill and luck. I mean it, and for entirely selfish reasons, because I believe my own world needs more people like you - here, there and everywhere, in my life or out - because we all benefit in the end.

yrs,

loq.

Ok, I could volunteer as an artistic muse, but not a moral one.

Oh, loq, don't take me harshly, because if you had a studio, i would gladly move in. except i expect you need more fiercely than myself.
You're right, i don't have it in me to be evil although i have been trained in being cruel.
But i think you are looking for a studio as much as i am and we can't help each other there at all.
It is hardest for some as we might be to help ourselves, and maybe we can be compatriots except i worry once again i would have to take the lead and be the pragmatic one.
i'm nothing special (it keeps the parasites down) and never will be, mostly because of my endeavors to that end, so here's a song to sing until we find an angel.

i don't ever expect to be happy except in short bursts when the suffering of humanity abates to recharge like a hurricane back out to sea.

rainbaby, maybe i can use you use as a model if nothing else. You have that aestetic appeal.

I dunno, eth. Maybe I'm being too literal, but I always figured that the best muse any artist could have would be themselves. Not in a self-absorbed way, but in the sense that you're the only person you ever have to please, artistically speaking.

I suspect you're getting at a bigger picture, though. Since Mr. Headache is camping out behind my eyes right now, I'll just say that what loquacious had to say is good stuff. That, and I hope you find your happiness.

i think we are at an impasse at what a muse is or what the word means. Semantics will be the death of us all, and i'm pretty sober now (comparatively).
One can't really ask for someone to be their muse, much like one can't ask for permission to have a crush. i was just being jokey in the contemporary way of personal ads and open pen pal offerings, but not insincerely.

A muse isn't really a someone so much as an idea of someone, someone that brings out the best of you, someone who deserves the best of you and your attempts at something greater than the exertions of the everyday. They can be a real person but in the unreal terms of someone or something to aspire to, someone who brings out the best in you because you want to be and do this for them, because so often an external reason seems more worthy or accountable than "doing it for yourself."
That is why sometimes it is "in spite of."
For instance, once i was working on a painting for my mother of pretty flowery things. It wasn't working for me so i abandoned the idea of doing it for her and did it for me. It turned out to be one of the few paintings i genuinely liked and still do. In that case it was in spite of the reason for it (mom) and something she would hate or discount in perplexity.

A muse is an aspiration more than an inspiration. A goal at the end of a path even if you diverge from the path, but to have it anchored by something material makes it more tangible.

Once, i was in love with someone. Completely undeserving of it, of course, but it spurred me into a creative jag that lasted for weeks that i did more than in part because of that person. That person did everything they could to keep me from getting anything done.
It would be nice to fall in love but right now i'd rather be inspired or have something to aspire to.

Giving up is never as easy as it should be.
Hope will nag you like a petulant child, and so we distract it with tibdits and bobbles until we can slip away to a corner too far and dank to be bothered with.

I was being jokey before, of course, ethylene, but I am genuinely puzzled by your moral qualifications for a muse. To me, a muse is purely outside of moral realativity, just inspires one to create.

Perhaps you wish to find a guru?

i don't know where morality comes into it. When i say better, i don't mean like some story book version of Jesus, i'm talking in terms of work and creation. The muse is really only there for the spark, the ignition, not the gas or the machine.
i just want the sparkler.
Being a better person creatively, transcending commonplace work.

Right now i'm just going to be a cleaner person and take a bath.