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Thursday, November 19th, 2009
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Not like I really had any. My cattin' days were akin to like, that cat that eats out of the garbage and had mange.
I just got back from Couzmel and Progresso, Mexico - photos and a longer update to follow-, but mainly I have to write to say now: I'm engaged! No one could be more surprised than me, really. Chris popped the question on the top of a Mayan ruin - how oddly fitting.
-K!
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Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
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So I'm working on actually cobbling together everything I need for my admissions into UT's history program.
I haven't even thought that I might not get into the MA program there. I don't know why, but the thought just doesn't cross my mind.
Also - Couzmel and Progresso in just a handful of days. White sand beaches and clear water, and, no more Toys.
-K!
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Saturday, September 12th, 2009
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It is been raining cats and dogs all damn day. Almost on a biblical scale, but not quite.
What does this mean to most folks? Let's take our kids out to the toy store!
For some reason completely beyond me, we were busy as hell this morning, and it's raining so hard outside that you can't even see straight.
And then it happens - a guy slipped outside and hit his head, and red shirts are everywhere. One of my co-workers tells me, "Call an ambulance!" and I was like, piss. I call 911 on the phone, can't get an outside line, decide "Fuck it," and call on my cellphone in the middle of the floor. I'm at the return desk, trying to get through (whatever happened to "911, what's your emergency?" Know what I got? I had to be connected to like three goddamn people before I was able to get to what I needed), and people are still checking out, still having time to like, bitch at the cashier when this guy is laying in the middle of our foyer bleeding. The manager and another supervisor were with him, and you know what people were doing? Nearly stepping over this poor guy so they could fucking LEAVE. We had to have people near the entrance telling folks that they needed to go out that way because they don't have enough goddamn sense or consideration for their fellow man to even half-ass express concern for this guy.
Come to think about it, the only people I saw around him helping him was the store manager and the other supervisor. Between myself and yet another supervisor, we got paper towels, called the authorities, and got gloves, but seriously? This guy hit his head, and blood was coming from this cut like a faucet. I have seriously never seen that much blood in my life. It was enough to soak through two cloth diapers that we got for him - and he's laying there, and people are still just fucking WALKING PAST HIM. No one even offered to help us - they just stood there gawking and bitching about what a problem it was that they weren't getting the floor's full attention. I'm sorry, your little fucking mistake that should have been in a goddamn sock is less important to me than this man laying here bleeding while his wife is panicking and trying to console their kid. No I can't help you find this, I need to get gloves for the supervisor who's attempting to keep this man calm and put pressure on his wound.
At the time, I didn't have time to just freak out, but now that I'm off the clock and it's sunk in, I'm just like...Jesus. One of my kids ended up puking (poor guy - blood was too much for him) and another one was shaky as hell for the rest of her shift. Once we got the guy into the ambulance and taken care of, we all just sat in the back and looked at each other. What else could we really do? It was really hard to get back to business as usual after that. You went on this weird autopilot and through the motions, but nothing was all that sincere. You're just like, "Hell." When I finally went to lunch (no one that had witnessed the situation really had an appetite), I called my mom and talked to her about it. She said, "And imagine, your dad saw that every day." My dad was a paramedic. She told me a story - one night, he'd come home and there was blood all over his uniform. My mom freaked out; she wasn't sure if it was his or someone else's. He told her that he was too tired from work to bother changing (apparently he changed into a clean uniform before coming home, so who knows what the dirty ones really looked like), and that it was from someone who had a gunshot wound.
And the whole time, people were still "me me me mine mine mine". I don't know what the fuck is wrong with people, but it's seriously sickening. Just thinking about how people just gawked or didn't even think to ask for help makes me think - my dad was out there saving lives, how often did this happen to him? Did he ever get this disgusted? In that sense, I think my dad was a better person than me. He didn't stop helping people. I find myself asking what's the point? It's not that you help to seek praise; you help because goddamn it it's the right fucking thing to do. But I think you can still help people and resent the fuck out of them.
I just don't know what's wrong with people that when they see someone suffering, something inside of them snaps and they just get out of themselves to do something. It's not like I was expecting someone to be, "I'm a doctor, let me see this man!" No one offered a phone, support...I just...Fuck. How did we get this far? If this can be considered "far", after all.
-K!
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Friday, August 21st, 2009
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Wow.
There's nothing all too exciting to report, but today starts with cupcakes. I abhor chocolate (it's a fact!) and no one really makes the kind of cake that I want for my birthday, so I'm making my own. Except, you know, in cupcake form so it's easier to deliver. I love to bake, but I don't like doing it for myself, if that makes any sense. I bake to deliver/share. Even if I end up with stuff around the house, it just kind of sits there...
Anyway, I'm making green tea cupcakes and discovered the most awesome baking materials - silicone heart-shaped cupcake holders and Chris picked up a little baking tray that's shaped like dinosaurs. They also had butterfly and flower shaped ones, and I was like, wow, this so makes me want to bake more except I really don't like, have anyone to bake for. I'm bringing stuff by for the folks I work with, but I'm like, my boss can eat a dick, that goddamn enabler. And of course cupcakes for the comic book guys cause they're always awesome to us, but when I really think about it, I don't have that many people to go deliver to. I guess that's what happens when you move.
Jokingly yesterday, I told a coworker he wasn't invited to my birthday party, and then had to explain why I wasn't having a party. I don't like large/small gatherings of people all in one place. Since I can also count the number of actual friends I have on one hand, I don't want to spend the day surrounded by people who I don't really want to be around. Most birthdays I prefer to just be left alone and buy what I want to buy. I guess when I was younger I wanted the idea of being surrounded by people that cared and were happy to be there, but please. I'm not the type of person that has a lot of friends, or ever will. That's fine, too. The older I get, the more I realize how much I inherited from my father.
My mom's real big on going all out on birthdays, but to be honest, it's another day for me. I want to go swimming and have sushi, but seriously, I bought just about everything that I could "want" material-wise (because I can't buy a new job, unfortunately), so that's that on that end. The thing I think I'll miss the most is my dad calling me to just talk to me. It was like my birthday was the day that my folks set aside their shit to be honest with me for a little bit, and I'm going to miss that. I missed it bad last year.
My mom and I got into a fight not too long ago and haven't spoken since, and to be honest, I don't expect to hear from her or my grandparents. Secretly, I kind of hope that I don't. The fight my mother and I got into was so indicative of our relationship (oh so very tenuous in the best of times) that I just don't want to be reminded of it on the day of my birth. Yes, I'm terrified that my father isn't proud of me because I'm just fucking surviving instead of being honestly happy and feeling accomplished in my life, and that's something that I know he wanted for me. He didn't, and doesn't, want me to be miserable. I know he knew about just surviving; he also knew how terrible it was when you want to do so much more. I know, in a sense, that I'm in a downtime until it's time to go to the next phase, but I'm just scared that I'm letting him down. The aspiration to do something more, to be honest to god compelled to do something more, is something my mom just doesn't understand.
Rick said that I had to go into a "noble" profession because that's what my dad did. My dad was a paramedic - he was in the business of saving lives. One time he confessed to me that if he had had more support, he wanted to be a doctor. But it wasn't just that. He helped/coached kids at the YMCA. My dad was someone that did for other people, and he was also someone that got constantly fucked over because he was so kind at his heart. He was a good person, and the world does not like good people, but it cries and yowls and demands for good people to constantly save it without thanks. I saw my father grow bitter, but he never stopped what he was compelled to do, despite divorces, hardships, no relationships with his own parents. I find myself in the same situation, somewhat, but with more ice than he had. I don't let people get close. I push them away. I don't want to form tight bonds with a lot of people because I know how folks are, and I can't get angry at them or fault them for it. That's just how humans are. If my dad can deliver babies and stop you from dying and not get a word of thanks, what am I honestly expecting?
In this life, I find myself doing things because I'm compelled to, and as I get older, this gets clearer. I wanted to animate because I wanted to touch people emotionally. Now, finding myself unable to do just one thing, I want to do something that will make the world a better place, as hackneyed as that sounds. Yes, I want to teach, but I want to read, write, and research. There is something out there in this world that I can indeed do and fulfill, but my road isn't as easy as it is for some people. I can't do just one thing, and I won't be happy until I find out how to combine all of my interests in a way that grabs and promotes understanding.
Because I'm colder than my father, I don't know if I have a breaking point like he did. As much as I loathe surviving, I do it anyway because I have no other option. I can't stop. I don't know if something will ever be so big that it will just make me stop entirely. In the later years of my dad's life, everything got to him. I think nothing more hurt him than the constant removal of his children - my mom did it to him, my stepmother followed suit. I was lucky because I was old enough and had enough nasty in me to constantly fight with my mother about it and against it. It's probably why our relationship isn't so great now. Everyone knows I was closer to him. I can't imagine what it's like to be "betrayed" like that like he was, and I can understand what it did to him. I wonder if it'll do the same to me, because at my heart, in the pit of my soul, I feel like I'm a lot meaner than he was. I don't give people the chance.
Will this change in the new year of my birth? I doubt it. If I had honestly disliked this part of my personality, the part that makes me so aloof, so inaccessible, so cold, I would have changed it. But I embrace it, both quietly and outwardly. It is who I am. At best I hope to be charismatic in my solitude, and at heart, in that center, the issues I have my looks don't matter there. Why should it? It can come off as rejecting the world before it rejects me, or the truth: being focused on something more lasting and imperative than the now. I've always had this amazing inability to live in the present, to be happy now. At the smallest stretch of time, I think about tomorrow, at the longest, years from now. I didn't see myself with anyone who could love me, and yet here I am. So I might be wrong about a few things, but sometimes it's nice to be wrong.
-K!
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Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
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Well, not quite next week's episode, but soon enough.
After recovering (somewhat) from this past cold/sinus infection/whathaveyou, going back to work seems more like a nightmare than I remembered it. I don't really feel the angst of turning 24 coming up soon, really, because when I look back on it, I didn't really have any goals set for the year or by the year. When I was younger, I just wanted to work for Disney.
Now as I'm older (and growing more reclusive by the year), I realize, I like drawing, but I don't like drawing in that way. I have my own doubts about my talent, but...I guess, sitting around, really thinking about things, it all becomes clear. Don't get me wrong; I still would love to see my work animated, just not by me. I used to think I was "envious" or "jealous" of other artists that had "made" it before me, but "age" has kind of revealed to me what it was: respect.
It's really kind of sad that my self-esteem (oh, you black footed culprit!) clouded up what I thought of as competition and the like when it was really just respect. Like, take for instance "The Thing." I love the shit out of that movie. The makeup effects in are amazing. I sit and watch that movie and I'm just in awe of how awesome everything is in it. But I never once felt envious of the people working on the film, just this sort of, "Wow, I wish I could have that much fun with a team" (because this K! is at heart an extreme creature of eternal solitude). I suppose I got envious of other artists simply because I felt that they had succeeded in a path that I could not, but on the same hand, I didn't feel that way about academics that I looked up to. One has more fame and glory, and the other is condemned to a much smaller circle of people. I know that in walking the path of a brain I shut my accessibility off. In a sense, that's fine. I never thought of myself as all that accessible or approachable anyway. Not that I think academia has to be that way. It's just a matter of taking the time, closing my eyes, and tasting my path to show it to others.
Envy's also nice because it seems like the artists I was glowering over had it so much easier. They could just do what they wanted to do. There was no huge ethical debate over one thing or the other - I was constantly pulled between artist, writer, academic, model. I've nipped the last one off (semi-permanently, perhaps?), and realized that what motivates me (when I'm not rendered too apathetic from work or the people around me) is just the pursuit of knowledge, but we live in a world where someone who loves to learn is a freak. This, despite warm words from other people, is something I don't think a lot of people can really relate to. Even now, I think it's strange to look at what I write side by side with some of my modeling photos, and if it's as confusing to me, I can only imagine what an outsider perspective must look like. There's no geling of these two personas, but yet they're both me. I suppose as you get older, you either cultivate who you want to be or let everything go to seed.
Goddamn. What I want to do is going to be hard. Not that it hasn't been done before, but it was always the result of a team effort, rather than just one person. Here I am in Austin, wondering why the hell I moved here to work another dead end job with the worst customers I've ever encountered (Christ did I do this for a guy), and running myself ragged just trying to run away from what it was I needed to do and take responsibility for. Friday night, when it all broke down and I just cried in bed, the thing I had been trying to avoid and in a strange way ignored came out.
"I think a lot of this has to do with my father passing."
It's true, I've felt guilty because it feels like I don't dwell on it long enough. But my life is much emptier. Chris is a wonderful guy, but he's not enough. I miss my father so very very much and I miss his guidance. Truth be told, I'm sure if he was alive I wouldn't listen to him anymore than I did when he tried to reassure me, but he was one of the few people in my life that was just behind me indefinitely, and now in this time of such turmoil and upheaval and general malaise of life, I miss him. I want him to tell me it's going to be okay and that I will get out of this because I've come from much worse places and made it before, but now, god, now I'm not so sure anymore. The simpler I make my dreams, the harder they seem to be to achieve. I don't even want to be pretty anymore, I just want to make a difference. I'm learning the hard way that I can't change the world overnight but I want the chance to at least get the motion rolling again.
But, most of all, I want to hear him call me and say, "Happy Birthday, Kim, I love you, and you can do it."
What "it" is, I don't know, but I just wanted to hear it again from him, one more time. It's hard now, I know, and he used to say the only way you can go from down is up, but I seem to be so very far down and up seems so very far away, and I'm missing the little part of me that used to say, "Yeah, what of it?" and enabled me to keep going. Now I just am, just surviving, just waiting for something that I used to be able to go out there and get, or at least delude myself into thinking that I could.
Most of all for my 24th birthday, I just want to be happy.
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| Subject: | "NO." |
| Time: | 9:25 pm. |
| Mood: |  angry. | | Music: | "Geki! Teikoku Kagekidan!" - Sakura Gumi. |
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She's pissed at me. I can tell by the way she wrinkles her plain face behind her glasses.
"Sorry, ma'am, once you've used a coupon, you can't get it back."
So I bent the truth a little. I could have done an even exchange - but she also could have been pleasant to me. The fact that her stomach is this grotesque round ball under her shirt does not invoke my pity. Lady, there are millions of women out there whose sole talent in the world is to reproduce. You are not special in my eyes, and you are not entitled to special treatment.
My day starts, or is made up, pretty much of moments like these. Women who just think they are the greatest things in the world because they forgot the condom and decided an abortion would probably be more expensive than having little Johnny who is running around screaming and pinwheeling his arms and knocking things off the shelves. Things, by the way, that I have to pick up at the end of my shift.
It just ain't worth it.
I think the worst thing about where I work (which I can't actually mention or defame without the possibility of losing my job, believe it or not) is that for all of these miserable women, obnoxious kids, and husbands who are either not there or would be anywhere BUT where they are, is that I can imagine them having sex. I don't know why. It used to be that I would make up stories about particuararly bitchy guests, like, the blonde trophy wife who's pissed because Consuela got deported and that now SHE has to watch the kids and her husband is off in Miami on a beach and in a twenty year old. That kind of shit. Things that would make why people that were just unreasonably rude the laughing stock in the Maury of my imagination. But now, I just imagine them having sex. And the kicker is, it's never GOOD sex. It's like, bored, routine sex. Sometimes she fakes an orgasm just to get him off of her. He's thinking about the checkout lady at HEB, the type of guy that longs to write a "Missed Encounters" for Craigslist but doesn't have the balls cause he has kids and an evil wife and fuck everything happened so soon I didn't have a chance to enjoy anything.
Kids are a product of sperm and egg, this is true. Sometimes their joining is met with joy - but in the faces of the parents of where I work, I never see, "This was planned." Ever. I don't see enjoyment. What I do see is people either intrigued to my appearance (I have perfected the art of looking someone straight in the eye and not cracking a smile - sorry, I just don't get paid enough to fully humor your bullshit) and because I'm distinctively the only black person on payroll. Not calling the patrons racist (although I'm sure a few of them are in their own way, more like, "Oh, that brown person!"), but I get asked this question on average about once a week.
"Can I touch your hair?"
Sometimes they ask, sometimes their eyes ask. You just feel them staring at your head and just itching to touch something that's exotic and out of the norm. Sorry lady, I just watched you half-ass cover your crotch shit's mouth after he hacked up, I don't want swine flu in my hair.
After explaining our return policy (which is posted on a large blue board over my head) all day, the clocks hits quitting time and I'm out. This job is singlehandly destroying my work ethic, my desire to ever have children, and my tolerance of people. What disgusts me the most about where I work is just watching people act complete fools in front of their children, setting sterling examples that the true American way is to bitch until you get what you want, without showing any gratitude or any drive to actually obtain it. It's sad that I have to say that when a kid says, "Thank you, ma'am," it is literally the difference that makes a horrid day from being absolutely tragic.
My car's on its last leg, so no stops on the way home, and no A/C. When I get to our apartment, I have sweat all inbetween my tits, making the rose petal powder I put there to prevent heat rash into literal mud. I get out looking like some sort of colonialist nightmare and trudge up the steps. Yeah, it's hot, yeah, my day sort of sucked (like they usually do at work), but fuck it, I'm at home. Where's the alcohol?
Fuck. What in the hell is that on the back of the door?
It is a notice from the apartment to GTFO - a goddamn eviction notice saying that we hadn't paid our rent. Well that's just bullshit, because the checks cleared on the 7th and the 8th. I take a deep breath. There's got to be a mistake. How can they say we hadn't paid our rent when the checks just pissing cleared? I text Chris and asked if he actually did remember to drop off the rent checks. I love him to death but he has a lazy streak as wide as an elephant's ass. Things slip his mind. He texts back that he did. So I call them, and am doing my best not to yell. Just lose it, just keep calm -
"Ma'am, let me explain before you cut me off -"
"You posted an order on the inside of our apartment saying that we are going to be evicted. You'd better explain and quick, considering that you took our money."
We're under new management, by the way.
Apparently, only MY name is on any information (bullshit, if they had taken the time to look up the lease), because the "old management" screwed up. So if my name was the only one, why did they STILL cash Chris' check? I explain to them that two people indeed live here, and that they should have recieved the checks. The woman explains that she did indeed take his money, but since he didn't write the apartment number on the check, it just floated around. I can understand her actions if she had not cashed the check, but they DID. They took money that they didn't know belonged and just put it somewhere.
By this time, I am irate.
"You mean to tell me you cashed his check and it could have gone to someone else's rent? What time does the office close?"
"It closes at 7."
"I'll see you in a few."
As soon as Chris gets home, I explain to him the situation. The women (I was bounced around) that I talked to on the phone were eager to get rid of me, and assured me that everything was taken care of and to disreguard the notice. "Oh, you don't have to come in," she cooed. We head down there and I'm just pissed. They've dicked with my very hard earned money and threatened to kick us out of the apartment for late rent - by the way, do you think we recieved any notices in the mail or on our door? Nope - just automatic GTFO.
Chris is mad, oh, he's mad. This is the maddest I've seen him in a while. He stands beside me, arms crossed. I confront the woman that I spoke to on the phone and she refuses to make eye contact with me. I just stare at her, forcing her to look into my eyes. Since they've fucked up, I damn well expect them to look me in the eye and explain precisely what happened as to how we've ended up with a goddamn eviction notice on our door.
She chirps on, saying that they've corrected the issue, oh, the old management had a shitty way of keeping files (despite their ability to process our payment always on time and never having an issue like this arise) and that I was the only one who they had information for (if they had pulled up the lease - which I believe is their JOB- they would have noted two signatures), and that they had indeed tried to get in contact with us - despite not leaving any mail, any fliers, anything for us. Actually, I take that back. Chris got a phone call today at 4.
As she can probably sense that this is doing nothing but making us angrier, she calls in the other woman I spoke to on the phone. This gem, this wonderous woman, the first thing she has to offer to this conversation is,
"Oh my god, can I touch your hair?"
Are you fucking kidding me? You threaten to kick us out of our apartment, don't even offer to apologize or look into the issue, and you ask me if YOU CAN TOUCH MY FUCKING HAIR? When did I accquire a sign that says, "Petting Zoo"? There's curiosity and then there's just shit you need to be slapped for.
What follows next is what made me, Chris, and my mom (whom I related this tale to on the phone) laugh the hardest in retrospect.
I was literally two seconds away from punching this cunt in her throat. My voice cracked, and regained strenght.
"NO."
"Really? You won't let me?"
Because obviously she didn't hear me the first time.
"NO."
Taking that as a hint, she prattles on about how she also wants locks and doesn't think they'll look good on her. I am so tempted to just tell her how white people generally look like they have fucking mange when they have dreadlocks (because on them it's truly dreadful, derp!), but there's still the matter of our goddamn rent. We don't leave until they have his name down, our phone numbers, and email addresses. The woman again argues that it's the old management's fault, and that they're a much smaller company, see, and since they're smaller, obviously they can't be utter twats and incompetent at their jobs. She reiterates how small they are by mentioning that it's easy to get in contact with their Regional Manager. I look at Chris, and we leave.
Outside in the parking lot, hell breaks loose, straight from the gates of my mouth. "Who the fuck does she think she is? Do I look like a motherfucking petting zoo? I don't ask fucking white people to touch my hair, why the fuck do they think it's okay to just goddamn pet on me like I'm a fucking animal?!"
When I get angry, I have an affinity for the word "fuck."
I know that having dreadlocks sets you up for a lot of shit. I knew that when I started wearing my hair natural. People have questions; I'm happy to answer them. But don't assume I want your hands all in my head of hair. I mean, how would you feel if strangers just put their hands all in your hair? The fact that my hair is different isn't a goddamn excuse, either. Seriously. It is really starting to get old. What really made this the coup de grace of the evening was that this woman just had the audacity to ask me for a fucking FAVOR after threatening to kick me and my boyfriend out of our apartment because someone was too fucking lazy to pull up the lease! And on top of that, they just TOOK his money without question.
Seriously.
I demanded ice cream, fries, and a hot bath, and got all three. Chris is out playing the Game with the boys, and I've had the apartment to myself pretty much all evening. My head is still aching from earlier, and I know my blood pressure jumped just a tad bit. Now it's too quiet, and I debated, "Do I want to write, or go to sleep?" I harassed myself to get up and jot this down, because let's face it, I'm not modeling anymore and I don't have any excuses for being lazy.
That's my day.
-K!
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I love how "erotic" usually means really awkward closeups of unattractive skinny women and their equally unattractive body parts.
Chris and I rented "Perfume" and "Eros" - the former of which was...interesting. In a really long and oft awkward way. I know I'm not in the slightest prudish (for reasons which don't need further explanation), but seeing sex acts on film just annoy me. They're never how the act usually is - I mean, sex can be love, but because love is involved doesn't omit the fact that you get pubes in your mouth and teeth, the sheets have a wet spot, and the air gets heavy with musk and spunk. I think scenes should just strive to capture this. I figure when you actually give a shit about someone, the wet spot ain't so bad.
"Eros" had two redeeming features in it. The first segment, directed and written by Wong Kar Wai had this desperate awkward (word of the day, it would seem) pathetic nature to it that I actually really liked. Chris was grossed out, but I'm like, good on you, Wong. Seriously. I hate trumped up sex scenes and let's face it, there are some people in the world who are sad and pathetic but it doesn't rule them out from having their own connections to humanity in their own way. The fact that he had the balls to show a very atypical relationship was awesome. Pathos is good, sometimes.
The second segment had Alan Arkin and Robert Downey Jr. in it. So enough said.
The third part was just awful. One of the actress' painfully fake tits held our attention more than the actual paper thin chain of events.
What just irked me about both movies is that "erotic" appears in both film descriptions (don't even get me started on the real fuckin' definition of "eros", for Christ's sake) and neither movie had any like...idea of what erotic was. It's like instead of showing some sort of actual interaction, it was just tits bonazna. *sigh*
And seriously, not even good tits.
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Summer is coming up. Bikinis and the last shoots I said I was going to do are also coming up.
Mornings with protein shakes, days on my feet dealing with screaming kids and parents, wondering if there is something more.
24th birthday is coming around.
My hair is 19-20 inches long now, but my hairdresser doubts if it would be safe to grow it out to my waist. Maybe after it's 2 feet long, I'll consider getting it cut.
My hairdresser picked me to be his feature model in an upcoming hair show, so that means six inch heels and alien hair, make up and dresses and all sorts of unexpected.
Living with Chris is quiet. I didn't think it was possible, but I enjoy it and him.
My grandma is up to her usual shenanigans. Joke's on her - I got a new phone, number, and address. But yet the letter full of insane guilt trips still found us, or more specifically, Chris. I suppose she figured out that I wasn't having any of it, and decided to get to me through him. I asked him why he even bothered bringing that evil into the house, but since it IS his letter, it's ultimately his call. I am getting tired of seeing it on our night table, though.
I'm going to try and start writing again, once the brace comes off my wrist and the clogs out of my brain. Griselda lives here, so I've been harassing her about what she's doing. She told me that she was getting a teaching's certification, which has encouraged me to look into it. Since grad school is still a few grand away, I figure I should start decorating my resume with the suitable trimmings. HR at Toys R Us isn't going to cut that, but you knew that already.
Austin is the kind of pretentious that makes my mouth taste weird. It just seems like a bunch of inflated egos without the talent to back it up. A town for young people, college kids. Like the real world comes and goes because it's scared to fully penetrate, so you're perpetually caught in the youthful stage where nothing really happens but you can dream big big big over beer bottles in smokey bars.
My dreaming is still tangled in the past with the desperate drive to push forward, but as couples do, caught up in the joy of day to day monotony. It's hard to see a future in a relationship without getting discouraged at the cut and dry nature of it. For these things to last, you have to get lost in the daily. I'm happy when he comes home, happy to sit on the couch watching bad anime, or even discussing a budget, what kind of washer and dryer we're eventually going to get, what needs to be cooked this week.
The only time I'm like surrounded by black people is when I go get my hair done. I went there yesterday to get more details about the hair show and dragged Chris with me. I figured it was his turn to be completely nervous and out of his element.
As we were merrily going nowhere, he said, "I got death glares from the guys in the room."
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Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
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" 'Men don't want to be running their fingers through a bunch of naps, trust me.'
Mama nodded. 'You and your sisters will be walking around here nappy-headed with rings through your noses and the next thing you know Brother Kambui will be marrying some blonde.'"
From "Coffee will Make you Black", by April Sinclair.
I've been reading this book (a little coming of age tale set in the late 60s), and so many parts of it have just made me laugh or grimace. The self-hatred we had as a people that is STILL so very prevalent today, the "Black is Beautiful" movement that was all hot air and no progress (because if it was, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't still have folks look at me cock-eyed for having natural hair), just....I don't know. It stirs up a lot of good things, makes me think, and makes me want to talk to my mom.
Not that I'm hating on interracial relationships, mind you. The part about being nappy headed and having a ring through your nose just made me laugh, because I can only imagine that's how I look to the older generation.
...Well, at least my grandma. My appearance drives her ape shit. Like, seriously. Back when I had an afro, she told me that colleges wouldn't accept me with hair like that, and she calls the tips of my hair "dyed orange."
Most other older folk, I've noticed, just write me off as being from the Islands or something. Funny, because I have nary an accent to be found (except for a country/ghetto drawl when I get going. Chris is fond of my saying "THAT AIN'T SHIT" when I get mad), but my mom's often accused of the same thing. We really should take a picture together so people can see the comparison. She has her hair natural, too, and dyes it this golden brown color. My hair's more red in pigment and has layers that have been sun-bleached.
Oh, black people. Whenever we fight to get ahead, it just seems like we hide behind the achievements of people in the past and then make fun of the ones trying to move ahead. For serious.
Talking in bed the other night, I told Chris why I didn't want to teach American history. For how wonderfully interesting it is, for such a young country, America has been brewed in hate from the get go. Yes, we are not the only country to have had slaves, but the affects of it on this country and the utter utter vileness of it still taints everything. Our racism here is such a unique brand because it continues to thrive on ignorance.
To quote Ann Coulter as she appeared on Boondocks (this was not the real Ann Coulter), "There's no money in trying to save the world." It's true. It's easier to turn a profit on keeping people ignorant, scared, and hateful.
I secretly (not so secretly) think that Christianity and the formation of this country has a lot to do with the hate we've been simmering in. As much as I am loathe to throw the baby out with the bath water, my biggest problem with monotheistic (not just Christianity) religions is that they are so isolationist and like, strive to prove that one culture is better than the other. Going back to our conversation last night, I was telling Chris that the appeal of Classics to me was because race itself wasn't an issue. In the Roman empire, you weren't black or white. You came from one part of the empire or the other - you either had money or you didn't. None of this "Well, you're black AND poor - sucks to be you!" Older religions were respected and absorbed. I research it because I want to know what happened and how we can get back to that point. We're stuck at the bottom of the circle, marinating in hate, piling pebbles upon pebbles of why I shouldn't like you or why I should live away from you, and I'm hoping we can at least get back to the point where skin color was at lease irrelevant.
Because let's face it, the world boils down to sex. At night, ALL cats are black.
....Double entendre meant.
I know it's human nature to separate like water and oil for the stupidest fucking reasons. Even this doesn't stop me from thinking, "Maybe one day, if I have a mixed race child, I won't have to worry about people saying he has good hair or he's hot because he's fair, but they'll look at him as another human being." I feel in my marrow that I won't live to see this - and what bothers me the most about feeling like that is that it stops me from even wanting to have a child, period. Something that is innately written into my genetic code!
The world's a funny place.
Love,
A nappy headed negress with a ring in her nose.
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I've recently been watching "Wolverine and the X-Men," and seriously, it caters to the whole 'Ro/Lo thing.
Well, in my crazy fangirl way it does. I think to most viewers it just shows them as good friends, which is also extremely acceptable in my view. I mean, they ARE friends.
Just people like silly ole me wishes that they were more....*sigh*.
Because, seriously, that Black Panther thing is bullshit and needs to be retconned. HARD.
-K!
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Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
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So -
Disney's newest feature film, "The Princess and The Frog", stars the "first" African-American female lead in a Disney movie. I say "First", because say what you want about Kida from "Atlantis," she's closer to black than anything else. And you know, the Muses from "Hercules," etc etc.
When Disney first announced the film (which is set in 1920s New Orleans, hurrah Jazz Age before the Great Depression!), the main character's name was "Maddy", short for "Madeline", and she was a chamber maid.
BET threw a hissy fit, because this is apparently racist. But showing booty buttcheek music videos that only promote one kind of beauty that isn't reflective of most black culture ad nauseaum isn't.
When I first heard that Disney cowed to a name change ("Tiana", which strikes me as more "ghetto" than "Maddy"), I'm not going to lie, I was pissed. The biggest problem with Americans and American history is that they only want to hear the good part of it, especially concerning African Americans. Slavery is given lipservice, people are told it's bad, and yet they think that African Americans are the only people in the world with a history of slavery. Refuse to believe that Africans themselves more or less started the slave trade. We as a people have this innate ability to see our history for what it really was. We don't understand the suffering and sacrifice or what it truly meant to be a slave or looked at like you weren't even human. (Funny, as I write this, I think of how blacks see myself and my white boyfriend, and it's like they don't even recognize us as human.) We weren't suddenly "Free" overnight, and it wasn't like it was Abraham Lincoln's REAL prerogative was to free the slaves in the FIRST DAMN PLACE.
I say all of that to say: How is being a chambermaid named Maddy racially offensive? That's what most people of color did back then. Segregation was still strong in the 20s, especially in the South. You COULD possibly get away with more, as it IS in New Orleans, but our future Disney Princess is much darker than a paper bag. Something in the back of my head tells me that I doubt Disney would get any flack if they had decided to make her considerably fair skinned.
So Disney changed her name. Smooth sailing until now.
The production art for Prince Naveen shows him to be either extremely fair skinned (which is a stretch - his voice actor is Brazilian; he's the guy that played Dr. Costa on "Nip/Tuck.") or just flat out white, and this is causing MORE friction. People are accusing Disney of being racist because the prince isn't black, which tells people that black men are unable to be princes.
Seriously? Really?
Didn't Marvel just throw you naysayers a bone with that whole Storm marries the Black Panther (who just so happens to also be a black prince!) foolishness that was penned by Eric Jerome Dickey (who happens to write black on black on black romance novels, HORAY)? Isn't there a LONG history of black characters being with each other for the sole fact that they're black and therefore MUST be together?
Are we REALLY going through this?
Personally, I think Disney's got the right ticket on this. First off: New Orleans. My family hails from Louisiana, and we're a mix of fair to dark to in between. The real name of the game for the French then was if it was attractive and had a warm hole, that was the way to go. New Orleans was unique then (and often considered the red headed step child of America) because of its somewhat lax views of race-mingling. It happened. It was documented. If not, please explain to me how the terms "Quadroon," and "Octoroon" got into the English language.
Second of all: Disney makes a point of her being an AMERICAN princess. What is America? In theory, it's supposed to be a melting pot. There's not a single person that walks this soil that isn't some kind of a mutt. Yours truly is one of them: technically by "make up", I'm French, Native American, and African. All of this ancestry, whether by rape, love, or luck, has boiled down to produce me. To say that races shouldn't mingle or people should do this or that is a form of self-hatred, and I deal with enough of that about my body to really spend time hating the fact that I've got either a French rapist/whore blood. In the long run it doesn't matter.
America is build on multi-racial relationships, sexual or not. My boyfriend is white, and even though we're in one of the more progressive cities in the south, the people who give us the most nasty or unbelieving looks are usually black, like I'm some sort of race traitor. I think that's asinine, considering that black culture does so adore the fair-skinned big assed caricature that I recall was considered anthropology a century or a few ago. But this is getting into why minorities seem to have an issue with finding me attractive that's another essay all together.
People, look. There is a REASON why more blacks aren't featured in films like this, and we're seeing why. We throw hissy fits over the smallest and oft most accurate things and consider it racist. On the same hand, we're ignorant enough to see a movie like "Troy" and not even bother to think, "Where are the Ethiopians that the Greeks were so fond of?", or see movies like "The Mummy" and don't even BOTHER asking, "Where are the Nubians? Why are the Egyptians this fair before Alexander's conquest?" We don't ask the questions that we need to ask because we don't know, and we're OKAY with not knowing. But something that's presented to us in a frank fashion, something that actually ATTEMPTS to celebrate and teach about our deep history, we hiss and scream at.
This is why black people can't have nice things.
-K!
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Two more shoots that I know of for the year (so far).
I still need to go through the work I shot with Akin. He actually took a chance on me and used a make up artist and the whole nine. I'm really, really, really impressed with what I've gotten back. Of course I'm going all neurotic over the images (before photoshopping; the joke of the shoot was, "Yeah, you can photoshop my fat out," after a comment made earlier in the shoot. No, he wasn't saying I was fat, but he was asking me to stand a different way to de-emphasize the mess that is my sway back). As a bonus, the make up artist (Dee) and I became friends, so yay, learning how to actually apply the makeup that's been collecting dust since like, forever.
Those are not my real eyelashes, by the way. Dee put on some massive fake ones. I couldn't tell if my eyes were all the way open most of the time.
Work's work.
My main reason for taking the time off from shooting is that I want to refocus on writing and illustrating this year. I still have a comic thing to produce, as well as some other projects I'd like to get underway.
-K!
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Monday, February 16th, 2009
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| Subject: | Where. |
| Time: | 10:48 am. |
| Mood: |  awake. | | Music: | "Minoi Minoi" - Pacific Soul. |
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I'm at Toys R Us now, working as a HR Department Supervisor.
The downfall to this is that for 5 days out of the week, I am surrounded by adorable as fuck baby products. There's something about them that just makes you want to have a kid to dress it up in little cute duckie onesies.
I'm definitely becoming more reclusive as I get older. It feels like a priority shift, but not. Maybe I'm gathering strength, maybe I'm waiting for something, perhaps I'm biding my time as always, waiting for this job to take hold, money to settle out and down, and then bam, back to basics.
Got a shoot on saturday. I've managed to get some of my definition back in about a week's time and dropped a size. I'd gone up to a 7 (as opposed to the 5), so that tones down the neurotic side of my brain for a bit. I did have a nice reality check about the state of things while I was shopping for khakis for work, though -
As I'm inspecting the rows (I'd tried on 5s and they were too tight - and unflatteringly so), I hear this tween voice whine, "They never have my size, GAWD! They NEVER HAVE ZEROS!"
I turn around and look at this child - who can't be older than 15. No tits, no ass, and about as big as my wrist. I was like...wow. It's a good thing I can't get into 0s anymore.
Cause, seriously, wow, yuck.
When I went back to return a pair (cause, yeah, needed to put some money back on the credit card, yo), I tried on a 5, and they fit, but I deemed them a little too tight to be work appropriate. Mind you, I just work around kids and stuff, but, yeah. I kind of favor loose clothing as opposed to my second skin off the clock wear.
I don't expect to have the body of a 23 year old at 33, but I don't want to get fat, either. I want to just stay...proportionate and healthy.
And to keep my Chun-Li thighs.
Chris took me to the Orchid Society show this past sunday (pictures to follow soon, hopefully), and I bought 3 new plants - "Sea Jewel", "Baby", and "Hadouken." The latter are seedlings, which is exciting for me, considering that I've never raised anything from a little cutting. Even though it is extremely old people of me to do, I plan on joining the society once I get a few more paychecks under my belt. I've got an old woman hobby - what can I say?
Graduate school now seems more of a possibility now, although I wonder about my ability to become a professor. Classics would be a completely different animal from teaching Religion Studies, and as for the latter, I'm not really sure if I'm prepared to deal with blind-faith based stupidity for a paycheck.
-K!
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Monday, January 26th, 2009
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Saturday, January 17th, 2009
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| Subject: | And now what. |
| Time: | 12:10 pm. |
| Mood: | awake. | | Music: | "Tainai Tokei Toshi Oruroi" - Revolutionary Girl Utena. |
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Leviathan has an issue with going straight down in the bowl.
Among the sundappled blue marbles, he's picking, looking for some flakes that he may have missed the first go-round.
Leviathan is my goldfish. Well, I suppose, technically, mine and Chris'.
Sometimes I feel peaceful when looking at him, considering that Chris has taken the time and effort to give him a voice and a personality. He follows you and begs for food if you get too close to the top of the tank. Most of the time it's me and him at the apartment all day. I scour the internet for jobs and moderately housekeep, he looks for loose food in the marbles or stares at me with his inexplicable goldfish eyes.
But generally, I worry. Worry about not being able to find a job. Worry about the forebearances I've had to get on my student loans because I have no job and my savings are basically depleted. Worry that I tax Chris too much with being at the apartment. Worry about yet another round of interviews that probably won't lead anywhere. Worry about getting out. Worry if I can actually get into grad school and if it's really the right choice. Worry if I gain weight. Worry if my ass is expanding. Worry that I'm not as pretty as I used to be.
I decided that this year I would severely cut down on the modeling, because here it is x years after the fact and I don't feel anymore attractive. I generally feel worse about myself and that I am continually fighting upstream for something that just isn't worth it. I can work my fingers to the bone, but since I missed out on the booty butt cheeks culture, I'm not going to get anywhere. The work I've done is gallery quality, but my photographers either don't seem to think so or think I'm worth the effort. I thought, well, if I can't do magazines, I'd like to do galleries, thinking in the small corner of my grey matter that modeling still counts as a little slice of art when I know really that it's not enough for me. Things were so much easier when I was just an ignored academic, but suddenly I got into college and I thought people found me attractive and now I'm still trying to pick up the pieces or figure out just what the hell went wrong in my brain that send me spiraling down this path into a whole lot of what the fuck.
There's only so much that you can do nude, anyway. But I'm tired of bickering over my pubic hair, over if I'd do erotic or not, what I would do with my hair. I'm waiting for my pubes to grow back from a recent body painting shoot and again there arises this issue of who the hell is this in front of the mirror and when will she start looking like something that makes sense and when will my body finally settle into the next stage.
It annoys the shit out of me to have so many issues over something that is essentially so fucking banal and stupid and shallow it makes me cringe to harp on it. But everyone wants validation and since I'm not in school or doing anything creative, my body's the next viable option. I'm going to shoot with the people whom I spoke with last year because I am a woman of my word and felt excitement or thought, why not, but seriously, this has got to stop or at least transform into a dozen articles on what it means to be black and noticeably ethnically black and where you go from there, but everyone already knows that with the dreadlocks, nose ring, feminist leanings and some sort of mystical facial features I'm well on my way to being some black author like Alice Walker or Toni Morrison, but that's not really the case, either, maybe I'll turn out to be like Tracy Chapman writing songs about looking out the window, but god knows I'm not going to be in Playboy anytime soon, I pick at the old racial wounds that keep people from masturbating happily.
I've had a cold/allergies for the past two months, it would seem.
I miss my dad at unexpected intervals. The first year after he passed I knew when I was going to have "bad spells." Now they come out of nowhere and floor me for a little bit. On the way back from Houston, Chris and I were talking about past relationships and how we saw ourselves. I told him about my dad and his Hollywood standard of beauty that somehow affected me too. It was strange to have him say I was pretty and nothing was wrong with me when his type was so typically mainstream that it hurt. I don't really wonder how my mom views me - she thinks of me as a mini her with the personality flaw of being so much like my father and looking so much like her. Chris says I'm a good mix of the two - I personally don't like looking in the mirror for images of my parents.
When I grow up, I'd like to give something back to society. The knowledge that we can be better. That we can be happier with ourselves, that no one suffers entirely alone, that I wish I could draw everyone in and just tell them, things will be all right. I don't know what's the best way to achieve this. Maybe being a professor is best for me. It's nicer to be lost in the stream of time until nothing is new and people cease to surprise you because what he did was like that Greek before Alexander did and before him or across the world something that some Native American did and it's all very old and stupid, running in this circle that we think we're carving anew or blazing some new trail or shining so brightly when the light from other places are already dead by the time they get to us, spinning in this quiet dance.
I hate that my jeans don't fit anymore even though I weigh the same and I still wear the same size in tops and I'm on the verge of losing my Chun-Li wanna be thighs.
I drink more.
I got drunk for New Year's and the new year came anyway like another day. I wanted to say I was disappointed. My dad's birthday came and went this year marked only by another interview and the current of misery that flows through me most days quiet as an underground river, I want to grow up to be a good person like he was.
A one year anniversary is coming up and I don't know how I feel about it. It feels like we've been together for most of our lives (not in a magical way, but an amazing ability to live with each other kind of way) so there's nothing to really celebrate. It will and will continue to be despite the day or the marching of 365 days in a mindless hum.
I like his eyes more than anything else.
There are lyrics to this song from Utena that I love for some reason:
An image of Death rocks my mind
I pull the cord; toll the bells
The cock beats its wings; when the window opens
The twelve disciples are mere dolls
Unblinking, a grand parade
The old orrery (clock of astronomy)
An automatic mechanism
The twelve constellations of the ecliptic me:
The zodiac
I,
The zodiac
Within my body, from olden times,
One hundred towers rise above
A visceral landscape; Utopia
In the cemetary, a church, a cloister
Eye of Earth; motive specimen
Intellectual organ of stone; the sign of Motive Power
Unfinished embryo; the secrets of Death
The theater, the hospital, the historical museum
Artificial flesh; grotta; Labyrinth; illusionary construction; marble
Artificial clock; weight; spring; spinning and turning; individual time
From the ancient city to me,
It ends with that day, quotidian clock
The sun in daytime; the moon at night
The natural clock of a day
Bong bong, ding dong ding,
Bong bong, ding dong ding.
The corporeal city and the Mystery of the clock
Geometric law, puritanical construction
Monotony; eternity
The present; perpetuity
All Creation is reality
Monotonous
Infinitely changing
I will take the form of a corporeal city
I shall take the form of a suspended clock
Municipal clock, a discovery
Municipal clock, an understanding
Municipal clock...
I don't know what else to say. No matter how I feel, time moves on. Sometimes that in and out of itself is comforting. Knowing that my problems are so small and so large on such a grand stage, unfurling unto infinity, is this the human state, being all too aware and knowing yet you are very little, very nothing, it is some sort of strange comforting.
-K!
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Friday, December 26th, 2008
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Basically all of last week when I was in Austin, I was severely depressed, since the first Christmas after my dad passing was so close to his death it hadn't registered. This year I really just broke down and spent a few days straight just in bed crying. I didn't really want to come back here (I never do : /), but I had called my mom to talk to her about how I was feeling. She basically blew me off because she was at her friend's college graduation, although she had enough time to tell me kids I'd grown up with were married and had jobs or whatever. So now that I really feel even more like shit, I get off the phone with her. A future photographer of mine in Austin, Rick, invited me and Chris out to dinner at his place because I'd been talking to him about how I felt about my dad's passing and he's really been the only one I could talk to about it.
So that night was great, and then I was like, fuck, I still have to go back to Houston. Since my car is a little under the weather, I decide that instead of going straight to my grandparents' house, I would stay with my friend Stephany because I haven't seen her in years and she's down the street from my apartment. I get in that night and I can't sleep. I didn't end up going to bed until like, 5 or so in the morning. The next day, Wednesday, I was going to go shopping with my mom since she had the day off. I called her at about 11 to let her know I was getting up and going to head on my way once I got Stephany with me and so I could use one of her parents' cars because I didn't want to drive mine all over town.
So we get up and are on the way to go get my mom and I text her to let her know we're on the way. She calls me and she's like, It's too late to go where I needed to go. I told her I called one of the places and that they were open until 7, but she wasn't having any of that and basically hung up on me like she did that morning when I called her. So again, I start crying because I'm stressed and upset and generally not having a good time. I go back to Stephany's place, get my stuff and go to my grandparents. My grandparents acted like they didn't care to see me pull up. My grandma barely spoke to me. So I get in bed, curl up, and start crying again.
I get my stuff ready to leave, but my grandma's like, you need to stay. Christmas morning wasn't any better. I couldn't really sleep the night before and I spent most of the day again, crying. Just upset. I haven't been eating (I've been averaging a meal a day if I force myself) and from the constant crying I've had this massive headache since before I left Austin. My grandma sees me crying, assumes it's because of my mom's bullshit, and starts bitching at me to suck it up and have a good time. It doesn't even occur to her that I might be really upset because my dad is no longer there.
I know/knew my mom' full of shit and acts like a child. This is nothing new. She was going to pay my last month's rent at the apartment, but since she's mad at me, she didn't call me on Christmas.
Not a single word from her.
She's called me twice today, but I'm not dealing with it or her. So, anyway, my grandma comes to me later Christmas night to "talk" to me about what's going on, which basically consists of "I told you so, your mom hates you, you're fucking up, I'm not going to help you with anything, this is why what you're doing is stupid", and so on and so forth, and then I was like, I dont have to take this. I'm going home - ie, to my apartment. I get up, get to my car, and my grandma's like, "Why are you running away," and then proceeds to STAND BEHIND MY FUCKING CAR SO I CAN'T LEAVE.
I called Chris and Stephany to let them know what was going on - in case they needed to come get me. I turn the car off (while I was on the phone she was banging on my window and shit), go inside, get my stuff and put it in the trunk. My grandma, in the meantime, has gotten my bag with my wallet out of the car and won't give it back to me until I listen to what she has to say - which is basically, "I'm not letting you leave without money," and I was like, if you were that worried about my finacial situation, you would have offered to help a month ago, but you don't care.
She goes back into the house with my bag, but at this point I'm like, fuck this and fuck you, and back out of the driveway since she's no longer behind my car. I think I shocked her to the point that she just gave me my bag and said this was a "one time offer" for help, and I was like, to hell with this, and drove off and spent the night by myself at my place.
Stephany was worried about me so she insisted that I come stay with her tonight since she didn't want me to be by myself. So here I am. Still with a massive headache
I'm as well as I could be. I have to be pragmatic about the situation. And I also need to cut them loose. I'm tired of living my life feeling like I'm a worthless failure because of them. I can't even see a worthwhile person in the mirror because of them and I can't live the rest of my life like that. It's affected all of my relationships and it needs to stop. I have given them no goddamn reason for them to treat me like this. I'm going back to my grandparents tomorrow because I don't want to leave on a foul note, but that's just because of how I am.It's the right thing to do. If they want to act crazy, I can go back to my apartment.
So that was more or less my Christmas.
I need to start eating more. 3 meals in 3 days, not so much.
-K!
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Sunday, December 21st, 2008
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I don't feel like the gods have abandoned me as so much as they're watching me trying to pull myself up.
The first year, I was still numb. Now I know for sure that daddy's not going to be here for Christmas this year.
They really have no point anymore.
Just because you don't talk about it doesn't mean you forget. You go on autopilot. But nothing really means anything anymore.
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Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
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President Obama.
I'm not going to lie - even up until the 11th hour, I wasn't sure what America was going to do. I attempted to be apathetic. I admitted to my lack of faith in my generation - after all, the last time this country said "Change" and meant it, it was the 60's, and every day I see things that people fought for, believed with every fiber of their beings slowly crumble because we were under the assumption that everything was won.
It wasn't, not for a long shot.
I spent the better part of last night crying. For my father, who wasn't alive to see this. For my mom, who had a cross burned in her yard for being in the wrong neighborhood. For my grandparents. For my race as a whole - from what we have come, from what we have done, to what we can STILL do.
The thing of it is, and the best thing of it is, is that everyone around me last night was happy, each for our own reasons. Yes, it would be nice to say that race isn't an issue, but you know, it is. America, and for that matter, a lot of the world hasn't, and seems to have the inability to get over the fact that some of us are genetically made to handle more amount of sun than others. If me and my lily white boyfriend have a baby, it will be a human baby, not a fish, not a mutant, not some aberration of God. For christ's sake, we're still living in a world where skin color can still determine how ATTRACTIVE you're perceived - where skin bleaching creams are still on the market and eye-widening surgeries are vogue. And people think that the world isn't ruled by race or color? HA!
Now, if we can only get crackin' on those religious nuts, we'd be good to go. I wish I could pull every ounce of my Religious Studies knowhow and say, "This is NOT what Jesus meant." It wasn't. What happened to those parts of the Bible that say take care of the children and the poor? That a camel can go through the eye of a needle than a rich man into heaven? (Albeit the last quote has probably more to do historically with the gates of a city, but bear with me. If those nuts can pull and poke and prod to their own liking, so can I!) What happened to caring about the rest of the world and all of those in it?
I wish you could just say the name of the Pope backwards and vanish them to the 5th dimension or something. But you know, now it feels like instead of just feeling hopeless and helpless, we can actually do something. Something was sparked last night and that's something that just goes without words. My faith in what we can do has...well, been revived. I can honestly feel like I can help people, our situation, for the better. It's not all going to be done in 4 years - I know that. But it's a start, and that's more than what I can say about everything else lately.
-K!
P.S. Now is the dawning of my discontented Feminist!
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Saturday, August 9th, 2008
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Midsummer's day, I realized, "Wow. Why was I doing this?"
And more importantly, "Why did it take me so long to figure out what was happening?"
Finally, I managed to cut the Gordian knot of my past infatuations, driving with the windows down and blaring The Police all the way to my grandparents house. I had come to the conclusion that over the years, the imagination and spirit I had poured into modeling this infatuation could have easily reproduced best selling novels at this point. Why it was so important for me to continue to cling on (imagine, my feeling bad about our using each other - at least I was honest) the idea that I could have been attractive to boys when the only thing on my mind was to, well, be an animator for Disney?
Folks without anything to lose or without a rock don't really understand the sweetness that is an obsession. That's what this guy was - an infatuation, which is a minor sort of obsession; the kind that we deal with because we think it's a "phase", without really understanding that we, or I, in this case, had to continually put thought into why I thought I was drawn to this guy to keep the flames from dying completely out.
Hair struggling to blow in the late afternoon car-whipped breezes, I realized he had used me for sex, and all these years, I had used him as a doppleganger of someone who I thought I'd known. I don't know if working for Abercrombie (which has stirred up the muddied waters of my mind) did it or what, but one day at work, hiding in the back office, I thought, "Forget it." I was scared to tell this "friend", former fuck associate (because we weren't ever even friends) that I started dating someone for fear that he would stop talking to me, then it occurred to me that that was stupid in and out of itself. Encouraged by the sales kids at Baybrook (who were awesome), I put a graceful end to it and deleted his number.
In the meantime, I started to scrape together what it was that I had wanted to say to him. I wanted to apologize for building up this grand imagination, figmentation of him, to say that I had treated him badly for raking the claws of infatuation across him, for never getting to know who HE was and just liking the imagery. Then I realized that it wouldn't make a difference. I knew that I was using him all the same (lofty ideals or no), and he was using me on a superficial level - who doesn't want to fuck their high school crush? Even then, it was more about the ideal of conquesting the untakeable that made the sex even stand out to me, because god knows it was nothing to write home about. I've been around the block to know good sex from bad from just straight out doing it for lack of anything else to do.
So ended this obsession the same way it started - through the brute strength of my mind.
I'm working 50 hours a week (of my own accord - get that cash!). I'm checking out books from the library, and have re-kindled my love of just reading. I've finished 3 books in 2 weeks. I come home, there's no tv, there's no internet; just my lamp, incense, and a paperback waiting for me.
Tangled in blue comforter, listening to the goldfish Behemoth and Leviathan (the former is especially retarded for a goldfish) suck at the blue marbles in the tank for food, I wondered why I allowed the past to dominate me to the point where I was having trouble moving forward. The death of a family member is enough to stagnate any sort of movement, true, but the issue was deeper than that, too. It didn't, and doesn't make sense. Of all of the good friends I've made, I met them in college, with the exception of one or two people I went to high school with. Of all the guys that mustered the balls to talk to me or find me attractive or confess later that they didn't know how to approach me otherwise they would have asked me out, this happened in college and the years after. So why does such a miserable time in my life have so much pull?
When I look back at it, no one really knew me, because they didn't know themselves. That, and I was always looking to something else - the future. How funny it is that I spent so much time looking forward only to waste so much time looking back, questioningly, looking for something that I may have missed the first go-round. Guys didn't pay attention to me, but I didn't start craving that attention until I took my focus off of what I wanted. Then it became this pulsing wound. I think I put way more emphasis on it than needed. Now that I've come to terms with the grand thought of "To Hell With This," my life's become a lot easier.
I don't really complain about getting male attention too much nowadays. I know guys don't approach me (regardless of my being in a relationship or not); they approach the girls I work with, which makes me think I wasn't really missing out on too much when I was in high school, and that my focus was right where it needed to be - to the future.
-K!
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lanerd's journal
tired.
nostalgic.
amused.
okay.
accomplished.