My Year in Review

Throughout a year I often feel as if I am not doing anything productive or that I am wasting time etc. So. I decided to review my year and reflect on what I've accomplished. (Perhaps next year I won't freak out so much...)

 

After a year of working for an evil corporate enterprise I quit my job.

This was vital to my spirit and though I am now living off of student loans, savings, and my parent’s support I no long want to slit my wrists every day.

Completed Master’s Thesis Project: Recorded and released Pervertable Tongues’ debut album Syntactical Makeover

This has been one of my greatest accomplishments so far. I found the actual process of this project vital to my continuation within any type of creative work. For starters this was a collaborative project with Ryan, as well as a representation of my Women and Gender Studies knowledge. I had to learn to balance. To compromise. To push through. I had to overcome my lack of confidence and believe completely in myself and what I wanted to say.   

 

Upon the release Pervertable Tongues started playing live shows.

This has been amazing so far. I love the people we’ve been playing with, the other bands we’ve met, the fans—upon reflection, I just wish we could do it more and do it in more places. I would love to go on a tour in 2010—we’ll see!

I Completed 32 or so hours of graduate school classes—

or basically another year and a half in one year. I now only have two terms left and I will have two Masters degrees; I am so ready to be done.

 

I have dived in deep to a book project. I am writing creative-nonfiction essays set in the time period between completing my undergrad and the “waiting” period before starting grad school (and moving out of KS to Chicago). I’m looking to write 15-20 essays of different lengths. Ryan may even draw cartoons to go with it!

 

Started this blog.

Love it.

 

Started abstract painting project

This has helped balance my writing and actually bring out subconscious feelings and emotions that help me in other aspects of my life. It has turned into a type of therapy and honestly it is one of the only things I do only for myself—if other people like it, that’s great, but it has yet to turn into a professional endeavor.  

3 Quick Theories on: Avatar

James Cameron's Avatar released recently and along with it came many many underlying theories to be exposed....  

Marxist: The Na’vi (the blue people) are the working class and the white people are the capitalist bastards trying to control through a monetary value-oriented system. In this film we finally see a fine representation of a working class rebellion. The Na’vi will not allow the Capitalists to ruin their lives, the spirits of their ancestors and the lives of their future generations, thus they fight.

 

Post-Colonial: This theory is perhaps the most obvious in this movie. The White People come over to another planetary system after they destroy their own and try to take over the indigenousness people’s land and resources through force and manipulation. Sound familiar much?

 

Feminist: The movie reveals a world that possesses a great balance on the planet, not just between males and females, but between all creatures of their world. It was quite beautiful to see the connecting forces that exist here on Earth but instead have (mostly) been brutally raped and destroyed by industrial patriarchy. In the movie, Pandora (what can be symbolized as Mother Earth) is majorly threatened by over-masculinized forces—the human military, but the connecting spirit and energy, Eywa, of Pandora is so strong it will not be overthrown. 

Raging the Road

I was a little shocked to discover the amount of anger that was lingering deep within me, waiting for me to get back behind the wheel and release its self. I thought after 3 months of non-driving I’d come back to my blue neon, calmer, happier, but that lasted for about 3 minutes. I’d like to blame the blizzard who left ice and snow all over the road causing major distraction and obstacles. I’d also like to blame all the other people who thought that they, for some reason, should drive on the same streets as myself. What were they thinking? But deep down, I know the only person to blame is Ryan…I mean myself. Myself. I am the only one to blame for the growling and yelling and flipping off and the consent bitching that exudes out my body when I am behind the wheel of any vehicle. Let's all take a moment to thank public transportation for keeping me off the road (most of the time). 

Frightfully tiny tiny Vulvas

 

I used to get so excited when I looked at my site meter and saw that someone from Japan or Australia or Thailand or Spain or Puerto Rico read my blog. Then I started looking at the entry page. I became disgusted. Pretty much all the people reading my blog from other countries were pervs looking for tiny tiny tiny vulvas. It’s been difficult for me to keep my vuvlacentric work going because, well, I find it awkward. I end up imagining some Asian boy jerking off to a diamond shaped window; or some Spanish freak looking for the dirtiest nastiest vagina to get off to, which I, in no way offer (unless you want to count that dirty deep cave).

I know people have their “things” but I am in no way here to encourage, promote or deliver those fetishes to people. 

The point of the vulvacentric work was to get people to look at our world in a new perspective. To start seeing the feminine amongst the masculine. To appreciate the beauty of the vuvla in our natural and unnatural environments. So. After some deep breathing and reflecting I have decided that upon entering the new year I am going to try again. Pervs or no pervs. 

I personally find the work interesting. It has made me view the world differently as I explore the earth looking for feminine symbols, hidden and obvious, natural and people-made. So tiny tiny vulva fetishers, back off. Take your wiener wanking elsewhere. This blog is not for you.     

 

100 (or so) Words On: Sheet Thieves

We’ve all been in a bed with someone who does it. Whether it’s a sibling, a parent, a lover, or a friend. The lights go off and the sheets are taken with a swiftness designated to speed skaters.

If it’s a lover the initial reaction is to break up with the selfish bastard. If it’s a relative, wet willies come to mind. But, evolution explains to me that they’re just trying to survive, they, like any other creature of this world just wants to feel warm when it's cold.

Most people probably don’t even realize they do it, until they're woken up by another person yelling at them to stop. But honestly, it’s bad etiquette; the counter-part to drooling all over someone else’s pillow.

It seems uncontrollable, but it's tolerable to a degree—(nothing below 65 please).

Kansas: Bigger (and better) Than You Think

Besides the obviousness of seeing amazing friends and family (including Sugar and Edie) here are 10 things I love about going home.

10) Running into people I know everywhere I go

I’m still not sure if this is a huge positive…

9) Row Row Row Your Boat, Gently down… the Road?

There are many quirks that set my home apart from everyone else’s, one of those occurs when the creek can’t drink enough rain and decides to burp it out all over the road. Rowing across the road can be quite the hassle, but it’s a story every time and Ryan sure likes to paddle so no one complains anymore.

8) Pizza Hut

I know, there are a million pizza places in Chicago, but the Pizza Hut has a distinct flavor that is nostalgic to me. And nothing can beat their cheesy breadsticks. And the buffet has a distinct place in my heart as well.

7) Thrift stores/prices

I love the Arc. I love the flea market. I really am too cheap to shop anywhere else. Yesterday I went into an antique store close to my apartment and I saw a necklace I bought at the Flea Market for $1 on sale there for $55. There are really no better places to go if you’re looking to buy stuff. The biggest problem is that it’s hit or miss. The Arc obviously rotates their merchandise, but I’m not so sure about the Flea. I think I’ve been going through the same boxes of jewelry for about six years now.

6) Open Spaces/Walking Places

There are certain things that are going to be missed going from the country to the city. The most obvious is the change in scenery. It’s a relief to come back and view a more beautiful, more simplistic canvass. It’s also nice to be able to walk around with no specific destination, to stare at the cows or tackle a hike up the hill and gaze for miles at the changing colors and rolling plains.

5) Sonic

Okay. I know. I worked at a sonic off and on for like six years, but that doesn’t keep me from enjoying my favorite (non-alcoholic) drink: cherry limeade along side some greasy-as-ever-tater tots with cheese. Yum. I’m salivating.

4) Driving my car

My poor blue neon misses me so much. Creatures like mice and snakes have been visiting it trying to keep it company, but it just gets so sad that even they can’t cheer it up. It rumbles and grumbles now, (probably from too many visitors up in its hood) but, it always plasters a big smile upon my return, wagging its tail, excited to see me. And I reciprocate the excitement, as I prepare to hit the pavement after months of non-driving--it is always an adventure.

3) Boulevard

BEST BEER EVER. Okay. Maybe not EVER. Since I haven’t drank every beer ever made. But the Wheat fills my days with sunshine and the Pale fills my evenings with drunken bliss. I have to admit though, I’ve switched my #1. The Wheat used to be my favorite, but my palate has changed and now the Pale has hit the top of my list. I just can’t get enough hops. The hoppier the better.

2) Dance Parties

They just cannot be beat. Anywhere. Seriously. The best dancers. Of all time. More talented than any reality-tv show can imagine, and they happen to exist in the wide open spaces of Kansas. Probably because we’ve had more room to move and groove than any other souls. All I can say is that it is a magical experience every time. It can’t be missed, it can’t be duplicated, it is what it is.

1) Stars

The real bling bling is up above your head. Light-years out of your reach. Worth more than any ring, diamond, jewel on earth. On the darkest nights they glimmer through the sky like a bedazzler gone berserk. They help me re-center. They help me realize my true size on this planet. I am humbled and awed every time. I never need to make a wish because I’m always exactly where I want to be. Amongst the true bling bling.

Holiday Ills, Chills and Pills

Every time I go back home I get sick. I do not know why. I guess I get worked up thinking about having to wake up at 4 a.m. and going to the airport leaving with no delays or cancelations. Then I have to hope that I won’t be a grouch all day because I got up at 4 a.m. even though I will be and everyone knows it. This year I can feel it coming, my heart is fluttering a bit more, I can’t finish sentences in a decent amount of time (that took me two minutes to complete, if that tells you anything). How can I be so anxious to go back to where I am most comfortable? It’s so weird. It could be that I’m thinking about not getting sick so much that I end up making myself sick. Perhaps it’s basic biology: because I don’t often leave my apartment I just get over exposed to humans and their nasty germs. I don’t know, but I think I’m starting to give my mother a complex.

I’ve been yogafying and deep breathing, but the truth of the matter is that I am often sick on Christmas. It must be a bad reaction to capitalism. Many pictures throughout the years show me puke-faced and pale and this was before I even began drinking heavily. At least these days I have more of an excuse. I can blame my mother for insisting we all have Long Island Iced Teas. Or blame myself for thinking I need to restock an entire three-month’s absentness from Boulevard in one night. But that’s really not the type of sick I’m talking about. When I come home, I usually end up with strep throat or a sinus infection or something that makes me go to the doctor, which is always fun on a vacation.

Maybe in some deep-seated psycho-babble b.s. I get sick only when I go home because I know I’ll be around people who can take care of me. Even if those people would rather get to spend time with me when I’m not hacking or snotting all over things or drugged out on antibiotics, they still enjoy (for the most part) being around me no matter if I’m sick or just grouchy from another early-morning airport excursion. I think because when I snap out of the grouch or the sick I’m actually a pretty decent person to hang out with…but maybe everyone thinks that about themselves.

So brain and body, here’s an open request: please knock it off this year and for once let’s have a healthy holiday, okay? Thanks.

TV Today

Animal Print is not a trend. People have been wearing animal prints at least since the Paleolithic Age when they clubbed Furry Mammoths and Saber Tooth Tigers. So. It can not be a NEW trend for 2010. I don’t think it has ever even gone away.

Just like I predicted, we are turning in on ourselves and we will all soon implode. Not only are we as a society preparing for holidays way in advance (specifically Christmas) but now the media seems so paranoid that it won’t get the “story first” we already are being introduced to DIET and EXERCISE books and we haven’t even gotten to gorge our gluttoness selves to the max yet.


Snoop Dogg on Martha Stewart.

Snoop: we’re trying to bake some brownies but we’re missing the most important part of the brownies.

Martha: That wasn’t my idea. That wasn’t my idea. That wasn’t my idea.

The end of the world is near.

100 (or so) words on: Jolly Old St. Nick

I know some of you have already heard this story, but I, like most children, believed in Santa Claus until I was maybe 6 or 7. The person who revealed the secret told me to keep acting like I believed so I could get more presents. I don’t remember if I did or not, but what I do remember is years later, using Santa Claus to debate the existence of God with my mother.

I would say things like, “How can I know if God exists if you told me Santa Claus did and he turned out to be A LIE.” This is why Christians (or whoever else believes in God) should not allow children to believe in fantasies. When they learn the truth they will turn on you. And then you get a whole world full of immoral cannibal atheists.

Sex and Peanut Butter

I guess I’m still pissed off from yesterday. I feel like if I make any type of post that makes people uncomfortable they won’t bother reading it. Why are my pieces on fu-fu fashion more highly read than thoughts on topics that actually affect us all much more severely? No one will die with the return of the scrunchie, in fact I’m pretty sure we all know more people serving in the military than we know people who actually have succumbed to sporting scrunchies so what’s the deal? Are delusions really that much more pleasant?

I know I like to pretend it’s not happening. It’s not in my backyard. And to be honest all the people I know that are over there I never really liked that much, but I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to be okay with them dying unjustly.

We all have the capability to imagine and create. Our lives should be about the journey of the imagination and the transformation of the imagination into creative outlets. We’ve allowed our social surroundings to be warped by materialism and violence.

Why is a vagina obscene but a blown off head a common visual? Perhaps because we live in a fear-mongering, obsessively puritanical society. Unless the vagina has teeth it’s not a threat, whereas the constant over-stimulation of violence causes us to all subconsciously be scared of our surroundings. It causes many people to yearn and search for materials that avoid the fear, that distract, that are a delusion away from reality.

I enjoy most topics: fashion, sex, violence, peanut butter, aloe vera, whatever. Some times though, I feel as a writer, we need a dose of reality, we need to be moved away from our comfort zone so we can help other people find theirs. Perhaps I’m just being too altruistic. Why the fuck should I care about other people? Probably because in an un-altruistic way, I want other people to care about me.

If we all continue ignoring topics that aren’t fluffy we’re surely going to get flattened.

Mind Fuck: Post-Modern War Trip and a Revolution

The last two Netflix dvds Ryan and I watched were Steal this Movie and The Weather Underground. I don’t know if it was coincidental that we received two movies revolving around Vietnam, protesting, movements, hippies, riots etc. but we did and it got me contemplating. Many people are comparing what’s going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan to Vietnam. It makes sense, in one of those movies they refer to the president sending over 50,000 more troops—so the link comes easily. What doesn’t come easily and what isn’t even close to comparable is United States citizens’ reactions. Yes. The wars have parallel events, but how we handle them are completely different.

1960’s and 1970’s are exposed as a time of “revolution,” a revolution that was short winded and didn’t quite get the job done. And when I see these movies I wonder how much of a propaganda they are. Because I feel torn. I feel paranoid. Almost all of the anti-war protestors, the anti-capitalists, pro-equality leaders have been defeated, whether they were killed or whether they were influenced to the point of giving up and joining the cocaine binges and shoulder pad excitement of the 80’s.

Don’t they feel pissed off that the cycle has repeated itself, and in their lifetime even. Aren’t they infuriated that everything they once stood for got shat on and no one seems to care? That most people look at the Vietnam time period through nostalgic lenses instead of a lens of learning.

These movies make it seem that it is nearly impossible to create true change. They do such a good job of influencing apathy that people my age are defeated before they even begin. We think what we learned from the 60’s and 70’s is to not do it that way because it doesn’t work. Perhaps, it works TOO well. Perhaps they were truly on the brink of something monumental and they gave up because it truly was too difficult to battle one of the most evil passive aggressive/ violently obvious power houses ever to exist in the history of this planet.

The most intelligent and influential people have control of your knowledge. Do you think they would allow you to see how a true revolution works? At first, you may answer, no. But then, yes. Perhaps it’s a psychological mind fuck. They know if you see it and you see that it didn’t do much for change that you will not want to repeat those actions. But. Let’s be real. Things have changed since the 60’s and 70’s. The fight wasn’t worthless. And they did stop an unjust war.

We’re entering a new decade. This past one has sucked ass. I am pissed off that 1/2 of my life was under the control of the Bush family. I’m pissed that people don’t pay attention to history. That people live passively, idly by, waiting for their life to end. We can ALL see that capitalism is a fucked up game. We are aware that racism and sexism and ageism and all the isms still exist. We are all aware that 30,000 more people are going over to fight in a war for reasons that are just not justifiable. But what are we going to do about it? Ignore it until we implode anyway?

Yes, it’s great in theory to think you can live in your little shell, your tiny box, to imagine that you are not connected to anyone else or anything else, but if you weren’t connected, you would be dead. Like about 100,000 civilians who already are (not to mention the military).

What really sucks is how quickly hope can shatter. I believed in the Obama’s campaign for change. I still feel that part of my apathy and passivity comes from the euphoria of getting Bush out of office and getting, finally, a non-white president. But, now I’m wondering if he again is just a figure-head, a puppet like Bush but with a better smile. Was he just a ploy to get the liberal uprising to calm down? I want to trust him. I really do. But I can’t help thinking he’s being manipulated and played like the rest of us.

We need a new revolution. Time has altered us. Perhaps the picketing and the riots are no longer the best solution. But we NEED something. This frightens me. In the deepest parts of my heart, I wish they would have stuck it out in the 60’s and 70’s, pushed through so that when I was born in the 80’s my life would have been a hippie’s paradise. But the battle has waxed and waned. The same general goals still exist. I don’t want to leave this world knowing that I did nothing to make it better. If I kept my voice silent I would internally torture myself while also missing vital connections and relations to people that I need in my life. So maybe we do it a bit differently this time around, but at least let’s do something. I know I want to. But I have to be honest. I’m not sure where to go or how to start.

I know what we do not need. We do not need a resurgence of cocaine or shoulder pads. Nor do we need to go around smelling like patchouli oil or forgetting to comb our hair.

But our time of ignoring all of this is over.

Or we are.

Romance, Sex and Violence

The other night, Ryan mentioned something about wasting away money on expensive call-girls. I said he if did that before paying me back the money he owes me I would strangle him. He then laughed, agreed and said if anyone did that they deserved to have their brains smashed in with a hammer or a bat or some heavy object, I can’t recall. This remark made me cringe, for I didn’t want to imagine bashing Ryan’s head in with a candlestick, rather I wanted to imagine strangling him almost to the point of death. His vision of violence was grotesque, where my vision, to me, seemed a deserving punishment for the hypothetical crime.

I don’t generally condone violence, but I can’t help but find some forms more romantic than others. For example, if I can imagine myself doing it, like truly performing the action, it isn’t gross. Basically anything done with my natural body, punching, slapping, pulling hair. These have a rustic, classic comprehension to them. Whereas spooning out someone’s eye or stripping off someone’s skin for your own new skin just gives me the willies’. I guess in some weird way I have compartmentalized violences that could potentially be deserving as opposed to violences that are just fucked up no matter what.

Another example is in the movie Hard Candy, staring the beautiful and talented Ellen Page. I feel quite a bit of tension for the man but also a deep enjoyment in his torture. Why? Because he’s a jackass rapist murderer and she’s just laying down the Karma.

Or in the movie Teeth, the main character (Jess Weixler) has Vagina Dentata –or vagina with teeth. Though the film plays up the humor angle of the horror-movie really well, when her vagina bits off the rapist’s dick I cheer, YAY! Because I logically and emotionally argue that rapists deserve to have their dicks ripped off—at least for awhile as a scare tactic; then a doctor can potentially sew it back on so the rapist can pee but can never again have sex, muhaha.

And of course, the violence in Fight Club. He (Norton/Pitt) starts off the moving by kicking his own ass, which, I have felt I needed to do to myself many times. He then rallies up a bunch of working class angry-at-the-world boys who go to an underground cement lair and let out all their inner rage on each other. And these boys who are covered in sweat, covered in muscle and covered in hot hot sexiness also battle for an anti-corporate, anti-material world, and I like that. Their violence is channeled into a cause that I support so I relate and I enjoy. But that’s not how I usually feel about the infliction of pain upon others.

And hence I have a recently realized that I have different levels of tolerance for different forms of violence. Underneath the tolerance exists elements of innocence and my personal perspective on rehabilitation—can the offender be “fixed”. I have to wonder how I developed the morality to mentally separate and accept or object one form of suffering over another. I then have to admit that I am a product of my environment and a part of that environment is packed with violent images that are sometimes romanticized to make them more acceptable and tolerable. Even if I could think of sensible substitutes to my initial strangulation response to that “hypothetical” whorehouse crime, violence was my initial and most solid imagined (mental) reaction ( then comes suing followed by passive aggressive manipulation).

Though in most circumstances I would choose an alternative angle to violence such as giving rapists an overdone of depo to knock off their sex drives, or talking through a problem in an attempt to come to a compromise, sometimes a left-hook –right uppercut hit to the face followed by a double time kick to the groin is really, to me, a viable (and sexy) solution.

Really. I think I just need to punch someone in the face. What is taebo and kick boxing and kenpo karate for if I never get to hit someone. Perhaps I get some aggression out, but how much anger can you release by punching the air? Why am I so angry? Well for one, Ryan is hypothetically cheating on me with expensive call girls.

Words on: Really Ugly Women who try to look Really Hot (and fail)

This happens every once in a while. I am on facebook. I see someone I know tagged in an album. I think, why not and I go through it. I don’t know why I do this—I guess I want to see what people are wearing or perhaps looking at other humans is just a general habit all people have.

But, some times I just can’t help but come across one that makes me say “damn” (and not damn in that long drawn-out swooping sounding damn; I mean damn that shot is disturbing).

What is it that catches my eye and hurts it so much? Usually a woman, of about my age, orange tan, too much orange foundation, too much black eyeliner, too much processed hair; too much of every stereotypical product that exists to “enhance” feminine features. Too much to the point where the woman looks like a witch or a troll or an inflated and then squished Bratz doll.

Whoever you are—and you know who you are because your Walmart and Target and Sally’s receipts convict you—please, STOP. You would look more gorgeous if you toned it down, JUST a smidgen. Go a day without the raccoon look, try a pixie-do while you’re hair heals from all the damage you’ve done to it. Perhaps, since it is winter and you’re presumably in the Midwest—knock off the fake fucking tan. We all know you haven’t been to the Bahamas. We all know you got that from a bottle. And it looks like someone vomited baby carrot food all over your face. And no one wants to lick that off.

I’ll admit. Maybe I should just quit looking at facebook albums. But, I can’t. Maybe I do secretly enjoy the train wrecks of other people’s failed beauty attempts not like every photo ever taken of me has been amazing, but that’s not the point. The point is, quit trying so hard to look good for facebook photo albums and stupid frats boys. I’m not telling you that you would be happier if you took more time enjoying life and less time bleaching your hair, I’m just hinting that you may want to do less work to look better.

It is FACEbook. We all have to look at YOUR face when you put it online for people to see. And personally. I prefer to not want to gouge my eyes outs.

A Maniac in Green Eye Shadow

We had to take public transportation to band practice because it was finally too cold to walk. On the bus I sat in the very back. I did this because Ryan was carrying a lot of shit and because I like to keep an observant eye of the bus crowd, just in case.

The bus was in no means packed. In fact, it had many open seats. But for some reason, out of nowhere, this older woman came all the way in the back and sat down right beside me. At first I was pissed. Why do people have to do that? Don’t they have any concept of personal space? But, then I started to get creeped out. I looked at her. Then I looked at myself. I was wearing a purple coat with black gloves and dark pants. She was wearing a black coat with purple gloves and purple pants. We both owned black off-brand chucks. I immediately begin thinking that she sat down right beside me because she was a symbol of my older self. Then I really wanted to know what she looked like, but I didn’t want her to catch me staring. I started to get paranoid. I begin wondering how I could casually look over there without her noticing or thinking I was doing it deliberately.

But I really wanted to know what my hair was going to look like 40 years down the road. So. Finally. I did it. The woman was sporting a dyed red beehive… she had on green eye shadow. How could this not be my future?

I didn’t really know what to do next. Should I initiate a conversation and ask her about her life? Her likes, dislikes? Her eye shadow provider?

I didn’t know. I then begin to think that I must be going nuts. I begin to come to grips with the fact that in the future (if not already) I must be nuts. This woman next to me, must be nuts and I probably shouldn’t talk to her. So, I didn’t.

Later, I brought up this whole situation to Ryan. He told me that woman always sits there no matter what. I thought aHA, she is a crazy person, a crazy person who has given herself an assigned seat on public transportation.

And I guess I’m just an egomaniac for thinking the crazy old lady in the purple pants with the green eye shadow has anything to do with me.

(Now, if only I could lose the ego; I’d just be a maniac, and then I would have been right all along. muhahaha.)

Thoughts on Thinking

I go through spells of overeager energy. I want to read everything ever written. I want to write down every word ever created and memorize and know it forever. I want to rearrange the symbols of letters over and over again to create new ideas, brave thoughts, passionate sentences.

Sometimes I feel as if I’m going to burst because I can’t get everything done in a lifetime that I want. I want to go back in time and make myself read Blake and Dickinson and Ginsburg and di Prima so that I’m already prepared with them by my side, but instead I keep falling into more and more knowledge, wanting it more. And the more I want to learn the more I seem to forget what I already have. Photosynthesis. It’s pretty much the only thing I remember from grade school. And to shoot a jump shot with perfect form.

For some reason, I seem to remember the people who impacted my life, the students and the teachers, more than I remember the actual learning. Their strange quirks. How in second grade all the students would put folders around their desk, bright folders like Lisa Frank with neon dolphins and prissy kittens wearing pearls. The teacher allowed the kids to do this so no one would cheat, but most of the kids did it so they could pick their noses and not get caught. Or maybe that was just me.

I remember in sixth grade making a list of all the boys I had had a crush on since kindergarten. Which was basically every boy in my class except the ones who never showered. In the same grade I remember being in the bathroom when Jessica S. showed me and my best friend her purple bra and then continued to inform us that you could make your boobs bigger by taking in big gulps of air every night before you went to bed. My best friend did this religiously until college when she finally decided it wasn’t working.

I don’t remember learning about anything else except photosynthesis and how to shoot the perfect jump shot.

Now I’m wondering about what I’m going to remember when I’m forty. Why am I even in school if I’m not going to remember the actual knowledge that I’m paying to learn about? Am I only going to recall the night where a group of us sang Madonna in our underwear? Am I only going to think about how I was once mistaken for a drag queen? I surely hope not. But how can I be certain?

While in the shower the other day I came up with the idea of “mind insurance” then Ryan defeated me by telling me you can’t insure the abstract. The concept was that graduate and PhD students could take out insurance on at least the amount of loans they took out. For the protection of thoughts within the mind. Because, after $80,000 in loans the only thing I have from the experience is what is packed within my brain. And all of that information could potentially (and most likely) be lost through time or other traumatic or dramatic experiences. It sounded good in theory. But I guess all my shower thoughts aren’t brilliant ones.

But, if I could start an abstract insurance company I would be rich. And I would have backup in case all this grad school stuff fails. In case I never learn every word ever created. In case I can’t read everything ever written. In case in the end all I remember is photosynthesis and how to shoot the perfect jump shot.

Hey Cracker! Hey, crackers! Yum.

The other day I decided to make homemade crackers. I know many of you probably think this is nutso because you can easily buy large amounts of crackers “cheaply” at any neighborhood store. Well. Here. I’ll give you some logical. I had hummus, but nothing to dip into the hummus. It was negative degrees outside, like -10. I had ALL of the ingredients to make crackers. I thought it wouldn’t cause anyone any harm. Plus I got to turn on the oven—helping to warm up the apartment. So, no, I am not a Martha Stewart wanna-be. I just like food.

As I was making the crackers I started wondering why “cracker” is a derogatory word for “white” people. Here are two reasons why this doesn’t work. 1) What is wrong with a cracker? Nothing really. They are generally salty, crispy, and delicious, so calling someone a cracker is like calling someone a pretzel or a potato chip—it has no true pain attached to it. 2) The crackers I made were decidedly not close to any shade of white. They were in fact, brown with speckles of green and red. Sort of like how white people aren’t generically white but more shades of wall-paint-white, like ivory or seashell or soymilk with speckles of freckles and zits and scruff and red blush.

My crackers were whole wheat crackers with jalapenos, paprika, cumin…they were very much not enriched flour white, crackers.

They turned out wonderfully, by the way. They were softer than store-bought crackers, if I try again I’ll just roll them out thinner. They were still delicious though. And my hummus thanked me. And my oven thanked me. And my apartment thanked me for warming it up.

Shower Thoughts

The shower seems to be the breeding ground for not only mold but innovative thought, beautiful lines of poetry, and goal setting. The shower is often like that moment right before you wake out of a dream, when a perfect line of music melodies across your mind and you try to hold on to it. You try to hold onto it because it is so delightful you want to share it. It feels so close to grasp yet more times than not it slips away like a kiss blown into the air. Sometimes I wonder if those moments exist just for me. Should I just accept them or should I try to hold onto them tighter?

In the shower I have some of the most fantastic ideas. Sometimes I don’t want to leave because I want to keep thinking, then, unfortunately I begin thinking about all the thinking I’m doing and I realize that I am probably drying out my skin and wasting water and the gas it takes to make that water steam clouds around me.

Sometimes I think I should invent a water-proof recording device (probably has been done) to take into the shower with me so I can let out all wonderful thoughts that I have before I forget them. Then I realize that the only reason I’m even having those thoughts is because I don’t have to. Because the shower is my space to just breathe. To let everything go.

Yet many times, in the moments of unthinking, a clarity sweeps over my brain, making room for fresh perceptions. Clean armpits and a less polluted mind.

I sometimes am lucky enough to find an ounce or two of creativity amongst the shampoo and cold white tiles. And that little dose can carry me through my entire day…

oh what a little warm water and a Clorox scented room can do…

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes???

I find it rather peculiar the people from my past who decide to visit me in my dreams. I’m not sure if they would ever visit me in reality…perhaps it’s because I want to imagine them visiting me that they arrive late at night when I have turned off my logical mind.

One particular man visits me every month, every night for almost an entire week. Like the waxing and waning of the moon; it is like clockwork. Sometimes it’s sexual, sometimes it’s friendly; sometimes it just is. But it’s always him. Who? Oh, I bet you are begging to know, but no no. I assume he is a symbol for something, though I am no dream-analyst so I can only presume. I like to imagine that this man, who I met in high school, who possessed perfect cuts highlighting his pelvic region, is the symbol for my sensuality. And that after finally getting off of depo, sensuality and all the other s sounding words are returning to enliven my flesh with blushing bliss. But that is just one perspective.

Being on depo really fucked me up. Only a month after I quit getting the shot did I read in a non-fiction biology book that they give the same drug to sex offenders to keep their libidos under control—to keep them sterile, un-sexual, unsatisfied. Which in my opinion is fine, but WHY give that drug to healthy young vivacious woman— woman who want to play and explore, but don’t want a baby knocking at their door. I find that pure evil. Probably a government conspiracy, but I have no intentions to go there.

So anyway, I find it strange that this man visits me every month, but never talks to me in real life. How is he still in my subconscious? What kind of voodoo tricks did he sprinkle into my McCormick vodka and OJ back when we all partied in barns and cruised around “the Sonic” all day? I never thought he was smart enough to pull off witchcraft, but I could be mistaken.

This seems like a job for paranormal activity. I must decide if I want him to come back and if I do not I will need to enter my subconscious, I will need to have one of those dreams where I know I am dreaming and I will have to tell him to leave. This makes me sad. I am afraid if I make him go--away will go any amorousness I had gotten back. Why can’t any other man become the symbol, like Jake Gyllenhaal or a young Daniel Day-Lewis or some random combo man I create Weird Science style? Why does it have to be someone from my past? Someone, who if I saw in the future, I would probably rather slap and yell at him for entering my dreams without an invitation. Talk about bad manners. But, I suppose he isn’t aware of what he is doing. It’s funny to think of all the places you may be without ever actually being there. Maybe that’s why people wake up so tired sometimes, because they were on an adventure in someone else’s dream.

I wonder if I symbolize anything in anyone’s dreams? I hope if I do it’s something as glamorous as sensuality. But I’d be okay with it being confidence or feminine power or beauty or optimism.

I am positive this peculiarity of this particular being will be made clear presently… I just need to sleep on it.

Dissolved and Drained

My brain has hurt for weeks. Daily headaches. Lethargy. Muscle cramps. I feel as if I am being pushed, yet at the same time, chained to an invisible wall inside my mind. Unable to fully accomplish all I want to. And why? Because I am expected to. Because I am told to. All I want is to drink beer. Not even that. To lie in a bathtub until I drain away. I step into the steaming hot water, my feet fade away like tiny sugar crystals in the wet. Next my legs fall to pieces--off in chunks until, they too, tingle away. My upper body hurriedly follows; it doesn’t want to live without my legs. My arms are hesitant though, waving in the air, hoping that I stop this madness, but no. I push my arms in the sweaty water and watch them sliver away like the sand on green seaweed, I watch my arms decay. I dunk my head under. I disappear. Years go by and the heat wanes. The drain unplugs.

Like the lukewarm water that circles down the pipes, I expect to go with it. My body’s like left over cake frosting in a mixing bowl thrown in a kitchen sink of just-filled dish water.

How did I not dissolve? Why didn’t I go down with the rest of the muck?

It’s been so dark here. The sun sets by 4--if it decides to come out at all. I feel trampled by the gray. The sharp cold sneaking through cracks in the window panes. Have you ever looked up and watched the tree limbs crackle and shake with laughter? Daily I watch their moods. And they watch me. We seem to share mutual feelings toward the dismal weather. They try to shake it away. I gaze at them with puppy-dog eyes hoping they can sense my empathy. But they’re too stoic to comment. I know if I stare at them long enough, one day they will reveal all of their secrets. Those trees. They watch me. I watch them. They shake. And I am left aching for the zip, the zeal, the zest of life to pump back into my blood.

And I become undone. Over and over.

Every night I tell myself tomorrow will be a more productive day. For years this seems to have been the slogan, the mantra I repeat until dreams impose upon my sleep. And I realize I’d rather stay there for as long as I can; especially since the really good ones happen right when my alarm clock startles me from slumber. So, I shut it off.

Hoping to fall back into the dream, but it’s never the same. A faint memory of the imagination, something that was never real to begin with, but I yearn for it all the same.

And do we ever really feel full? Do we always want whatever it is we don’t have? Or to not have what we already do. The binary divide. Nothing can complete us, except ridding our minds of needing to feel complete.

Is it all just a paranoia ride, a lust, a cheap fuck, a game we never chose to play, a life that comes covered in blood, screaming with fear, not feeling the real, just yet. All because nine months earlier two others came with pleasure, not pain, a cyclical karmic effec

t of humanity. And we do it every day, all the same. With birth control and alcohol. With cell phones and sexting, power plays and getaways. with peanut butter and molesting, with lubricants. And you, suggesting.

The cucumbers are pickled. The nipples are wrinkled. The love that you’re after, is the hope you’re caressing. Deep within your blood. On the surface of your bath tub. The un-dissolved. The left-over matter. The big lump of cells shaped like a woman. Pushing her way. Away from the drain.

Have you ever looked up and watched the mood of the trees? Have they ever told you a secret you never could share?

An abstract idea, made tangible with the touch, the tip of the tongue.

And I become undone. Over and over.

100 (or so) words on: Love Songs

I’m trying to write a long song. It’s not a love song for me. It’s a love song for the world. This is difficult because, honestly, what is left to be written about it? Are there any new discoveries to be made; are there even any innovative ways to look at love anymore? Sure. There exists several hundred different types of love and I’m sure I will eventually unravel one type that I can lyricize about, but right now it is the most difficult brain blocking task I have tried to accomplish for some time. The Beatles say, “All you need is Love”—I don’t know if that simple yet true statement needs any expansion.

3 Unique Gift Ideas

Don't have a clue what to get the person who has everything? Here are 3 rare options that not only will brighten that almost-ungiftable individual, but will help local artists out as well!



1) Pervertable Tongues Cd (Click here to buy physical copy)
Cheapest Option--only $8 plus shipping

2) Krystal Fawn's Art (Click here to check out work)
2nd cheapest option (prices go from $10 and up)



3) RW Ruehlen's Art (Click here to check out work)
Intense and Monumental --a worthy investment for any collector--whether you're just starting out or have been in the game for awhile. Prices range from $100 and up. He's also available to do commissioned work.