To All My Single Ladies

Yes.  I am aware that I berated Bey in a previous blog post;  The irony is not lost.  What can I say?  She is nothing if not popular.  This entry is dedicated to all my single ladies struggling out there with the opposite sex.  In my nearly 35 years in this form, I have learned a few things.  Literally, three.  Here they are, in no particular order:

Number One:  Eye contact is essential for letting know your beau that you're into him.  I have a hard time with this as eyes are the windows to the...so forth.  He needs to make contact with you.  You need to be vulnerable and comfortable enough with your vulnerability to let him see it, judge it and then want to get all up in it.  I put up resistance because I fear my weirdness won't be accepted.  I'm not special in this regard but it makes me feel so saying it aloud.

Number Two:  Don't be weird.  I mean, we all be weird.  But monitor your brain shit before speaking or acting.  My brain shit is constantly running turbo charged around a track built of insecurity, scrutiny and double-think.  I second guess every thought, action, and anything that enters my orbit during this absurd and self sabotaging time.  I do it to myself.  Also, not special but I'm in progress and denial is not conducive to change.  Calm down the stupid self defeating lies you tell yourselves and be responsible for your awesome.  There's some in there.  Quit burying it.

Number Three:  Don't bring another dude around even if he's only your dick-mate.  Let's be real.  Sometimes that's all a person is in your life.  Own it.  Don't introduce penis to love interest.  Any man worth his salt will either see it as a game and revolt against you and your juvenile tactics.  Or, he will sense dick, think you're taken and move on.  I've fucked up doing this.  I know in my head and heart that walking sex toy is not the guy for me but the guy for me doesn't know this.  He can't read minds, yet, and there won't be time enough in the world for you to clarify.  I know my patience is short.  No self respecting human is gonna wait around for you to fuck another.

There you have it girls.  The Great and Powerful OZ has spoke.  Go forth and be righteous.  

The Boy With The Neck Tattoo

I met a young man last eve that had a tattoo strategically placed on his throat.  Right under his chin.  Over top the ol' Adams' apple.  It looked pretty cool in all actuality.  However, he seemed perturbed that my friend and I were so engrossed in his explanation as to why that particular placement of his body art.  He didn't have one.  I interrupted at one point to save the scrambling child as he "uh-ed" and "uhm-ed" his way through some kind of cobbled together response.  

I interjected with, "It's about the experience, right?"  My friend mentioned being addicted to the pain of the experience and he shut her down rather quickly with an alarming amount of huff.  He began to get offended that we were asking him so many questions, all be it pseudo drunken ones.  We were curious about his intentions and my friend has an excellent nose for bullshit.  He was indeed full to the brim with the shit of the bull.  He feigned boredom at our inquiries because he had no idea why he did what he did.  Inflicting a large symbol for the entire world to see for the rest of your life is a bold and perhaps, courageous statement?  He clearly did the deed to garner attention for it and nothing more.  Tribesmen in Africa receive markings to mark moments in their history and hunting past.  It tells another person who this fucker is and what they've experienced.  This young man's neck art was not this.  Perhaps for him it captured a moment in space and time but shouldn't that then be something you hold near and dear to your heart and keep for yourself.  And then for those deemed worthy enough to view and share in it someday, you unveil the 'truthiness' of your very essence.  My body art is for me.  Always has been.  I capture things that are important life lessons.  Or I honour my ancestors with body homage.  I don't just throw some weird design on my body all willy nilly for all the world to see because it's trendy or will get me laid.  It made me sad really that this poor sap in his youth made such an ultimate choice and had no idea why.  Cuz it was cool, or like...whatever.  He had no bearing or sense of the impact that this choice would make on his life forever.  

Sure the world has become much more accepting about individuality but at what cost?  Now we have a generation of humans doing things just to do them.  Not connected to their choices in any real way, but you only get one, right?  A generation of vapid people showing off in drunken settings to pick up the opposite sex.  I for one would rather go fuck myself than a brainless, vacuous shell of a creature with no soul covered from head to toe with symbols void of substance.   

 

Moments of Clarity

Back in my day, people did what they say they would do.  You would tell another human being something and then, miraculously, you would do that thing.  Be it, show up when you'd say you would.  Or!  Surprisingly!  Do what you said you'd do.  Even if time had passed when you said it.  Even if something you deemed 'better' came along in the interim.  You would fucking say something and then take action in that department.  Is that called follow-through?  Fucking integrity?  Where has that gone?

People say things now.  People say a lot of things now.  There is no action.  There is no follow-through.  There is no "word" anymore.  There is just texting or messaging lame excuses that are so transparent it hurts and then nothing.  Then there is nothing.  I am a lost and forgotten fool in a sea of wandering minds and losers.  When I say I'm going to do something, I do it.  It's that simple.  Now, when things are said, buyer prepare to be tired and unaware that the person on the other end of things is immediately scheming words to somehow get out of the verbal contract made.  That's it though.  It's a verbal fucking contract.  If you tell me something, I am going to believe you.  Does that make me a fucking imbecile to trust you or you a fucking dick face for speaking words untrue?  The latter, for sure.  I have been bailed on more times than I can count.  But it never used to be this way.  Before cell phones, texting, messaging, instant this and that...there was only you and another human telling each other things that were true.  If you were dying, you would still show up and the other party would send you the fuck home.  Now?  Well it's quite another story indeed.  Now, there is talk and agreements and contracts written in the stars that are never fulfilled.  Perhaps in the moment all is well, and then...well and then whatever.  I'm over it.  I will not be the person who teaches other people that it's ok to bail.  Fuck me for being so naive in this day and age that I trust you at your word.  Fuck me for arranging my schedule thusly to accommodate your needs.  Nah, fuck you and the lies you rode in on.

Manimals

I took a few steps back,
In the progress of my mind.
I thought it'd be quaint,
to regress, I thought I'd
be kind.

Pity leaves a sour taste,
What's there?  Some lesson,
Some reason, a waste?
A Waste.
It's of no consequence.
I felt a failure at conversing,
My muscles were kicking
And screaming, the sitch was
Tense.

He couldn't tell,
I faked it well.
A piece, the piece that I trapped,
I could feel the drain,
Palpable was the collapse.

The Manimals are coming,
They're already here,
He, Him, They, it,
No matter my rejection,
He is near and he is no fit.

This is all, this is life,
No dress-ups, no resets,
I want the strife.
Between this and nothing,
I choose this;  Yet I am
remiss to trade integrity
for imitation.

Floundering, I knew my act,
I put it on, He ate it up,
I sacrificed my tact,
He couldn't get enough.

His eyes and mine hardly met,
He spoke much and said not,
I want someone to get,
What purposeless time is spent,
Talking much and saying little,
Is a worse fate for me then
Death.

L is for the way...

I watched the band file in and onto the stage.  I noticed that the guitar guy and the cello chick were acting awfully cozy on their stroll up the stairs to their night of cacophonous creative freedom.  Then as the band performed sound-check, an epiphany struck me as bold and soulful as the melodies themselves:

Love is simply the placement of a man and a woman in proximity to one another for an extended period of time.    

Think about that statement and find fault.  It sounds pragmatic and a tad rigid but so full of truth it hurts my heart to admit it.  Would the guitar guy and cello chick have ever found each other otherwise?  They were random musicians, selected for their talent.  They would have never knew the other existed if not for this random placement.  Then on stage, they were saddled in space and time near each other and voila!  Love springs eternal.  Or at least until the band dismembers.  If a man and woman spend enough time together in close quarters...attraction begins and love grows.  Whether that shit lasts is another topic altogether.

I met an interesting man on a bus.  After sharing my findings with him, he brought up the theory of sparks.  You know those things you're suppose to feel when being with another?  I guess it's been a while.  I remember laying on my floor, reading song lyrics with butterflies in my stomach;  Writing poetry and having hope.  Does aging beget a coldness that tends to taint every endeavor?  Perhaps sparks are for the young.  Perhaps I'm using growing up as an excuse to be fearful.  I miss the zeal I use to feel when waking up in the morn and wondering what the day would bring...what forms of love I'd fall in that day.  A deep pervading sadness follow my decisions as of late as I still haven't found what I'm looking for.  Doesn't seem fair really, to be granted this precious time and waste it lost in feeling.

I once thought love was music.  You could be caught up in daily life and then a song comes on that physically moves your bones.  Almost as though an unspeakable depth connects without your conscious awareness and connects you to the present.  Is that the spark, my bus-man was referring to?  I think so.  I long for that back.  I had it once but forgot where I put it.    

In My Day

When people reminisce about their childhood, they often refer to it as "My Day."  I believe this is a result of our most selfish time.  As children we are nothing but leeches on society and our families.  We suckle at our parents feet, whining and taking and giving virtually nothing back to the world until we grow into the roles society has created for us.  We add very little to the world during this time and yet our version of ourselves and the world we create are in fact the most important.  This is the time where we become ourselves.  Some of us become better.  Some of us grow and evolve and give back to others.  Some of us just become taller assholes.

Today I was witness to parenthood failure.  In my day, I was taught to respect people and their things.  People love themselves and their things so, this always made sense to me.  Some parents are not teaching their children this very integral lesson.  I watched as a mother shopped while her three children roamed a very busy aisle freely.  By freely, I mean the mother was so engrossed in her shopping that she ignored the fact that one little brat was removing product from the shelves and throwing it under the shelving, another was stabbing holes in boxes with a ten inch galvanized nail and the smallest of the little twerps was running in circles in the middle of the aisle.  Three kids can be a handful.  Especially with an inattentive mother that either gives no fucks, or is so overwhelmed with her life choices that she can't escape her brain long enough to manage her offspring.  

The chaos went on for some time until I had had enough of the one little bastard, gouging holes in things.  Politely yet sternly I said, "Please stop doing that."  It was crisp but by no means rude.  In my brain I thought, 'There.  I just helped out that poor overwhelmed mom deal with her shitty kids doing shitty things.'  

I was mistaken.

She comes barreling over to me and says, "You need to work on your people skills.  You. Have. Upset. My. Son." 

"He should be upset.  I caught him doing something he shouldn't have been and he got in trouble."  I said matter-of-factly.  Clearly her 'Son', was not accustom to being told no.  She decided to take this simple exchange way too far as she screeched up and down the aisle about how upset her son was and how she was going to the manager...you know, the nonsensical emotional stylings of someone clearly in the wrong but unwilling to sacrifice their ego for a moment to admit it.  She started to get all puffy and red in the face.  Another woman came up and attempted to ask me a question while the rant went on when the unstable lady started in on the other guest!  Then the two customers began a screaming match at one another, about nothing, for some time.  It was nuts.  The lady with the now traumatized children...although, I bet they see this shit once a week, stormed off.  Later I found out she found a manager and bawled like a petulant child, demanding an apology.  

So apart from the truly psycho people who decide to procreate, I feel very strongly that the majority of people are waiting to be offended.  Like, they are hanging on every word, every crooked look, hoping for the opportunity to pounce on someone and spread their vitriol like peanut butter on bread.  So quick to anger we all seem to be.  So quick to defense.  So quick to emotion.  If my mom ever caught me doing what those kids were up to, discipline would have come my way.  Not unnecessary scolding, but I would have learned right then and there that wrecking someone else's stuff was not cool.  This woman was teaching her kids that if you kick and scream and cry enough, you'll get...I don't know, something?  I don't know if she was having a bad day, needed some validation, or knew deep down that she was a shitty mother raising shitty kids and doing a shitty job.  Furthermore, I shouldn't have been the one who saw her childs actions as going to far and put a stop to it.  That was her fucking job and she failed.  Now her shitty kids will grow up to be shitty adults and commit the same act of cruelty on their own shitty brood.  The circle of shitty life.

Conversations of the Disillusioned and Empty

I am looking for my pod.  I've been told by people much smarter than I, that this will never come to pass.  My pod will be a few random loners I manage to piece together through a painstaking vetting process of pain and passing of time.  I attempt to punch through my comfort wall and do things foreign and scary to me.  That's life, right?  Tonight I went to a 'Graffiti Collective.'  'Twas a mishmash of artists, musicians, drugged out dopes.  I am drawn to the artistic.  Knowing what I know about artists, for I once was one, I should know better than to enter my energy into such outings.  I can't help myself.

Convo #1:

"I could do acid everyday and forever," says half in the bag corn-rowed chick, "Like, seriously...every fucking day."

"You could micro-dose," says random dude slowly being eaten by couch.

"I know, but then the micro would quickly turn into a full and then I would just be fucked."

This went on for some time.  I feel my IQ dipping so I won't continue further.

Where are my people?  Are all of the thirty-somethings married off, having babies and boring?  Needless to say I left fucking early after chugging two pity beers and feeling sorry for the state of the world.  Expanding your brain can come from more that saturating your body with chemicals.  It can come from within.  If you let it.  We are obsessed with the now, that nothing of gravity is given its due time.  I fear I will always be the one looking in from out, with greasy hands, tainted glass, and a sadness that permeates it all.

People In Cars Going Places

Something strange happens when human beings climb into their motorized boxes and start on down the road...they become themselves.  Not just themselves, but the truest part of themselves.  This is where the rage, impatience, jealousy, hostility and seemingly lack of consequence are at their most potent.  For some reason people feel safe in their driving cubes to become the worst parts of humanity.  All at once!

I've barely touched the surface on how terrible people become behind the wheel and I feel like I've seen the worst the ego can do.  Everything from swearing, screaming tantrum fits to near collisions because someone felt wronged and someone else was in a hurry.  Why do we adopt this behavior immediately upon entering our vehicles?  I can see you flipping me off through this thing called a 'windshield.'  Is it because the consequences of our actions are easily sped away from any sort of recourse?  I wouldn't dream of swearing in someones face on the sidewalk cuz they stepped in front of me.  I wouldn't dare run up behind someone as fast as I could, step directly in front of them and then walk so slowly they had to lurch to a halt, causing them to shake their head in bewilderment and dismay.  I would never bi-pass three parallel lines of people waiting for, let's say food, scream my order at the poor server and bottleneck the line.  Then learn that by me butting ahead, I caused everyone else's food to be held up and delivered cold and that we all got the food at the exact same time anyway!  How ridiculous the world would be if that's how we behaved when we left our homes and went out into the world.  So why do we accept this behavior at speeds that cause more death than any other means?

We act as though we have entered an impenetrable force-field where no harm will come to us no matter how terrible we act.  I can be witness to an asshole but I can't catch him so it's ok that he's an asshole and nearly ran me off the road?  On a side-note, women drivers are just as big as assholes as our male counterparts.

Driving stresses me out.  That's inaccurate.  Drivers, stress me out.  I can't trust that the other people around me aren't going to go mental and do something that severely injures or kills me.  Failing that, I find such exorbitant amounts of tension arise from maneuvering around angry drivers, unskilled drivers, distracted drivers.  A man this afternoon attempted to pass me on a one lane bridge while texting and speeding.  If I hadn't of been paying attention to his recklessness, I could have been smushed.  Or if I had taken some kind of offense to his ridiculous and harmful behavior and sped up to prevent him from overtaking me, I would have been smushed undoubtedly.  I don't want to be smushed.  No one wants to be smushed.  No one wants to be honked at, tail-gated, or forced into a near miss with some entitled dick who thinks his car space is more integral than yours.  Perhaps that's the ticket.  We feel that owning our car means we own the space around the car.  When our car bubble space is interfered with, we lose our minds.  It's like personal space but at break-neck speeds and with a thousand pounds of metal and fiberglass at our fingertips.

I also think that driving has been made so easy, we quickly forget the dire consequences if bubbles collide.  We forget that speed directly affects live or death.  How irresponsible we've become with such a wonderful and efficient gift.  All awareness and compassion for others lost.  Only selfish need to get somewhere on time remains.  I for one am going to do my best not to let the ease of my travel means affect how I treat the rest of the world.  I'm already part of the problem, why exacerbate it so?  We're all in this together people and your car cannot forever shield you from the eventuality of cause and effect.

The Day the Awareness Died

I get paid by way of retail.  I see the worst in people when they don't get what they have come for.

Standing in the aisle, minding my own, a man approaches on a mission.

"Do you have anymore of theeeeze?"  He impatiently shoves an empty bin under my nose.

"Sorry.  They're on order."  I say with a sigh as I don't actually work at this location.  I merely provide the consistently tardy product.

He scoffs in my face and storms off.  I feel relieved as this was a relatively innocuous exchange.  Back to the doldrums and daydream I head.  Blissful in my thoughts of the beach, he returns with an actual employee and shoves the bin under his nose.  The employee looks to me for aid and I side-step over to assist, stating once more that the product desired, is on order.  Perhaps my previous answer was not clear.  Perhaps the man thought I had no idea what I was on about.  Perhaps the man is a total twat.

"Well!  You have been out of theeeeze...for three days!"  He, clearly not concerned with escalating a perfectly inoffensive exchange, begins to grow red in his already bloated and useless face.

He once more stomps away, defeated and seething.  I'm not sure what goes on in that twats day.  I don't think I want to know.  I do feel curious only because when I pontificate on what others can go through in three days and not only survive, but not bitch about it, it really puts things into perspective.  I felt my sanity wane as I thought about those that haven't had food in three days, or clean drinking water.  People who suffer grave injustice at the hands of others.  People who are bombed, raped, tortured, starved, beaten...I'm not sure they would see the merit in the things most of us take for granted and then complain about.  We are all children throwing tantrums until we are granted what we want.  It sickens me.

I ponder if it was his emotional state that drove him to the over-reaction?  Why did he allow himself to become so riled up by something so inexplicably harmless?  Why was the product not being there when he demanded it, such an affront to his mental and emotional state?  Did that product have some kind of special meaning to him?  Had he been told No, everyday of his life for the last forty years and today was the day he couldn't take it anymore?  Why does awareness go out the window when we don't get what we want, or think we need?  The employee even tried to sooth the life-sucker by offering him another similar product that would have done the job just fine.  The man chortled some lame excuse for the substitute failing and dug himself even deeper into his self-made pit of loathing and despair.

This experience today may seem trivial to write about.  But, I believe this to be a microcosm for the way the world is currently progressing.  People have become so terrible, entitled, selfish, and unaware.  We all have bad days.  Alas, before vomiting our vitriol on one another, please take a moment to think about what others are capable of going through in the span of three days!... and how our time here, doesn't need to be as stressful as we structure it.

Sense and Cell Phone Use

I just witnessed, aghast, as a woman's dog ripped a mother duck in half.

I had just climbed a small hill to sit at my favorite reading spot near a duck pond, replete with waterfall and ancient cedars, when I hear this cacophony of sound coupled by a flurry of motion in my periphery.  I see the baby duck with new feathers gradually replacing his down since the last time I saw him, frantically struggling to gain lift as his mother adeptly maneuvered the brush and began to achieve flight, striving in the opposite direction of her offspring.  Alas, it was too late.  The blackened beast untamed and un-fucking-leashed, unaware of the stakes or my horror, paused only momentarily as I bellowed in my best 'I mean goddamn business' voice, then pounced.  He clipped the momma mallard and knocked her off her frantic and desperate course.  She struggled to get airborne once more but to no avail.  I screamed once more with all of my might, seemingly the only witness to this massacre as the homeless mutt chomped down on her helpless yet still struggling body.  He wrenched the bird in his jaws a couple times and shook with the vigor of a pioneer championing his kill.  That was that.  The dog ran off as quickly as he came.  The anger began to replace my shock and dismay when I realized, this dog had an owner.  He was not a homeless waif, roaming various duck ponds on a murderous nightly spree.  He was loved and cared for by a fucking ridiculous woman standing 30 yards away...on her motherfucking cell phone.  She was calmly chatting, not paying a lick of attention to her untrained animal who had just killed a bird for sport and left its child to roam the pond, weeping for its loss and now forced to fend for itself.

I stood in brief shock.  How had this happened?  How had this woman just stood idly by while her mutt committed such acts and done nothing?  Less than nothing!  She witnessed the event and remained on her cell phone!  Clearly that was more important than protecting the wildlife or her pet who was being mercilessly screamed at with such vitriol my throat became hoarse.  When seeing that I was also witness to this ridiculous and unnecessary atrocity, strode quickly in the opposite direction.  Very quickly.  Dog, happy as a clam, in tow.  I chased that stupid bitch down.  She played dumb, remained on her cell phone, leashed her dog and practically ran away from me.  I tried to maintain myself as I confronted her...it was not easy.  Through the entirety of the experience, I was more shocked by her nonchalance than the event I had just witnessed.  Is this what our cell phone culture is creating?  Apathy for even death?  There was no responsibility taken.  There was no apology.  There was no concern.  What if that had been a human being?  We have become so obsessed with being seen as "busy" or "important" that we are distracted when major things in our lives occur.  We are obsessed with being "connected" that we forget about the moment.  Every moment is a moment to connect and I wanted nothing more than to connect my fist with her stupid face and watch her cell phone smash to smithereens.  I don't want to be violent.  I want the world to be more accountable.  I want technology to be used as a tool and not abused as a means to avoid or cause conflict.  I want people to understand that real life happens when you're glued to the shit that is suppose to free you so that you can spend it living, enjoying and embracing.  I don't blame the dog.  He was merely living in the moment.  If people had any sense, they'd do the same...hopefully with less bloodshed.

Bey Yourself

I would like to address pop-culture for a moment.  Specifically, pop music.  I don't really do pop.  Never have.  To be frank, it makes me queasy.  I admit to the 'catch' factor.  On a few rare occasions I've caught myself reciting some random top 40 nonsense, usually without conscious thought, on my way somewhere.  That's what pop culture is though really;  It's like venereal disease in that it is something that you catch.  Then it's in your body forever.  You can pass it on to other people, but that shit will always be with you.

I've recently caught, for the third time...my body just can't fight this shit off...Beyonce fever.  Her recent "Visul Album" has really awoke something primal in me.  Disgust.  Although I think it interesting that she chooses to "artistically" purge herself of her personal woes on her own terms in her own words, uh-hum...actually tis other peoples words, poems, visuals, cinematography, concepts, etc...she bores me.  The world ejaculates over her powerful perception and vulnerable ability to showcase such raw vigor.  She is controlled by the people who hawk her merchandise.  She is a piece of merchandise and we all want a piece.  Don't get me wrong, they do an excellent and flawless job of making us ache for the product but she's just that.  A commodity.  She sells an image, we buy it.  She sells a concept, we buy it.  However, don't mistake this figure head as anything more.  Her career is a perfectly orchestrated machine designed to make money, distract and control the masses.  Don't be fooled sheeple.  Talented though she may be, she's just as fucked and empty and alone as the rest of us poor schmucks.  She just has millions of dollars to fill her emptiness.  That's ok.  I'm not writing this because of envy.  I want people to succeed.  Especially women.  What I don't enjoy is watching a performer whose husband cheats on her become a feminist icon while standing by his side claiming he's 'the love of her life.'  Hunni please.  He's just a man.  With a dick.  Who stuck it in someone else.

It saddens me that her album is receiving such acclaim especially since she had very little to do with it.  Sure her emotional struggle and turmoil were the catalysts but other, unknown creative types made the product what it is.  It's indeed masterful and she gets the credit.  Gross.  Tis life I suppose.  The people underneath do the labor and the jerk on top acquires the accolades.  Beyonce is no genius.  Just a woman in the public eye trying to find her own.  I wish others would leave it at that.  She`s no God, though she demands that ``Bitches Bow Down.``  What kind of feminist behavior is that?  Also, making Ike and Tina references in yer songs ain't really selling the whole female power vibe either.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that young women need to be themselves and take this Queen B "movement" for what it is: fleeting entertaining distraction.

The Watch-Men

When I travel I tend to spend an excessive amount of time watching others.  It can be quite the consuming hobby.  One can learn a great many thing when they just look.  No participation, just simple observation.  My observations have resulted in some fascinating findings.  Nothing revelatory I'm sure but here it goes.

I have watched countless women watching their man watching other women.  It gets sad how blatant men can be about their ogling.  Like on a deep societal sadness kind of level.  Women are kept down by a look:  The lecherous look of a man only concerned with what his eyes tell him.  The woman being gawked at and the woman with the man are both depreciated by the insensitive and worn out axiom that 'men are gonna look'.  'That's how men are', 'men need to look', 'it's part of their biology to be visual creatures'.  Bullshit.  Women are just as visual.  The difference is we don't act like savages, rubbing our corneal clits in public.  Men do it out of selfish routine to feed the protuberance in their pants and nothing more.  It keeps the consciousness of man down as well when he reduces the opposite sex to a mere physical conquest.  How can we advance past gender stereotypes and entrenched roles when we keep running through this cycle?

Man and Woman meet.  Man proclaims his affection, in whatever form that may take, for Woman.  Woman reciprocates.  Woman feels secure in relationship.  Man sees another female in the distance.  She is scantily clad(it's her fucking right to where whatever the fuck she wants).  Man takes notice to the extreme.  Man has mini fantasies of bending new Woman over something hard and stiff and breeding.  Woman with Man feels lost in her own insecurity and questions relationships foundation.  Woman in the distance feels objectified and uncomfortable...for herself and for the poor Woman with Man.  Lose, lose.

Here's the deal.  I watched a man standing in the ocean with his gorgeous, bikini clad supermodel of a girlfriend/wife.  He practically broke his neck trying to peep on a woman passing by in a g-string.  Why?  What does the man gain from this behavior?  Has he never seen an ass before?  Are there secrets buried in this particular ass that could potentially save the world from all of its ills?  If so dude, get on in there! What happens to his brain during this time?  It seems to me all is shut-down except his need to feed the pant monster.  What is he thinking?  Is he thinking?  Is he able to form conscious thought about how his behavior benefits society or not?  Trust me, it does not.  His actions do not.  Not, fucking not.

Yesterday I was at a crosswalk waiting for the light to change.  In front of me was a handsome couple.  They were both dressed quite well, obviously on a date.  Regardless of how far in their journey together they were makes no matter.  Especially to the eight dudes across the street who stopped conversing to eye the poor girl up and down until I felt uncomfortable.  Perhaps I'm just more empathetic than most but it felt pretty shitty being a part of this awkward and totally avoidable moment which went on for the duration of the longest light in history.  Some of you may say, "You're just jealous they weren't staring at you."  I get enough stares and catcalls and ridiculous behavior from the opposite sex that when I don't, I feel a sense of relief and anonymity.  I much prefer to be obsolete to men for I am strong enough to be independent of their leers and jeers.  Others are not so lucky.  I feel for the others a great deal.

I feel bad for the Women who must watch their Men fully consume a perfect stranger based on mere appearance.  I feel bad for the Woman who must pretend as though she does not feel eyes undressing her constantly on the street, at work, in the grocery store for fear of retaliation if she speaks up.  I feel bad for our society when women must avoid confrontation and then guard oneself because the onslaught of unwanted attention is overwhelming at times.  You'd be surprised how often I can look at a man and know exactly what disgusting thoughts are racing through his pea brain based on his body language and facial expression.  We are after-all pack animals with keen observation skills.  We've evolved this way for many reasons, one such is for our protection.  I shouldn't have to be on-guard everyday, all day. I know what you're thinking.  'Just ignore it.'  'You should feel grateful anyone looks at you at all.'  I say no.  I say no to those thoughts.  I should feel free and safe to walk down the street without feeling eyes all over my body.  It's my body.  People say looks can't hurt you.  They're right.  Overtime they just slowly erode a persons sense of identity, self-worth and confidence.  Keep your eyes on your partner.  If you want out, get out.  Nobody is forcing you to stay in the relationship you're in except you.  If you want to show interest in a girl and you're single, do so in a manner that respects her personal space.  Your gaping rubbernecking serves nothing but your own selfish needs.  Think of how your actions sit with other people and we'll all elevate our civil consciousness together in a way that serves the greater good instead of just the junk in yer pants.   

Dear Travelling Parents

Please stop.  Having children and raising them is the hardest thing in the world.  It is also the most selfish.  Please stop forcing your children under the age of, oh let's say eight, to clamor on an air bus with several hundred other people for fifteen fucking hours because you want them to see the world.  I hate to break it to you but the little shits are not going to remember any of this.  What they will remember is the hatred felt from other passengers and the extreme ear/throbbing skull pain they feel as the plane disembarks and then re-enters the earths atmosphere at a colossal speed.

I get it.  You had children and believe that they should fit into your jet-setting lifestyle, for why should your life change just because you have tiny versions of yourself to care for?  BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT FUCKING HAPPENS WHEN YOU HAVE KIDS.  Your life is now their life.  You as an entity no longer exist as you once did.  You are nothing more than a vessel for these little mouth breathers you've created and it's time you fucking own that.  You made the choice so now live with it in a mature and reasonable and less self-interested manner.  Your children do not have the mental capacity nor the physical proficiency to understand what is happening to them as a plane prepares for re-entry.  They are in severe pain...for quite some time.  Though I'm sure it feels longer for the rest of the passengers, it must feel an eternity for the little guys who can't fathom this searing pain of ears adjusting to the pressure.  I know it's incredibly painful for them because as I start to swallow and go through my own ear popping steps, the babies start to scream bloody murder.  The little guys under eight start to squirm and then scream and then really scream and then scream some more.  You, as their parent should know better.  You as their parent are suppose to protect them from such unnecessary pain until they are old enough to understand it and then deal with it.

Every flight I was on in the last month, (there were nine of them ranging from an hour to eleven), all had fucking babies on them.  Babies!  There is something so undeniably insane about flying halfway around the world already but then to be unable to escape the piercing, frenzied cries of a child in pain for thirty fucking minutes after no sleep, terrible food and a brown dude elbowing you in the ribs every time he doses off...it's enough to evoke severe fantasies of shaken baby syndrome;  Followed by parent punching play time.  Is it truly necessary for you and your baby to fly to China, you daft woman?  You can't wait a few years until the child can properly cope with this nonsense?  And don't get me started on people who bring their fucking pets...there is a special place in the netherworld for you fucking idiots.

Children are rocks in a raging river.  Parents are the water.  It is the parents responsibility to flow around the stone and to gently shape and mold it into a decent rock that can not only survive in the river but prosper.  You have the choice to bend to the needs of the boulder or smother it with wave after wave of stupidity and concern for one's own profit or pleasure.  Think before you choose to bring little ones' a flyin' and the rest of the traveling world will be forever grateful.

So They Give Us A Day

A co-worker came up to me this morning while I was performing a job he was suppose to be doing while making 73.5 cents less than him on every dollar and said, "Happy International Women's Day!"  His big stupid grin was about to fade and fade it did.

I proceed to enlighten the boy on the plight of women as I have known it.  I barely know it.  Let's be real.  I face a lot of shit on a daily basis from the opposite sex but others face a helluva lot more.  I realize I am more in the moderate center of the shit sandwich spectrum when it comes to thwarting daily catcalls, sexism, judgement(from both sexes), sexual assault, rape, being molested on trains while sleeping(that happens all of the time)...etc.  I don't deny that I have a pretty cozy existence living in Canada with Trudeau and his parity government.  I do however need to remind those who say stupid shit and have a penis.  I believe what he was trying to accomplish was to seem progressive by touting the feminist line...but it made me so fucking angry I wanted to punch him in his stupid man-boy face.

After schooling the child somewhat, dropping the mike and walking away...I felt bad.  Fuck me.  I felt bad.  Then I summoned my female compatriots who have dealt with way more stupid shit than I and I said 'NO.'  I will not apologize for getting pissed off.  I will not apologize for being 'bitchy' about a seemingly harmless comment.  I will not feel bad for teaching someone to use their head before saying stupid nonsense for which they know nothing about.  I will be grateful that I possess empathy and move the fuck on.  And!  I will not torture myself over how He's feeling after the fact.  Guess what?  He apologized to me later on in the day.  His tone was a tad passive aggressive with a hint of sulk.  Fuck him.  And then I told him so.  I stated that you don't have to be sorry that you brought up Women's Day;  It just sucks that it exists.  It's like we were given a day once a year to soothe our upheavals and discontent to prevent us from uprising off of our backs and out of the kitchen.

I told him that this day created over one hundred years ago is meaningless.  Women can't get an education without fear of being raped...by someone they most likely know.  In a great deal of countries, women are not even allowed to get educated in the first place and their fear of rape comes from taking the daily dirt path to retrieve water for their family.  Acid is still a tool used on a women's face to keep her at bay and under control.  Aboriginal women, well...just don't be an Aboriginal women because you're not considered a fucking person by the current standards of our absurd society.  Abortions are still illegal in six nations under any circumstances.  Women are still seen as the weaker and more feeble sex when it comes to many occupations that we potentially could attain and thrive in but would be harassed incessantly and paid far less if we were to take on said roles(the law is one such example where women are fleeing for their lives to maintain their sanity/dignity/integrity).  I could go on but now I'm just exhausting myself with how little we've truly accomplished since suffrage and the inception of our very own day once a year!

 I read this article today about how we need to take stock as women on this day of days in regard to how far we've come and how far we still need to go.  How about not putting up a Google Doodle where all of the women are merely wishing and hoping and ONE FUCKING DAY-ING that their lives will be better, equality will exist and that they can actually achieve a dream so unrealistic as playing in Major League Baseball.  One day Google, one day.  This is what we've accomplished?  It's not, I am playing in the Major Leagues, I am owning my own laboratory, I am Jane fucking Goodall talking to the Pope on environmental issues.  It is: Someday, if a society owned and operated by men will allow me to do more than dream about accomplishing things I care about and I haven't died of sepsis from giving birth to my rape baby...than yes, I will achieve shit.  Aggggghhhhhhhh!  This is not progress.  This is placating fifty one percent of the population of the earth!... so that things remain exactly as they are.  And let's keep in mind ladies that in order to play in the Major Leagues, all of the men in your country must be making war overseas(has Geena Davis taught us nothing!?), if you do manage to own your own laboratory, the lab coats are purely for show as your sexy lingerie covering your bargaining tool and assets(like what I did there?)are really the reason behind you owning property in any way and lastly...the only reason Goodall wants to speak to the Pope on the environment is to keep her primate butlers sated so that they may, in turn service all of her needs.  Yeah, I said it.  Jane Goodall is a monkey fucker.    

Fuck this day.  Fuck Google, their Doodles, and the measly eighteen percent of women they employ(as of 2015).  Fuck Jane Goodall.  Wait!  I take that last one back because she's amazing.  (I apologize infinitely regarding my unsavory monkey fucker comment.)  Fuck anyone who takes this day any differently than how they'd normally do.  For me that means, squeezing into the sliver of a space in a seat the man next to me has allowed room for with his legs spread massively wide for his nonexistent giant balls.  Doing 'man's work' and getting paid far less for it while the men wile the day away with coffee and smoke breaks.  Having male customers call me 'Little Lady' and then asking if there are any men around they can speak to about their pressing gardening needs.  Speaking to the delivery dude who informs me that he needs the Shipper/Receiver to sign for his delivery and "Is it that guy over there standing by the truck?", while I'm standing in Shipping and Receiving, wearing a fucking name-tag.  Then to experience my fellow male employees throughout the day referring to me as either "The Bitchy One on her monthly" or "Sweetheart/Hunn/Sweet Cheeks", depending on how I respond that day to their idiotic queries.  Then to travel safely home while I get rubbed up on, on the train not crowded enough for that shit...to finally walk the hill while a homeless dude slurs in my face "How MUUUCCCHHHH," with his drunken spittle grazing my cheek and finding haven in my eye.  Fuck this day.

Is it a Culture Thing?

I recently watched repelled, as a woman clipped the fingernails of her three children on the bus.  I was so thoroughly disgusted I could hardly contain myself.  Contain I did.  I knew she wasn't hurting anyone, 'cept for the poor bastard  that had to clean all of the repulsive child nail clippings from off the floor.  Or the next person that sits in those seats and is forced to pull nail shards out of their pants after their bus ride.  Seriously, this is not the place for grooming.  We are no longer in tree tops, cleaning each other based on hierarchy and gender.  We should not be bonding with one another through the grooming rituals of our fury ancestors by pulling off protein pieces that protrude from the tips of our fingers.  Why this woman felt the need to preen her spawn in public on the busy bus on a Friday afternoon is so beyond me.  Could you not find the time at home?  Is this how you keep your little monsters from running a muck? You must literally hold their grubby mitts while you snap off pieces of keratin coated dirt chunks?  The fingernails were all over the floor, the seats and the children.  The entire family seemed completely at ease with this act.  It was as though they were bonding over nauseating the rest of the passengers...if they had the awareness to notice.  They didn't even realize anyone else was paying attention.  They were in their own little tree top, high above in their canopy with a floor created by crunchy nail collections and filth.  Why was this a thing I needed to witness?  Albeit they weren't causing direct harm to anyone but why on the fucking bus?  I clip my nails over the garbage in my bathroom.  Have you ever gotten a nail sliver?  It's not fun.  That shit is there to protect your juicy underparts and than to be discarded promptly when they piss you off while masturbating...er...or at work.  Yes, while working.  I guess I should be grateful the Alpha didn't bust out his feet for a little groom o' doom before my stop came.  Savages.

Day One

I don't want to be the one
who counts my days
down to none.
To be the only
person
on this planet
so sad and very
lonely.  I sometimes
can't muster the
strength to go to
any length of change
or growth, to be
without remorse or
shame.  I am doomed
to roam alone,
fulfillment rings its
empty tone.  I shall
not know what keeps
me going.  Perhaps it's
not what's in the knowing
but what the journey has
to offer.
Pretend!  They say,
while they cram
full the coffer.

Avoid Eye Contact

I was uptown today to get an HIV/AIDS test.  I always get super paranoid when I'm newly single so don't be worried as tis merely a formality of my insanity.  I don't know why but I feel the need to be uber healthy and aware of said health when I'm not fucking anyone...weird, I know.  Anyhoo, so for my journey home I catch one of those little mini buses that hold many and drive like the devil.  I make eye contact with this woman who starts talking about the flowers out our window.  Usually, I avoid such contact.  People are fucking crazy and those that transit are to be kept at leg kicking lengths.  However, I was feeling lightheaded having just given blood and engaged.

She seemed to be a worldly woman of distinct attire.  Not odd distinct.  Kind of tasteful classic I'll say.  She had grey/silver hair and was wearing a moderate amount of heavy gold jewelry.  She had minimal makeup on but was quite strikingly pretty.  Not beautiful but a very handsome women indeed.  She mentioned the beauty of the cherry blossoms and asked me what my favorite springtime flower was.  I hesitated in thought, for why would I lie to a stranger and told her that I was fond of the crocus.  "Ah yes," She said knowingly.

From there she mentioned that the world doesn't take the time anymore to 'stop and smell the roses' as the saying goes.  She went on to say that, "We are so obsessed with what we don't have that we cannot fathom appreciating what we do."

I added, "We are indeed consumed by what our neighbors have."  I was fascinated by this woman's openness and thought to ask her take on the current situation we find ourselves in.

She said knowingly, "Television.  Television has ruined our civilization.  I divorced my first husband because he didn't match up to how Hollywood depicts a relationship should unfold.  He took care of the kids, changed diapers, washed walls and I didn't appreciate him or what I had because I was told there was something better.  I expected what others had and gave up being grateful for what was right in front of me."

This women, a total stranger to me on this shitty bumpy bus was bestowing upon me some very generous wisdom.  We all know this lesson but who of us needs to be reminded periodically to keep us on the path of internal growth and enlightenment?  Who of us needs a gentle nudge once in a while to hold true to what's important and say 'fuck it' to the other stuff?  This guy.  I thanked her for sharing and pulled the chord for my stop.  I must admit I wanted to chat more but you know how life and bus stops can get in the way of that.  As I walked the short distance to the door she said, "Every time I see a crocus, I'll think of you."  I waved and that was that.  A gorgeous moment between two people at very different stages in their lives, connecting over the shared experience of simply being alive.  I wanted to share this because I wasn't zoned into my phone.  I wasn't blaring music from my ever present head phones.  And I didn't avoid eye contact with a crazy lady talking about how beautiful the flowers outside our window were.  These are the moments we live for people...don't forsake their weight on your day or in your life.

Calm Blue Ocean!

Sooooo, member earlier when I was all like calm and serene and my inner child had awoke to bring my true self to light and release a lot of pent up past shit?  Well, my Inner Child wants to put down her posies and punch a dude in the face right now...that didn't take long.

I'm at the pharmacy getting my Typhoid vaccination for some upcoming travel when the pharmacist begins to dumb down everything he's saying regarding the dosage and so forth.  I'm like, "Dude, I've done this before...I got this."  He proceeds to painstakingly explain shit to me I already know, even after I assure him that I'm good.  I see that my confidence hasn't swayed the duration of his speech so I keep quiet and allow him the dignity of finishing his speel.  Finally, when the chatter had ceased, I ask him, "So how long does this vaccine last?"

He goes on auto-pilot, "As I previously explained to you, it lasts up to three years but if you're travelling back and forth to the area you may require a booster...and blahblahda-blahblahblah."  I interrupt this time having my patience run dry...

"Dude.  I know.  You said and I've received the vaccine from a travel clinic before.  I want to know how long the vaccine, in the form it is currently in at this moment in space and time is going to last so that the poison I'm about to inject into my body doesn't die before I accomplish this."

"Oh.  One year.  In the fridge."

Either the dude is so use to talking to the elderly or he doesn't know how to listen.  I'd like to think that I don't look like a spacey moron who can't understand simple instructions, so I hope that wasn't the reason behind his relentless descriptions.  Or alternatively, that it wasn't a gender thing and he assumed that my vagina made me unequipped to understand...like every relationship I've ever had. I get that he often has to repeat himself because the general public are useless boobs but his entire purpose in life is to listen to people's queries and respond accordingly.  Instead he had already preordained his responses to my unasked questions and here we are:  For whatever his reasons were, Inner Child needs to punch a dick.

Tears Upon the Yoga Mat

I had a profound experience this morning.  They come so few and far between that I felt compelled to write about it.  As I was performing my day off morning ritual of stretching, I believe you new-ageists refer to it as 'Yoga', followed by a brief guided meditation I became new again.  This is one of my many goals in the limited time I have on this pale blue dot.  I want to be new again.  To see things freshly without all of the baggage and pain that I tend to color experience with.  My brush needs new bristles and my paints have all mellowed.  These rare moments of seeing things freshly and from an original perspective, untainted and untarnished by the torment of others and too often myself, revive my color collection and renew my faded canvass...my brush is still a piece of shit.

I decided the guided meditation I was to partake in this morrow was regarding the topic of the inner child.  I know, I just heard your eye balls rolling violently to the back of your skulls.  But seriously people!  I feel transformed...cue next ball rolling.  I know these moments are so very transitory so I must put it to page before the warm feelings and insight escape me.  The meditation was about seeing yourself in a garden with your 'inner child'.  You frolic with your child while telling them positive and forgiving things.  You tell them that you love and respect them and that you're sorry for all of the pain you've allowed others and yourself to cause them.  Well, it was about this time that I lost it.  Truth be told, when I imagined my little kid self, skipping free and oozing with potential in a garden of my mind...my eyes began to well with salty substance.  My little child, me, who so tiny and fragile and open has been hurt by so much of life.  I as an adult force that little frail one to carry the load of all of my mistakes, regrets, and sacrifices.  Seeing myself as a child it was so easy to forgive and apologize for it all.  I am so often excruciatingly hard on myself but when you look at yourself as though you were a wee one, how could anyone put all of that nonsense on a child?  Why is it okay to do it to myself as an adult?

As I told my inner self that I was sorry the tears were unstoppable at this point and I just let them flow, drenching me and my purple yoga mat through.  My eyes closed tight I felt all of the weight I carry dissipate and my child and I ran around my brain garden laughing and holding hands.  It was a beautiful image of solace and reparation.  I felt so sad of what I've done to myself...the terrible story I regurgitate over and over in my head about who and what I am, where I'm going, where I've been and who I'll be next.  What an exorbitant amount of energy this takes.  I'm drained now but instead of being blinded to lifes artistry I am reawakened to it.  At the end of the meditation, I opened the pools where my eyes once to reflect in this moment shared with an earlier self who feels forgiven and renewed.  I left my child in the garden, knowing that I can visit her whenever I want and that she no longer needs to hold the weight I force upon her.  She is free from care.  She is free from wants and empty, passing desires.  She is free from all of the stress and worry that I impose because I fear.  She is free to be safe because I can protect her now.  She is no longer guarded from living as I won't keep her from life.  She is free now, because she is me.

Baboon! Baboon! BabOOOOOON!

I was given some advice by my supervisor the other day.  I have felt unsettled about it since until now.  It struck an old and deep chord with me.  Something she said brought me back to my childhood.  On the playground we are taught to play nice.  We are taught to take turns, respect the other...to play well with others.  We are told that to be liked is the ultimate goal.  This is the advice my boss bestowed upon me.  It's total crap.

I believe we must learn to be independent of being liked.  I believe we must not concern ourselves with the good or bad opinions of others.  No one is beneath me albeit and I am beneath no one.  I won't purposefully hurt another, that's very un-dude.  But I will certainly stand up for what is right.  If that includes putting someone in their place who so sorely requires it, so be it.  I had to do that to a colleague.  She had overstepped her bounds in an odd way and her mistake was rectified by yours truly.  I was professional and calm and corrected the injustice immediately.  Normally, I would have stewed.  I would have taken it home.  I would have slit my wrists and bled out for this person all to make them more comfortable.  All to make her feel safe.  Well all of that shit be overrated.  Safety is an illusion.  I can control my reaction to things and that is all.  Comfort is a story we tell ourselves to feel safe.  Which in itself is also an illusion.

The colleague apologized to me and all has been forgiven.  However, my supervisor felt the need to interject her own personal spin on things.  She probably thought I needed to be comforted.  Fool.  So I listened quietly as she wove a tale of how the best way to get what you want from the environment we mutually find ourselves in(our stupid job surrounded by ego driven incompetent boobs), is to be liked.  Not liked, but loved.  She told me how she manipulates people around her into loving her.  How she makes people love her to avoid conflict I had previously faced.  Therefore she never feels uncomfortable and always feel safe.  Obviously she didn't say these words but that was their meaning.  What's wrong with a little conflict?  How else do you truly know the other?  Just like in school.  Follow along.  Keep quiet.  Don't make a scene.  Play nice.  Fuck that.  Fuck her.  I am not going to waste my precious time stirring the ego pot of fear and emotion to get what I want.  I'm going to use my words, like a big girl!  I'll use logic, reason and an intense root system of justice that I feel grows within me the more I use it...like I think that's called my gut brain.  I will draw on this energy to resolve conflict.  That shit is real.  Waffling and kissing ass are no way to live.  It takes a great deal of strength to realize this and even more backbone to put it into action.  We should be more interested in doing what is right and not what feels happy in our whittle tummies.  Guess what?  That shit is transitory.  Fleeting is the feeling of consuming someones opinion about you and attempting to change it to your favor.  People pretending to love you is the nihility of love.

Feelings cannot hurt you.  They are temporary bits of code that can be rewritten at the flick of an eyelash.  So let us not degrade one another to our child selves.  Let us not consume one another in a tepid sea of fake and apologetic smiles  Let's not exist perpetually where everyone is afraid of each other and themselves.  Let us be fucking real for a change and get some fucking work done.

Poetry for the Ages

Sometimes I like to drink
 a half bottle of Shiraz
 before ten pm
on a Friday night
while watching rom-com's
and eating chocolate.
I try and hit
the garbage can
from my bed
with the wrappers.
 I'm 0 for 3.
Thought you should know.

That Guy

I was standing in the line at Chipotle the other day for I was craving some bean induced diarrhea, when I was confronted with a social experiment.  I am often confronted by these and I usually remain silent to save the juicy details for the written word.  I could not stay silent on this one.

The couple in line ahead of me were making up some delightful looking meat laced burritos when the dude asks for the green peppers and onions option.  The counter dude proceeds to do precisely as he's asked and loads up both meals with the selection.  Then the customer dude asks the counter dude to remove all of the onions from both wraps.  Uh...huh?  So the poor counter dude stands there for a good four minutes, which is an eternity when you have an ever increasing line-up of ravenous people growing up and out the door to the establishment and picks through the several spoonfuls of peppers and onions to remove the requested item.  The counter dude seems satisfied with his efforts to remove the onions from the fucking onion and green pepper duo and passes the wraps to the next link in the chain of gas generating choices.  The customer dude who we will now refer to as 'That Guy', intercepts the pass and says, "Yo bro, I can still see onions on my food."

Yup.  So That Guy with his girlfriend, who oddly was not put off by any of this behavior and actually seemed in total support of her man, had the poor under-paid and exploited sixteen year old Chipotle employee pick off the fucking onions for a second time.  At this point the line was growing quite impatient.  I could feel eyes rolling, huffs being taken and iphones being checked, for who has the time to be uncomfortable in wait without pocket entertainment?

Come on dude?  Seriously?  If you're so adverse to onions, don't get that option.  How badly did you require green peppers that day?  Did your father a few moments earlier get trapped by six feet of snow in a tragic ski accident and before he was smothered by the depths of winter bliss, his last wish was for you to be rude to people serving you, take liberties with other peoples time, and reject onions in all their glorious forms for the rest of your miserable malcontent life?  I hate you, you fuck.  Everyone else in the restaurant hates you.  Is that the legacy you want to leave behind?  People hating you cuz you were That Guy?  How this Guy has found a woman as equally as myopic and self-obsessed with dietary needs, is beyond me.  It couldn't have been an allergy, cuz onions be transferring their onion DNA to those peppers, bro.  Also, have you cooked with onions before, bro?  They flavor everything they come into contact with like...onions!  Your meal tastes like onions but perish the idea there should be any actual onions in your dish.  Do you know what a priority is, bra?

So after having an ample amount of time to think through what was going down, when it was finally my turn to order a meal that should only take two minutes to complete, I was asked if I wanted brown or black beans.  I said brown but added, "Could you pick out all of the beans that are larger than the tip of your pinky...please?"  The poor kid!  He looked into my bowl of beanly demise and took a big long sigh.  He couldn't even look at me, and than honest to god, started to pick through my meal.  I stopped him immediately of course with a "Dude!  I'm totally kidding."  He looked up at me with these big puppy eyes and not quite a smirk because he didn't know if he could trust me.  Once the realization set in that I was just fucking with him, the humor became evident and he relaxed.  The chick behind me said with a laugh, "I was going to walk if you were serious."  As fate would have it, That Guy and his chick didn't catch on.  I don't think it was fate really.  I think when you're that into your own needs, nothing else phases you.  And so with this tiny example I'd like to pose a plea to the world at large:  Please people, don't be That Guy.

Dear Millennials...Part Deux

Ugh...where do i even begin?!?

"Rhandi, this is Latisha...she's recently single."

"Hey."

"Yeah, like...it was totally recent the single thing.  I just really need to do Me right now.  Ya know?  Like I just need to do me."

Oh?  And what exactly are you doing to you that is so revelatory/engrossing/beneficial?  Are you doing you and curing cancer?  Are you doing you while solving the energy/water/food/pick one crisis?  Are you adding anything to society while basking in your simultaneous pursuit of soul searching? Have you determined how many fists can fit into your vagina so we can move on now?  I remove myself from this generation whole-fucking-heartedly.  I want nothing, NOTHING to do with you assholes.  I keep hearing this common theme amongst ya'll...you need to do you.  YOLO.  Whatever.  I hate all of you.  You care not for one another.  You care not for the world at large.  You care for your next high, your next blow job and your next text.  I can't count how many times I've been told by people of a certain age to forget everyone and everything and 'just do you'.  It's like a terrible, antisocial NIKE ad gone horrifically wrong.

I had to keep three millennials entertained for the evening after that initial ridiculous and inane conversation and it was, to say the least, taxing.

I kept them centered on themselves, their own experiences and off their cellphones...which was a fucking feat.  I deserve a medal, or more beer at the very least.  I introduced a drinking game that quickly grew to be very dirty, very rapidly.  I would have rather been alone having an orgasm than to have faked my way through this evening of posturing.  So boring.  And we were talking about sex!  How sex could be so boring and empty I do not know, but it really was.  They were grossly entertained and involved.  I was half asleep.

However!  I call the evening a victory because each and every one of these self-obsessed philistines were completely engrossed in the conversation.  Yes I had to steep to below brow levels but the fuckers stopped checking their phones.  They made fucking eye contact!  They listened to what the other was saying and responded in kind and on fucking topic.  I never knew how bad shit had gotten until this very night.  Shit is bad people.  Shit is very bad.  These kids were so grateful to have an actual conversation with real, live human beings that I got hugs at the end of it all.  HUGS!  It was kind of amazing.  I felt like i shone a light into their brains, if only for a brief and sexy moment and gave them all a glimpse of the way things use to be or might of been or could be still.  It was illuminating and infuriating and immensely rewarding.  Goddamn.  What has happened?  I don't wonder now why we are so aptly called the "saddest generation".  We are in desperate need of one another and we choose to find connection through our technology.  Our technology should aid in our ability to connect not impede and than inevitably destroy it.  If anything, the axiom should be stated thusly: "Do everyone else until you reach bliss at the inevitable extinction of the self."  It's kinda long but I think it could catch on.  One could also call it Nirvana.  Let us strive to put all others before our own preoccupation with ourselves.  Let us feast on the delight that comes from placing another persons needs before our own.  Let's do each other (yup, ya heard me) until there's nothing left but a single celled organism with the capacity of inter-dimensional travel and spontaneous creation.  Let us all remove our eyeballs from our pocket computers long enough to hold eye contact with a fellow human over beers and whore talk!

That's what finally got them going.  Enough beer to choke a horse...and sex.  It's a start I suppose.  Perhaps, if I can stomach a next time, we'll broach current events or *gasp*, music.  Are we so removed from one another that there is no going back to a time of awkward silences and uncomfortable space?  I am too sad to elaborate on that thought...Happy Valentines Day.

Sleepy Time Dream Town

I use to have dreams about being chased.  I could fly, usually only briefly while attempting to flee some horrible and overbearing force.  My dreams were exciting and full of peril.  Now my dreams are about stuff.  I dream of having too much product to price and not having enough time to do it.  I dream about disappointing my employer, alienating coworkers and the enjoyment that washes over me whenever I am rude to guests.  I woke this morning in a panic that the new shipment of plastic saucers and plant caddies were not priced.  Seriously subconscious?  Even my brain is bored of the things I force it to do during the day.

I didn't get in to school.  I failed the assessment test to be a journalist.  Now looking at the news of late, I see layoffs, cutbacks and media outlet closures are making headlines in a big way.  Perhaps I dodged the proverbial bullet.  Perhaps the Universe had my back and said, 'Uh-uh...Uni no like.'  I wasn't really passionate about the news.  Writing maybe but not sensationalizing real life to sell shit to people to keep them in fear and maintain the shudder-some status quo.  So now that my 'dream' of being a news reporter is quashed, I'm keeping my ears to the ground for what's next.

I feel like I've been failing a lot lately.  At my current job as merchandiser/sales associate/hawker of wares in a beautiful and healing garden store, I have been passed up for the last two promotions I've applied for.  My previous job at a fashion retailer warehouse also followed similar suit.  Am I failing or does the cosmic powers that be know that my heart isn't really in it and putting the kaibash on the whole process before it really begins.  I've learned if money is the goal in any endeavor, failure is quick to ensue.  I suppose I've just answered my own flawed view about failure and why I perceive it so.  Therein lies another question though:  Why do I perceive the grander message to be botched effort on my part?  Like I am losing at life because I didn't get some bullshit promotion of more work for not nearly enough moola at a job I have no interest in with people I don't really care about?  Well, I care about some of them...some of them are pretty righteous.

I'm trying to relax now;  To let the great energies that created it all to guide me to my ever so short purpose on this planet.  I'm also trying to really believe in the fact that all the shit in the previous sentence is not a lie I'm telling myself so that I don't take a long walk off a short pier.  I work with this mystical man who believes with all of his might that the Universe has a greater plan for us all.  He's very convincing and not preachy or condescending.  I trust in his trust but not quite in my own.  I tend to take a more nihilistic view of things.  Sometimes it feels good and right and just and other times it makes me so sad I am rendered immobile.  I believe that having beliefs is a weakness of mankind and that it has greatly held us back as a species.  But if this pisses you off giant cosmic energy in the ethos...sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry.  I take it back!  Now please provide my silent witness with the insight it needs to lead an exciting, prosperous, financially fluent, and sexy hell-damn-ass existence Oh Great One.  Also, if you would like to be called something else, something more relative to your omniscience, give me no sign...thy will be done Oh Purple Monkey Dishwasher.  

I Shit My Pants Today

Just a little bit.  Well, it was enough to require that my pantaloons meet their maker in the garbage.  Funny things our bodies are.  Thirty-four years on this planet with the same intestines and anus...well sphincter ruling the anus show...and I couldn't tell the difference between a fart and poop-town.  A metaphor for life really. You never really know if it's going to be vapor or vast amounts of excrement...so bring an extra pair of underpants.

PS. What's super weird is that it happened at home and no one would have been the wiser, 'cept for this super public and worldwide thing called the internet I force myself to participate in, and I was still embarrassed.  So much disgrace surrounding our bodily functions that I couldn't even poop my own pants, in my own home and not feel abased by it.  Well, until now.  Everybody poops!

To the Man in my Life who is no Longer

I tried to try.  I really did on this one.  This was me at my most effort and still the resolution is the same.  I think you were right in things once said.  I'm not ready either.  I thought I could be and I really wanted to.  I like my space.  I love my time.  It's the only thing that matters most.  I won't force you to stay and I won't ask you to wait...even if I want both of those.  I'm simply not ready to be the person you needed me to be.

We bickered often about things we were passionate about.  I knew a different tongue than you and things got so complicated so fast.  We remained because our connection was so strong but life has other plans for you and for me.

Je t'aime

I believe that anything I have ever written has been for one person.  The suffering has to amount to something and if that means I can weave a web of entertaining or touching or melancholic words, than I suppose it's all been worth it.  No matter the cost I am compelled to write my story.  The heartbreak.  The loneliness.  The suffocation of my own existence.  I believe myself to be too unstructured to write in the conventional sense.  There is no place for feeling in our contemporary times.  Sensationalism is far too seductive a technique.  I mean not to sensationalize;  If only to tell my truth and to have the world bend its ear in my general direction.  How fabulous to be recognized in one's own time.  Perhaps I blow my own horn a tad too hard.  I have been known to be of the dramatic.

All histrionics aside, I want to abide by a life of creativity and passion.  Far too often the passion escapes me as the sadness settles in but we all must learn to press on.  I have loved.  A great and mysterious and unsuspecting love.  My eyes met his and that was it for me.  To this day I don't think he truly realizes the extent.  I don't really either.  I know that the majority of my major life's decisions have been based on that love.  It's so difficult for me to write when I'm happy.  I wonder if my words will ever be worth the price I've paid for them.

I remember you everyday.

The notion of impermanence has risen in my thoughts as of late.  I'm reading about several great thinkers in history who walked their own original path, often against the societal conflict they faced.  Could I ever be so courageous?  Could I ever grow so weary of these expectations to, as Stevie Nicks so eloquently puts it, go my own way?  The grace and inevitability of change is not lost on me.  I just wonder at what cost to my heart these changes must progress.  I suppose I need to adopt the concept that just because something is in memory, does not automatically diminish its worth.  How do I go on living a life in which I know parts of it have gone unlived?  I have not lived through the great love I thought I could have because life in all of its intricacies got in the way.  Life sometimes moves too fast for love and now I must accept that you have moved on, to have great love with another.  I have followed you to the edges of my sanity and now I must face this emptiness alone.  

Potent-ial

What a deliberate rouse this life we've been blessed with is.  We are given such abilities, emotions, thoughts, patterns, and yet we have no control.  We have no say.  We have all of this 'potential' and no delivery.  I had delivery as an actor.  I had presence.  i had potential.  I feel so very separate from all of that now;  As though that was all a part of the dream of what reality represents.  I don't want to represent an element of what it means to be real...I just want to be it.  I want to feel it.  I want there to be more than just my senses.

Potential is the word given to dreams unrealized.  I had dreams.  The closer I become to becoming myself the further I feel removed from the things I once cared for.  What does that fucking mean?  Am I more of a shell or less?  Isn't more and less the same elements of a coin flipped in the air to determine how a day will play out?  Probably.

Sometimes a depressor becomes the depress-ee.