ghosts

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bow your heads and be sad a moment.

on my way home i reacted a second too slowly and i murdered a squirrel. murdered it so well that i heard it's bones crunch and it's body explode under my tires.

that's it i'm really sad and faintly ill. i didn't go back to see if it was all the way dead either, i couldn't bear the idea of having to run over it twice. it's a busy road, i think it's been extra squished now... i hope. i think.
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oh yes

*waves*

hello weekenders ... all six of you.
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i still have the funny cough but it's starting to clear up a little. i should track pollen counts and compare. feels like a cold that's improving slowly though.

my upper lungs feel a little heavy so i am monitoring.
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okay so, i took a gait workshop today and it was awesome.

we talked about the muscles of the leg and the lumbar spine and the thoracic spine and how it all relates back to watching people walk and we compared ourselves to each other and showed off our broken bits and generally learned a lot.

there was a bit of a personal funny because one of the ladies taking the class is also an actress who was a regular visitor on a show i watched for the duration of it's run. so i kept looking over and seeing her as she was when she was in the clothing appropriate to that show rather than seeing her fantastic orange top.

well it was more of a superimposition.

and probably every time that i've seen her on television i've related her back to that first role that i saw her in and i probably always will.

you know, like how whenever faith or willow are on tv it's faith or willow who have new careers as actresses rather than the original people in their new jobs. don't get me wrong, i'm okay with willow having a day job as an actress, i mean being a super witch is kind of hard and doesn't pay the bills.

and being an actress seems like a super wicked job.

but somehow people sort of are the first thing you see them as. even if you meet them wearing a costume and you're fully aware that they're wearing a costume.

like the guy i met at the wear what you wear to bed party. he was wearing a candy g string thingy. of course he's gay.

and everytime i see him now i actually imagine him in those candy underwear and i have to sort of shake my head and remember that he's also a really good climber and a nice man with wit [hee, who thinks that my ass is fabulous!] {dudes he's GAY and he likes my ASS so it must actually be fucking rockingly good... *dance of joy*}.

but there's this image in my head. with the candy and the thong.

and it's just living there.

and it makes you wonder a little about the people in your life, especially the ones you've known for a long time. are your perceptions of them accurate? do you know them at all?

do you have, rather, a set of impressions burned into your mind that sit in front of the person you're actually talking to?

how much of your advice to someone is actually based on your reactions to their past behaviour? at what point do you actually know someone rather than just holding a collection of impressions of them?

is that all knowing someone is? the collected impressions of tons of meetings? i mean i know that with othercat i can totally predict what he's going to say half the time and i'm sure that he can do the same with me.

this has occasionally gotten us in trouble ... but not too often.

see the thing is that even if we're wrong it's never by much. so we can legitimately be said to know each other.

but can we? is it more that we've just got so many ghosts in front of each other that we can sort of see all the possibilities now?

and is that the same thing?

this really only seems like a relevant question with people that leave strong impressions on you. i mean if you meet someone sort of generic they're going to get the sort of generic montage of light in front of them and you'll never really notice when they're different from your expectations.

except, i suppose, if they exceed them.

but if you meet someone and they're the life of the party in a thong made of candies then it's going to take a while to get past that and into the reality that is their self.

and can you ever really see it?

hrm this is funny, i was going to talk about my amazing gait workshop that i took today and instead i'm completely distracted by perception and expectation.

actually that's just what the discussion hinges around. is it funny that i call it a discussion when i'm discussing it with myself?

okay dictionary.
per·ceive Audio pronunciation of "perceive" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pr-sv)
tr.v. per·ceived, per·ceiv·ing, per·ceives

1. To become aware of directly through any of the senses, especially sight or hearing.
2. To achieve understanding of; apprehend. See Synonyms at see(1).


expectation
n 1: belief about (or mental picture of) the future [syn: outlook, prospect] 2: wishing with confidence of fulfillment [syn: anticipation] 3: the feeling that something is about to happen 4: the sum of the values of a random variable divided by the number of values [syn: arithmetic mean, first moment, expected value]

okay that pretty much sums it up really. if you perceive something you're looking at it. you're actually paying attention to the shape of it and the behaviour and smell and taste of it. you'll touch it to see what it feels like and put your ear against it to taste the sounds it makes.

you'll lick it or talk to it or eat it or sit on it. but you will experience it.

if you expect something you have decided prior to meeting it that you know what it will be like. you have already chosen your reaction and the reaction of the thing you are about to see. you are anticipating the future rather than waiting to see what it will bring.

you don't need to taste it or touch it or smell it or listen to it. you have predicted the outcome.

and that's just it. with people that you love and know well the perception and expectation are simultaneous. but with people that you know slightly? that you've met once or seen on tv?

or met at a costume party?

the perception seems to get a titch blinded by the expectation. funny that.