User Profile

• 
  TMI Happens
  See a TMI Moment
• 
  Tiara

I'm a human being with a sense of humor. I'm too mundane for the strange, and too strange for the mundane. Reading my journal is the best way to start to know me. Going through my interests lists is good, too. Check out my notes to new (and old) readers and a fresh look (at me) entries. And it turns out my OKCupid profile can be informative, too. :)
Also, I'm married to tom_vroom, so checking out his LJ might be of interest. =)
Another journal you might want to check out is webulous, which is also me. :) Finally, I used to use the handle GypsyJen/GypsyJenx, here and on alt.callahans.

My old tagline from A.C. is worth keeping around:
"Grow until your mind is the size of the world. Do not try to compress the
world to make it fit inside your mind." - Charles Ardai

Why do I keep a public journal? Why am I so big on truth?

"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." - Anon.
"People who live in glass houses have to answer the bell." - Bruce Patterson
"People who live in glass houses always have the best view." - Ace Lightning

I seek to make of my soul a glass house. - Me

That's why.

That said, I do keep some things limited access. (A small area of tinted glass, if you will. :)

Please NOTE: This journal is not censored for children. This means that if you are under the age of adulthood in your area, your primary caregiver will need to review this journal and determine whether you will be allowed to read it.

Links I Recommend (Often and With Enthusiasm):
I Used To Believe
Astronomy Picture of the Day (aka APOD)
Reuters Oddly Enough News


Jen Says

Death will always be my friend, even as life is my lover.

I want hot chocolate and hugs and green leaves and stars and everything that makes me smile and cry at the same time...

"The song of my life...sad and starry and wild and free and wind-blown and driven and passionate and strong, and somewhere, somehow, I cross over the edge into something beyond happiness, but ecstasy isn't the word. Peace, it's like. Joy, maybe. Yes, joy.

And joy. :)"

When the only method of argument allowed us is belief, the argument is inherently useless.

Today's hindsight is tomorrow's foresight.

There are plenty of things worth dying for, but very few worth killing for.

I can't worry about healing old wounds that have scarred over, because they are a part of me, too. I need to learn to love the scars, is all. That I can do. I'm good at love.

There's a difference between a scar and a scab. Scars are done...they're healed over, even though the mark remains. Scabs aren't. So it's important to determine, when one feels a bump, whether it is a scar or a scab.

"I have more than once sat in my car somewhere and just screamed and screamed, with a bit of swearing and sometimes crying.
Sometimes you just have to let it out.

Sometimes, you just have to take a DEEP breath, look at it all again, and let it go.

Sometimes you have to cry shatteringly for an hour or so.

Sometimes you just have to encounter one critical bit of joy.

There's no answer but the one you find for yourself. *hugs*"

It's as if I am sand, blown and shaped by wind...but the wind is me as well. There's a strange flow to me, that even I don't really understand and only occasionally even sense. I am wind and sand, neither one more than the other, and I'm simple me and complex me, and if only I had a language...

Wisdom is the reclamation of innocence.

I know that life and death are the ebb and flow of an infinite ocean, and I know how to watch the water and I know how to swim.

Sorrow is far better than anger to carry around.

Attitude is the difference between a bump in the road and a real trip.

On friendships/relationships:
"One can only beat one's head against a brick wall so many times, even if it's a lovely brick wall that one cared about as if one had built it him/herself, even if the brick wall honestly believes that it is not a wall at all but that the other is the wall. Sometimes, the door in the wall (or walls) just can't be found.

It's an extremely hard, painful thing to come to terms with, but it is what it is. Life goes on and passes far too quickly to get lost in what-if and if-only. Letting go is sometimes really the only answer.

Fortunately, life is usually far more full of doors and windows than walls."

"You can go on grieving all your life, but that way lies nothing but sorrow; let yourself grieve it out, hard, once, till you're wrung out, and then gently shut the door, place a nice sachet or something soft and durable on it, and walk away. Every once in a while, you come up on the door, and you pat the sachet and remember that this door is closed and done.
Life is too, too short, as you well know, and we have people that love us and need us and a wide, beautiful world to live in...we make the choice, every day, sometimes every minute, to stay in it, to really, truly live..."

In answer to the question, "So what keeps you keepin' on when all you want to do is give up and never get up again?"
It's only temporary...it's ALWAYS temporary. So if it's bad, I know it'll go away and I just have to hang on till it does, and if it's good, I know to cherish it like crazy 'cause it'll be gone sooner than I want it to. (I'm human, so sometimes I don't do so good at the cherishing of long-term things, but I do okay.)
Also, it could pretty much always be worse...and if it can't, it can only get better.
I concentrate on the amazing little things; wind, trees, birds, breathing, feeling...till I remember how astonishingly wonderful just getting to be alive is.
It IS about living your life...part of why I know that is because my parents were far too prone to sacrificing themselves on the altar of their children, and it's tragic. You can't throw their needs and desires out the window, of course, but you should always strive for balance, find ways to make sure you get what you need to keep you going and reasonably happy and content most of the time...which makes it a lot easier to get through the times when the balance is such that you DO have to sacrifice yourself for a while.
Finally, I force myself to get out of my own head (without burying the bad stuff so that it comes back later and bites me even harder); I get involved in someone else's problems, help a friend or a stranger, do instead of think, things like that, and the next thing I know I've moved past the bad stuff somehow.

Shakespeare wrote and Jenny frequently repeats:

"If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended, that you but slumbered here, while these visions did appear..."

"This above all: To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."
(In Shakespeare's way, I always think this was a play on words; it seems to talk of loyalty, but, to me, it speaks of honesty. :)

QuitMeter Counter courtesy of www.quitmeter.com.

Note: I went to NIU from '92 to '97, burned out, and came back and finished my degree 2000-2001.

Friends (58):

Friend of (110):