2012: The silent year of yelling yes while whispering no.

Hello 2012, I can't believe you're already 50% gone:
January: High hopes for landing a new job.
February: Outlook on the job front not looking good.
March: Utter dispair on the lack of work opportunities.
April: Get a boost of confidence & lie through my teeth
May: Land a well paying job.
June: Become deflated by the quickness  to which I've fallen in to routine.
I deactivated my facebook account a day ago, despite my knowing I'll be back just like everyone else.
I just needed to stop pretending I care.
I get paid to pretend, paid to sell, paid to listen.
I wear these masks, a different one for every situation, for every social circle, for every website I frequent.
I'm losing sight of my true face.
With the openness I've adopted to opportunities, I've sacrificed comfort willingly. The only hindrance in this is my discomfort with comfort.
In some ways, I've always rebelled against the notion of mundane routine. It's why every job I've ever had I slowly start calling out, showing up late or not showing up at all, just to rebel against the daily grind.
EVERYONE, STOP THE PRESSES! ALICE WANTS OUT AGAIN?!?!
It's not a surprise, not even a bit.
A part of me wants to excel, to be cut throat & work my way up so I can make money.
The other part of me wants to set my wallet and credit cards on fire, walk a millions miles & board a bus or train going anywhere.
Anywhere but here.
I've yet to find an outlet for the restlessness in my soul. I lay at night, so aware of my beating heart it hurts.
That's a bold faced lie, there is an outlet, one I've been running from. A slow sad run, more of a walk where I find myself looking over my shoulder often, thinking, maybe I should stop...
I don't.
I can't.
I won't.
I've got some strange form of socially acceptable chains tied to my hands and feet, pulling me forward.
I can't seem to stop looking at the sky lately, I've even considered the the notion that the clouds are conspiring against me.
Frustration Nation, Population: Moi
Procrastination, sexualization, hyperventilation, mensturation, dehydration, consideration, constipation, sensation, migration, a plethora of nations, all of which I call home.
The united states of Alice, with life, liberty and the persute of stimulation.
I should just try that thing already, find a higherplane of mental awareness.
Scream yes.
Whisper no.
Stay silent.

The year two thousand and twelve

The beginning of the end, muahaha!

New Years 2011

Why do we even celebrate such an insignificant holiday? You'd think a day like this is a time to reflect on previous accomplishments, failures and the like but instead people get shitfaced and make the same empty promises year after year after year... And for what?

One would assume, based on our history as a species that by now we'd have grown as a race for the better but instead we are as useless and patheic as we've always been, and we will continue to be as such till the day everything goes black.

"Nothing exists save empty space and you, and you are but a thought."

Food for thought, gluttony at it's best.

Sometimes in life, you come across things that resonate with you in more ways than you can imagine. It could be a person, a song, a poem, anything. For me right now, it's a book I found at the Salvation Army Store for 99 cents called Man's Search For Himself by Rollo May, Ph.D.

*insert quote later*

Reading the stories expressed in this so far have awakened a part of me I let slip away, not completely but it's as if I silenced a tiny voice inside of me, calling out for change. A deep rooted desire for freedom and fear of living a monotomous life.

I can't allow myself to suffocate to death.

Every now and then, I think of this scene in the movie Ghost World:

"You know what my number one fantasy used to be?"
"What?"
"I used to think about one day... Just not telling anyone and going off to some random place. And I'd just disappear & they'd never see me again. Do you ever think about stuff like that?"

I don't have the courage to ever pull a stunt like that.
It's an interesting idea none the less.
So many interesting thoughts moving through me...

"I'll take the road less traveled by"

Adrift in a sea of uncertinty

The title is something I just overheard in a commercial but it reflects about 50% of how I feel right now.

I recently lost a job to circumstances out of my control.

When I think of all the unfortunate things that come to pass, I remember the scene where Simon dies in Lord of the Flies.

“Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and tickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch.

The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on.

Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls. The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. The water rose further and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble. The strange, attendant creatures, with their fiery eyes and trailing vapours busied themselves round his head. The body lifted a fraction of an inch from the sand and a bubble of air escaped from the mouth with a wet plop. Then it turned gently in the water.

Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling; and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide moved further along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out towards the open sea.” ― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

No matter what happens in life, everything is insignificant in the stream of things. The world keeps turning. In the time leading up to my termination, I was sick with worry. When it happened, I was upset but, mostly releaved. I was free from the fear of what could happen.

I continue to be okay thanks to that quote. It reminds me that this event is one of millions, no matter how unfortunate it may seem now, it sun's still shining, times still ticking and my heart is still beating.

In my heart, lies a story
The story of a heart full of anguish
The anguish of a heart that no longer beats
A dying heart whose told no story
A story untold of a life unlived by anguish

I cast away my fear
I cast away my doubt
I cast away all anguish so my heart may still beat
Beating with the rythm of a live not yet lived
A story untold
A heart still beating and ever full of prose

Life Choices & The Pursuite of Happiness, in a sense...

Recently I've been raging over my lack of will power. In 2009 I was able to motivate myself due to isolation, now that I'm no longer living as a hermit, I find myself unable to control my bad habits.

Do I once again become a recluse in hopes of regaining my iron fists or do I continue to dissapoint myself?

Seems like one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of deals... "Between a rock & a hard place."

I'm not a creature of solitude. I crave living contact in any form over the mundane existence of a life of anonymity, no matter how rewarding it may seem.

I just remembered an event that took place my freshman year of college. I was at an appointment with my mother, whose got this uncanny ability to strike up a converstion with the most obscure people, when the woman who was assisting her suddenly fixed her gaze on me. She went on to tell me how I should forsake friendships in exchange of education.

According to her, it was better to be sucessful than to value friendships. In her words, "There'll be time to make friends later." Seeing that woman, gloating behind her desk at a WIC office in Red Hook, I knew I'd never want to be her, so confident in the depressing advice she'd passed onto an impressionable teenager.

I can't imagine giving up friendship for success. In some paralelle world, there is a version of myself that took that her recommendations to heart. Who is this other me? Is she happy?

I hope that I'll never know her.

I have too much love in my heart to not share it with the world.

I guess I already know where I stand.

Self Hating Feminism

I've come to the conclusion that I've become a self hating feminist.

I started this year ashamed of my actions and feelings towards relationships & sexuality. I put the blame on my feminism & swiftly threw myself into a frenzy to undo years of psycho-sexual frustration by... Becoming one of the guys.

Yep. I could have started a religion called "Broisim" had I continued down that path. I started reading manly books in an effort to start thinking like a guy. I placed emotions on the back burner. I tried this thing where I didn't cry for a month (well, at least I tried not to & failed only to end up crying more over my failure to control my emotions than the situation that caused my outburst).

The funniest moment was when I rushed to Target late on a Saturday night to purchase a simple unisex watch. This was also probably one of the most crucial moments of the year. My significant other tried to talk me out of buying my simple black unisex watch in exchange for a children's Hello Kitty watch. It started a battle royal of sorts between us. In one corner was my boyfriend trying to buy me toys & pink nicknacks and in the other stood my egotistical-male-want-to-be counter part barking on and on about my right to be who I want to be.

His lack of understanding my actions really unnerved me.

How could he not see that all our problems stemmed from me being a woman? How could he love this emotionally draining creature that bursts into tears over the most subtle of nuances? I'm still uncertain to the answers of these questions but I've learned to stop blaming biology & work on the parts of myself I dislike in a productive manner. I stopped reading books from the humor section & started reading science. I'm not an expert, in reality I'm nothing more novice still but I feel more enlightened than ever before.

There are still things I do not like about my sex but I know there are many of us who are "the exception to the rule," as coined by a women on a new reality series called "Hater" (please don't judge me, lol, it was on TV while I was eating dinner & was too lazy to change the channel). It's that takes people who genuinely hate particular celebrities & forces them to confront said celebrity. She hated the creator of the soft core porn series "Girls Gone Wild" because he takes advantage of young girls and forces them to do things they wouldn't normally do.

She spent a day with him & met people on his staff & some of the models to see what they thought about what it is he does for a living. After meeting a few well spoken intelligent women, she still argued with the creator. She kept saying that they were "the exception to the rule." In the end she agreed that women have the right to do what they want with their bodies and that participation ins GGW is absolutely voluntary (there's even a grace period where women can change their minds & be removed from the videos).

It may seem like I veered off topic for a second but a lot of what she was upset about resonated with the older, judgmental version of myself. I don't ever want to be that sort of women again. I also don't want to have a sex change to be happy.

So, in the end, I'm walking a tight rope between my male & female brains. I still can't stop using the word "bro" for almost anything but at least I have some peace of mind.

Where I once badgered against women & rallied with misogyny, I  now find myself taking to the defense of my sex. It really started with out my knowledge but now there's no use denying it. I'm a self hating feminist & damn proud of it.

Deal with it.

The stigma against users.

I'm kind of tired of having to justify my love of web browsing to everyone. It's as if there's this stigma against users that I don't quite understand. The internet is a network made up of users from around the world, so many rely on it for various forms of communication & education.

Sure there are people out there who spend hours online (WOW jokes aside) but that's not me. I go to events, museums, shows, movies, crawls, cons, parks and so on. I visit friends & family. I read, write, play etc...

I sit in front of a computer terminal all day, what else am I supposed to do? I play some games, read articles, share interesting, sometimes strange, links, photo's & information.

Does that make me loser? Does that make me any less intelligent than someone whose never used a computer? Is there anyone living in NYC who hasn't had to use a computer? Anyone who hasn't spent some time online browsing for fun?

I doubt it.

Don't judge me.

Anyone who parades around claiming to have this superior  knowedge over all others is obviously insecure about their own intelligence.

Why shouldn't I be allowed to browse & laugh? Is that a crime?

"What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult." - Sigmund Freud