blank as walls

it shocks me sometimes when i open this blog, how violently the words surge into the foreground of my brain, demanding to be poured into this little box. what is this little box anyway? just a some empty white space. it demands nothing from me, and never responds to anything i give. a real journal is better than this. at least there's some warmth in the physicality of its paper, a sense of security in the lasting tradition. so what is it about this blank, impersonal, uncaring, ungrateful little box? i think its the pen. pens are just so damn heavy.

i'm cold in the office again, and it's making my brain fuzzy and my fingers very angry. hopefully yoga tonight restores some life in me. i'm somehow convinced that i'm colder than i was last winter. ever since i left the doctor's office in July, i feel decidedly colder, but its probably just psychological. i used to wonder why my body is so disfunctional. like it somehow made it down the conveyor belt without being spotted by the divine defect checkers, and made its way to earth and me, the lucky bargain bin winner. but everyone's body is different. they all have their individual quirks and "defects." so in a weird way this realization has helped me come to terms with my body-- it's not abnormal, it's simply mine. the allergies, the knotty shoulders, the asymmetrical eyes, that one bigger foot. they're just mine, and i accept them. but one thing i do refuse is that stupid quack doctor's conclusion. i refuse to accept that i am empty-- my womb ain't no defunct buffalo bill. not yet anyway. i know thanksgiving's past, but i'd actually like to give thanks for the iffy state of my baby makin' apparatus. because it's pushed me to make a definitive choice in my life, which is really saying something because my life is like a big pile of goo constantly slipping in and around yes-no-maybe so's. ambiguity's the name of the game. but as far as children are concerned-- and yes, i know this is a big statement to make and it's a chicken move to lay it out in this blank emotionless box-- i want them. or maybe just one. or two. or four. undecided so far. the point is, i've made one solid, certain decision that one of the roles to cross my stage of life will be Mother. i don't know which role i'm in now, or how i'll ever reach that point. but when the cue drops, i'll be brave. and excited. and grateful.

a round of applause to all the mothers in the world. my birthday is next week, and i sending mine some long stemmed roses. thank you, umma. you'd get an academy award in my book.

the browniest

the charlie brown christmas song has started up in my head and it is playing without cease. i guess this means christmas time is here. happiness and cheer.

another sign that makes me sure that tis the season: there is a giant tree with lights and decorations in the lobby of my building. i love it. also starbucks has christmas cups, but they've had them since october, which is just ridiculously early... and it stinks of holiday profiteering. good grief.

man island

there are moments of painful clarity in life. as i go along and somewhere take a wrong turn or a few missteps, i will suddenly find myself outside of the bubble that encompasses the rest of the world--the happy delusion that life is meaningful and that people are significant. ignorance is bliss. but strangely enough, as i stand on the slick exterior, i haven't the slightest fear of losing my balance. there's only a remote sense of sadness that even here, at the lonely edge of the earth, i could be so utterly apathetic.

@imaginationland.com

it's beautifully chilly out today. i hope those damn mosquitoes are dropping like... flies... ?

anyway, so someone asked me for my email address the other day, and when i gave it he scoffed. Scoffed. he asked if this was the email address i used on applications and at work. now obviously i have a separate work email, but yes, this was the email i used to apply for it. as a matter of fact, i made it specifically for applications and other grown-uppish things of that nature. for reassurance, i told my friend what happened, and she also scoffed. rejected again. apparently my email address is not grown up enough, but quite frankly in comparison to my other emails it's as good as it gets. i remember when i applied to colleges, i didn't bother changing my email address, and wrote in holyfriggencow@hotmail.com on every application. a few days after i got my acceptance letter to uc berkeley, someone from the admissions department called to confirm my contact info. he confirmed the spelling of my name, and then read my phone number and address out loud. when he got around to my email address, he paused for a long time. i couldn't save him the trouble and say it because i was trying not to laugh. finally he just started spelling it out: "h... o... l...". i was amused. since then i've had several different email addresses-- ileenios, stellar.iam, moosesrmeese, etc.-- but they all seem to elicit the same scoffs. well you know what? i think my emails are imaginative and i love them. and if you have a problem with that, say it to my face! you can reach me at terriblepterodactyl@dinomyte.com.


yea i wish.

smile

there are times when life is beautiful. sometimes life is shitty. it can take unexpected turns, encounter strange twists of fate, or challenge you to learn and grow. and then there are times life is just plain fun. and while these moments might not be the most profound or memorable or even important in the long run, i have to say they make living worthwhile.

it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres

you say love and family are sacred and yet you subject them to your own failures to be faithful, your ever-rising divorce rates, hateful protests and rants, blatant discrimination, fear mongering, and spirit-crushing trial after trial after trial. you call marriage a sacred institution, and then subject it to dirty politics. hypocrites. you vile, spiteful, hate-filled hypocrites.

christians using the Lord's name in vain. how tragic. may God forgive you.

gambling is fun

during the last few months of election season, i developed a new obsession: intrade. somehow regular polls in all different media outlets were showing a tight race, which to me was pretty damn depressing. how could this race be so close? were americans really that stupid? but as we learned last night with obama's landslide victory, the polls were wrong. idiots are not the majority. my faith in america remains intact. intrade, before election night, a week, even a month before, was predicting this landslide. for weeks the possibility of an obama win crept closer to $100, while mccain was at $6 the last time i checked before switching on msnbc. i think there's a level of cynicism or jadedness revealed in my deep faith in the intrade polls. people really like money. they'll do a whole damn lot to get it. a huff post article summed it up nicely:

Polls can be inaccurate. People may say what is politically correct, the questions may be leading, the pollsters may be biased. A pollster can still bill for an inaccurate poll. Bookmakers must make an accurate line or they lose -- period.

today is such an exciting day. after such a long time of anxiety and nerve-wracking pessimism, it's finally over. i doubt i could have made it without the intrade polls. thank you, intrade. my fingernails are forever indebted to your service.

obama

obama 333 at 11:15pm. that's called an ass-kicking. i knew america would prove herself. i'm so fucking proud i can't even articulate it.


barack obama, 44th president of the united states of america. my heart is full of hope.

<3

change

my voting center was located two blocks down the street from my apartment, and i didn't want to wait in an enormously long line so planned to go at 6am, right when they opened. in the morning, i changed my mind because i was grumpy and i needed to go for a run. i ended up getting to the voting center at 7:30. i didn't see a line around the block. i got all the way to the door, and still didn't see a line. i walked in, went down the stairs, and entered the auditorium full of 7 people. seriously. 7.

i had some voter issues because murphy's law governs my life, so i ended up staying there for an hour. by then the lines had grown substantially, and there was a good amount of excitement in the air, but i still left feeling a little unsettled. why weren't there more people out? there was a line of voters at midnight in dixville notch, nh. my girls at the huff po complained of long lines at 6am in virginia. people are eager to vote today. today is our historic opportunity for change. and honestly, i expected east harlem to be one of the busiest sites in new york. why? well... it's the first time we can vote for not a white guy. yea, i went there. but seriously. for the first time in years we have a candidate who isn't from the cookie cutter of the uber-wealthy white male elite. we have a candidate who understands how it feels to grow up as a minority in this country, and who respects the different cultures of the world that also make up our population. he has the kind of respect and understanding that can only come from personifying these differences and experiencing first-hand alienation, culture shock, and identity crises. race relations is not a class he took in college, or something he observes through the media. issues of race are a fundamental part of his life. the mccain campaign has shamelessly used this against obama, the fact that he has been forced to search for his identity, that he is different from the face the right-wing likes to pretend we all see in the mirror. but obama inspires me because i've endured the same crises, the same tension between love for my country and pride in my cultural heritage. and ultimately i've succeeded in becoming who i am now, with solid beliefs and achievements. i laughed when joe the plumber accused obama of destroying the american dream. i laughed because he was just a self-entitled piece of crap trying to weasel out of paying taxes. obama has achieved the american dream. he proved to me and all the other jaded X-Americans out there that this dream is not a myth and that ceilings can be broken. how long have we been calling ourselves a melting pot? when have we ever really believed that? it's not 1950 anymore, the face of america has changed. it's time for our government and the faces who represent us to the world to follow.

...

Baths are marvelous.

are you fucking kidding me?

sorry for the early morning profanity, but it had to be said. a few weeks ago, i wrote an entry about how i'd been had by the last mosquito of the summer. i was wrong. last night i was bitten again, and i discovered my assailant clinging to the ceiling. it was so full of my blood that it actually seemed to be hanging by its two front legs, the sheer weight of its abdomen pulling it downward. asshole. i creamed it with walter's copy of "the watchmen." thanks for letting me borrow that, by the way.

the thing is, i was up until maybe 2 or 3 doing some writing, and i set my alarm for 6:30. in that brief window, in my sixth floor apartment, through the cracks in my aircon in my one narrow window, this mosquito infiltrated my room and attacked me. i'm convinced that the mosquitoes of the world have a personal vendetta against me.

so be it. the watchmen and i are ready for you.

material girl

I spent the entire day walking around manhattan searching for pieces of my halloween costume. for dinner i ate japanese bar food and a gigantic frozen cocktail. then i went to american apparel and watched aslan count lightbulbs. and finally aslan and i came up to east harlem where it was raining. no, not raining. flooding. it was flooding so hard that my shoes turned into bathtubs and i was afraid we might drown on the way to my apartment. it sucked.

But then, we watched hours and hours of 80s music videos on some new york city weirdo channel. blondie, tom tom, new edition, cone-boobed madonna, still-kind-of-black michael jackson, bob marley. it made the day awesome. one love, one heart, let's get together and feel alright. how can you not love life and the world and all things everywhere all the time after watching that video?

oh, and prince is sexy. black eyeliner, leather flared pants, and belly baring spandex tops never looked so damn manly.

don't have to be rich to be my girl
don't have to be cool to rule my world
ain't no particular sign i'm more compatible with!!!!!!
i just want your extra time and your

da na na na na na na na na

KISS <3

hermetic

i've decided not to post poetry on my blog. after leaving it up for a few days, i can't shake the weird feeling it gives me, like i've posted a picture of myself in my underwear for everyone to see.

it's not that i don't like being read. i just can't get into the swing of blogging poetry i guess. makes me anxious. but i've started working on something new, and i'm kind of in love with it. if you'd like to read, let me know and i'd be happy to share.



... poetry/ is what he thought but did not say

What he thought :: Heather McHugh



happy hump day :)

stranger danger

I woke up late this morning, so by the time I got to the track Kara was already on her way back to the apartment. It was still pretty dark, and there was only one other person running and another man stretching in the cool down area. I ran for about half an hour, and the man was still there when I went to stretch. What freaked me out about it was that a) I was alone, b) I've seen him on other mornings, not always exercising, but just hanging around the track, and c) I watch too much Law & Order.

Kara has 3 tricks to feel safe at the track:
1: Always leave from a different gate than the one you came in.
2: Vary the days you go every week, so no one can pick up your pattern.
3: Wear a hat.

I feel like the third one is a little overboard. But the guy said hello to me as I was stretching, and I said good morning, but didn't make eye contact or smile so he wouldn't think I wanted to converse or have anything to do with him. Maybe he was just being friendly. Maybe I'm just crazy and acted rudely. But as Kara said, you can never be too careful.

Now I'm sure this seems extremely unfair to a lot of you males out there, and I've heard complaints from my own guy friends about girls who label the entire male gender as misogynists or rapists. I see how that could be frustrating. But to those who make the argument that it's unfair, or even a form of reverse sexism, I have to say... suck it up. Seriously. You might call us paranoid or bitchy, but consider why we feel this way. Women grow up learning that we can NEVER be too careful, we should ALWAYS be aware of our surroundings. There are stories on the news almost every day of rape victims, victims of domestic violence, and sex trafficking of young girls. The whole world tell us to watch our backs-- keep your eyes on your drink at all times, choose well-lit streets to walk down, don't go out alone past a certain hour depending on where you live, avoid dark corners, don't ride in the empty train car or the one with just one other man inside, the list goes on and on. We know that we shouldn't distrust all of you. We know you don't all deserve to share the blame or guilt. We know that men are also victims of crime. But at least you don't have to hesitate about going out at 9pm in a less-than-spectacular neighborhood to pick up toilet paper or pre-plan how you'll get home safely or who's house you'll stay at after a party. So I'm sorry if our paranoia strikes you as unfair, or makes you uncomfortable. But when feeling safe is never a given and we are constantly aware of the possibility of danger, the stress starts to wear down sometimes. So cut us some slack. And when we insist on traveling in packs to the bathroom, understand that it's a survival technique and not just us talking shit about you while we pee and fix our make up.

Kidding.






blog, formerly known as...