I’m crying idealistic tears of creativity.

Wednesday, June 25th 2008 at 5:09am

I glanced at a blog just now that had a six word memoir. It’s a challenge going around and I’d like to take the opportunity to take it on. I know for a fact that one of my six words needs to be “creative.” Hers was “many mistakes later I am laughing,” which is very clever, so I want to think of something really clever too.

Imaginative creativity applied to idealism leads to disappointment... But that’s too long. Idealistic creativity manifests deep dissatisfaction... But that is five words. I am crying idealistic tears of creativity. Drat, that’s seven words and I really like that one. Oh! I know!

I’m crying idealistic tears of creativity!

That’s my six word memoir. But, there are still so many things I wish to creep into it... I’m weeping in idealistic love and ingenuity. That is seven words, but I’d really like to actually say “idealistic love” now that I think about it, because so much of my life is centered around my ideals for love even though so much of my life is also centered around my creative whims.

“Whimsical creativity and idealistic love battle!”

I like that one too, but that one sounds like a phrase and not a memoir. I’m centered in dissatisfied idealistic love...

Okay, I’m not sure which I like best anymore. You knew I couldn’t write just one! Which probably defeats the whole purpose...

I’m crying idealistic tears of creativity.

Whimsical creativity and idealistic love battle.

I’m centered in dissatisfied idealistic love.

Idealist is understating my imaginative nature.

I could probably roll these out for days now that I’ve begun. It’s really quite addictive. I invite you all to try to come up with your own now, and do leave them in my notes or guest book once you’ve thought of them.

Wednesday, June 25th 2008 at 3:41pm

I feel sick to my stomach.

I must be missing something here... What on earth am I doing wrong? I feel like the more things I do “right” the more wrong I am. I’ve been having sex with Crusifer everyday just like he wanted, I even woke him up to morning sex. I dressed up the way he likes when we went grocery shopping. I gave him plenty of affection. I held him all night. I asked what he wanted to do. I offered to braid his hair, which he refused. I offered sex with him again, and he refused. I feel so rejected. I feel invisible. I keep touching his hair and hugging him and he’s not pushing me away but it’s as though I’m not even there...

I told him that I wanted to feel close to him. I kissed him the way he says makes him “melt” and even that didn’t do anything. I feel completely helpless. I could be asleep or reading my book right now and it wouldn’t make a difference to him and it’s burning me up. This is so stupid! I feel like it’s all my fault. I must have said something or done something... He’s never like this without a reason, although sometimes he himself doesn’t even know what it is...

I want to cry, and scream and throw a fit, but that would make me feel terribly immature and it probably wouldn’t help at all. When he ignores me like this I feel like anything I do is inconsequential. Like if I were to clean the entire room he probably wouldn’t notice... Heck, that’s a good idea... What would he do if I just began cleaning obsessively? Probably nothing...

I don’t understand how last night he was so happy, so loving, so full of kisses and consideration for me, and how I do all the same things he likes so much today and I’m nobody! It doesn’t even make any sense... I don’t feel like doing a god damned thing. I did want to watch a movie with him. I was hungry. I did want to play Pharaoh while he played Gears of War, I did want to work on reformatting all the card-files for the board game (which I accidently made in a low resolution... *cries*)... I even wanted to fuck him. I was content to braid his hair. I would have done anything he pleased, but since he turned down me doing anything now I don’t want to do anything...

I measure myself in what he wants from me. The more he wants from me (and appreciates from me) the more I’m worth. When he doesn’t want or appreciate anything of me, then I am nothing. At least I can understand that, but I’ll be damned if I can change it.

(Mentally I’m punching my monitor and feeling the glass break on my knuckles and watching the glass fly around and my knuckles are bleeding down my arm... I’m opening the window and watching to see if Crusifer notices. I burst into tears... I hang myself part way out the window, fall, fall... Darkness... No one is with me... Would I ever do such ridiculous things? No. That’s why I’m sitting here writing, dry-eyed and fidgeting like mad.)

I suppose I’m going to start cleaning now. I shall start with the fridge. It needs cleaning pretty bad.

Wednesday, June 25th 2008 at 4:40pm

Interesting. It’s been exactly one hour.

In that hour I washed out the fridge throughly, took out the trash, put away the laundry, cleaned up the clothing area in general (put all dirty clothes in laundry and all left-out clothing that was still clean away), fixed our craft table, rinsed the sink, took some things out to the compost, took a couple dishes down to the kitchen and washed my face while I was there, straightened up the craft-table area next to the bed, put away the water bottles and washed off the top of our snack-station on wheels...

In this time I also touched Crusifer twice to scratch his head and have spoken to him about three time. I’ve received no response, verbal, physical or even a glance. I’m so confused as to what he could be upset about. I know for a fact that if I ask that he will claim nothing is wrong. Oh yeah? Then why is it then he only doesn’t acknowledge me when he’s upset about something? Like, is that supposed to be a coincidence?

I wonder if this has to do with drinking. Retarded as that sounds... Friday he worked overtime and hung out with “barbie gone emo” afterwards with her “fine as hell” friends and got home at 4:00am rather blazed. On Saturday his cousins were in town so he hung out with them, gave on of his broke-ass nigga cousins $40, drank his ass off, got home at five o’clock in the morning and passed out. I couldn’t sleep so I went for an early-morning bike ride Sunday morning around six o’clock in the morning.

Sunday I allowed him to drink, grudgingly because I want him to decide that he doesn’t need it in his life once and for all on his own. He didn’t do anything “not nice” on Sunday, so I noted that if he asked next Sunday I’d allow it again. Monday I realized my period was going thin and decided to break the sex-fast early because I realized that I wanted it almost as much as he, and he was delighted. Tuesday, (yesterday) though he said it wasn’t necessary I had sex with him again, keeping to my word about every single day that I’m able...

(I need to learn to spell necessary. I spell it wrong every time and need to correct it. Ne Cess Ary... Ne Cess Ary... Ne Cess Ary! Necessary... Now, without looking... Necessary...! Yeah!)

And then, felling inspired, at six o’clock in the morning I woke him up to riding him, to his delight. We both were well satisfied and went to sleep afterwards. We get up this morning, and at first he’s all nice to me, and affectionate as he has been... And then we go to get groceries, and we hurried because Mom needed to car to pick up Dad so we had to be back before four o’clock. He was fine on the way there in the car I think... Though if I think back he seemed a little agitated then though I didn’t pay much mind...

In the grocery store he wasn’t as affectionate as usual... Then in the check-out lane as I’m trying persistently to get him to pay attention to me (I’m out in public in lingerie for goodness sakes, he could at least pay me some mind) and he asks me, “Can I get a couple beers today?”

I thought for a moment and I said, “but it Wednesday...” I said, a little uneasy by him asking again so soon. “But I’ll be good,” he said. I thought about that doubtfully since he was paying more attention to the magazines than me. “Yeah, but that would make three times in only four days...”

He frowned, “How is that?”

I sighed, “Friday you got home at 4:00am, Saturday you drank and got home at 5:00am, and Sunday I allowed you to drink... Can’t you at least wait until next Sunday?”

“How about I don’t drink Sunday then?”

I looked at him, angrily. Come to think of it, he’s barely spoken a word to me since. We road in silence most of the way home. On the way into the house I kissed him, and he said, “come on, let’s go,” instead of kissing me back. I was the one holding a bag of groceries when I leaned to kiss him, but he was empty-handed and didn’t reach for me at all. When we got upstairs I went to hug him and give him a kiss again, thinking surely now that we’re home and in our room he’ll stop being so distant, and I was completely wrong because he said, “It’s hot, I’m trying to take my clothes off.”

Disgruntled I waited for him to take off his clothes and then pulled him to the bed and pulled him down on top of me and kissed him again the way that he says he likes so much... I never used to kiss so much before him, nor did I ever do the things I do with him like sucking on the lips, and using my tongue in such intricate and deliberate movements... Nothing was working. He kissed back, in the most empty-hearted way and still didn’t touch me despite all of my touching of him.

At this point I’m completely desperate for affection so I’m grinding on him, and kissing him deeply and moaning... (Clearly that’s a sexual invitation!) And he pulls away and starts playing with his hair. Distressed, I asked, “Don’t you want me?”

“Want you how? You could mean a zillion different things by that!”

I rolled my eyes, “I clearly want to have sex with you. Why don’t you want me?”

“Maybe later,” he says.

At that point I’m on the verge of rage, but I turn around my approach and start touching his hair (since that is what he is doing) and then I go to braid it, since he requested that I braid his hair today. He said, “no don’t braid it.”

“Why not?” I asked, feeling worse and worse by the moment.

“I don’t want to walk around with my hair half-braiding looking stupid all day.”

I swallowed my anger yet again. (I probably should explain that I’m no good at braiding hair, but a few days ago I braided some of his hair for the fun of it, just to be taken out again in the morning, and his hair curled up in a way that he liked after it was taken out so I’ve been braiding it every night or so as far as I could get before my fingers hurt from the process. He says he enjoys how it feels when I do it and that he likes how it looks when he pulls it out, and it’s good practice and exercise for me.)

He doesn’t want sex, he doesn’t want to be groomed, he doesn’t want affection, he doesn’t want attention, and he also doesn’t want to give anything to me. What do you do with a person who won’t give or receive! And even now, at five o’clock now he’s sitting next to me, ignoring me entirely digitally painting. That’s all well and good that he is digitally painting, but come on. It’s been twelve hours since he last paid me mind at five in the morning when we had sex.

I’m beginning to analyze everything I can looking for an answer... Did I not thank him for the cup of tea he made me? I thought I said something appreciative of it. Is he this upset because he’s not drinking right now? Would he ignore me just because he’s not drinking! It makes me so angry and so desperate. I want to go buy him a goddamned drink so he’ll pay attention to me and I also want to smack him for being so silly!

I’m sitting here in this bran-new lingerie dress that is completely transparent with a transparent lace bra that he insisted I have when he saw it at Target, and I’ve been in it since I first woke. I even cleaned wearing it, and walked around Wegmans in it, and I’m still fucking invisible! It makes me so angry I could just burst.

I feel like if only I could do something more, or if only I said or did something differently today then he’d notice me. I’m so sick of being ignored. The rest of the world already ignores me for my age, or my sex, or my race, or my background. The last thing I need is for the center of my world to ignore me too!

It’s not bloody fair at all! I do anything he asks and all I want is some god damned affection and attention and I’ll be bloody damned if I ever get it for more than a couple hours here and there... I feel like half the time we touch each other is during sex, maybe more. I hate being nothing but a damned sex object. $60 groceries today, and sometimes they’re $100 a week, and now and then I get new lingerie and I give out all the services he wants! What am I? A cheap fucking whore?

Thirst

Saturday, June 21st 2008 at 10:45pm

I’m so sick of crying. Last night Crusifer stayed to work overtime on a tattoo... He called me ahead of time to let me know. I was upset, especially when he said he was going to smoke a blunt with the customer afterwards. He told me when he got home how hot this girl was. He told me...;

“Yo babe, I think I got a girl friend.”

“You what?!?!” I exclaimed.

“Not like that.”

“I don’t want to hear that in any form.”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I said, I don’t want to hear that in any form!”

“But babe, I just got mad connections just now. This fine as hell bitch comes in the shop today with three other fine as hell chicks,” he makes this little gesture he does where he touches his nose with one finger and then brushes it, I’m not sure why he does it, or where it comes from, but I know it’s like purposely blushing or along those lines. “She wanted a tattoo and as I was tattooing her she got to talking and she starts telling me how she’s in an open relationship. I did one of those tut numbers, because I know how that is. He’s sleeping with other girls but she hasn’t slept with anyone yet. I asked her if she wanted to get laid, and she said that she did.”

As he’s telling me this he’s getting undressed in the area of the room that I can’t see from the bed where I’m lying. I keep waiting for him to greet me and kiss me and tell me how he misses me, but without any input he continues.

“She was like preppy, but not that preppy. She had this sort of emo thing going on, not that she was gothed out or anything... She was just fine as hell, like... She was like a barbie, but she was emo though. Anyway, I asked her why she wasn’t getting laid even though she wanted to get laid and she said she doesn’t tell the guys she likes that she likes them, she wants them to figure it out. So I was like, ‘oh, you’re one of those chicks’ and she was like ‘what do you mean by that?’”

I say, “Baby?” Hoping to prompt him to greet me and touch me to stop talking about her, but after a moment of silence he says, “She was like Barbie gone emo, but not emo gone Barbie if you know what I mean. She was like one those chicks. Anyway, I got done tattooing her and then her friend wanted to get tattooed too. She was tattooed before by Cory Cudney so I was feeling pretty good. Like they were tattooed by him but she wanted to get a tattoo from me after seeing my stuff.”

I sigh and give up on him paying any notice to me. After another silence he says, “She was fine as hell though. Like she was really thin, and she was so pale, like you think you’re pale, you should have seen how pale she is. You would definitely think she’s hot. She was like Barbie gone emo.”

“You said that,” I said, getting extremely annoyed.

“Oh. Well, yeah, all her friends wanted to get tattooed by me too. And I saw (insert some name I forgot here) on the way home too, he gave me a slim-jim. Man, I’m coming up on Elmwood. I want everyone to know me. Like Hardcore wasn’t even all-like-that before I was there and now people who wouldn’t get tattooed there, get tattooed there by me.”

Still, no greeting, no hug, no kiss. All the happiness in me drains out of me and I listen despairingly as he continues, repeating himself often.

“And not just anybody either, I mean, this chick was fine as hell. And she asked for my number and of course I had to give it to her.”

“No you didn’t have to,” I muttered, but I don’t think he heard me.

“Like I just swooned her.”

“You did what?!?!”

“I swooned her, cause like she was mad fine.”

“Why would you do that? You’re encouraging her?” I say incredulously.

“No, no, of course not. It’s just flattering, you’d do it too.”

“I most certainly would not swoon anyone but you!”

“Yeah right, like you don’t get all happy when guys flatter you. You’re a woman so you wouldn’t understand. Women always get attention. I’m a man so it’s cool to me when a girl takes notice of me. It’s flattering you know. Cause she was mad hot and like emo, but Barbie though.”

“That’s like the third time you’ve said that now. And I don’t get flattered, and even if I did I wouldn’t come home bragging about it. You wouldn’t like it if I did.”

“Yeah, but you’re a woman. Let me put it this way, I have a lot more to worry about than you do.”

“Yeah right!” I exclaimed. “You’re at work tattooing every single fucking day. You tattoo mad fine fucking bitches all the fucking time! And you said so your self, even your fucking boss wants to fuck you!”

At this point I roll over and face away from him even though he’s walked into view. He crawls onto the bed and kisses my neck and says, “But I just got mad connections though.”

“I don’t fucking care about your connections!” I spat. This is the part where I messed up. I should have rolled over and kisses him back and told him how I felt earnestly but instead I just lost it. Instead of confronting the wrong I felt he had done, I added my own wrong to the picture by discounting his happiness, discounting his long-awaiting affection and discounting his socializing to further his career and lied about my own feelings on a level even though I didn’t care at that moment.

He abruptly pulls away and adds onto the pile of wrong-doings of the night by saying, “You think you don’t care about my connections, but what do you think is going to support us? You just go find some other man who has connections and then call me and let me know when you’ve found him and tell me you understand then!”

Of course this statement didn’t really make sense but I understood what he meant. His connections are something I should care about, and of course I do. Not so much because it’s important but because I care about everything he does. However his relationship with me, is so much more important to me. I didn’t want to hear about the chick he’d been with for the last three hours, tattooing her and then smoking a blunt with her when he could have been home with me, especially not before he even greets me.

The whole ordeal was only really a minor set-back and we eventually worked it out, but after a lot of crying and acting the fool on my part...

Today, ironically Jeremy visited me. Two weeks ago, when I was about ready to leave Crusifer, I was dying for Jeremy to visit me so that I could evaluate that possibility if it even was one. Today I saw that while I could ask him back out, it probably wouldn’t work. I’m not the same girl he was so crazy about, and my perspective is so different that he doesn’t seem like all that he was to me then. I feel a very sisterly-brotherly love for him. It’s obvious he feels a much more lustful love for me. We both dream about each other which is interesting, but not surprising really.

I kept trying to engage in an interesting conversation with him, but I realize now that we never got to talking about much of anything interesting. We’re both to distracted by who we are and what we used to be when we were together that it’s hard to talk about anything else. We don’t have recent memories together so we always go back to the common ground of what we did have. As I’ve said a zillion times, I wish dearly that I could be his friend, but I know that’s beyond impossible.

This is the first time seeing him again in probably three months. I see Tina only about twice as much, and that about ends the people I try to keep in touch with. I keep trying to talk to Will online, mostly out of courtesy for the friendship he’s offered me on many occasions. He was there to talk to when I was down and out. The truth is though that there seems to be nobody I can have easy conversation with but Crusifer, and even that sometimes seems strained. It’s wonderful and everything to be able to talk to my mother but nothing can change the dramatic age gap and the determined rolls of mother and daughter which will forever limit our conversations’ content.

I hope Jeremy saw no pity in my eyes when I looked at him, but I’m afraid he did because he said to me, “why do you keep looking at me like that?” And I said, “like what?” and he said, “the way you’re looking at me now which makes me feel so stupid.”

I laughed and determinedly looked at him in a silly way. He was also surprised when I said fluently without being conscious of the statements origins, “what the fruit cup?” in response to something he said or did, though I forgot what it was. I got that expression from him and never lost it.

He stayed for perhaps two hours. He wouldn’t have stayed so long but I told him he couldn’t go after only just showing up and did my typical move for when I don’t want someone to leave: I hide something that belongs to them. I hid his ipod. So as he was looking for it (mostly to be funny) I hid his shoes, and while he was looking for those I hid his hoodie. It made for more interesting interacting that the goofy faces and small talk we were having.

After I gave him his things back perhaps half an hour later we both opened our mouths and took a breath as if to say something at the same moment. We both didn’t speak, waiting for the other, and I said, “you first,” and then, before I could blink he snuck in a kiss – a quick peck to the lips. I was rather stunned, because it was so unexpected and so ironic after all the complaining I had done last night about Crusifer smoking a blunt with that chick.

I told Jeremy about last night’s happenings and the irony of it. He seemed embarrassed for having done it, but leaned towards me as if to look for something more. “I can’t,” I said. “I don’t like being a hypocrite, and I also don’t like feeling guilty.” This of course didn’t prevent him from getting a few gropes before he left, and somehow I do feel guilty anyway. I know that if Crusifer watched our interactions he would have been just as upset (if not more so) than I would have been if I could have watched him last night with that emo chick.

At least I wasn’t swooning anybody, and at least this is like a once in forever thing, and I’m hanging around a bunch of “hot” guys. So why do I feel like a hypocrite anyway?

This whole jealousy thing keeps getting worse for me. I don’t know how to stop the feelings I get every time I hear about or think about Crusifer and his profession. Tattoos in private places is bad enough, and so is smoking with customers, but doing it on my time and then coming home and bragging about it is more than I can handle. Sometimes I feel like he’s doing it just to make me jealous because of his insecurities.

And if all of this wasn’t enough weighing on my mind, now he’s probably not coming home again tonight because his cousin is in town. I feel bad for making it such a big deal for him to hang out with his cousin, but I feel like it’s so unfair that he should get to go out and have a good time with his cousins when I’m stuck here, lonely, on my period, with cramps, feeling like shit, missing him, after waiting for him and thinking about him all day long. I thought I said it in jest when I said to Jeremy, “Crusifer probably won’t even be home until four o’clock in the morning again. I’m lucky if I ever see that nigga!”

That was in response to Jeremy telling me about his new work schedule which has him working more hours than Crusifer. 8:00am to 8:00pm Mondays through Saturdays. Pretty crazy, huh? I feel bad for him. Mordern work is bull shit.

Now he isn’t going to be coming home tonight either. I’m so sick of this dance. If I’m not doing this dance with Crusifer then I’m doing the longer dance of hopping from man to man, and if it’s not that dance then it’s the lonely one. I feel like that of the three options this has to be the better one. He does love me, he is trying and he is providing for me... But I’m so fucking sick of being alone.

---

Thirst

How many do you know?

That are going with the flow?

How many do you know?

That don’t know where to go?

How many, are ready?

How many, are steady?

How many started great?

How many were fate?

How many ended late?

How many are yet to state?

I just want to shout. I just want to pout.

I just want to yell. I just want to tell...

All the lovers in the land,

all the people holding hands,

all the famous and their fans,

all the ladies and their mans...

I just want to scream. I just want to dream.

I just want to yell. I just want to tell...

Everyone and anyone,

that it’s not as hard as they think,

that everything changes in a blink,

that you don’t have to circle, the same small rink!

Break traditions and the fads,

Ladies don’t leave your lads,

Guys don’t get so mad,

and stop making your lover sad.

It’s simple don’t you see?

I’m so sure that you will agree.

Because love is loud and free,

strong and sturdy as a tree.

I know that you’ve been hurting,

and I know that you’ve been burning.

You suffer from a great and terrible thirst,

but all you need to do; is put your love first.

By Atara

Sunday, June, 22nd 2008, 3:30am

---

Sunday, June 22nd 2008 at 5:40am

I shouldn’t be surprised, and I guess I’m not. He drank. He arrived at five in the morning. He passed out before five thirty. He didn’t say he was sorry, or that he missed me, or that it was a mistake. All he said was, “I forgot” and “I love you.” I beyond tears. I’m just cold and empty for now. I plan on going on a very early bike ride shortly. But it’s so early that I thought I’d wait a little longer.

Crusifer, as usual, when passed out doesn’t move at all once he’s asleep. He won’t notice I’ve left the bed for hours, if at all before he wakes up. The lights being on don’t bother him, nor does the clacking of this key board, or the noises I made while getting dressed.

He left the fridge open. He does the stupidest things when he’s drunk. I haven’t left a fridge door open since I was like a child. And that was mostly because our old fridge, before the fire, was bootleg as hell. He also poured himself this huge bowl of “munchies” from the downstairs kitchen when he has all these snacks up here just for him. I swear, I should stop wasting my time buying all his favorite nuts and snacks and bagging them for him. If it were my son I’d just make him eat it since he asked for it, but since it’s my “fiancé” there is little point in doing anything but stopping.

I wish it was eight o’clock in the morning instead of not yet six o’clock. Then I could feel like there was something to do with myself. I most certainly can’t sleep, and I’m all dressed to go biking. I barely know why I want to go bike... I just want to leave because I feel so left. Is that revenge? I am that petty? Surely the real reason is that I want to feel free and the wind and stuff... Am I hoping to run into someone? If I was, I don’t know who’d it be since nobody will be out at this time in the morning...

Crusifer has ruined our Sunday and it’s barely even begun. For what? So he could hang out with his drunken cousins? What a disgusting waste. He doesn’t know it, but I told myself that after three strikes after this “all or nothing” deal I’d call it quits for good and for sure. This is strike two... And it’s been... Two weeks? Pathetic! Why am I bothering?

I’m so deeply engrossed with someone who just won’t see me for me... It’s stupid and yet I feel so obligated to give one more fucking chance. Again, and again and again... Just like with Tre, until I was sure. This is so freaking stupid! I want to rip my own veins out of my arms, but I’m rather timid for such an ambition... Too timid to do anything other than imagine it vividly with a sour expression on my face. What useless masochism! (As Erica Jong would say...)

This should be the beginning of my own book about me, starring my dobblegander (sp?) with some nifty name...

Novel Draft

Kasandra paces back and forth on the floor, too angry to cry and too depressed to be truly angry. Was anyone going to ever love her? Was she cursed? Where did she go wrong? Was it on the phone earlier that day when she said that it wasn’t fair for him to go out with his cousins while she stayed at home alone? Was it last week when she gave him (yet again) another undeserved chance at marriage? Was it when she proposed to him in the first place five months ago on their year anniversary? Perhaps she just went wrong before the entire relationship consummated itself with a lusty sex on the first night they met? Perhaps it was rooted in the last ex, or the one before that? Maybe, just maybe, if she had been a better woman (like the woman she’s sure she must be by now) back where she was first in love, then maybe none of this would have happened.

Certainly she’s paying for something she’s done wrong four years ago, like when she cheated on her first love with lonely and desperate tears in her eyes. If one minute of sex before you dismount and break down in tears can really be considered cheating...

Kasandra waits for him to get home like a dog waiting for their master, or a cat waiting for food, like a toddler waiting to be picked up. She’s impulsive in her desire and anguish. She takes out her energy dancing wildly to recorded music videos for a time. When this loses it’s interest she reads the end of a book she’s been reading, then she goes on to play a PC game on his laptop next to the bed. When all of this has failed in pleasing her, failed in distracting her, failed in occupying her until he finally arrives, she settles at about three thirty in the morning in front of the TV with a unopened bag of Kettle chips; Salt & Vinegar flavored.

After consuming the chips and an entire episode of the Tyra Banks show she’s still just as unhappy, undistracted and alone as she was one hour previously. All occupations thus having failed her she begins to doodle. She’s still doodling when finally the drunk Mardarous arrives at five o’clock in the morning. She’s too angry to look up, and too cold to even cry. This scene has repeated in collideiscope of past nights and early mornings, only usually there are more tears. She’s losing hope to the point where even tears give no solace.

One might think that a year and half was a period of time too short to become to immensely attached, but then again, one might not know Kasandra.

That’s a little something of how I want the book to go. Something I can write, something I can get into, something that is relatable and such... It ought to start with tonight.

Sunday, June 22nd 2008 at 6:38pm

In a primitive society there isn’t a lot of time to think. Get up in the morning, and cook breakfast, which in itself requires making the fire, getting cooking stones hot, gathering water, etc. Say that takes an hour, and perhaps longer if there are kids to watch after. Then there is hunting, which takes hours of planning and practice, and hours to make the weapons, and then the actual process which takes hours of stalking which may not even lead to a catch. Foraging is all well as good, but not sustaining enough in a small community which can’t mass-produce fruits and vegetables.

Time not spent hunting would be used to make clothing, starting with skinning the animal, and cleaning the fur. The entire process of preparing a fur can take days with cleaning, stretching, and smoking. This was more than enough work for a man and a woman to be kept busy from dawn until dusk for eternity.

Farms and cities began to change that, allowing for entertainment, such as they had in Egyptian, Roman and Sumerian empires. However, when enough inventions come along, and enough wealth can be provided there is allowed to be a higher class of people that may become educated. This is a privilege and not to be taken lightly, because those few that may become educated come up with the new ideas that allow for the growing world population to continue to prosper and grow.

As terrible as slavery is, the slaves in many ancient empires allowed their masters the leisure to think. Being allowed to think gives us the opportunity to conceive great ideas to bring us forward into a new generation, a new century, a new era. For example, if Benjamin Franklin had been born into a more primitive society where he had to hunt and gather for food, or if he had been too busy being entertained after a long day’s work then electricity may never have been found. Of course, it may have still happened, but who can be sure?

Electricity is what allows so many millions of us to sit on our tails and think and for us to have an education. Electricity allows the mass production that brings us cheap clothing (we don’t have to work for days and days on one garment as we would have if we were starting with fur on an animal), and cheap food (instead of gathering ourselves, or planting ourselves factories do half the work for us), and cheap housing (instead of us building our homes big machines and specialized workers do it) and so on. Without all these inventions we’d have a lot less time. What’s funny is that we feel like we don’t have much time as is!

Perhaps “me-time” is addictive, because just a couple thousand years ago “me-time” didn’t exist for much of anybody. Survival was all there was. The problem with this development is that it’s grinding to a halt. We have so much freedom, and so much cheap junk, and so much education and opportunities that today’s generation is taking it all for granted. It’s the obligation of those who have time to think to be able to use that time in a productive way for their own sake, and the sake of their children and community. Unfortunately free time is often spent on partying, drugs, small-talk, gossip, fashion, relaxing, TV, and websites like Myspace.

In contrast to a couple hundred years ago... Education was coveted, and books were valuable. Now that everyone can write a book there tends to be less and less content worth reading! Now that books are everywhere there are less and less readers! Anybody notice the size of Reader’s Digest? The poor magazine is half the size it used to be! I suspect this is due to a lack of funding because of a lack of subscriptions rooted in a lack of education in the new working generation.

The deepest problem with this trend is the lack of invention. Today as I walked through Target I realized that everything I saw was something I’d seen before with a new color on it, or a new print, or a cut just slightly different. There was nothing new and innovative to be seen. Nothing is unique or hand-made and nothing is of the type of quality that it could be. Hence why we buy so many products that don’t work, or break shortly thereafter buying them.

Point-blank being that all this time we have to think and all this free education is all for nothing. We’re not making good enough use of any of our resources or capabilities.

To further my point, take prescription drugs for example. Aside from antibiotics which is an incredible discovery that changed life as we know it by turning things like strep-throat from deadly to a week of discomfort. If you take the other medications into consideration however, like drugs that combat the side affects of ADD or ADHD or pain pills, you’ll find a bunch of products that are worthless at their core.

Why are they worthless? Because studies (not acclaimed by our incompetent government) show that ADD is reversible through the practices of functional medicine. We need to take the path away from the diagnoses. Correlation does not mean causation (as an old friend recently reminded me). Which means that just because two people have a runny nose does not mean they have it for the same reason. This is a simple one to say, because we all know there is a difference between allergies and having a cold. But what about if two people have flaky scalp? Would you say they both have it for the same reason? You could be bloated from eating or from cramps. You could have a headache from noise or from lack of sleep. You could have pimples from puberty or from oily skin or from a disagreeable diet.

These are things that everyone knows, so why do we assume that just because two or three symptoms line up that it is what they say it is. The way the system works now is like taking aspirin to cure a nail through the foot. And that sad fact is that this is known to the researchers, the scientists and many doctors, but it’s not acknowledged.

Studies have shown that many “conditions” like diabetes and attention-deficit-disorder can be eliminated through dietary changes. This means that for many people (perhaps most but not all) their prescriptions are a waste of money and not needed. Think of the money put into the research of these drugs, the money put into the production of them, the selling of them, the insurance companies that help pay for them, the people who work in pharmacies selling them when so many of them are worthless junk.

This should be common knowledge but education is slipping, and so is research. Our entire network of systems that makes the world run is collapsing in on itself and I feel like nobody else can see it.

All or Nothing

Because I just posted these today (my bad guys!) you might have missed these: June 7th and June 8th. While I’m busy linking things, you may look at new pictures of me on my myspace. And now, the entry:

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Tuesday, June 10th 2008 at 7:02pm

“All or nothing,” I said as I gave him back the ring. In other words, we behave like a married couple and do all that the other wishes, everything that we can do, and not just everything that we must do, or we break up. Either this is the last honey-moon of our relationship, or this is just beginning our lifetimes together. Time will tell.

Friday, June 13th 2008 at 12:07pm

I forgot to take the Laundry out of the washer on Tuesday. Crusifer discovered this. I had completely forgotten. Since the washer and dryer is on the second floor, right beside my parent’s bedroom, on the other side of Mary’s apartment so that I have to go to the first floor to get to it... Usually my mom puts it in the dryer for me. I didn’t think I had to remember. Especially because I wouldn’t expect it to go on to other people’s laundry days without anyone saying so. Monday and Tuesday are my days to get my laundry done.

I called him to me, barely awake enough to know I was awake, wanting his affection. He replied with telling me I let the wash sit there and grow mildew because I was relying on my mom instead of doing it myself. I snapped awake. Not having anything but something like that to think about will wake anybody up and make them feel miserable, eh?

He was surprised when I began to cry. I wouldn’t have cried over it during the day or at night, but first thing in the morning...? That’s not the best time to slap somebody’s wrist... I likely won’t be able to think about anything else all day.

I hate that he’s at work. I won’t see him for eleven hours... He’ll spend all that time talking to people who... don’t give a shit about anything...

I feel so shitty and I only just got up.

Friday, June 13th 2008 at 4:01pm

Perhaps it’s not so unbelievable that the world is in shambles. In the generation of my grandparents (growing up in 1890 to 1940) being able to get an education at a large public facility was amazing. Imagine, your parents are farmers, but there is a community college in the nearest city, and you can scrape up enough money to go. Imagine that few people you know can read, and fewer still can write, and that you’ve grown up plowing fields and no you discover that you can earn a living using your brain. (I’m doing a lot of guessing here, so cut me some slack.)

Teenagers set out to do things differently than their parents, and usually end up falling in all the same ruts. But what happened between my mom’s generation and mine? When she was my age getting an education was a privilege, drugs didn’t make the world go round, and women we’re still becoming house wives. So why are girls my age dropping out of high-school to raise babies and work at the same time? What happened that people take marriage as seriously as they take... Anything else these days, right along with the flippant attitudes around sex, drugs, religion and careers.

I feel like nobody cares about anything. And the things people do care about is just disgusting... It’s hard for me to stop being down on the world sometimes. I feel like it’s not enough that I live a good life... Yet you ask me what I’m doing about anything? Signing petitions online... I suppose that’s about it... I just want to know what happened to the virtue of education... I feel like this city has forsaken it.

Friday, June 13th 2008 at 10:01pm

I have some speculations about love that I just must write down. These speculations were inspired by the following:

“Love,” says Dr. Erich Fromm, “is the only satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.”

And, from Paracelsus; “He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees... The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love... Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes.”

Both are quite profound, and lead into things I already “know” or, more correctly, believe about the ever-illusive love.

I was thinking about these things, and also thinking about mankind, and our existence when it occurred to me that humankind is very without love as a whole. War is loveless. Weapons are loveless. Poverty is loveless. Lies are loveless. The battle of religions is so loveless that it’s plain hopeless. After all, every religion worth belonging to says that we should “love our neighbors” and to “do unto others as we would have them do unto us” and so forth, and yet we would rise up in crusades, torture, kill, taunt, and discriminate against others who have a variety of different beliefs.

Wouldn’t it be much more fruitful for everyone if all the religion stopped battling? Imagine if no one ever tried to convert you again, by force or by persuasion? Wouldn’t that make a dramatic improvement on the contentment of society and in the love of other beliefs? I have nothing against the bible, and am a believer in Jesus, and yet Christians drive me to distraction when they’re “sewing their seeds” by spreading “scripture.” If that’s all they really are out to do then they can sell their books silently! (And without the big signs indicating that we’re going to hell!)

If I believed in hell I’d say around eight-percent of us are headed their. We’re all jealous of someone, and short of that, we’ve all lied to someone out of guilt or anger or fear, and short of that we’ve stolen from somebody or taken revenge on someone, or been unfaithful or judgmental. And many of us are not repent-ful in the least. And if that was enough evidence to hell being overcrowded, how about the “fact” that only one religion (the right one!) and the right actions matched will get you a ticket into the white palace in the clouds among the saints.

What a load of rubbish.

If everyone was busy loving someone else (instead of looking for someone to love them) then the whole world might be a bit different. “Where is the love?” asked the black eyed peas. It’s a very good question. It’s certainly not in the government, and not in prisons, and not in schools, and not in churches, and not in many or most hospitals. Worse yet, it’s not even households anymore. Parents are divorced, and kids are growing up with one defect or another. If it’s not their health and weight and concepts about food and exercise (which is at least half of America’s children), then it’s due to drug abusing parents or friends, and short of that there is a lack of education, or an abusive parent or parents. And if you’re a really unlucky kid you could be victim to kidnaping or rape. What a beautiful world we’re raising kids in these days! And none of it sounds like love to me.

Now, this is going to sound really cruel, I’ll grant that. But hear me out. If you love your children more than anything and want them to not repeat your mistakes, wouldn’t you feed them the best foods, send them to the best schools, give them the attention they need, not spoil them, do the research to learn what’s best for them and sacrifice your own comfort to bring them up with a health mentality? I bet you’re saying “of course!” to these things, right?

If you know that coming to them every time they cry when they’re a baby immediately (after several months, not when they’re a newborn) is spoiling them, you’d hold back on your impulse and wait a few minutes of their tears, right? A lot of parents these days at least have gotten that far.

If you know that talking to them about sex and drugs is a good way to help show your kids your family values you’d shove down your discomfort and confront them on these issues before they’re horny and depressed teenagers, right? A lot of parents even get that right too, and this is also worthy of applause.

If you know the best way for your child to identify with male and female aspects of society is to have a mother and a father living at home, you’d try your best to work it out with your spouse or to find a suitable replacement if impossible, right? This one is a tougher one, and for the most part, where I live this is sadly lacking.

I’m not going to argue my case for home schooling, because for some families that can’t work and maybe isn’t even the best for the children in many cases. But my all-time pet-peeve?

If I told you that it’s a known fact that corn syrup (with high fructose or not) stays in the intestines relatively permanently, would you feed your children anything with high fructose corn syrup in it? And to set an example, wouldn’t it be best for you not to eat any of it as well so there wouldn’t be any hypocrisy and so that it wouldn’t be in the household?

If I told you that it’s a known fact (that is covered up as best as it can be) that refined sugar in general ruins your capillaries and increases the risk for virtually every disease under the sun especially diabetes, wouldn’t you then decide it was best to removed refined sugar from your household and especially from your child’s diet?

The sugar conspiracy makes me so angry that I could just scream. I keep seeing fat children! Children are supposed to have energy and happiness, not be tired after running half way across the room and be loaded with an extra thirty pounds and stuffing their face with candy every half hour. It’s just disgusting. ADD is a freaking lie. All that is wrong with the child is the amount of sugar he eats, and studies with hundreds of children (in independent non-government funded facilities that managed to not get paid off by the sugar industries) show this to be true. Even their hand-writing improved after changing their diet from candy, burgers, pasta and pop-tarts to whole foods like grass-fed meats cooked with long-grain brown rice or other fillers full of fiber, a large variety of vegetables, whole-grain breads, and fruits.

This all goes to show how little love is in the world. Parents aren’t even willing to change their life-styles for the little-ones they love the most. Perhaps they want to, or perhaps they are trying to, but as we all know, trying is just the non-existent moment between thinking about doing something and doing it. You might be trying to get a certain affect by doing something, but there is no “trying” to be accounted for without an action and a desired result.

Self-love is pretty much non-existent as well. While you have handful of the population who takes care of their health, mentally, emotionally and physically (and even spiritually), the majority of the population (from my perspective) is on a self-destructive path through one outlet or another. Perhaps their outlet is partying which they masquerade as “enjoying life.” Sadly and ironically enough, “enjoying life” seems to also be the same excuse used for lack of maintaining health.

I have a very sober question to ask. Are hospital bills enjoyable? What about hang-overs? What about waking up to somebody you don’t know? What about vomiting up half your stomach? Do you enjoy acid flux or constatation? Is withdrawal from drugs (legal or illegal) enjoyable? Is spending a good portion (or any portion) of your income on any form of drugs enjoyable? Is discovering that you’ve gained weight enjoyable? Is depression enjoyable?

Enjoying life means being healthy enough to enjoy it, and anyone who denies it is well... In denial. And as I’ve said before “denial leads to break-ups” and I don’t just mean in romantic relationships. It also breaks up relationships between you and your body, you and your job, and the relationship between you and your happiness.

Say you’re perfectly healthy. Say you do love yourself. But do you love your partner? Do you exercise with your partner? Do you encourage them to live your healthy life-style? Are you involved in their life? If you actually love yourself and your partner, and if you have kids and you take all the previously described steps to loving your children as well, then I fully commend you as a honor to society. But if you are indeed one of those people, then you’ll understand my distress. How few people have you met like yourself? How many others have you met who are interested in self-improvement and “brightening the corner where they are” and loving their significant other to the fullest?

What’s worse is that the few people out there like that are only the hardiest of us. Most of us had the chance to be loving creatures when we were small. But at one point in life or another something in us snapped. Was it the first-grade bullies or the high-school ones? Or did it take you until your first ass-hole boss to start to hate the world instead of love it? And how can we love the world when the world seems so determined to hate us!

I feel like I’m on that struggle right now in my life. I can take life and embrace it and love it and hold on to all of it’s beauty and pleasure, or I can let the oppressive hate in and become anther empty shell going about daily life...

Perhaps that’s the real reason why I’m so against getting a job. My frail immune system makes a great excuse, and so does wanting to be a stay-at-home wife, but more relevantly, I think a real day job would suck the life-force out of me. I might become “stronger” and I might be a bit “richer” but I might be in fact poorer and weaker on the inside, where it matters most. Day jobs are miserable. They kick you down, and then keep kicking you while you’re down. Sure, they don’t have to be like that, but from my perspective, most jobs (especially an no-experience entry-level) are heart-break, heart-burn, heart-bruise and burn until you’re a scarred mass who is open to nothing and no one.

I sigh. How can I not? I feel like my employment and my loss of spirit is inevitable. I’m fighting a battle inside myself to be self-motivated, self-inspired, self-satisfying, self-loving and to be loving to those around me. Fear is a big enemy to these ambitions, and yet I’m extremely afraid of all the technicalities in life preventing me from achieving these goals. The last thing I need is a worthless minimum-wage day job, or a heart-wrenching break-up.

I suppose I’m not really one to judge what’s best. I’m only nineteen after all, and the powers the be know that I’m reminded of that all too often. Were that I wasn’t nineteen. What age would I be? I’d be ageless, and name-less save that of love. You could call me chi for short, and beautiful when you try to seduce me.

Love is an art. It takes effort and practice. Falling in love is not an art, it just happens. Making it last is the important part.