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Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
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12:28 am - Various musings
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Who would use the phrase, "I'm a cumdumpster" to identify themselves as female? Would you? Ever? In a million years?
For context, she wrote, "I'm not a faggot [eg. male], I'm a cumdumpster [eg. female]."
Really? Like, seriously girl? I'm stunned and, I admit, amused. Just what has to happen to get someone, anyone--of either gender--to self-identify with the term "cumdumpster?"
The answer, my friends, is /b/. I never should have gone there, but now that I have, I can't go back. Nothing can erase these memories from my mind.
And yet, strangely compelling, in an evil sort of way... It's actually fascinating from a sociological perspective, and if you keep up strong identity barriers, you can observe without losing your soul! Unless mine is already slipping away, and I just don't know it yet...
In other news, today I bought and started reading Juliette, by the Marquis de Sade (not a good portent for my soul, I'm afraid). It was was, in unanticipated ways, ( incredibly exciting. )
In yet other news, today I translated a poem by Pablo Neruda. I actually really love translating poetry from languages I don't know. You look up the literal meaning of each word and cross-reference the definition with the way it's presented in extant professional translations. So doing, you must come to understand the substance, independent of language, before you can pick words in English to express each idea. It takes a long time, but that moment when the poem is in neither language, delicately existing in your memory, pregnant with meaning, unfettered by words, is the moment when I feel I truly understand it.
My personal translation of ( Ode to a Girl Gardening )
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| Sunday, December 14th, 2008
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9:27 am
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Without a single thing in my day that has to happen at a certain time, and without anyone in my immediate life really, except via phone and email, I have absolutely no reason to keep any sort of schedule.
Today, I was rewarded. After having stayed up through the night, I got to see snow at sunrise.
Then I went for a jog in the snow. Around a lake, where ducks flapped through the snow. I paused to watch snow circling down, a thousand tiny white dots in the air, blanketing trees and bridges with white powder.
And the words that John Adams lived by in the final years of his life came to my lips, "Rejoice, ever more!"
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| Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
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2:27 pm - Complete!
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I've successfully completed my first graduate school application! Hopefully there will be more where that came from, but I'm having trouble finding schools that meet my needs.
It's really a project! I've been working on this for a month, and still feel like I could have done a better job. Anyway, it's all in, and I would be giddy if I weren't so exhausted.
( Read more... )
current mood:  relieved
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, November 16th, 2008
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4:06 pm
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Southern California is swept in fires. Three massive conflagrations have sprung up, each independent of the others, one in LA, one in Santa Barbara, and one in Orange County. Embers blown on the wind carry the fire past where firemen try to draw battle lines, making it very hard to fight. In one of the worst hit areas, four firemen worked to evacuate a 300lb disabled woman while the fire broke in the glass on the windows of her mobile home.
"The firemen worked in double shifts/prayers for rain on their lips/they knew it was only a matter of time."
The firemen weren't able to save that mobile home park. It was the greatest loss of housing to fire in LA history. City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents the area, was at the wall, surveying the damage and talking to constituents. He shook his head. "I never had a fire chief come up to me and apologize with tears in his eyes before. He said, 'We stayed as long as we could. We did everything we could.' "
current music: grapevine fires - death cab for cutie
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| Thursday, October 30th, 2008
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6:56 pm - Calvin and Hobbes Trivia!
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What is the name of the Principal at Calvin's school?
What book provided inspiration for the name "Mrs Wormwood?"
What's Calvin's babysitter's name?
How many sofas are in Calvin's house?
What's Calvin's alias when he becomes a noir detective?
What is the name of Calvin's super-hero alternate identity?
What is the name of Calvin's other super-hero alternate identity? (not Spaceman Spiff)
Is Calvin right handed, left handed, or ambidextrous?
What percentage of the time does Calvin crash when he rides his sled or toboggan?
What does Calvin name his monster snowman?
Where was the first location that Hobbes tackled Calvin?
How are the names Rosalyn, Mrs. Wormwood and Stupendous Man translated in Norway?
I'm not screening comments, so do yourself a favor and attempt to answer them BEFORE reading comments!
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
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1:03 am - Having Fun with Insomnia in October
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Too late at night, under the covers, I can't sleep. Somehow, I don't think the answer is counting sheep. Many strange thoughts tumble around in my head. Pulling out my laptop, lights on, sitting up in bed.
I don't know that this game will be for everyone, but the invitation to participate goes to anyone. We're counting Octobers. Some people believe that it is the wost month of the year. Not like November or April, a month of tragedy and fear. Cursed, you might say.
Just try to remember as far back as you may.
2008: Drifting, all but homeless and jobless. I'm definitely getting tired of being penniless. I failed at Plan A on the East Coast. I'm back to Plan B on the West Coast: learning to do websites for my mother's friend, a skill I'm sure will be useful before the end. Meanwhile I can live in her house rent-free. As far as I know I can stay there indefinitely. Thinking very hard about where my life is going: graduate school, work, even hobbies; I wish I had some idea what the hell I'm doing.
2007: Himalayas: trekking and rafting, smoking and paragliding. The mountains rose in a great, snowy bowl all about me, towering in eerie, bright cold majesty. Inner demons followed me up the path, clambering over rocks, melting snow with their wrath. Standing at the top, in the night, I stared out at infinity- there I touched divinity.
2006: For never was a story of more woe... This was the October that Sarah and I broke up.
2005: Living in Oakland, happy but poor, struggling to find money to get out the door to visit my aunts and uncles in Albuquerque. (I'll give you a nickel if you find something that rhymes with Albuquerque.) This Halloween might have been the occasion of the costume party in Santa Cruz I attended as Cunnilingus Man. (In my defense, I suggested it as a lark. Sarah thought it was funny; it was her idea to dress up and embark.)
2004: I was living in Japan this fall. On Halloween my host mother dressed me as a 6' tall Pikachu, bright eyed and bright yellow. All her children went door to door to say, "hello, trick or treat!" in adorable mimicry of an American tradition. She was a tutor, and I, the bright yellow head of her children's expedition.
2003: These were good times, but for the life of me, I can't remember what I might have done on Halloween of 2003. I must have been living in the Serra Court house, where Steve brutally murdered Amanda, the mouse. I was at a high point with Sarah; we were learning to dance. And my roommates all played Mordheim- homework didn't stand a chance. These were good times.
2002: This was before I met Sarah, then it was for Lea that I was pining. She and I had just had our thing and my head was still spinning. I went to Lea's house for a halloween costume ball, dressed up like a glam rock star, only to fall for her again, swooning from makeup and hair and indefineable sex appeal. Will was visiting, we left together. I stormed down the street in real sexual frustration- it was then that I felt a gentle whack. My hand found a note, attached to my back. It read, "you're cute" and a girl rushed away, hurrying to rejoin her friends before I could say anything. That made my day.
2001: We're reaching far enough back that these memories were a long time ago, a long time ago. Sophomore year... I think it was somewhere around here that Lea and Marika, Christina and I played piano in the dark and empty dining hall, then went out to the Meadow to watch the stars fall. Beautiful women and the Leonid Meteor shower. Hormones and stars, I still remember its power.
2000: School had just started. UCSC was beginning. It was probably this year that Zane and I, grinning, dressed up like goth girls for our first Halloween. Trust me, I made the ugliest girl that you've ever seen.
1999: Can it be, was there a time before even college began? The funniest thing, looking back on it now, was that I felt like a man. I thought I was grown up, little did I know, almost 10 year later I'm still out in the snow. I was lonely this year, out of Hemet High, not yet in school, on the outs with my friends, no longer cool. We made up, though, eventually, and I saved up, and by the end of that year, I got my trip to Europe.
1998: I was still in high school, then, so long ago. How much farther back do I really want to go? I remember, this year we all went out for halloween. I dressed up as Jesus, in a toga-shaped sheet and long, curly hair with an unwashed brown sheen.
1997: Sweet Jesus, I must have just started dating Jill back then. I was a stuck-up bitch in 1997, and yet, somehow, I made the first real friends of my life. Some friendships, I hope, will never end.
1996: I'm not sure I see the point in continuing. 1997, in many ways, was the real beginning of the person I am today. Earlier lies a different story, anyway.
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| Thursday, September 25th, 2008
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4:55 am
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The streets were dark and cold the first time she saw them. Them, the people under the water.
She was walking away from a messy boy. Walking all night long, across the city, across her life. The stars seemed so far away that night, and the moon so close.
Everything was reflected in the river. The skyscrapers all pointed downward. And the undersides of the bridges all looked up, forming little caverns one could almost crawl into. It was there that she saw him, sitting on the underside of a bridge, beneath the water.
He was looking at her.
( in other news )
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| Sunday, September 21st, 2008
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4:28 am
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I love dinner parties. Good food, possibly good wine, 3-6 intelligent interesting people, all evening to eat, talk and drink. Possibly playing silly games.
For me, that is the marrow of life.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, August 11th, 2008
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3:20 am - Absurd
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I feel like I've come face to face with the absurd recently. Maybe it's always been there, and I'm just noticing it now, seeing it now after my whole life, as if it is the first time.
I had a chance recently to meet a few people who work at a clinic. They were talking about a patient, a terminally ill woman, who is slowly losing her mind before she dies. They were having trouble dealing with her, her manic, undirected energy, anger and fear, confusion. But the most poignant part of the story for me was when the woman shouted at her caretaker, "What kind of a life is this? This is no life to lead." She had nothing. She had no one, no where to go. A meaningless death, raging against the world. She didn't even have a mind strong enough to understand what was happening to herself.
That, to me, is the absurd. It's the recognition of the utter meaninglessness of it all. There is no grand purpose, there is no higher scheme, no framework in which we all live which differentiates right from wrong. No standard by which to measure our "success." Life is absurd, and the absurd is a woman at the end of her days, crying out against the life she has been given. Raging with nothing to fight.
But this doesn't have to be a depressing message. In truth, if there actually were a higher framework... what would we have? We would be forced to conform to a system which we may or may not agree with. God would be a headmaster, sternly watching from above, ready to pass out an A or an F based on criteria you may not even understand, and never consented to.
No. God is one of those concepts, like leprechauns, or magic, that derives it's power from not existing. Faeries that actually lived in your garden wouldn't be wonderful, they would be commonplace. If they were helpful, they might be appreciated, or perhaps they would be grossly ignored. Oh, but if they ate the gardenias, then they would be pests, to be exterminated or chased away. A God who spoke in a voice that all could hear would not be a benevolent supreme being- he would be an autocrat. That being would be a dictator which no one could deny. The worst of all possible worlds.
Instead, in our meaninglessness, we have freedom. In the absence of a God, we have the freedom to create, to envision, and to love God or gods. We have the ability to define our friends and our enemies, to set goals for ourselves, to find our own purpose.
I met a man today on a bus. He was ripped. I've rarely seen a man so muscular. (This will tie back in, be patient.) He was perhaps slightly older than myself. We transferred to the same train, and while waiting for the train to arrive, he walked up to me on the platform and asked me to watch his stuff. Naturally, I agreed.
After a few moments, he returned, grinning from ear to ear. He was rubbernecking like he'd never seen a train station before. He said, "This is crazy! There are so many women!" I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but I laughed and said, "That's one of the nice things about Santa Barbara," and he replied, "No, that's the nice thing about being free."
It turned out this man had spent 10 years in prison, and he was released this morning. He was on the train going to his home in San Diego.
There was no fanfare. There were no crowds to cheer him on. The world wasn't waiting for his return. The very people standing next to him on the station platform had no idea what was going on with him. But for him, it was the happiest day of his life.
When you think about it, being on a station platform is a series of simple experiences. The feel of the concrete beneath your feet, the pressure of the sun on your skin. The press of the crowd. The clock hanging above the door, a stand selling snacks, the whistle and chunk of the train. I experienced all the same moments that he did. To the universe, I don't expect it matters at all that I came from a friends house and he came from prison. The laws of physics delivered unto us the exact same experiences.
However, we apply meaning. We write stories into our lives. I may have been tasting the same air as he was, but for him, that air was the sweet breath of freedom.
This is the power we are given. There may not be a "higher" meaning, but our brains order events to tell stories every day. Given a sequence of basically meaningless events, we read into it, draw connections, form opinions and conclusions. We create meaning by existing, by drawing connections, by writing the story of our lives in our own minds as we live it. And this means we are free. There is meaning every day, in every life, and we have the freedom to make it so.
Moments pass every day without anyone noticing. And yet if those moments had been portrayed in a movie, or in literature, they could have swayed audiences across the country. I witnessed an experience today worthy of the greatest literature: a man freed from prison after 10 years. And yet all it was was a man standing at a train platform, grinning as he pushed aside his duffel to show me the label on a cardboard box that read "Murphy, Parole: 8/10/08"
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| Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
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11:41 pm
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Late at night... seems to be the best time to post. I have more time on my hands these days. Spending a lot of it visiting friends and dear ones. I'm not sure how long this will last, but I'm enjoying it.
( Poetry )
( Relationships )
( Work, Possible Relocation )
( Homemaking )
I think that's just about all I have to say for now. Goodnight, and I wish you all the best :)
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| Friday, April 11th, 2008
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12:15 am
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| Monday, March 17th, 2008
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12:17 am
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I'm going to be setting goals again for myself this week. I did it week before last, and it was amazing. Even if I didn't completely meet them, it gave me a lot of encouragement, and when I didn't do it last week, my daily habits became much less productive and cool.
So... this week, my goals are to: a) Retire to my room at 9:30 and write for 1 hour before bed. b) Get up at 7:15 and exercise for 20 minutes before starting my day. c) Do all my chores/making lunch/cleaning first thing when I get home from work, without delay.
I've got a filter for people who want to see how it's been going. If you don't see me posting over the next few days, and you want to, let me know you'd like to be on the filter. Alternately, if you do and you're sick of it, let me know and I'll take you off.
( other various ramblings )
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| Friday, March 14th, 2008
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12:09 pm
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I was going to write a big post... but instead I decided to just send everyone a smile.
:)
Have a good weekend, folks. I know I will.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, March 13th, 2008
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12:02 pm
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IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!! Actually, my birthday just ended, about... 3 minutes ago. Oh well.
Cheers to me! ^_^
My coworkers threw me a surprise party. They rock! :D
Also, my dad emailed me. o_O Some of you know how weird that is. Trust me, if you saw his email, you'd think it's even weirder. Honestly I'm really glad to hear from him, anyway. I'm afraid he's going to disappear again, though, for various reasons.
P.S. He's going by the name Kai Stone now... legally. At a certain point, you just have to either laugh or cry. Right now, I'd rather laugh. I haven't dwelt on it much, but I've missed him a lot.
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| Monday, March 3rd, 2008
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12:02 am
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So, I have a job! I'm working at the Coalition Against Family Violence. They've been contracted by the Ventura County to take the calls about child abuse or neglect. So, I'll be the person who answers the phone if someone calls in to report child abuse or neglect. Should be interesting. Should be dark. I've been told to expect some potentially emotionally traumatizing phone calls, but I've also been told that 90% of the referrals aren't nearly as bad as they sound, once they go out and check.
It's in Ventura, so I'll be staying with my mom for the time being. This is good for several reasons. She still very much needs my help with her business. Also, simply being here and renting a room from her is a passive way of helping. I would need to pay rent anyway, wherever I go; this way, it's cheaper for me and it helps her out. Win win.
As for people, I have some good friends in the extended area, and I'm pretty happy to take some time to really reconnect with my friends from high school. We've remained extremely close all these years, and I see this as a good opportunity to re-cement those bonds. I am very sad about the people who live far away who will be difficult to see given this case (especially you Seattle folks!) but I've had to resign myself to the fact that no matter where I live, there will be dear friends who are too far away.
I'm not happy with southern california in general. But I can deal with it for a while. Having the support of a parent really helps me get back on my feet after how completely the last year has financially laid me low. And I'm happy for some of the opportunities being down here gives me. This job is only a 3 month position anyway, it's not like I'm signing my life away. But I'm already eying another job at a youth shelter nearby once this position ends. We'll see.
This isn't perfect, but it is along the lines of what I want to be doing, and above all, it pays. No, above all: I've managed to find a job that isn't worthless to me that also generates primary income.
Rock.
P.S. One of the big perks of this job is I'm allowed to bring books to read during the times when calls are slow coming in. I can use this time to continue my independent studies! (or, you know, study for classes if I actually managed to sign up for something)
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| Friday, February 15th, 2008
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12:31 am
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Valentines day is a stupid holiday. I used to say that bitterly, with a vengeance. See, I typically take holidays way more seriously than I like to admit. I'm gullible. But v-day really is stupid. It's not just a corporate sack pulled over your head- it's actually placed at the worst possible time in the year.
Studies have shown you are more likely to have just experienced a breakup at Valentines day than any other time of the year. Studies have also shown that you are most likely to be single on valentine's day of any time in the year.
Whose stupid idea was this? Spring is the time lovers take over, winter is the time of breakups. What kinda dumbfuck idea was it to place Valentine's day between them? All you've accomplished is dealing out the most possible collective guilt over percieved failure in love. Congratulations, Establishment.
I'm gullible, and take holidays seriously, but Valentine's day really has lost all credibility with me. It's not even worth being sad about. In fact, I kinda chuckle at its ineptness.
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| Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
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12:01 am - zomg
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This is fiery. From the 3 word post that I tossed out offhandedly this morning, enough conversations have spawned that I had 33 comments in my inbox on going to check my yahoo mail. That's onto the next page!
Word. Politics is fun. And you know, as excited as I am about Obama, it's really nice to have my top pick not come out on top, and still feel really good about what's to come. I may be making efforts not to let the fact that she's a woman sway my vote, but guys? I will be seriously excited if we have our first woman president right now.
Like... Seriously. XD
Only McCain stands in the way... But hell, even he's not so bad! And actually, Obama's not out. He's a step behind, but somehow the game manages to not yet be over! o_0
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| Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
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4:56 pm - hehe
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Daniel: Sometimes he sounds like MLK... sometimes he soudns like JFK... I'm only a man!
me: Hahaha I understand!
Daniel: Against that kind of speechwriting power, what can I do?
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12:21 pm - Vote Obama
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| Monday, February 4th, 2008
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12:03 pm
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I take a disordinate amount of pleasure in waking up after having slept in, gazing out the window with bed-hair and liesurely stretching, with no where I need to be.
Ah well, nothing lasts forever. I'm moving closer to finding a job, and I'll have to remember how to get up and go to work in the morning...
Las Vegas ended up being pretty awesome. The first two nights kinda sucked, sitting alone or with my mom in the hotel room while this exciting world happened out there. Not that I'm even into most of what the city has to offer, but there was just that sense of exciting things happening and not being able to attend.
The third night, though, we did manage to go to a show. We got half-price tickets to one of the somewhat less expensive shows. We saw Ice, and it was incredible. It was a spectacle. It was all on ice or in the air, and there were some spectacular feats of athletics, skill and speed. And it was just beautiful, from the costumes to the lighting to the sense of the ice and to the beauty of these human forms in motion. I loved it.
( Ash Waxes Philisophical, or Some Thoughts on Gender and Beauty )
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