(wrote this in May)
A gargoyle positioned itself on the northeast side of the cathedral’s dome. The sound of virgin choir boys’ voices seeped out the golden half-sphere and fell to the streets, sliding down roofs, collecting in rain barrels. At its perch, the granite figure collected what it could catch of the sung prayer of the innocents. As the resonance entered the stone the creature began to vibrate. Its paws chattered against the structure they clutched until, by an act of pure will, they were stilled. For a long minute, the living rock held its position, silent as its immobile brethren. The song ended. A sigh escaped the assembled multitude. Rays of sun kissed the frozen figure’s beak, reflecting off the innumerable crystalline bits. One sharp amber eye was revealed from ‘neath its mineral caul. Feather began to find grip among stone and flourish. Life spread from head to toe and tail-tip and the griffin shook itself, shaking dust from its lustrous coat. And then Mass incarnate took to the skies, carrying the hopes and dreams of the people to the heavens above.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
So?
Today, everything is different.
It's all even cooler than yesterday.
How does it do that? Everyday, everything, always getting more and more fascinatingly fantastical!
And everywhere i look, i see great and awesome people thinking great and awesome thoughts in their great and awesome heads which great and awesome thoughts become great and awesome actions performed with great and awesome style all over this great and awesome world.
And the thing is that the more i look, the more all these people's thoughts congeal and the less i feel i have to say because i see it already expressed, already understood. It seems to me that everyone knows just about everything, we're just not paying attention to the convergence. Instead we have been focusing on the mundane and frivolous (though numerous, shiny and well-publicized) inconsistencies among us. which is stupid 'cause we're all in this thing together and we are all very much in love with life, even when she's a bitch. See? Two things everybody shares already! Isn't that radical?! And then there's death and breath and water, and then there's hangnails and sunburns and hairy pits, and then there's sadness and anger and mania, and then there's everything else that ever was or will be important.
people of the world! you are ALIVE!!!! ISN'T THAT AWESOME?!
It's all even cooler than yesterday.
How does it do that? Everyday, everything, always getting more and more fascinatingly fantastical!
And everywhere i look, i see great and awesome people thinking great and awesome thoughts in their great and awesome heads which great and awesome thoughts become great and awesome actions performed with great and awesome style all over this great and awesome world.
And the thing is that the more i look, the more all these people's thoughts congeal and the less i feel i have to say because i see it already expressed, already understood. It seems to me that everyone knows just about everything, we're just not paying attention to the convergence. Instead we have been focusing on the mundane and frivolous (though numerous, shiny and well-publicized) inconsistencies among us. which is stupid 'cause we're all in this thing together and we are all very much in love with life, even when she's a bitch. See? Two things everybody shares already! Isn't that radical?! And then there's death and breath and water, and then there's hangnails and sunburns and hairy pits, and then there's sadness and anger and mania, and then there's everything else that ever was or will be important.
people of the world! you are ALIVE!!!! ISN'T THAT AWESOME?!
Monday, September 13, 2010
The Smile
Grinning and burping, giggling and laughing, the twins grew up nursing an inside joke they'd shared since utero.
As infants, their mother would watch them for hours as they lay in their crib laughing at each other. There they'd be, in diapers, face to face, too young to turn over, just bubbling over with hilarity. They would drift (chortling) off to sleep only to awake with loud, perfectly synchronous guffaws, which would set them both off again for another round.
When they were toddlers, learning to walk took them longer than most other kids because every time one would get to his feet, he would catch his brother's eye and collapse, laughing, to the floor. Talking was easier for them, they made it a game of 'who can figure out what we have to say first,' the only trick was getting it out between bursts of merriment.
Upon entering school, they found out that random peals, shrieks and howls were not going to get them on the teacher's good side. Not like they cared, they were having a grand time, but soon their parents wearied of being called into the offices of the principal over and over and finally threatened to place the boys in separate classes. It was then that the boys put their inseparable heads together and developed the secret smile. This smile would express all the mirth and joy of their joke without the laugh riot that ended in parental involvement. They begged their parents for one more chance and the grown-ups (thinking all along that it was ridiculous for anyone to get in trouble for being happy) acquiesced.
The next day at school, the smile came into use immediately, before the boys had even walked in the building they had utilized its power more than once. From their separated desks across the classroom, they shared their joke and no one was the wiser. The day went on; the teacher was astounded. Sure, there were some slip-ups. Sometimes, the joke was just too funny, the smile just couldn't cut it and the hilarity would slip through the cracks. But these times were forgiven for the improvement was still vast. Soon, the two were the best in their class and were even allowed seats together again.
Throughout elementary and middle school, the boys were always together; in the same classes and extracurriculars and sharing the same friends (only ones with good senses of humor, although no one really got the joke), but as high school rolled around, the twins' schedules shifted and differed. They found themselves with incongruent interests and talents and diverging social groups. But they always had their joke and their smile.
After graduation, they attended separate universities in far away places to study totally different things. They both became highly successful in their respective fields. They grew up and got married and had kids.
One day, one was reading the funnies and came across a particularly amusing one. He laughed out loud.
At the same time, somewhere else in the world, his twin smiled a secret smile.
As infants, their mother would watch them for hours as they lay in their crib laughing at each other. There they'd be, in diapers, face to face, too young to turn over, just bubbling over with hilarity. They would drift (chortling) off to sleep only to awake with loud, perfectly synchronous guffaws, which would set them both off again for another round.
When they were toddlers, learning to walk took them longer than most other kids because every time one would get to his feet, he would catch his brother's eye and collapse, laughing, to the floor. Talking was easier for them, they made it a game of 'who can figure out what we have to say first,' the only trick was getting it out between bursts of merriment.
Upon entering school, they found out that random peals, shrieks and howls were not going to get them on the teacher's good side. Not like they cared, they were having a grand time, but soon their parents wearied of being called into the offices of the principal over and over and finally threatened to place the boys in separate classes. It was then that the boys put their inseparable heads together and developed the secret smile. This smile would express all the mirth and joy of their joke without the laugh riot that ended in parental involvement. They begged their parents for one more chance and the grown-ups (thinking all along that it was ridiculous for anyone to get in trouble for being happy) acquiesced.
The next day at school, the smile came into use immediately, before the boys had even walked in the building they had utilized its power more than once. From their separated desks across the classroom, they shared their joke and no one was the wiser. The day went on; the teacher was astounded. Sure, there were some slip-ups. Sometimes, the joke was just too funny, the smile just couldn't cut it and the hilarity would slip through the cracks. But these times were forgiven for the improvement was still vast. Soon, the two were the best in their class and were even allowed seats together again.
Throughout elementary and middle school, the boys were always together; in the same classes and extracurriculars and sharing the same friends (only ones with good senses of humor, although no one really got the joke), but as high school rolled around, the twins' schedules shifted and differed. They found themselves with incongruent interests and talents and diverging social groups. But they always had their joke and their smile.
After graduation, they attended separate universities in far away places to study totally different things. They both became highly successful in their respective fields. They grew up and got married and had kids.
One day, one was reading the funnies and came across a particularly amusing one. He laughed out loud.
At the same time, somewhere else in the world, his twin smiled a secret smile.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Visions of the Apocalypse
The World is Burning.
The mountains glow the color of destruction, the color of creation. Fire doesn't give a fuck about your fences, your shiny red trucks, your sentimental value, your 'no trespassing.' Fire is HUNGRY. And this appetite will be satiated, no matter your investment. People are really small, pitifully fragile and fundamentally impermanent. You got nothing on the Inferno. Logic? Control? Science? Burn it all. Mother Earth bathes in a violent fashion but her cleanses are complete; no smudge or blackhead will outlast her shower. Ex foliate yourself before you are washed away completely. Become the body, give up the dirt and grime you've been filled with and ride the flames.
The mountains glow the color of destruction, the color of creation. Fire doesn't give a fuck about your fences, your shiny red trucks, your sentimental value, your 'no trespassing.' Fire is HUNGRY. And this appetite will be satiated, no matter your investment. People are really small, pitifully fragile and fundamentally impermanent. You got nothing on the Inferno. Logic? Control? Science? Burn it all. Mother Earth bathes in a violent fashion but her cleanses are complete; no smudge or blackhead will outlast her shower. Ex foliate yourself before you are washed away completely. Become the body, give up the dirt and grime you've been filled with and ride the flames.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Dear Idiots,
You are fucking stupid. How do you believe the shit sandwiches you are fed are really mom’s pbj? How do you think things are the way they are supposed to be? How do you live with yourselves?
You’ve sacrificed everything for convenience and security and you don’t even know what those words mean; you just swallow the cum of the fatcats like good zombie citizens. And they pat your head and take more of your life away and you love them for it. They say “We’ll take care of you, we’ll make all your decisions for you and all you have to do is give us your blind faith and souls,” and you just nod, in your drugged stupor, signing away your individuality for the sake of bullshit entertainment, your hearts for the sake of standardized feeling and your minds for the sake of mass-produced education.
I ask again, how do you live with yourselves? But, wait, I know the answer. You don’t. You’re so out of touch with everything you don’t even know who you are anymore. Not that it matters, cause you’ve got a plasma tv to tell you what you want and an itouch to tell you how to think and all the pills you could ever consume to tell you how to feel. You make me sick.
WAKE THE FUCK UP. YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL, UNIQUE CREATION IN A POTENTIAL UTOPIA. YOU DESERVE BETTER. DEMAND YOUR RIGHTS.
With love,
some dumb cunt out there in the wide world
You’ve sacrificed everything for convenience and security and you don’t even know what those words mean; you just swallow the cum of the fatcats like good zombie citizens. And they pat your head and take more of your life away and you love them for it. They say “We’ll take care of you, we’ll make all your decisions for you and all you have to do is give us your blind faith and souls,” and you just nod, in your drugged stupor, signing away your individuality for the sake of bullshit entertainment, your hearts for the sake of standardized feeling and your minds for the sake of mass-produced education.
I ask again, how do you live with yourselves? But, wait, I know the answer. You don’t. You’re so out of touch with everything you don’t even know who you are anymore. Not that it matters, cause you’ve got a plasma tv to tell you what you want and an itouch to tell you how to think and all the pills you could ever consume to tell you how to feel. You make me sick.
WAKE THE FUCK UP. YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL, UNIQUE CREATION IN A POTENTIAL UTOPIA. YOU DESERVE BETTER. DEMAND YOUR RIGHTS.
With love,
some dumb cunt out there in the wide world
Sunday, August 29, 2010
hope
there's so much darkness. invisible, disguised, unmarked, untouchable darkness. makes it hard to see the light sometimes. but then wooop! there it is. and sure, things are seriously fucked up, but i've got you and there's so much lovelight here. the ultimate illuminant. if only everyone had a tunnel bright as the one connecting us.
i love you.
i love you.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Fiction
There once was a girl. She couldn’t write fiction because every metaphor she crammed her idea into sounded like the truth. She sat at her desk and tried to create a story from nothing, a story beginning in the imagination and never leaving, not for even a short vacation or parenthetical statement. She wanted a tale with no strings attached, no associations or allusions or parallels with any semblance of reality. She thought and thought and thought, and even as she grew up and lived her life and finally grew old, she still searched for the Sole Story. But she never found it; no matter how hard she looked or how many notebooks she filled with words. She listened and composed and riffled through and skimmed and considered and rejected. And then she died, as everyone does, in the end.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Intense
why is it so enjoyable to roll in your own filth for a few days at a time, to put off showering for no real reason until it tips the other side of the scale and becomes outright unreasonable? there's just a certain satisfaction in creating a layer of short term memories over your whole body. there's a certain animal craving for the dirt under the fingernails, the self-sustained perfume of sweat and grime, the bothersome locks pulled back in a tight braid, left plaited through sleepless nights and timeless days. and then, at the end, there's the shower. and it will be memorable. especially the moment when the water first hits your atmosphere and begins fervently burrowing through to the Clean hidden underneath, releasing your true and potent reek. and then when you get out and re-examine your very own body and remember oh! this is what is called sanitary, acceptable, beautiful, civilized! what a crock of shit! i miss the earth in my nails and my unique (even if off-putting) scent and no-maintenance hair!
fuck it, dude, lets go camping.
fuck it, dude, lets go camping.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Dear MoveOn.org,
So, I get a whole lot of emails from you and all they seem to do is to depress me, anger me and make me feel bad about not taking action for 30 seconds or thereabouts, depending on the subject matter. I don't like these feelings. They do not agree with my disposition.
Every time I stop long enough to really read one of your rally-crying messages, I can't help noticing a trend. Let's see, first, you BREAK THE NEWS; then, you threaten my freedom, privacy and other human rights with the CORPORATE MACHINE; insert disturbing detail here; next: BATTLE CRY (cry as in sobscreamholler); then into a diatribe on another dastardly deed of the RIGHT WING; and lastly you ASK FOR THINGS, for money and signatures and ACTION STATIONS, ACTION STATIONS; blah blah blah; money money money; wah wah wah; thanks for all your help; sincerely (your name here).
But you never really break outside your own box. Politics isn't a line, it isn't all there is, it isn't even all that real. Right, left and center, 'liberal' and 'conservative,' douchebag and deity, FCC, FAFSA, FBI, fucking federal anything, corporatocracy, idiocracy, capitalist hypocrisy, potato and potato, it all the same bullshit rag we've had gagging us since infancy. It's limits are not ours. Let it go, and, much like a parasite cut off from its life source, it will let go you, and fade. Turn your face and energy towards something else; stop feeding the monster its favourite food: hate.
Why not try spreading light instead of fear of the dark? Just mention a super happy thing that happened to you today to every contact in your address book, brighten everybody's day! For example: Today, my fingers learned to play an oldnew song. It's called For What It's Worth, by Buffalo Springfield. Listen to it. That's poetry, that's beauty, that's worth my time.
Share words of hope, faith and small joys; those are what will truly save the world.
have the best day ever,
clare
Every time I stop long enough to really read one of your rally-crying messages, I can't help noticing a trend. Let's see, first, you BREAK THE NEWS; then, you threaten my freedom, privacy and other human rights with the CORPORATE MACHINE; insert disturbing detail here; next: BATTLE CRY (cry as in sobscreamholler); then into a diatribe on another dastardly deed of the RIGHT WING; and lastly you ASK FOR THINGS, for money and signatures and ACTION STATIONS, ACTION STATIONS; blah blah blah; money money money; wah wah wah; thanks for all your help; sincerely (your name here).
But you never really break outside your own box. Politics isn't a line, it isn't all there is, it isn't even all that real. Right, left and center, 'liberal' and 'conservative,' douchebag and deity, FCC, FAFSA, FBI, fucking federal anything, corporatocracy, idiocracy, capitalist hypocrisy, potato and potato, it all the same bullshit rag we've had gagging us since infancy. It's limits are not ours. Let it go, and, much like a parasite cut off from its life source, it will let go you, and fade. Turn your face and energy towards something else; stop feeding the monster its favourite food: hate.
Why not try spreading light instead of fear of the dark? Just mention a super happy thing that happened to you today to every contact in your address book, brighten everybody's day! For example: Today, my fingers learned to play an oldnew song. It's called For What It's Worth, by Buffalo Springfield. Listen to it. That's poetry, that's beauty, that's worth my time.
Share words of hope, faith and small joys; those are what will truly save the world.
have the best day ever,
clare
Monday, August 2, 2010
I think...
maybe too much. BUT I like it. Life's never dull in my head. For example: the other day I was waiting for the bus to come whisk me away to destinations of old and I was all like: I fall in love a lot. Does that cheapen my love? HELL NO! It strengthens it. Because I know what it is to be in love with the flight of a bird, I can fully love the bird itself and because I know what it is to love someone so much I hate them, I can love someone in spite of hating them. I don't see how you could love anything without loving all things. We were all created by the same hand; how can the creation and the creator be separated? Without the either there would be neither. That's why things are cool.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Fly and Flea
So it ends up that not all people experience the world through words.
Who knew?
Not I, said the Fly.
But the Flea was all like: With me, the trip is visual; I see pictures behind my eyes.
Well, don’t you narrate the pictures? said the Fly.
Sometimes, but a picture says a thousand words, said the Flea.
The Fly disagreed, saying: Are we limited to a thousand words? No! We’ve got all the words in the universe.
All the pictures, too, interjected the Flea.
Huh, the Fly said, slipping into deep thought — It looks like my mind is not such a broadly applicable example of brainworkings as I supposed. If the Flea sees life while I hear it, mightn’t others smell or feel or hear it as music as opposed to prosetry? Perfectly viable hypothesis… What influences our thought processes to make them unique? Could I consciously decide to see or taste the world? It’s all very strange, thinking about other ways of thinking, trying to mold one’s thoughts into another, incongruous shape. What a trip it all is! I wonder what the Flea is thinking? What does life look like projected on his inner eye? Since I narrate pictures with words, perhaps he converts words to images… synesthesia… how’s that spelled? I see some words as photographic images like tree and wing; I smell some nouns, like trashcan and compost; I also feel some sounds in my bones, like when I hear the mewling of maggots or the swish of a swatter. Are these all associations, though? Are they all just muscle memories or does each reflect on the mode of thought in use at the time? Because I use words to organize my headspace and communicate, does that mean I remember mostly in words? Maybe. My most vivid memories are visions with inside feelings, a hint of olfactory sensation, a touch of tactile firings and bitlets of conversation. Interesting… How will the Flea’s testimony add up? —
Hey, Flea, said the Fly.
The Flea was caught up in a daydream, imagining a whole metropolis riding the belly of an Irish Setter, the follicle-towers shining in the sun, fleas of all inclinations living in harmony, marching or meandering any place that strikes their fancy, maybe through the well-tended, sprawling landscape of the feeding grounds, where the skin is thin and translucent, glowing pale pink with rivers of the darkest red a flea could dream of…
Hey, Flea! said the Fly, louder.
Yes, Fly, said the Flea, languorously.
I was just thinking about the nature of memory and perception and, suppose that you and I are looking back on this moment any length of time from now, how would our recollections differ on the basis of our established thought processes? What will we each experience in our retrospective, respective mind’s eyes? What do you think? asked the Fly.
But the Flea was distracted from the Fly’s suppositions by the play of light on his infinitely mirrored eyes.
Who knew?
Not I, said the Fly.
But the Flea was all like: With me, the trip is visual; I see pictures behind my eyes.
Well, don’t you narrate the pictures? said the Fly.
Sometimes, but a picture says a thousand words, said the Flea.
The Fly disagreed, saying: Are we limited to a thousand words? No! We’ve got all the words in the universe.
All the pictures, too, interjected the Flea.
Huh, the Fly said, slipping into deep thought — It looks like my mind is not such a broadly applicable example of brainworkings as I supposed. If the Flea sees life while I hear it, mightn’t others smell or feel or hear it as music as opposed to prosetry? Perfectly viable hypothesis… What influences our thought processes to make them unique? Could I consciously decide to see or taste the world? It’s all very strange, thinking about other ways of thinking, trying to mold one’s thoughts into another, incongruous shape. What a trip it all is! I wonder what the Flea is thinking? What does life look like projected on his inner eye? Since I narrate pictures with words, perhaps he converts words to images… synesthesia… how’s that spelled? I see some words as photographic images like tree and wing; I smell some nouns, like trashcan and compost; I also feel some sounds in my bones, like when I hear the mewling of maggots or the swish of a swatter. Are these all associations, though? Are they all just muscle memories or does each reflect on the mode of thought in use at the time? Because I use words to organize my headspace and communicate, does that mean I remember mostly in words? Maybe. My most vivid memories are visions with inside feelings, a hint of olfactory sensation, a touch of tactile firings and bitlets of conversation. Interesting… How will the Flea’s testimony add up? —
Hey, Flea, said the Fly.
The Flea was caught up in a daydream, imagining a whole metropolis riding the belly of an Irish Setter, the follicle-towers shining in the sun, fleas of all inclinations living in harmony, marching or meandering any place that strikes their fancy, maybe through the well-tended, sprawling landscape of the feeding grounds, where the skin is thin and translucent, glowing pale pink with rivers of the darkest red a flea could dream of…
Hey, Flea! said the Fly, louder.
Yes, Fly, said the Flea, languorously.
I was just thinking about the nature of memory and perception and, suppose that you and I are looking back on this moment any length of time from now, how would our recollections differ on the basis of our established thought processes? What will we each experience in our retrospective, respective mind’s eyes? What do you think? asked the Fly.
But the Flea was distracted from the Fly’s suppositions by the play of light on his infinitely mirrored eyes.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Dimension
We live in a multidimensional world. Nothing is simply black or white, left or right, flight or fight; it's much more complex and detailed. Things can be two-dimensionally circular but never in my life have a discovered a linear function in practice outside of 8th-grade algebra. Sure, it can be convenient to paste the whole everything to a series of 1-10 scales, but that's just lazy thinking, and innaccurate to boot. Things are a billion million cooler than that.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Word Overload?
Is there such thing? In this age of information sharing are we simply too exposed to the written word? I find myself unable to remember much as far as quoting goes; I'll remember how a passage made me feel or the general gist of it or where it lay on the page but in order to memorize any number of syllables I must use time and energy I generally put towards reading something new. Sure, some things stick around: a four line poem, a textfromlastnight, a bit of conversation, a note read years ago, a facebook status, a thought; but I feel I hold a lot more than what I can call to my conscious. A vast land of literature exists in my head, if only I could access it! Instead, I constantly build new horizons with every sentence. Should I be taking time to improve my recollective muscles, or is there a deadline, 451 style? I feel like words immortalize ideas, setting them in metaphorical stone. But that is an all-too-comforting thought; just too good to be true.
So many words! So little time.
So many words! So little time.
Hey, kids!
Don't you think the world is beautiful?
Don't you think humanity is, as a whole, compassionate?
Don't you think that, were you in a situation that merited it, you would sacrifice something of yours to help someone else?
Don't you think that everyone wants basically the same thing: freedom and security?
Don't you think we all have more in common than we don't?
Don't you think that whomever's writing the rules to our society has never really known a single person?
Don't you think miracles happen every day?
Don't you think?
Don't you love N'Sync?
Don't you think humanity is, as a whole, compassionate?
Don't you think that, were you in a situation that merited it, you would sacrifice something of yours to help someone else?
Don't you think that everyone wants basically the same thing: freedom and security?
Don't you think we all have more in common than we don't?
Don't you think that whomever's writing the rules to our society has never really known a single person?
Don't you think miracles happen every day?
Don't you think?
Don't you love N'Sync?
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Been Trippin...
Wow, guys. Just (but not simply) wow. The world is so wide and wild and wonderful and warring; wow. What a place we inhabit.
This time space on this space space is so intensely, joyfully, painfully psychotic that it drives everyone mad. And this madness is so apparent to everyone that it has become commonplace, granted, granite.
Remember the whole Columbus day debacle? A holiday, celebrating a man who inadvertently caused the largest genocide and racial enslavement in the history of man, kept on the calendars for generations because it was misunderstood. The people stayed ignorant and content because they got an extra day off work every year and who really cares why anyway? Why is the question that caused our expulsion from eden, why is too hard to answer, it opens a box deeper then Pandora's, chock-full of more why's. Why is just too inconvenient.
Whatever.
Why is my personally favorite. That and How. How's pretty rad, too. Actually, any question is just way cool. Even if it has no answer, especially if it has no answer.
Well, here are some tidbits from my journal, the Journal of a Ridiculous Girl Who Knows Lots of Words and Likes to Show Them Off, Like a Jeweler and his Precious Stones:
July 2nd, noon, en route via minivan to CA
I can feel a cry lurking behind my eyeballs. It's making me grumpy, not letting it out. I miss Fairfield. I miss my house and my people and my security blanket and my hate of all things known. All I've got now is trepidation over the unknown and Anna, which is all fine and good but I want plural people. I guess we're driving towards them. New ones. The only place left to truly discover it the space between strangers' ears and within their chest cavities. Human eyes have seen everywhere else, even taken it a step farther and inhabited just about every place, 'possible' or not. So, in order to quench our inherent thirst to be the First, we must venture into the Final Frontier, into ourselves, into the essence of individuality, into hearts and minds and souls never before witnessed and touched. And, as this is a most subjective field and births never seem to cease, we'll never run out of territory to bolder, blindly venture into.
The Mayans had it all figured out. Too bad the white man came, raped, pillaged and decimated every other race in the world. Funny how the most ignorant, bloodthirsty and disturbed rise to the top. La creme de la creme. God damn, we are such assholes. I am grateful, however, for all that is, because without one seemingly insignificant thing, there may be no Talking Heads or CocoRosie or Fairfield or me as I know her. And I like these things. They're my jam, my love, my certainty.
July 4th, 11 am, outside janky hotel room
What little I know of the Californian and Coloradan Gold Rushes parallels perfectly with what little I have yet experienced of what might be called the Californian/Coloradan Green Rush. Hundreds of broke Americans hear rumors of unheard-of wealth, success and lots and lots of richness-striking in the midst of a Depression and head West where rivers of cash, mountains of gold and fields of green diamonds, glinting in the sun, wait for anyone with the audacity to take them. These fantasies still prosper in the collective dreamscape of our people. Only the currency has changed. Goes to prove that humanity's vision and desire stays constant through generations. The West will always exist as an allegory for Freedom. Funny how the farther you go in this direction, the closer you get to where you started.
July 12th, 3 am
Drove a lot today, most sans GPS, which is different. Seems like everybody's got one, guess they're necessary in such a complex, sprawling metropolis. Or is everyone just lazy and antisocial? One comes with the other in this day and age. Suburbs. So much suburban redundancy. It hurts your brain after only a short time.
The end goal of our labor must shift to something more meaningful than a boat or "tail" (a base, degrading term for the Goddess incarnate's most apparent, powerful and misrepresented areas: her tits, her ass, her mouth and, above all, her pussy. These are not to be taken lightly or without proper respect. They are noble, potent, holy elements, anything but the vulgar, evil, shameful hunks of flesh and organ they are made into in the minds of some. Men can be total assholes. Show some fucking respect.). The whole enterprise of work and merit and ownership is fully misguided; there's no heart in it. To labor for such mean achievement as a lay or a new (totally, modernly 'pimped out') entertainment system is a waste of energy. And so much momentum is carried into that black chasm, from which there is no return. What bullshit.
July 13th, 12:20 pm
There's nothing I hate more in the morning than chums. Fucking chummy chipper chitchatting chums.
July 14th, 4:40 pm
Classes I would like to take:
-Developing the Inner/Musical Ear
-Tying, Untying and the Philosophy Behind Knots
-History of Mechanics through the 70's (emph on automotive)
-The Evolution and Subtleties of Conversation
-Apocalypse Survival 101
-A Study of Creole Dialects
-Modern Conspiracy Theories
-Ethnobotany
-Literature Literature Literature
-Basic Massage
-Building Fires
-Improving Memory Retrieval Function in Your Brain
-On the Subtleties of Scotch
-Manifestations of the Goddess Throughout History
-Social Tact
-Magnets
-Oration: Recitations and Spontaneous Gibber Gabbering's
-Viable, Immediate Sustainability
-Cartography
-Basic Programming and Tech Savvy
-Music Music Music
-Types of Shells
-Cephalopods
-Getting Stuff Done in the World
-Sewing
-Gardening
-Finding Your Yes
-Stars: Astronomy (micro, macro and everything in between), Constellations and their Mythology, ExtraTerrestrial Life, lots of Field Trips
July 15th
Banagrams:
Finnish Proletariats Kazoo With Passion and Defiance Beseeching Diana for Toutelage Degrading Themselves Merrily in the Presence of the Goddess
Black Needles Protrude Grotesquely From Dry Cracked Husk AGimpseofRed Dead Widow
Image of Theo as Sprouting Bean
These Yet Untested Hands
July 16th, 11 am
How do you help someone who doesn't recognize their own victimhood? How do you free someone who doesn't know they are oppressed? The world's pretty fucked up right now. Gotta DO something.
I've got dreams, kids. We are going places.
This time space on this space space is so intensely, joyfully, painfully psychotic that it drives everyone mad. And this madness is so apparent to everyone that it has become commonplace, granted, granite.
Remember the whole Columbus day debacle? A holiday, celebrating a man who inadvertently caused the largest genocide and racial enslavement in the history of man, kept on the calendars for generations because it was misunderstood. The people stayed ignorant and content because they got an extra day off work every year and who really cares why anyway? Why is the question that caused our expulsion from eden, why is too hard to answer, it opens a box deeper then Pandora's, chock-full of more why's. Why is just too inconvenient.
Whatever.
Why is my personally favorite. That and How. How's pretty rad, too. Actually, any question is just way cool. Even if it has no answer, especially if it has no answer.
Well, here are some tidbits from my journal, the Journal of a Ridiculous Girl Who Knows Lots of Words and Likes to Show Them Off, Like a Jeweler and his Precious Stones:
July 2nd, noon, en route via minivan to CA
I can feel a cry lurking behind my eyeballs. It's making me grumpy, not letting it out. I miss Fairfield. I miss my house and my people and my security blanket and my hate of all things known. All I've got now is trepidation over the unknown and Anna, which is all fine and good but I want plural people. I guess we're driving towards them. New ones. The only place left to truly discover it the space between strangers' ears and within their chest cavities. Human eyes have seen everywhere else, even taken it a step farther and inhabited just about every place, 'possible' or not. So, in order to quench our inherent thirst to be the First, we must venture into the Final Frontier, into ourselves, into the essence of individuality, into hearts and minds and souls never before witnessed and touched. And, as this is a most subjective field and births never seem to cease, we'll never run out of territory to bolder, blindly venture into.
The Mayans had it all figured out. Too bad the white man came, raped, pillaged and decimated every other race in the world. Funny how the most ignorant, bloodthirsty and disturbed rise to the top. La creme de la creme. God damn, we are such assholes. I am grateful, however, for all that is, because without one seemingly insignificant thing, there may be no Talking Heads or CocoRosie or Fairfield or me as I know her. And I like these things. They're my jam, my love, my certainty.
July 4th, 11 am, outside janky hotel room
What little I know of the Californian and Coloradan Gold Rushes parallels perfectly with what little I have yet experienced of what might be called the Californian/Coloradan Green Rush. Hundreds of broke Americans hear rumors of unheard-of wealth, success and lots and lots of richness-striking in the midst of a Depression and head West where rivers of cash, mountains of gold and fields of green diamonds, glinting in the sun, wait for anyone with the audacity to take them. These fantasies still prosper in the collective dreamscape of our people. Only the currency has changed. Goes to prove that humanity's vision and desire stays constant through generations. The West will always exist as an allegory for Freedom. Funny how the farther you go in this direction, the closer you get to where you started.
July 12th, 3 am
Drove a lot today, most sans GPS, which is different. Seems like everybody's got one, guess they're necessary in such a complex, sprawling metropolis. Or is everyone just lazy and antisocial? One comes with the other in this day and age. Suburbs. So much suburban redundancy. It hurts your brain after only a short time.
The end goal of our labor must shift to something more meaningful than a boat or "tail" (a base, degrading term for the Goddess incarnate's most apparent, powerful and misrepresented areas: her tits, her ass, her mouth and, above all, her pussy. These are not to be taken lightly or without proper respect. They are noble, potent, holy elements, anything but the vulgar, evil, shameful hunks of flesh and organ they are made into in the minds of some. Men can be total assholes. Show some fucking respect.). The whole enterprise of work and merit and ownership is fully misguided; there's no heart in it. To labor for such mean achievement as a lay or a new (totally, modernly 'pimped out') entertainment system is a waste of energy. And so much momentum is carried into that black chasm, from which there is no return. What bullshit.
July 13th, 12:20 pm
There's nothing I hate more in the morning than chums. Fucking chummy chipper chitchatting chums.
July 14th, 4:40 pm
Classes I would like to take:
-Developing the Inner/Musical Ear
-Tying, Untying and the Philosophy Behind Knots
-History of Mechanics through the 70's (emph on automotive)
-The Evolution and Subtleties of Conversation
-Apocalypse Survival 101
-A Study of Creole Dialects
-Modern Conspiracy Theories
-Ethnobotany
-Literature Literature Literature
-Basic Massage
-Building Fires
-Improving Memory Retrieval Function in Your Brain
-On the Subtleties of Scotch
-Manifestations of the Goddess Throughout History
-Social Tact
-Magnets
-Oration: Recitations and Spontaneous Gibber Gabbering's
-Viable, Immediate Sustainability
-Cartography
-Basic Programming and Tech Savvy
-Music Music Music
-Types of Shells
-Cephalopods
-Getting Stuff Done in the World
-Sewing
-Gardening
-Finding Your Yes
-Stars: Astronomy (micro, macro and everything in between), Constellations and their Mythology, ExtraTerrestrial Life, lots of Field Trips
July 15th
Banagrams:
Finnish Proletariats Kazoo With Passion and Defiance Beseeching Diana for Toutelage Degrading Themselves Merrily in the Presence of the Goddess
Black Needles Protrude Grotesquely From Dry Cracked Husk AGimpseofRed Dead Widow
Image of Theo as Sprouting Bean
These Yet Untested Hands
July 16th, 11 am
How do you help someone who doesn't recognize their own victimhood? How do you free someone who doesn't know they are oppressed? The world's pretty fucked up right now. Gotta DO something.
I've got dreams, kids. We are going places.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Fire and Brimstone
The ocean is bleeding petrol. Soon, hurricanes will pick it up and rain fire from the sky. Wars are waging, people are being murdered indiscriminately and en masse. Democracy is shackled to a military industrial complex by hungry, blind, unholy puppeteers. Disaster after disaster hits and our government lacks the decency to aid helpless people. The earth spins through the ether at a kajillion mph, speeding towards eventual destruction and rebirth at the hands of Change.
And I’m heading West.
Manifest Destiny or death by Fairfield. The air here feels like the dirty bath water of karmic cleansing against my skin. I’m just grateful for the rain and thunder and lightning.
And I’m heading West.
Manifest Destiny or death by Fairfield. The air here feels like the dirty bath water of karmic cleansing against my skin. I’m just grateful for the rain and thunder and lightning.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Ode to the Library
Written Language: mankind's greatest triumph and most precious brainchild; our farthest leap across the chasm towards infinity; a vital exercise for the ol' thinker. To read is to enter someone else's head by way of your own imagination. And you can go anywhere at anytime, be anyone, do anything, think anythink, know everything. Literacy and Critical Thought go hand in hand, dancing circles around the ditzy, self-deprived masses. Literature is the most amazing artefact of humanity.
book burnings are probably the saddest thing i can think about.
book burnings are probably the saddest thing i can think about.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
hmmmmm...
I just don't understand these games people play. The politics and power-trips and pussy-footing around is all so nonsensical. What a waste of time. Is it too much to ask for a healthy mix of honesty and reliability? Must everyone condemn themselves to eternal isolation on an island of insecurity?
EVERYONE IS AWKWARD. EVERYONE IS STRANGE.
No one knows what they are doing. Yet. We are, each and every one, children, students at boarding school Earth. Look around and recognize others as such and accept idiosyncrasies and appreciate quirks because these are the things that make life worth living and people worth knowing.
We can all stop hiding, now. With transparency and candidness comes understanding and the only thing in this world that can stand naked in the light of true understanding is Love. Love the eternal, love the shameless, love the brave and innocent and free. The light dawns, spreading its sun-baked wings and banishing all hate, all jealousy, all doubt, all instant gratifications and small, cruel pleasures to the shadows where they shiver in the cold, hating themselves for their cowardice. And with them there go we, trapped by anxious insecurities, weighted down by shackles we have all the power to shake.
Loneliness, separation from God, self-doubt and depression are only the human condition because we aren't seeing properly in the dim half-light of ignorance. Things are perfectly clear, our windows are just dirty.
EVERYONE IS AWKWARD. EVERYONE IS STRANGE.
No one knows what they are doing. Yet. We are, each and every one, children, students at boarding school Earth. Look around and recognize others as such and accept idiosyncrasies and appreciate quirks because these are the things that make life worth living and people worth knowing.
We can all stop hiding, now. With transparency and candidness comes understanding and the only thing in this world that can stand naked in the light of true understanding is Love. Love the eternal, love the shameless, love the brave and innocent and free. The light dawns, spreading its sun-baked wings and banishing all hate, all jealousy, all doubt, all instant gratifications and small, cruel pleasures to the shadows where they shiver in the cold, hating themselves for their cowardice. And with them there go we, trapped by anxious insecurities, weighted down by shackles we have all the power to shake.
Loneliness, separation from God, self-doubt and depression are only the human condition because we aren't seeing properly in the dim half-light of ignorance. Things are perfectly clear, our windows are just dirty.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
short story
The wind animated everything that afternoon. No thing was without life. The trees swayed and spoke, fallen leaves scurried close to the ground like rodents and plastic bags flew with the battered sparrows. Even the gravestones were bullied to attention by the gusts.
The only dead article in the whole cemetery was an item even the wind couldn’t touch—a non-corporeal, invisible, immaterial item—a relationship.
Two figures walked slowly between the stones, wrapped tightly in wool then cotton then nylon to keep out jealous fingers of icy air. There was nothing to say. Even if there had been, the wind would have stolen it as the words passed their lips. Any meaningful commentary would have been lost to the landscape.
But they both knew. That was all.
They parted wordlessly; each knowing where their paths would diverge, neither knowing where the other was headed.
The man turned at the edge of the road to watch his last two years, three months and fifteen days walk away. Her scarf came undone and attempted an escape but was pinned by her collar. Its free end struggled vainly, mixing its bright color with the dull brown of her hair. Up close, he knew, these locks held a rainbow of reds and blonds and golds and even some silver but, from far away, this remarkable head of hair was entirely unexceptional, especially when juxtaposed with the brilliant orange of the fabric. Her hands reached up and tamed the jumble, pulling the scarf back into place, fastening the struggling mess to her head.
She never looked back, just disappeared into the growing dusk.
The only dead article in the whole cemetery was an item even the wind couldn’t touch—a non-corporeal, invisible, immaterial item—a relationship.
Two figures walked slowly between the stones, wrapped tightly in wool then cotton then nylon to keep out jealous fingers of icy air. There was nothing to say. Even if there had been, the wind would have stolen it as the words passed their lips. Any meaningful commentary would have been lost to the landscape.
But they both knew. That was all.
They parted wordlessly; each knowing where their paths would diverge, neither knowing where the other was headed.
The man turned at the edge of the road to watch his last two years, three months and fifteen days walk away. Her scarf came undone and attempted an escape but was pinned by her collar. Its free end struggled vainly, mixing its bright color with the dull brown of her hair. Up close, he knew, these locks held a rainbow of reds and blonds and golds and even some silver but, from far away, this remarkable head of hair was entirely unexceptional, especially when juxtaposed with the brilliant orange of the fabric. Her hands reached up and tamed the jumble, pulling the scarf back into place, fastening the struggling mess to her head.
She never looked back, just disappeared into the growing dusk.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Demons
People are fundamentally good. In fact, human beings are corporeal angels. We are not even fallen; we have simply been drafted and shipped out. This reality we inhabit, these very bodies we live in are a huge battlefield. Good vs. evil. The fight never ends, and never will until we recognize that every person is an implacable warrior of goodness.
So-called 'human' fallibility comes not from us ourselves, but from outside influences. The word 'demon' finds use here. Not demon in the traditional Christian sense; not horned goat-men wielding pitchforks and flame throwers. Instead, they are invisible tormentors, found in cruel words and negative experiences. They push us, prod us and slowly have driven the human race mad. We have come to identify with our demons, making them our identities. We have become feral and violent, crazed and cruel. The demons are artful wordsmiths, whispering words of lust and crime in our ears constantly.
But words are fundamentally flawed. Words inherently create miscommunication. There are simply too many of them and too many interpretations of each and too many connotations and insinuations and subtleties involved in every sentence. Words are the language of lesser beings than ourselves. We degrade ourselves by using them. And yet, they are a necessary evil. We exist here to gain victory. No other reason. And we must use every tool given us to achieve that end.
What we need is some sort of spiritual fly swatter with which to shoo away these pesky demons flapping their turbulent ideas into our brains every second. They never let up and it's killing us from the inside. They feed on our faults, nurse our defects, defend our sins. They are the bad guy but they are master manipulators and have turned us against each other.
We must be a united front, we must recognize that our differences are irrelevant and our congruencies are what is important. We are all on and all the same, all trying our very best to do what is right, responding to ever-changing, ever-challenging circumstances with bravery and vigilance. Human beings are perfectly flawed and beautifully convoluted. To recognize and act as such is our duty. We are soldiers fighting a battle. The war has already been won.
So-called 'human' fallibility comes not from us ourselves, but from outside influences. The word 'demon' finds use here. Not demon in the traditional Christian sense; not horned goat-men wielding pitchforks and flame throwers. Instead, they are invisible tormentors, found in cruel words and negative experiences. They push us, prod us and slowly have driven the human race mad. We have come to identify with our demons, making them our identities. We have become feral and violent, crazed and cruel. The demons are artful wordsmiths, whispering words of lust and crime in our ears constantly.
But words are fundamentally flawed. Words inherently create miscommunication. There are simply too many of them and too many interpretations of each and too many connotations and insinuations and subtleties involved in every sentence. Words are the language of lesser beings than ourselves. We degrade ourselves by using them. And yet, they are a necessary evil. We exist here to gain victory. No other reason. And we must use every tool given us to achieve that end.
What we need is some sort of spiritual fly swatter with which to shoo away these pesky demons flapping their turbulent ideas into our brains every second. They never let up and it's killing us from the inside. They feed on our faults, nurse our defects, defend our sins. They are the bad guy but they are master manipulators and have turned us against each other.
We must be a united front, we must recognize that our differences are irrelevant and our congruencies are what is important. We are all on and all the same, all trying our very best to do what is right, responding to ever-changing, ever-challenging circumstances with bravery and vigilance. Human beings are perfectly flawed and beautifully convoluted. To recognize and act as such is our duty. We are soldiers fighting a battle. The war has already been won.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Moses? You out there?
Long before Moses was traveling, wandering, adventuring, whatever, there was a spring. It lay in the middle of the desert; patiently awaiting destiny, it gave no hint as to its existence. No oasis for this well, only desolate empty space surrounding the lid to its flow: a nondescript, sandy-hued rock. No desert-dweller, even the most experienced and knowledgeable, gave this rock a second glance; no one knew the vast potential just under the surface.
As time and caravans passed, the spring still waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Feeling fate drawing nearer.
And nearer.
Knowing that one day soon (maybe tomorrow!) Moses would come, smite the rock and show the spring for what it really was: life, vitality, Savior of the Chosen People. The spring knew. And God knew. But Moses? Maybe he did. But he understood none of the patience, the suspense, the eons followed by centuries spent masked by ordinariness. Sure, the spring knew what was coming, but knowing the end of the game only increases the frustration of playing by the rules, only heightens the anticipation, only stirs the butterflies.
So I will be great some day. What does that make me today?
As time and caravans passed, the spring still waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Feeling fate drawing nearer.
And nearer.
Knowing that one day soon (maybe tomorrow!) Moses would come, smite the rock and show the spring for what it really was: life, vitality, Savior of the Chosen People. The spring knew. And God knew. But Moses? Maybe he did. But he understood none of the patience, the suspense, the eons followed by centuries spent masked by ordinariness. Sure, the spring knew what was coming, but knowing the end of the game only increases the frustration of playing by the rules, only heightens the anticipation, only stirs the butterflies.
So I will be great some day. What does that make me today?
Monday, April 12, 2010
(inside voices)
Two Recent Thoughts:
-Why have silence when it can be filled with laughter?
-Happiness gives a body great core strength, my abs being the case in point.
oh. and, LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE.
as always.
-Why have silence when it can be filled with laughter?
-Happiness gives a body great core strength, my abs being the case in point.
oh. and, LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE.
as always.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Sacrifice of Innocents
How many innocent smiling faces must be sacrificed in our desperate attempts at greatness? How many smileys will end up frowny, with x’s for eyes as we blindly strive to compete and conquer? How many will be killed within the first few seconds of utter ignorance, blind, wild guessation, sporadic flailings on the battlefield, more often then not losing immediately, guessing wrong and exploding a little fictional innocent in vain, only to start again, to kill again? How many?! And how many times will we save that same smiley face only to find that our time was unsatisfactory and our name and numbers will not be saved in the Minesweeper Hall of Fame? Who are we to decide their fates?
Saturday, March 6, 2010
I have a lot to say. But when it comes to writing, I forget all the important revelations I've had whilst conversating. Maybe I should get a secretary to follow me around everywhere. Or just wire myself. I'd just like to be able to go back a find out what all I've said because it's gone from my head as soon as I've said it. And I like to think I say some pretty cool stuff. There's been a ton of material for thought in my life lately, I'm having trouble giving each topic the attention it deserves. There's just so much STUFF. Let's see if I can get at least some of it down in list format, that usually helps.
-I've been a rather less than primo friend recently. Been blowing people off, changing plans, not leaving my house for days at a time. Luckily, those people whom I love and whose friendships I cherish most are understanding enough to love me anyways. Which is great. But I don't want to be the one these gorgeous beings have to be there for. I want to reciprocate their generosity. It's just that I'm on overload right now. Oh, well. My time will come.
-Not only have I been neglecting friends but I have also been all around lazy, neglecting my body and my finances and my writings. I do nothing all day. Except think and read and watch Star Trek and the very bare minimum to keep afloat. My list of responsibilities is, thankfully, very very short at this time and I feel as if I should take advantage of this time, allow myself the luxury of doing nothing I don't want to do. But there are some things I do want to do and when I try to do them there is a habit in my way. If I keep doing this for much longer that habit may take me over and I'll end up never doing anything. It's an interesting balancing act. To allow for laziness and yet to fight it. I'm picking my battles with care.
-Speaking of battles, I just finished a most amazing book, entitled "Shogun." It's set in feudal Japan in the fifteenth century and depicts the culture of that fascinating society in such detail I feel as if I've lived there, been Samurai. The customs and formalities built into their everyday life, structuring their every interaction make so much sense the way James Clavel explains it. The deliberation, patience, grace, prudence, respect and courtesy inherent to their social structure makes me wish I had culture. Any culture would do. Anything that would tell me how to communicate, how to be tactful, how to make other people comfortable around me. Anything uniting all these humans, giving them all a common structure. Japan made so much sense for so many years. Everyone had a place and knew it and accepted it. Mostly. I mean, I don't want to see the return of any caste system but it would be really nice to see everyone treating everyone else as fellow purposeful entities. A general code of human behavior and ethics is vital for unification. If we all knew how to gracefully react to other people we could find common ground, we could really communicate. It's a thought. Still to be developed.
-I've been rather peeved at my wardrobe as of late. Everything in it is so unappealing. I really need to clean it out. A daunting task, but who else is going to do it? The problem is, I like most of my clothes. At least in theory.
-THE FUTURE
That's all for now, folks.
-I've been a rather less than primo friend recently. Been blowing people off, changing plans, not leaving my house for days at a time. Luckily, those people whom I love and whose friendships I cherish most are understanding enough to love me anyways. Which is great. But I don't want to be the one these gorgeous beings have to be there for. I want to reciprocate their generosity. It's just that I'm on overload right now. Oh, well. My time will come.
-Not only have I been neglecting friends but I have also been all around lazy, neglecting my body and my finances and my writings. I do nothing all day. Except think and read and watch Star Trek and the very bare minimum to keep afloat. My list of responsibilities is, thankfully, very very short at this time and I feel as if I should take advantage of this time, allow myself the luxury of doing nothing I don't want to do. But there are some things I do want to do and when I try to do them there is a habit in my way. If I keep doing this for much longer that habit may take me over and I'll end up never doing anything. It's an interesting balancing act. To allow for laziness and yet to fight it. I'm picking my battles with care.
-Speaking of battles, I just finished a most amazing book, entitled "Shogun." It's set in feudal Japan in the fifteenth century and depicts the culture of that fascinating society in such detail I feel as if I've lived there, been Samurai. The customs and formalities built into their everyday life, structuring their every interaction make so much sense the way James Clavel explains it. The deliberation, patience, grace, prudence, respect and courtesy inherent to their social structure makes me wish I had culture. Any culture would do. Anything that would tell me how to communicate, how to be tactful, how to make other people comfortable around me. Anything uniting all these humans, giving them all a common structure. Japan made so much sense for so many years. Everyone had a place and knew it and accepted it. Mostly. I mean, I don't want to see the return of any caste system but it would be really nice to see everyone treating everyone else as fellow purposeful entities. A general code of human behavior and ethics is vital for unification. If we all knew how to gracefully react to other people we could find common ground, we could really communicate. It's a thought. Still to be developed.
-I've been rather peeved at my wardrobe as of late. Everything in it is so unappealing. I really need to clean it out. A daunting task, but who else is going to do it? The problem is, I like most of my clothes. At least in theory.
-THE FUTURE
That's all for now, folks.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
rantrantrant
How 'bout these commercials these days, huh? What a bunch of garbled non-information screaming desperately for your attention!
Sometimes, I like to imagine a Day (maybe tomorrow!) in which the only advertisements we are exposed to actually enrich our lives. Not these bogus, two billion byte per second monstrosities you're assaulted by for a full third of your television experience.
Yellow teeth?!
Unruly hair?!
Not enough stuff?!
Too fat and ugly to get laid?!
Sad about that?!
Painful side-effects from anti-depressants?!
Not enough money for everything we tell you to buy?!
We have what YOU NEED!!!!!
Clothes, accessories, medications, the latest technofad (with all the newest apps), legal counsel, banks, movies, bodies, souls (for a limited time only! GET YOURS TODAY).
Step one: capture attention
Step two: convince viewer of their inherent failings as member of society
Step three: push product
Step four: illustrate what viewer's life will be upon their acquisition of said product
Step five: shot of scantly-clad, impossibly-built woman
And all this in five to ten second explosions of visual and auditory stimulation, overwhelming the senses and stunning the mind, faintly reminiscent of a seizure or stroke. Nightmares are more enjoyable. At least they make you feel something deeply instead of exercising only those parts of your brain which are most impressionable, and least intelligent.
On my Day, commercials last anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes; each one consists of a message to the world sent by a fellow passenger on this glorious sphere careening through space and time. They always have a point but it's never to sell anything; it's more to communicate something someone feels inclined to say. These shorts are made with love and passion, crafted to tell a story, to educate, to share with humanity the happenings within one human being. Every one unique, inspired, imaginative, beautiful in its own right and each one food for thought. This way, watching television is a wholly productive activity, one which enlivens the mind, culturing it as opposed to washing it.
To tell a person what they 'need' is to imply that they don't know what's right for them, an insulting insinuation at its core. Especially so when the 'necessities' are stupid, materialistic, inhumane, illogical and diseased bandaids used to patch over our deepest wounds. It's all just things. And things should be the least of our worries.
The television is a misused medium. Let's reclaim it as another tool for the ol' utility belt.
Sometimes, I like to imagine a Day (maybe tomorrow!) in which the only advertisements we are exposed to actually enrich our lives. Not these bogus, two billion byte per second monstrosities you're assaulted by for a full third of your television experience.
Yellow teeth?!
Unruly hair?!
Not enough stuff?!
Too fat and ugly to get laid?!
Sad about that?!
Painful side-effects from anti-depressants?!
Not enough money for everything we tell you to buy?!
We have what YOU NEED!!!!!
Clothes, accessories, medications, the latest technofad (with all the newest apps), legal counsel, banks, movies, bodies, souls (for a limited time only! GET YOURS TODAY).
Step one: capture attention
Step two: convince viewer of their inherent failings as member of society
Step three: push product
Step four: illustrate what viewer's life will be upon their acquisition of said product
Step five: shot of scantly-clad, impossibly-built woman
And all this in five to ten second explosions of visual and auditory stimulation, overwhelming the senses and stunning the mind, faintly reminiscent of a seizure or stroke. Nightmares are more enjoyable. At least they make you feel something deeply instead of exercising only those parts of your brain which are most impressionable, and least intelligent.
On my Day, commercials last anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes; each one consists of a message to the world sent by a fellow passenger on this glorious sphere careening through space and time. They always have a point but it's never to sell anything; it's more to communicate something someone feels inclined to say. These shorts are made with love and passion, crafted to tell a story, to educate, to share with humanity the happenings within one human being. Every one unique, inspired, imaginative, beautiful in its own right and each one food for thought. This way, watching television is a wholly productive activity, one which enlivens the mind, culturing it as opposed to washing it.
To tell a person what they 'need' is to imply that they don't know what's right for them, an insulting insinuation at its core. Especially so when the 'necessities' are stupid, materialistic, inhumane, illogical and diseased bandaids used to patch over our deepest wounds. It's all just things. And things should be the least of our worries.
The television is a misused medium. Let's reclaim it as another tool for the ol' utility belt.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Blast to the Past
I'm home. Home as in childhood home. Childhood home as in the town in which I was born and raised. Town as in Boulder, Colorado.
And what a town it is! Wow. The mountains, my invisible friends, are so god blessed beautiful. They put everything in perspective for me; Iowa lets me feel big and important under its low-hanging sky; here, though, there is no illusion of grandeur on my part. Only awe and wonder at what our mother can create. Such glory. Wow.
And then there are the people. The people who knew me when I was half the mass I am now, and smaller! The people I recognized as a part of myself before I knew how to spell the word 'of' (uv?). They have the ability to put me back in places past, to remind me of who I once was. Each returns to me a unique piece of my whole which I lent to them long, long ago. He makes me feel the feeling of my first crush, she makes me feel like the free-wheeling, friend-dealing little monster I was, they make me feel sheltered and awkward and stoned, she makes me feel profound in my utter ignorance, he makes me feel beautiful and wise and loved and in love, he makes me feel like a cynical, arrogant, punk-ass bitch, she makes me feel like the big sister I never was, and the list keeps going on and on. These are my ghosts of Clares past. The value of this trip lies in realizing them, solidifying the apparitions haunting me, remembering the armored suits of feeling I once lived in and reexamining them. It's quite fascinating, really. A valuable life reunion.
And what a town it is! Wow. The mountains, my invisible friends, are so god blessed beautiful. They put everything in perspective for me; Iowa lets me feel big and important under its low-hanging sky; here, though, there is no illusion of grandeur on my part. Only awe and wonder at what our mother can create. Such glory. Wow.
And then there are the people. The people who knew me when I was half the mass I am now, and smaller! The people I recognized as a part of myself before I knew how to spell the word 'of' (uv?). They have the ability to put me back in places past, to remind me of who I once was. Each returns to me a unique piece of my whole which I lent to them long, long ago. He makes me feel the feeling of my first crush, she makes me feel like the free-wheeling, friend-dealing little monster I was, they make me feel sheltered and awkward and stoned, she makes me feel profound in my utter ignorance, he makes me feel beautiful and wise and loved and in love, he makes me feel like a cynical, arrogant, punk-ass bitch, she makes me feel like the big sister I never was, and the list keeps going on and on. These are my ghosts of Clares past. The value of this trip lies in realizing them, solidifying the apparitions haunting me, remembering the armored suits of feeling I once lived in and reexamining them. It's quite fascinating, really. A valuable life reunion.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Heed the Whistle
The tension is mounting.
Can you feel it?
Everywhere everyone is getting antsy.
The storm's a-brewin'!
Everything's moving so fast and going so far and never slowing down only speeding up speeding up constantly racing around and around to create a feverish, cacophonous whistle screaming in everybody's ears and we all want to scream MAKE IT STOP PLEASE MAKE IT STOP but we don't because we are afraid we won't be heard for the whistle drowns out even our own voices in our very own ears.
IT'S SO LOUD
Everywhere!
Everyone!
Let the whistle zap a call to arms into your brain!
It screams for you, for your frustration, for your humanity. Listen to it, know thine enemy and make it work for you.
We're Human Beings, goddamnit!
EVERYTHING IS OUR TOOL, EVERYWHERE IS OUR HOME, EVERYWHEN IS OUR MOMENT OF TRIUMPH AND EVERYONE IS OUR VERY SELF!
WE SHALL OVERCOME
Can you feel it?
Everywhere everyone is getting antsy.
The storm's a-brewin'!
Everything's moving so fast and going so far and never slowing down only speeding up speeding up constantly racing around and around to create a feverish, cacophonous whistle screaming in everybody's ears and we all want to scream MAKE IT STOP PLEASE MAKE IT STOP but we don't because we are afraid we won't be heard for the whistle drowns out even our own voices in our very own ears.
IT'S SO LOUD
Everywhere!
Everyone!
Let the whistle zap a call to arms into your brain!
It screams for you, for your frustration, for your humanity. Listen to it, know thine enemy and make it work for you.
We're Human Beings, goddamnit!
EVERYTHING IS OUR TOOL, EVERYWHERE IS OUR HOME, EVERYWHEN IS OUR MOMENT OF TRIUMPH AND EVERYONE IS OUR VERY SELF!
WE SHALL OVERCOME
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Politics
Why isn't there a politician out there whose whole platform lies on the premise of raising the standard of living for every person in their country? To provide clean water, nutritious food, stellar education and shelter are the most important things to everyone. All this talk of war and gay marriage and economy should always take second place to the question: Are my people happy and healthy? Everything else is secondary.
Once a society has all it needs to survive, to sustain itself, then and only then can it worry about anything and keep a clear head and conscience about it. Right now, we are in a state of spiritual, mental, emotional and physical chaos. How are we expected to be able to react to anything in a calm, cool and collected manner? We abuse ourselves, brainwash our children, bomb our mother moon, poison our own life source and never take a moment to just stop and think about it all. Because when we do, we recognize the utter stupidity in our actions.
We have the technology to provide everything necessary for life to every person on this planet and yet we wage war for resources, resources which can be officially written off as obsolete. Oil doesn't have to rule us anymore! We have infinite options, infinite potential for innovation. We can do anything! And yet we spend all our energy and resources on war machines and fear mongering. Our entire focus needs to change.
Stop it with the hate, stop it with the bigotry and "bipartisanship" charade. The secret's out! Everyone with eyes and a brain knows Congress has been corrupted, the government's fucked! It's obvious and inescapable at this point. We need to stop boxing ourselves, labeling this box as 'Democrat', that as 'Conservative', those as 'Terrorists', etc. etc. Aren't we all only human? Only mammals trying to survive and procreate and have some sort of stability and, if at all possible, happiness?
We are the most advanced life form we know of and yet we kill one another more often and in greater numbers than any other being. Over stupid, petty shit. Like whether this dude or that dude said this or if it was actually him saying that or really it was her who said it and, if so, then that changes everything because she was rumored two thousand years later to be a harlot.
Get over it.
There is only one truth and that is: WE DON'T KNOW. Sure, it can be hard to acknowledge but once we do, we can move on to start maybe, tentatively, thinking something, or feeling something or even accepting something as probably true. Theorizing and postulating will replace believing and mandating. There is a certain freedom in realizing that nothing is for certain, nothing can be taken for granted. It releases you to be and do and make and think and trust whatever you want to. All of these rules and regulations we've set out for ourselves are slowing us down. We need not wage war or advance our wartime technology (for God's sake we already have enough firepower to destroy every planet in our solar system!), we need not squabble over the right to get high while people are starving.
What we are doing, what politics has turned into, is a bullshit waste of time. We need organic food and untainted water and a roof over our heads. And then we can decide who gets the IPad and whose prophet's dick was bigger. The measuring stick should only come out after everyone's treated like a human being, after everyone is finally able to live without fear of hunger and thirst and punishment for crimes committed generations past and nasty, man-made illnesses and so many other easily avoidable discomforts.
Once, we were 'endowed by {our} Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' I think it's time we act on those Rights and really start Living.
Once a society has all it needs to survive, to sustain itself, then and only then can it worry about anything and keep a clear head and conscience about it. Right now, we are in a state of spiritual, mental, emotional and physical chaos. How are we expected to be able to react to anything in a calm, cool and collected manner? We abuse ourselves, brainwash our children, bomb our mother moon, poison our own life source and never take a moment to just stop and think about it all. Because when we do, we recognize the utter stupidity in our actions.
We have the technology to provide everything necessary for life to every person on this planet and yet we wage war for resources, resources which can be officially written off as obsolete. Oil doesn't have to rule us anymore! We have infinite options, infinite potential for innovation. We can do anything! And yet we spend all our energy and resources on war machines and fear mongering. Our entire focus needs to change.
Stop it with the hate, stop it with the bigotry and "bipartisanship" charade. The secret's out! Everyone with eyes and a brain knows Congress has been corrupted, the government's fucked! It's obvious and inescapable at this point. We need to stop boxing ourselves, labeling this box as 'Democrat', that as 'Conservative', those as 'Terrorists', etc. etc. Aren't we all only human? Only mammals trying to survive and procreate and have some sort of stability and, if at all possible, happiness?
We are the most advanced life form we know of and yet we kill one another more often and in greater numbers than any other being. Over stupid, petty shit. Like whether this dude or that dude said this or if it was actually him saying that or really it was her who said it and, if so, then that changes everything because she was rumored two thousand years later to be a harlot.
Get over it.
There is only one truth and that is: WE DON'T KNOW. Sure, it can be hard to acknowledge but once we do, we can move on to start maybe, tentatively, thinking something, or feeling something or even accepting something as probably true. Theorizing and postulating will replace believing and mandating. There is a certain freedom in realizing that nothing is for certain, nothing can be taken for granted. It releases you to be and do and make and think and trust whatever you want to. All of these rules and regulations we've set out for ourselves are slowing us down. We need not wage war or advance our wartime technology (for God's sake we already have enough firepower to destroy every planet in our solar system!), we need not squabble over the right to get high while people are starving.
What we are doing, what politics has turned into, is a bullshit waste of time. We need organic food and untainted water and a roof over our heads. And then we can decide who gets the IPad and whose prophet's dick was bigger. The measuring stick should only come out after everyone's treated like a human being, after everyone is finally able to live without fear of hunger and thirst and punishment for crimes committed generations past and nasty, man-made illnesses and so many other easily avoidable discomforts.
Once, we were 'endowed by {our} Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' I think it's time we act on those Rights and really start Living.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
how?
How do we decide what's important? How do we decide where to start? How do we decide who to save and who to sacrifice? How do we know what's right, who's wrong? How do we be unbiased and incorruptible?
Sure, you can't get high (legally) but some people can't eat, can't speak out against obvious tyranny, can't escape daily persecution, abuse and rape.
We can be so god damned arrogant.
How do we free ourselves from ourselves?
How do we clean this slate?
And once we do, how do we not fuck it all up again?
oh, the humanity!
ps. does 'how' look absurd to you, yet?
Sure, you can't get high (legally) but some people can't eat, can't speak out against obvious tyranny, can't escape daily persecution, abuse and rape.
We can be so god damned arrogant.
How do we free ourselves from ourselves?
How do we clean this slate?
And once we do, how do we not fuck it all up again?
oh, the humanity!
ps. does 'how' look absurd to you, yet?
Monday, January 25, 2010
thoughts
Some crazy stuff has been happening. Such as:
-Today, I talked to this guy for the first time although, going to a tiny college in a tiny town I had, of course seen him around before. We ended up sitting across from each other at lunch and guess what?! We have the same birthday (as does another friend of mine, I found out two days ago). Not only that but when we finally introduced ourselves he recognized my name because he's met my aunt and uncle. It's a small world, after all!
-I've been working on my first short story for a Creative Process class I'm taking. It's about an eighty six year-old man. Two men of about that same age group have randomly interacted with me, one complimented my stockings, the other mocked my sweet dance moves in Hy-Vee. I don't recall any old old men talking to me directly and playfully in my life, other than family and family friends. I think they pick up on my current experimentation with thinking like one of them.
-Memories have become more real than ever before for me. I'll be sitting, surrounded by people and something will set me off and I'll be in fourth grade, being called out for stealing Pierce Richardson's NerdRope. These recollections are more vivid and detailed than I have ever experienced memories to be. I can actually really feel what was going on as well as see and hear and sometimes even smell. Maybe it's that I never let myself be truly present when those things happened and now that I've learned to open myself up, to be receptive and nondiscriminatory, I can go back and do it all over again. It's a blessing, that much I know. If I had been open and fully aware at the time of some these memories, I would have been broken. I had to shut myself off to a lot when I was a kid so that I could become the person I am today, the person who is strong enough to feel what that little girl couldn't. Funny, I always thought I was being brave and strong by putting up these walls between me and my emotions. Now I know better, I know that it takes far more courage to face the facts, the feelings than it ever took to deny them and put on a happy face. That was difficult in an entirely different way. A cowardly, distancing, egotistical way. The way of a scared child. So I forgive myself my past failings and move on, by going back and really living my memories the way I couldn't in the first place. It certainly is an adventure!
-Today, I talked to this guy for the first time although, going to a tiny college in a tiny town I had, of course seen him around before. We ended up sitting across from each other at lunch and guess what?! We have the same birthday (as does another friend of mine, I found out two days ago). Not only that but when we finally introduced ourselves he recognized my name because he's met my aunt and uncle. It's a small world, after all!
-I've been working on my first short story for a Creative Process class I'm taking. It's about an eighty six year-old man. Two men of about that same age group have randomly interacted with me, one complimented my stockings, the other mocked my sweet dance moves in Hy-Vee. I don't recall any old old men talking to me directly and playfully in my life, other than family and family friends. I think they pick up on my current experimentation with thinking like one of them.
-Memories have become more real than ever before for me. I'll be sitting, surrounded by people and something will set me off and I'll be in fourth grade, being called out for stealing Pierce Richardson's NerdRope. These recollections are more vivid and detailed than I have ever experienced memories to be. I can actually really feel what was going on as well as see and hear and sometimes even smell. Maybe it's that I never let myself be truly present when those things happened and now that I've learned to open myself up, to be receptive and nondiscriminatory, I can go back and do it all over again. It's a blessing, that much I know. If I had been open and fully aware at the time of some these memories, I would have been broken. I had to shut myself off to a lot when I was a kid so that I could become the person I am today, the person who is strong enough to feel what that little girl couldn't. Funny, I always thought I was being brave and strong by putting up these walls between me and my emotions. Now I know better, I know that it takes far more courage to face the facts, the feelings than it ever took to deny them and put on a happy face. That was difficult in an entirely different way. A cowardly, distancing, egotistical way. The way of a scared child. So I forgive myself my past failings and move on, by going back and really living my memories the way I couldn't in the first place. It certainly is an adventure!
Monday, January 18, 2010
myheadhurts
I'm trying hard to be a grown up. Finding an apartment, job, cell phone service, taking care of myself and my stuff and my family and moneymoneymoney. Is this what it is to be an adult? To be stressed out about things you don't give a flying fuck about but are obligated to worry over? I'd really just like to live. Learn to play guitar and ukulele and paint and write and make friends. This is what I want. Just to be. But the world is all wonky and it won't let me. Even if it did, though, I wouldn't let me because I would know that there are ridiculous children out there just like me who aren't getting the benefits of my free ride and I feel a burning desire to help them, to fix everything. I don't think happiness is possible for me. At least not now, at least not true, perfect happiness. It's all just too crazy and screwed up. I want to feed the hungry and teach the ignorant and hug the unloved and enliven the zombies and march and scream and dance and laugh and shake the very foundation of our societal thought processes!
I want to make it all go away. Leave behind only the starshine and unconditional love from which all this was created in the first place.
Sometimes, I feel so powerless. Then, someothertimes, it terrifies me how powerful I am. I'm just discovering wherein my power lies. Is it in my fingers? or my heart? or my brain? or my hair? or my speech? or my spleen? Dunno dunno dunno. Dunno anything.
Except!!! I know that we can fix all this. It's just going to take some sit-down chit chats, some serious heart to heart with all the world leaders. Obama needs to admit he's a tool and give up the real perpetrators of the most heinous crime in the history of the universe. The abusers and murderers and liars and thieves running this whole fucked-up sitcom. And then we need to send them to therapy and put compassionate, loving, logical, flexible, reliable, funny, peaceful, REAL people in charge of our world.
In conclusion, I blame all my stress and headache on the establishment. So there. Take that, corporate machine!
I want to make it all go away. Leave behind only the starshine and unconditional love from which all this was created in the first place.
Sometimes, I feel so powerless. Then, someothertimes, it terrifies me how powerful I am. I'm just discovering wherein my power lies. Is it in my fingers? or my heart? or my brain? or my hair? or my speech? or my spleen? Dunno dunno dunno. Dunno anything.
Except!!! I know that we can fix all this. It's just going to take some sit-down chit chats, some serious heart to heart with all the world leaders. Obama needs to admit he's a tool and give up the real perpetrators of the most heinous crime in the history of the universe. The abusers and murderers and liars and thieves running this whole fucked-up sitcom. And then we need to send them to therapy and put compassionate, loving, logical, flexible, reliable, funny, peaceful, REAL people in charge of our world.
In conclusion, I blame all my stress and headache on the establishment. So there. Take that, corporate machine!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Musings
My muse is silent.
When this happens, I have trouble writing anything.
Especially under pressure.
I rely on my muse for inspiration and words in general.
When it doesn’t whisper, I’ve nothing to say.
Hark! I here her sweet voice now!
My muse is a hummingbird hovering above my head, dipping down periodically, pollinating my brain with ideas and phrases. There is a thin but strong strand of understanding, love and the common impulse to twine to another being connecting us all the time. She can fly long and far but I know she’ll be back. She needs me as a means of expression just like I need her as a means of inspiration. No other entity could do the work we do for each other. Without her, my mind is stagnant, silent, void. She enables me to live in words and to communicate with my fellow man on a literal level. She gives me the tools to realize my experiences, feelings, thoughts and postulations. She is my conscious. She knows I’m special.
Isn't she just great?
And back to silence.
Hushhhhh...
When this happens, I have trouble writing anything.
Especially under pressure.
I rely on my muse for inspiration and words in general.
When it doesn’t whisper, I’ve nothing to say.
Hark! I here her sweet voice now!
My muse is a hummingbird hovering above my head, dipping down periodically, pollinating my brain with ideas and phrases. There is a thin but strong strand of understanding, love and the common impulse to twine to another being connecting us all the time. She can fly long and far but I know she’ll be back. She needs me as a means of expression just like I need her as a means of inspiration. No other entity could do the work we do for each other. Without her, my mind is stagnant, silent, void. She enables me to live in words and to communicate with my fellow man on a literal level. She gives me the tools to realize my experiences, feelings, thoughts and postulations. She is my conscious. She knows I’m special.
Isn't she just great?
And back to silence.
Hushhhhh...
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Not a Morning Person
In the morning, a beast inhabits this body. She pretends to be human, pretends to be me but she is, in fact, a crazy demon bent on destroying my life.
It is very hard to make it worth it for that hellion to exit the snuggly tangle of blankets and cushion. Even if the night before I set an alarm specially designed for a joyous awakening, knowing that it is vital for my body to be up earlier than noon, even if I go to bed with the best intentions, the monster that opens my eyes will always hate me, resenting my attempts to assuage its rage and tearing through even my best-laid traps with sheer lack of will and Sleepy Logic. This particular brand of logic only makes sense to one half-asleep and utterly uninterested in rising to greet the day. Up-and-at-'em Clare thinks: 'My hair is greasy, I'll need to get up half an hour early to shower tomorrow.' Morning-time-Frankenstein Clare thinks: 'Fuck it.' And hits the snooze. Repeatedly.
I feel like Catdog sometimes. Dog doesn't want to abandon the safe and comforting haven of bed and will put it off so much that Cat won't have time to brush the nasty fungus off his teeth. Dog bites the postman (or, in my case, punches her sister in the face) and Cat suffers the consequences.
It's a conundrum of the highest degree.
The worst part is that she holds power over my favorite time of day. The morning hours when everything is new and clear are such a good time to be up, taking advantage, enjoying. I've always envied early risers but have never been able to join their ranks because of this stubborn, selfish bitch inside me.
The freak must be leashed!
...maybe tomorrow.
It is very hard to make it worth it for that hellion to exit the snuggly tangle of blankets and cushion. Even if the night before I set an alarm specially designed for a joyous awakening, knowing that it is vital for my body to be up earlier than noon, even if I go to bed with the best intentions, the monster that opens my eyes will always hate me, resenting my attempts to assuage its rage and tearing through even my best-laid traps with sheer lack of will and Sleepy Logic. This particular brand of logic only makes sense to one half-asleep and utterly uninterested in rising to greet the day. Up-and-at-'em Clare thinks: 'My hair is greasy, I'll need to get up half an hour early to shower tomorrow.' Morning-time-Frankenstein Clare thinks: 'Fuck it.' And hits the snooze. Repeatedly.
I feel like Catdog sometimes. Dog doesn't want to abandon the safe and comforting haven of bed and will put it off so much that Cat won't have time to brush the nasty fungus off his teeth. Dog bites the postman (or, in my case, punches her sister in the face) and Cat suffers the consequences.
It's a conundrum of the highest degree.
The worst part is that she holds power over my favorite time of day. The morning hours when everything is new and clear are such a good time to be up, taking advantage, enjoying. I've always envied early risers but have never been able to join their ranks because of this stubborn, selfish bitch inside me.
The freak must be leashed!
...maybe tomorrow.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
JA Meeting
Hi, my name is Clare and I'm a judgaholic.
Hi, Clare.
I've heard that the first step to recovery is recognizing that you have a problem. So, here I am, recognizing. I have an unhealthy addiction to jumping to conclusions, preconceptions and stereotyping.
At first, I thought I had control of my judgments but it has become clearer and clearer that I am not wearing the pants in this relationship. Prejudice rules my life. It affects my whole world. I lie to cover up its strangle hold over me; I am ashamed.
I have always judged judgmental people most harshly, they're hiding from something, they don't have the courage to break this terrible habit and face the world head-on, they surrender control of their perception, mind and karma to an ugly outside entity because they are scared. Now I know how helpless they are, we all are, how strong and clever this demon is. It feeds on human nature. It whispers, "You need me. This world is far too much for you to handle on your own. You are just a lost and confused child without me to organize everything and everyone into systematic little piles, boxes to be neatly stacked. I ease and order life for you. This is a partnership." What it doesn't mention is the cold, robotic, soulless tendencies of its generalizing, the parts that it overlooks for the sake of its system, the beautiful, unique humanity in everyone. I have found myself persuaded, time and time again, to give in and allow one tiny, insignificant stereotype, just one harsh write-off, one "well, I didn't want to be your friend anyways." But, as everyone in this room knows, one turns into two so easily. And two into three and three into four and four into a round on me for everybody and, before we know it, we're waking up with a pounding headache in an unfamiliar and potentially hostile environment, our delicate veil smashed to pieces around our naked feet...
Well, I say No More! No more assumptions, no more preconceived notions, no more write-offs, no more boxes. Just love. And best wishes all around.
As Plato so succinctly put it: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Hi, Clare.
I've heard that the first step to recovery is recognizing that you have a problem. So, here I am, recognizing. I have an unhealthy addiction to jumping to conclusions, preconceptions and stereotyping.
At first, I thought I had control of my judgments but it has become clearer and clearer that I am not wearing the pants in this relationship. Prejudice rules my life. It affects my whole world. I lie to cover up its strangle hold over me; I am ashamed.
I have always judged judgmental people most harshly, they're hiding from something, they don't have the courage to break this terrible habit and face the world head-on, they surrender control of their perception, mind and karma to an ugly outside entity because they are scared. Now I know how helpless they are, we all are, how strong and clever this demon is. It feeds on human nature. It whispers, "You need me. This world is far too much for you to handle on your own. You are just a lost and confused child without me to organize everything and everyone into systematic little piles, boxes to be neatly stacked. I ease and order life for you. This is a partnership." What it doesn't mention is the cold, robotic, soulless tendencies of its generalizing, the parts that it overlooks for the sake of its system, the beautiful, unique humanity in everyone. I have found myself persuaded, time and time again, to give in and allow one tiny, insignificant stereotype, just one harsh write-off, one "well, I didn't want to be your friend anyways." But, as everyone in this room knows, one turns into two so easily. And two into three and three into four and four into a round on me for everybody and, before we know it, we're waking up with a pounding headache in an unfamiliar and potentially hostile environment, our delicate veil smashed to pieces around our naked feet...
Well, I say No More! No more assumptions, no more preconceived notions, no more write-offs, no more boxes. Just love. And best wishes all around.
As Plato so succinctly put it: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
blogblogblog
My whole soul family has gone ballistic. We're all crazy emotionally unstable. All of a suddenly? Maybe. Maybe I just never noticed before. Maybe it's something in the stars or a scratch in my own personal lens. But it's definitely real. Time is speeding up and happenings are happening more often and intenselier and lessons are being shoved down our throats and everything is flying around at such a rate that I feel like Dorothy, or maybe Toto. The cyclone is closing in around us. And it's accelerating, choking us almost to death with joy then fury then sadness then passion then grief then witchery then celebration and around and around it goes. Where it stops? Nobody knows! All the objects that are being so fitfully wielded are more real than anything ever was before.
The Titanic has hit the iceberg.
And, rapidly, the world became really vivid. The picture has always been a little shady, static has plagued the screen but now someone out there decided to get their fat ass off the couch and make the effort to adjust the antennae. I’m not quite sure whether they know what they’re doing or not, yet. It’s definitely a process of trial and error all around. But now we are honing the ability to really watch ourselves and find out who it is that reacts and who responds and who hermits up and who stars our very own reality show. It’s beautiful and overwhelming, a shot with strong side-effects, consisting most basically of growth and development. It’s good medicine. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and we really do always have an empathetic shoulder (oh, clichés, how I lovehate thee). We truly are going places. Fast. I find that’s the only way to go these days.
The Titanic has hit the iceberg.
And, rapidly, the world became really vivid. The picture has always been a little shady, static has plagued the screen but now someone out there decided to get their fat ass off the couch and make the effort to adjust the antennae. I’m not quite sure whether they know what they’re doing or not, yet. It’s definitely a process of trial and error all around. But now we are honing the ability to really watch ourselves and find out who it is that reacts and who responds and who hermits up and who stars our very own reality show. It’s beautiful and overwhelming, a shot with strong side-effects, consisting most basically of growth and development. It’s good medicine. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and we really do always have an empathetic shoulder (oh, clichés, how I lovehate thee). We truly are going places. Fast. I find that’s the only way to go these days.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Parenthood
I think I killed my houseplant.
It was my dad's and when he started moving all over the planet, he bequeathed it to me. I dubbed it 'Plantelones' and vowed to love and protect it for as long as I could. And then I went and exposed it to sub-zero temperatures for an extended period of time. When I discovered my mistake, the soil was frozen through and the shoots growing in water were actually stuck in solid ice.
I'm going to make a great mom one day.
It was my dad's and when he started moving all over the planet, he bequeathed it to me. I dubbed it 'Plantelones' and vowed to love and protect it for as long as I could. And then I went and exposed it to sub-zero temperatures for an extended period of time. When I discovered my mistake, the soil was frozen through and the shoots growing in water were actually stuck in solid ice.
I'm going to make a great mom one day.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Hello and Welcome
I'm Clare. You are my invisible audience. Thank you in advance for listening. Or not. Either way, I'm going to keep talking.
Blah, blah, blah, bahahahahaha!
Anyways, here's a little list of fun facts about me:
-I like to make lists
-I am in a constant state of flux
-I have way too much stuff
-I love a warm bed in a cold room, eyes that crinkle on the sides when the person smiles, armchairs that cuddle you back, dragons, snow, learning things, peaches, random facts, theorizing, postulating, wondering, hypothesizing and thinking in general
-I am an open book
-I feel ways about stuff (and that's about as far as I've got in defining my own inner-workings)
-I'm pretty sure I'm unique
-I'm definitely going to change the world
-I know some of the best people ever
-I have an oral fixation
-I have infinite potential
-I'm confused most the time
-I have undefinable taste. It's very eclectic and random, even I can never be sure if I'm going to like something until I do. Or not
-I like ee cummings, Orson Scott Card and Tom Robbins
-I believe in everything
-I live in Iowa currently
-I'm kind of in a cult. By which I mean I'm not totally committed to a definite cult
-I see rainbows in my glasses
I've decided to start a blog because I like to write stuff and I like people to read what I write. Mostly. And also because a very good friend of mine gave me some really good advice the other day. Basically, she told me to do something honest and outside my comfort zone every time I get the chance. So here I am. Typing highly personal information for anyone anywhere to see and judge. Please, judge me! And then tell me what you think 'cause I really have no clue. I'm on a wild ride, doing the best I can, trying to keep up with the erratic changes of tide.
So there. Now you know some stuff about me.
Stick around, the best has yet to come.
Blah, blah, blah, bahahahahaha!
Anyways, here's a little list of fun facts about me:
-I like to make lists
-I am in a constant state of flux
-I have way too much stuff
-I love a warm bed in a cold room, eyes that crinkle on the sides when the person smiles, armchairs that cuddle you back, dragons, snow, learning things, peaches, random facts, theorizing, postulating, wondering, hypothesizing and thinking in general
-I am an open book
-I feel ways about stuff (and that's about as far as I've got in defining my own inner-workings)
-I'm pretty sure I'm unique
-I'm definitely going to change the world
-I know some of the best people ever
-I have an oral fixation
-I have infinite potential
-I'm confused most the time
-I have undefinable taste. It's very eclectic and random, even I can never be sure if I'm going to like something until I do. Or not
-I like ee cummings, Orson Scott Card and Tom Robbins
-I believe in everything
-I live in Iowa currently
-I'm kind of in a cult. By which I mean I'm not totally committed to a definite cult
-I see rainbows in my glasses
I've decided to start a blog because I like to write stuff and I like people to read what I write. Mostly. And also because a very good friend of mine gave me some really good advice the other day. Basically, she told me to do something honest and outside my comfort zone every time I get the chance. So here I am. Typing highly personal information for anyone anywhere to see and judge. Please, judge me! And then tell me what you think 'cause I really have no clue. I'm on a wild ride, doing the best I can, trying to keep up with the erratic changes of tide.
So there. Now you know some stuff about me.
Stick around, the best has yet to come.
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