Papin's Steam Digester

Still in a Creative Rut

2011-04-19T19:11:00.000-04:00

I am stuck in fantasy land.
I laid in bed daydreaming about a relationship.
I spent hours thinking of a man I've never met.
I passed so much time wishing to be a different version of myself.
I almost stopped to write a poem about this false reality.
I constantly hope that those daydreams will be real.
I suddenly realized I wanted to be in the moment.
I got up at 1pm and went grocery shopping.
I only bought fruit, meat, and cereal.
I was hoping that would be an effective diet.
I didn't do much else for the rest of the day.
I stayed up til 2am finishing my fantasy.
I still wished I had done and do more with my day-to-day.

Something cute and loving for those of us without.

I haven't written a poem in over a month

2011-03-28T14:47:00.000-04:00

Secondary Form of Creative Expression

2011-03-01T17:29:00.000-05:00

NYU Wagner Visual Explorer Response

2011-02-26T16:03:00.000-05:00

I submitted this poem as part of my application to NYU Wagner's Master of Public Administration Program. I promised myself that I would only share the poem if I were accepted. I found out on February 25, 2011 that I was accepted to the program.

The inspiration for this was a picture of tiger submerged in a pool. So here goes:

Out of my Element: A Sestina
We’ve become too settled in the safety of our complacency,
missing the drive to be different that was once essential.
We are too unwilling to allow the mundane to be disturbed.
After un-started pursuits to figure out a life’s real purpose,
I must jump into the sea of wisdom, no longer fearful of change,
Nor restive on the shores of a world I could reshape and make my own.

She screamed, “I don’t belong in this place, I must return to my own!”
My rejoinder: “Fear of learning only breeds ignorance and complacency.”
She said, “I cannot bear alone the weight to assimilate, to change,”
“the world” I said, “admires your burden. Their futures are essentially
made by your discomfort. When out of place, we find our purpose.”
She prophesied, “The first will be last when the natural order we disturb.”

What order could reside in nature if only ignorance goes undisturbed?
Knowledge is power, the power to be, an education is all you should own.
A swimming tiger learns its strangeness reveals a practical purpose.
A Black girl in a White man’s world learns unearned complacency
is worthless. If a people cannot thrive and acquire the essentials,
what good are the comforts of what we know, when the ease of change

resides in an open book, a freed mind searching for loose change
in the fountain of light? Reform the status quo, we must disturb
and unhinge the norms and stereotypes that have become essential
to keeping us in our place. The moon has light enough to recognize its own,
but I am owned by no class, no status that would bind me to complacency.
The oddity of being a fish in space, a dog in a tree is my purpose.

I married the foreign idea that fixing broken systems is a purpose-
full pursuit for re-imagining myself as a vessel for change
Within the education of politics, I take up the power that complacent
ideals will be Atlantis reborn from the rubble of sunken institutions disturbed
by weapons of mass illumination. A school of tigers owned
by all; an accepted and constant dissonance that will become essential.

Essential
purpose:
Own
change,
disturb
complacency.

Unconventional behavior is essential in the pursuit to create change
in a world that floats purposelessly, too suffocated to be disturbed
by its own drowning desire to escape silent complacency.

Procrastination

2011-02-21T17:28:00.002-05:00

Various Pictures will be posted which reveal what I do at work instead of actually working.

It is all thanks to the wonderful formula I found below...

1 – Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random” The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 – Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations”. The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 – Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 – Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together

My Fantasies Cloud my Perception of Reality

2011-02-05T21:47:00.000-05:00

Cigarette Smoke
Clouds of dust and grey fill the air
As I try to see through to the man
The heart of him, those eyes of his
Bring me down to my knees

I suck it in, breathe deep, let it burn
Scorched throat to blackened lungs
To heart that skipped a beat
Fill me up to quiet my anxiety

Through the mist of artificial fog
A boy to like, a man I could love
Breathes it all into my mouth
I take it in for a brief taste of him

Auburn eyes seem green in this faded light
I want to see them more clearly
His face always clouded by smog
He is hidden beneath bad, old habits

The gleam of his teeth shine through
In a smile, for me or just for the tension
Fog lifts for a brief sip of beer
I smile back to show the signs

That I want more than just a new friend
More than an occasional cup of coffee
More to see, more to know, more to smell
than the bitter taste of your cigarette smoke
Written 01/24/2011

Mean Parallels

2011-01-23T20:21:00.000-05:00

At An Impasse
The troll under the bridge mocks me and jeers
It comments on my deficiencies, pokes fun at my fears
It sits in its dark cave closed in with many locks
Creeping to confront me when my hooves form knocks
It stares and nags and bars me from my way
Its breath stinks of alcohol as across my path it lays
The troll will snort and spit and bite, strike me in a fashion
I cower and retreat each day lonely for lack of passion
Each morning I return to the bridge hoping for safe passage
Each day it hobbles out to me, holding to the adage
My brothers cannot aid me, they've crossed without hassle
They've left me here to wane, limp like a cap's tassel
I resent that troll safe on its perch, hate it for its lagging
Day by day I seek the other side, life free from the battling
This troll must tire from its task, must concede me victory
Snout, snip, snap, greener, free life to end this old story.
Written 7/8/10

More Attempts at Different Poetic Forms

2010-12-26T15:57:00.001-05:00

Villanelle I
We only speak in my dreams
You're not a real boy, a pile of strings
My heart is bursting at the seams

For the sake of love a man could deem
Good enough to lessen the sting
That we only speak while in a dream

How many of the lonely shall join my team,
In search of reciprocity from a warm being?
My heart is bursting at the seams

Yarn and thread fall like broken beams
To the floor, for such a foolish thing
To only speak to another while we dream

Love, the desperate poet's constant theme
Circular words repeated and create a ring
For a heart dried and broken or so it seems

In search of love seen through the gleam
Of hope that to visions I will no longer cling
We only speak while I lay in dreams
For that my heart bursts at its seams
Written 11/06/10

Recession-proofing your smoking habit

2010-12-25T13:25:00.000-05:00

A Camel's ad in Essence magazine.

I'll leave you to your own opinions

Train Travel

2010-11-07T00:36:00.000-04:00

Love on the Subway
Fell in love with a hand on the uptown C local
I sat in the gray rows as he stood above
Too frightened to address his eyes
So I became quite infatuated with his hand
Firm yet soft with manicured nails
Fierce veins crawling like rivers
Crossing a dulce de leche plain
Knuckles curved at ease allowing
The fingers to do their practical work
Strong wrist peaking beneath cufflinks and a trench
Closed my eyes to imagine my own intertwined
Awoke to find you vanished along the Jay St. F
Written 10/09/09

A Pantoum to St. John's - 100 Year Anniversary

2010-10-30T14:37:00.000-04:00

Pantoum for St. John’s Church
The church was strengthened in its faith and grew larger every day
We drew nearer and for one hundred years sang His praise to prove our faith
We lifted our hearts and opened our ears to understand what He would say
Our faith came from hearing the Good News; His fate lifted our weight

The church, our hearth to draw nearer, to sing praise, and to show faith
God’s flock – His church purchased with spilling His own blood
The Good News of His sacrifice will bless all of our days
Vouchsafe your flock a century more, come plague or come flood

The Shepherd leads us through the dark in times of great despair
What joy is ours! Everything thing in us celebrates
Tomorrow brings blessed days because our burden his shoulders bear
A century full of love so grand, our souls elevate

Celebrate this day from generation to generation
The future of this Temple is greater than its past
One hundred loving years to His name our adoration
Showers of blessings flood to create a foundation that lasts

The future of this Temple will be greater than its past
There will be hope for our future. The future will be in our hands
Creating a foundation to enter the Kingdom that will be vast
We will march into tomorrow in reverie with triumphant bands

A century more is in our future. The future is in our hands
Our mouths will be open for one hundred years, to Jesus Christ we shall pray
Mouths singing out in reverie, hearts beating like triumphant bands
The church is strengthened in its faith and grows larger every day

Bible Verses Referenced
Acts 16:5
Romans 10:17
Acts 20:28
Genesis 30:13
Proverbs 23:16
Exodus 12:17
Haggai 2:9
Jeremiah 31:17
Psalm 31:15
Genesis 15:6

Those Left Behind

2010-10-13T23:10:00.000-04:00

I constantly vacillate on whether or not I like my grandmother. I am still not sure if she is a good person. But today, I pitied her, or better stated, I sympathized with her. Since my grandfather died, she has acted as though she was so dependent on him, when in fact it was the other way around. My family has been perplexed for the last few months on why she has been so depressed and helpless. Today, she packed up some of my grandfather's clothes. She is slowly cleaning him out of the house. She worked in spurts, having to leave the room at times just to get away from the idea of giving the remaining pieces of him away.

It isn't fair to be left with the remnants of someone else's life. To have to be responsible for packing up what you left behind at death. It would be an interesting exercise if we knew when our end would come and we divided up and donated the objects that were our lives. Not the objects that can be willed away but the objects that remind you of that trip together or the first date.

When you die you should take it all with you. It isn't fair to those left behind to have to pack up and suffer through remembering what it was like when you were still here. Today I understood some piece of my grandmother's pain, what it means to be the one that's still here.

The Benefits of a Happy Ending

2010-08-30T23:01:00.000-04:00

I just finished two books over the last few days (The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky and The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had to By D. C. Pierson) and in both books the villains win. The villain in "Wallflower" is the main character. He can't seem to escape his demons, after realizing how he can be more engaged in the world, something inside him is unwilling to let go of the wall. He finds friends, love, begins to cope with pain and loss, and still at the end he seems to lose. We find him more tortured and withdrawn than we did at the beginning.

The villains in "Boy Who Couldn't Sleep" are complexly real and imagined. The protagonist brings about the downfall of his best friend after reveling in the power that the friend possesses. At the end, the friend is gone, his remnants and life force found in pills, and the protagonist lives in regret. His hope is diminished and he finds solace in the very pills that signify his friend's demise.

There isn't a happy resolution. These stories aren't packaged, wrapped, and tied with a pretty bow. The protagonist is as confused and frustrated as he was when the story began. He's gone through plenty but it doesn't really seem as if he's fully grown. He has had experiences but the conclusion leaves him disappointed in the decisions he made. They are the stories that leave you wanting more and willing to worship at the feet of the author for the sake of hearing a better ending or a subsequent chapter. You grow connected to the main characters, you want to see them happy especially because contentment has eluded them for all 15-20 chapters.

Then I realize that it isn't that kind of story.

I was sadly satisfied by these darker endings. I get so bored of the good guys always winning. Things can't always work out so perfectly. But now, I get why so many authors and screenwriters create happy endings. Dark endings leave you feeling the like. I am unresolved and it feels a lot like reality. Some times I need a book to let me escape and see the other side when life is a pretty packaged gift. Other times I need to be reminded that we will be as frustrated, confused, and disappointed at the as we are when we began.

Mayhap the Heart Still Yearns...

2010-08-26T21:39:00.001-04:00

An Axe before the Scalpel
Are you my soulmate?
Or just a lifelong friend?
Could you be both and
I've made a mistake again?
I miss you so much,
It's only been two days
I love the sight of your name,
Seeing your goofy smile
Warms my heart and gives me
That school-girl giggle I try to hide
I cut things off to save my heart
Shattering when I see you with her
She who holds your attention and
Affection, more powerfully than I can

Hope to have, you are what I want
Did I mention how much I miss you?
It didn't hurt like this before
My gut says it's you and not her
For you, for me it's confusion that is
A boundary for self-preservation
I chopped down our giving tree
Built a wall before a house when
I should have cut a line in the sand
Unsteady hands create split decisions
My heart needed stitches but
I gave you a handful of splinters
Written 8/12/10

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

2010-08-17T20:44:00.001-04:00

"We accept the love we think we deserve"
~ Stephen Chbosky (p.24)

That quote came was a response to a domestic violence situation. Out of context, it is an interesting but confusing approach to life and love. Do we actively reject love and people who offer us love that we feel we do not deserve? If I reject love in any manifestation does it mean that I feel unworthy of love? Don't we all want love, is it ever possible to feel as though we don't deserve any kind of love? Or are we willing to accept a negative and abusive form of love?

In my current quasi-romantic situation, I have intense feelings for a man who sees me as just a friend. I can't help but wake up sad and depressed by his rejection. I used to think that I was too unavailable to allow someone to affect my mood so much, but I am clearly open and vulnerable and moved by his lack of love for me. I think of him and I feel angry, angry for my immaturity, angry for the way that I've treated him, angry for the fact that I am not enough for him, angry at him for finding happiness in someone who isn't me. What am I seeking from him? Do I seek out a rejected love because I feel as though I don't deserve faithful and monogamous love? It's disturbing to come to the realization that I could hate myself so much, which deepens my sadness and fuels my internal anger.

I used to think being unavailable and willfully disengaged from life, particularly romantic life, I could safeguard myself from heartbreak. But, I live in my head with such passion and delusion that I've broken my heart more times than any man ever could.

I want to dance but I'm too afraid of looking like a fool. I'm not leaning on the wall anymore but I'm still frightened of moving to the dance floor.

Amy Winehouse needs to get her life together

2010-08-14T23:48:00.000-04:00

I just bought and listened to Frank, Amy Winehouse's first album before Back to Black and her explosion in the US and the UK. She is absolutely amazing. The shortest song on the album, "Cherry", is beautiful. "F#@$ Me Pumps" is the most artistically arranged song that I've heard for a while. She is a solid and amazing talent and I am so angry that she allowed herself to dwindle into drug-induced madness.

Why are the brilliant ones some times ape-shit crazy?!

However, I am happy that she is no longer running around in crappy flip flops and cutoff shorts terrorizing a small Caribbean island. If her life was normal her music wouldn't be so moving, honest, and powerful. I just need her to get it together so that I can continue to dream to the beauty that is her vocalizations poured out over jazz.

She is amazing. I love you, Amy. I wish you good health so that your talent isn't wasted. I hope that the struggles of life make you stronger and you put your pain into your art with the knowledge the we share and carry the strife with you.

Godspeed, Ms. Winehouse! I anxiously anticipate your next project (no pressure, though) ;-)

Eminem's Relapse Album was 3 steps back for his career...

2010-08-11T01:38:00.000-04:00

Same song and dance
Same kicking and screaming
Same crying and sobbing
Same song and dance
Same digging and pleading
Same yelling and bleeding
Same song and dance

August 6, 2010 was my one-year blogaversary! Yay!

It's been a year that I've been posting random thoughts and poems on this website and I feel as though I am in a similar position, state of mind, and place in life, just one year older with an electronic legacy.

I find myself pining over the same man who still doesn't want me. Still 110 lbs overweight. Still unsatisfied professionally. Still 2 years away from graduate school.

Same vices and drama
Same cursing and pouting
Same song and dance

And, much like Em, in my return to a previous state no matter how many months down the road I may be, I have regressed and pushed myself 3 steps backward. Acting as my own biggest enemy, the biggest hurdle to my personal success and professional progress. I'm not trying to be depressing but I am personally disappointed in myself. I've come a long way in the last year but not in the ways I had hoped.

I was talking to a friend tonight and she told me a story about a guy. She kept referencing how the scenario was so much like college. I, so wisely, told her that if she wanted to avoid college-like scenarios, she would have to avoid using college-like tactics. Two years out and we find ourselves doing the same flirtations and awkward maneuvering around men.

College Tactics For Sopen
I like you and you know it
But you know I won't put out
We make out after a party
You like me, now I know it
You tell your friends we went
All the way, 'Round home plate
You said to stop at 1st base
I hate you, my friends know it
You like me more in my disdain
My sneers turn you on
Avoidance means coy in Boi
The downside to all these
College Tactics
Is that we graduated 2 years ago
We're alums of love without
Our diplomas, the credits didn't
Transfer into adulthood
Written 8/10/10

Tonight I told a friend that we could no longer be friends. I like him too much in a romantic way for our friendship to thrive the way it should. We were in a similar situation around this time last year. I tried to follow my own advice this time. I still feel like shit, still confused, still rejected. The difference is I'm sober this time and really feel as though I faced things head on rather than passive aggressively trying to telepathically communicate my feelings to him.

I can't allow myself to keep going on the way I've gone in the past. I am disappointed in myself but I want to take charge of the things I can change...standing just shy of the serenity prayer and the cliche is eludes to.

Same song and dance equals insanity and I'm tired of feeling crazy. I have to find Redemption in my own Recovery.

I am Woman, Hear Me Munch

2010-08-02T20:22:00.000-04:00

It is strange that I can't seem to go to Walgreens for cereal, prescriptions, pads, or whatever without picking up a pint of Ben & Jerry's Half Baked Ice Cream. Comfort food, guilty pleasure all in one amazing chocolate, vanilla, cookie dough-filled belch twenty minutes after I get home.

I went off my medication and this is what fell out...

2010-07-27T20:52:00.001-04:00

Too good to read (Or The Happiness Overwhelms Me)
These love poems seem so vapid
Calling to some former self
That I've buried deep within
Love is far and wide and distant
Without use to my present state

Those love poems make me happy
I reject and thwart their task
Sadness and weary eyes reflect
My new chosen mode of being
Negativity abounds, smiles dissipate

The love poems speak of comfort
I am inconsolable and without solace
Food has found its bitter taste
Hate fills my heart with sorrow
Sobbing through deep breaths I deflate

What love poems could I write
A virgin whispering into pillows
Uncalled and blocked -- "At 17" too true
Barred from lovely discourse
Sighing into an ascribed, bleak Fate
Written 7/8/10

The Stars Align

2010-06-20T13:01:00.001-04:00

Over the past few days things seems ironic or peculiarly coincidental. The stars have aligned in a crazy way that struck me. It could be nothing but they made me things about the powers that be, those watching down and how much the universe pulls at us and influences us from a distance.

The year that I decide to let go of God, I get a job at a Catholic school. I specifically do marketing and development for a Catholic school. I work to convince parents that they should send their child to a school where mass is required and they pray every morning. I worked over the last year to really solidify where I stand with God (apart). Now, I have to overlook that, stare at pics of random Bishops, Cardinals, and the Pope while I arrange Open Houses and marketing flyers.

I wrote a poem about a guy I used to like, "What is a Guppy?". A friend of mine once called him a guppy because he is unreliable and had loads of health issues/excuses. My friend made the comment in passing and hasn't said it in months but it stuck with me, inspiring the poem. How strange that the guppy guy walks into work on Friday with a shirt that has the word "Gupbee" stamped across the chest. I almost laughed out loud. Then I thought I have to do a better job of hiding this blog.

I left a couple of parties to catch the 12am bus back to NJ. The line was long and I stood at the back. A few minutes later a woman named Paula stood behind me. We chatted casually about the bus, the long line, the unreliability of NJ Transit. The bus was 40 minutes late and Paula lived one stop away from me. We chatted the entire time in the line and on the bus during the 30 minute the ride home. As I walked home, I felt as though I made new friend. An hour session with a woman who shared the name of my first therapist and much like with first Paula, things felt different after talking to her.

Things just seemed right.

A Full-sized Bed

2010-06-01T22:37:00.000-04:00

I have never shared a bed with a man. When I fantasize about life with a husband in the future, it's a living color version of a 1950's sitcom where the mother and father have a nightstand separating their two twin-sized beds.

Death Cab for Cutie's song "Your New Twin-sized Bed" was ringing in my mind as I tossed my two journals to the other side of the mattress, the unused side of the bed. Sometimes, I long for company for some one to exhaust the springs and warm the cold spots on the bed. But as I tossed my journals to the empty side, I felt lucky and happy that they occupied the spot next to me. Not because I would wake up at 3 am and start writing out of nowhere but I am comforted by the idea of sleeping with myself, sleeping with my thoughts, sharing space with my writing, allowing my yesterdays and ramblings to fill the unused side.

What good in bed will I be to my future partner if I first do not figure out how to sleep with myself?

Allowing Myself to Feel

2010-05-31T23:28:00.001-04:00

It seemed serendipitous that this was the free song of the week on iTunes and I downloaded it minutes after finishing my last post "Love Envy". It is me and the chorus is what I need to repeat to myself every morning. The freedom of allowing myself to feel, to be human, to stop denying myself the inherent weakness of being a woman, of being emotional, the weakness that I have to allow in order to love, to be vulnerable, to be loved and accept that I am loveable.

Marina & the Diamonds - I Am Not a Robot
You've been acting awful tough lately
Smoking a lot of cigarettes lately
But inside, you're just a little baby
It's okay to say you've got a weak spot
You don't always have to be on top
Better to be hated than love, love, loved for what you're not

You're vulnerable, you're vulnerable
You are not a robot
You're loveable, so loveable
But you're just troubled

Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot
Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot

You've been hanging with the unloved kids
Who you never really liked and you never trusted
But you are so magnetic, you pick up all the pins
Never committing to anything
You don't pick up the phone when it ring, ring, rings
Don't be so pathetic, just open up and sing

I'm vulnerable, I'm vulnerable
I am not a robot
You're loveable, so loveable
But you're just troubled

Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot
Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot

Can you teach me how to feel real?
Can you turn my power on?
Well, let the drum beat drop

Guess what? I'm not a robot
Guess what? I'm not a robot

Love Envy

2010-05-30T18:52:00.000-04:00

OK, fine, I'll admit it. Here now for the first time publicly...I am jealous and Jake and his relationship with Jackie.

Now I need to be clear to everyone. I am not jealous in the sense that I want to be with Jake. That is the most important thing to emphasize. I love Jake but I have no desire to be with him. I am envious that he has love, that he has so many things in his life that make him happy, someone who he can look to that just brings him happiness. Those concepts seem so foreign to me. Even my friendship with him is amazingly confusing. He has a good heart and I don't know how to treat his kind of caring. I've known few people and fewer men who seem ready and capable of being there for me in the way that Jake has been and hopefully will be in the future. It's crazy the my life has shaped love into an enigma.

I am feeling better emotionally, psychologically. I know that I need love, a better kind of love than I've found thus far. I know that I want something more, want that real kind of love, that deeper love and caring that I see in Jake when he talks about Jackie and see in Jackie when she considers life with Jake. That sense of security, of assured reciprocity, even if it is only fleeting in the long-term, seems beautiful and frightening.

Men scare me, though. I am intimidated by what they say, the way they look at me. I don't want what it seems they offer. Getting to the love seems so clouded by games and persuasion and trying to convince one another that we're not crazy. It is overwhelming and the envy grows because finding real love seems far less likely.

How could I convince someone to love me if I can't convince myself that I am open and worthy of love?

Rethinking the Past

2010-05-15T11:41:00.000-04:00

If you asked me yesterday I would have said that the worst year in my personal and professional life was my time in Texas. I hate it in retrospect. However, when I look through my diary entries from that year I was far less depressing than I am now. I seemed more willing to take things in, take people in, be more accepting more introspective. Anger comes in NYC, the more time I spend with people and crowded by their feelings the more of a misanthrope I seem to be. I hate myself in retrospect. I hate the conversations and nagging emotions I allow to overtake me. I hate my insomnia. I hate that hatred is the emotion that I can accept most easily that I am so cynical and fearful of love and my ability to honestly like someone or to be open to being liked, romantically or in a platonic way.

I looked up cynic in the dictionary and I hate to admit that it fits me and my perspective on life and relationships. I remember feeling so crushed and angered when my 7th grade history/homeroom teacher, Mrs. Slutzman, called me a cynic. I think I've been working to prove her right ever since, while being bitterly annoyed by her early and hasty summation of my personality.

cynic (n.): 1. a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons : some cynics thought that the controversy was all a publicity stunt. 1a. a person who questions whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile.

I felt and feel doomed by her diagnosis.

I think this has been the most trying year in my life. I haven't really digested it all or allowed it to fully hit me but I am more broken than I can ever remember being. My heart and my lips have ceased to work. I feel like my mind is on pause waiting for this cloud to pass before I can grow up, love, and move forward in any way.

In retrospect, it feels like the worst is a relative term that shouldn't be applied without more distance and longer time for reflection. Could things be worse than this year? Peradventure, but I want to begin to hope that things get worse before they get better.

With Anyone Else but Me

2010-04-16T21:20:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I wish life was like a movie. A week in a doldrums-filled life summed up in a 15-minute sequence with an all too perfect soundtrack to grasp the apathetic tone written across the protagonist's face.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/04/12/100412fi_fiction_loory

I Remembered to Look Up

2010-04-14T23:20:00.001-04:00

When I was in high school and while I was living in Buenos Aires, I could always find the constellation Orion. Although, only his belt, the tips of his bow and helmet were visible, I found comfort in knowing that no matter where I was in the world, Orion was somewhere over my shoulder. It made me realize how big the cosmos are and how small our world is by comparison. His omnipresence felt like God watching over. It was a way of checking in on myself, reminding me of who I am and my place (as small as it may be) in the world, even my place in the universe.

I have not looked for Orion in quite some time. I have not really searched for him in the night sky. Today after another long, mildly embarrassing day at work, I remembered to look up and although I could not find Orion in the dark sky, I remembered that once I dared to search him out and found comfort in that small memory.

I long for the freedom that I often misremember about that time in my life. Time as a student with a regular paycheck and guaranteed food. Time that, I believe now, was less oppressive and allowed me the freedom to find a sense of calm and safety in five distant stars vaguely forming the shape of a hunting man.

Wait...Am I Attractive?!

2010-04-10T00:33:00.000-04:00

Today a man approached me on the subway and I was totally perplexed. He kept complimenting me and calling me a "fine-looking young woman." He rode the train with me and walked me partially to the bus. In 15 minutes he gave me a rundown of himself in what seemed to be a very scripted format. He didn't believe in one-night stand and believed it was get to know a person before making a commitment, he loved his mother and tried his best to provide for her, he was hard-working and had earned a college degree (an Associate's degree but a degree nonetheless). As he released me from this tense, semi-sexually charged conversation, calling me "a fine-looking young woman" for the tenth time, I digested our exchange and its scripted tone made me realize that he just "ran game" on me and I kinda actually fell for it.

It was surprising to me because I have never seen myself as that type of woman. When I look in the mirror I do not see that girl that men talk to or "holla" at in the streets. Every time a man calls me sweetheart, beautiful, or motions me to join in for lunch out the McDonald's window, I have to pause and carefully look around to see who he's talking to, 'cause it couldn't possibly be me.

This afternoon's conversation with a 32-year old mama's boy, who is called Tony but prefers "Smell Good" was an amazing compliment but left me feeling ekhh (for lack of a better word)! His need to call me repeatedly a "fine-looking young woman" , left me feeling like an anxious mare, who had to pop out the next Derby-winning stallion. I was left wanting for men, for a real man, who doesn't give me lines and a rundown, sizing me up in a few seconds and spitting out the script he thinks I want to hear. I don't want the Tonys or smooth talkers, players, or whatever. My exchange with Tony left me so happily comfortable in my celibacy. If those are the men who are willing to talk to me, I can do bad all by myself. Is that arrogant or mean or cold?!

I have grown so accustomed to being overlooked by men for whatever reason and now that some are approaching me I am left with confusion and disgust. If I am attractive, that's nice, but I liked my closed shell of unsightliness. Flying off the radar seems like a far more attractive option than being a blip that overeager sailors react to in the hopes for an interesting rumble in the darkness.

Random Creative Moment

2010-04-01T20:17:00.002-04:00

Greeting for Janeen, sung to Public Service Announcement by Jay-Z
Allow me to re-introduce my girl
Her name is J! OH, J to the B-E
She used to get that degree up in DC
I guess even back then you call her
LIC of the CSO
J, Fresh outta Harlem straight into the fire
She be the, career team's internship provider
So very fly sharp-ass chick with the BBA
Smartest chick in the game with earring bling
Janeen, with the HCZ
Power rests in them letters, here to help with whatever

Rethinking Blog-worthiness

2010-03-31T21:14:00.003-04:00

I have a small crush on Donald Glover, so as usual, I googled him endlessly and came across his comedy troupe Derrick Comedy. I searched through the members' bios and came across DC Pierson and his blog "Ham Fisted Theatrics" at http://www.dcpierson.com/ and I read through some of his postings for this past month and I was a little jealous. He seems to note and notice things that I would overlook or never think to write about. The ability to pick up on what is often unseen or overlooked and make it noticeable, interesting, and even comical is the Writer's and Comedian's edge. I think I lack that trait. I am too caught up on the things swirling around in my own mind that I never notice the little things or even the medium-sized things that can make a day intriguing, that can turn a midnight stroll into poetry or a passerby into a protagonist.

In realizing the absence of this trait, I decided to reread The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. It was the only book my mom every forced me to read and I remember dreading it at first. It was so long to my 9 year old self, over 200 pages! It took me a month to get through the chapters but when I finally overcame Juster's monstrosity I remembered feeling accomplished and satisfied. In that memory and in homage to Milo's former rapid flow of life, I took time out to reread the childhood classic so that maybe I could be inspired to notice the words, numbers, sights, smells, and sounds that make our world wonderful. Would you know the morning after I finished the book I noticed a cardinal in my neighbor's tree? I was in awe of its brilliant red feathers standing out in stark contrast to the brownish-gray that it sat upon. I just stared at it for a minute or so and surprised myself when its name fell out of my lips, "Oh a cardinal."

Blog-Worthy Posts?

2010-03-21T13:25:00.001-04:00

What merits being put on my blog?

I never really understood the utility of a blog and I understand it far less when I do not willfully publish my blog to others so it makes it difficult for me to know what I should be putting up on my blog. I have three electronic collections going on right with vague delineations: Poems, essays, journal logs and notes on life are just the things I know how to write and I'm far too lazy to sort them by genre or topic so they are starting to melt into one another. However, I have been reading other friend's blogs and see that they have 5 to 10 times as many posts than I do. Some of them posting things once a day, once a week, and most of their comments seem fully blog-worthy. Blog-worthy moments come around so rarely for me...

Oooh I just thought of something that shocked me the other day. I saw three real-life hookers standing at a truck-stop off the side of the highway in a shady part of New Jersey. It seemed too cliche to be real.

I felt as though, you, my blog was being quite under-appreciated by me, your owner and writer. I am pretty sure that this last-minute post does not do you, my blog, full justice. But, today is more about quantity than quality and you, my blog, can now count yourself slightly more useful than you were yesterday.

To Sacrifice for Love

2010-03-13T17:29:00.001-05:00

I was talking to Jake about his relationship and he is so invested. Every decision requires a second thought to his girlfriend and her happiness, which is sweet but stifling. At this time in my life, I appreciate that most of my decisions, if bad, screw only me. I couldn't bear having to reconsider graduate school and life plans and consider someone else's preferences. Sometimes, I wish I had that pressure but the more I hear others go back and forth the more appreciative I am of my freedom. Even on nights like this when a friend would be nice, I know when I'm ready to go to bed, I can Shut Down and just go and if I feel like singing to Adele I can belt it out without concern of bothering someone. How can I find the balance in seeking out romance? When will I be mature enough to understand that compromise is inherent in every aspect of life? Not just in health and mental stimulation but in our human interactions...I guess I understand that now but I am too into me and who I could be to bend on any part of myself for the sake of someone else, especially when I do not have faith that that someone will be around for keeps.

Keats' Ode to a Nightingale

2010-03-09T20:07:00.003-05:00

I wanted to write a 3 page Ode to My Mother matching it in meter to Keats while stringing along rhymes that mimicked "Mother, Mother" by Tracy Bonham. I've been assembling/avoiding that masterpiece for nearly a year. But a few weeks ago the following came along without planning or practice. Though dark and sad, it does capture the major hangups that exist between my mom and me.

At a loss
There's nothing there
There's just nothing there
I repeated and repeated
In earnest, She had nothing
There to offer me, her child
Her kin, her twin
My mother, this blank canvas
No understanding or kind words
No empathy or soothing tone
No wisdom to provide for me
In my time of desperation
Loss, state of being broken
I resent her but do not blame
Her mother broken, we the same
So there's nothing there
No motherly advise to dole
Out and out nothingness
Left to grow, unpotted plant
Watered with salt tears
She had nothing to give
Emptied out before I arrived
Nothing there and I, too, am void
So we sit and stare at one another
Empty husks of great women
Who could've been something
Something more to the other
Than sorrowful child and lost Mother.
Written 2/7/10

Dreams from...No One in Particular

2010-02-20T11:20:00.006-05:00

I have given up television for Lent and hoping to read 5 books in the next 40 or so days. My first challenge is Pres. Obama's Memoir, "Dreams from My Father." I am right at the part of the book when a young, newly graduated Barack Obama is searching for that career path that will set him on his way to unforeseen greatness. He has all of this idealism and hope for the change he could create in the world. Perhaps it seems more hopeful and idealistic as it was written in retrospect. But he wrote that book even before he became the first Black President of the United States and he still had so much faith in himself, in his own potential. It was a faith that stemmed from a father he barely knew and seemed to have resented for that absence.

I, on the other hand, know both of my parents, all of my siblings, and a have a spare grandmother to coddle me when the others don't give enough. I have been raised with a complete hand and feel so uninspired. Only those who've struggled get to find inspiration in the flow of the river? All this ties to my present resentment in having absolutely no clue as to what I am destined to become in this life. I have switched Graduate School aspirations 3 times in the last year, possibly in the last six months. I have no clue what my passions are. I don't want to help the children. I acknowledge that they need help but I like my own sanity too much to dole it out to children who aren't mine and who 5 times out of 10 don’t really deserve it. I'm judgmental and I judge my low-income, underrepresented, minority students constantly and quite harshly. My frame of mind is that I want the best for them, but I want them to want the best for themselves and if they don't want the best of themselves well then fuck 'em! I cannot stand the idea of wasting my time on children who expect very little of themselves.

In that way, my students and I are one in the same. People have these vague ideas of greatness for us but are not moved to inspire us. Not one of the students that I've helped over the past 2 years would ever be moved to write a memoir titled "Dreams from My Teacher" because my dreams for them are empty, they are some broad idea of success through higher education and self-motivation. I, too, have no dreamer who inspires me to greater things. I don't know what my mother hopes for me, surely something good but I trust it is something far more vague than my dreams for my students. As for my father…he may have more concrete dreams for me, but at this moment I am wholly uninterested in his thoughts on me, let alone the dreams he may harbor for my future.

No one has inspired me. My passions are found in late night arguments with myself in an empty room. I'm not trying to get on that Kanye West egotistical BS of "I inspire me" because I don't. I find my present and my life as a whole quite uninspiring. It has had its cool aspects: Trips to Europe, my time at Harvard, my stay Buenos Aires, and even the period I dared to live in Texas. But I think my frustration with my students rests in the fact that I feel that I have very little to offer them in the form of inspiration. I have so much contempt for myself and misplaced anger at my progenitor that I am left wanting in the face of Pres. Obama's dreams and connection to his father.

I yearn for someone to light a fire under my ass so that I can feel the spark of inspiration, fully embody the hopes that I'm sure others have for me and find the faith that I ought to have in myself. I guess I can start with finishing the book.

How to Live...

2010-02-06T17:57:00.002-05:00

I'm on the rag and woke up with KILLER cramps. I couldn't think about eating or moving from a pained fetal position. I wrapped a heating pad around my stomach and faded in and out of sleep for a couple of hours. The menstrual pangs still raging, I swallowed a Midol and hoped for the best over next couple of hours. Finally, I sat up with heating pad still attached and did cross word puzzles for a few more hours. At one point, I forced some toast down my throat to ensure my hunger pains couldn't add to the downside of being a woman. After a while, the cramps finally gone,I threw on old, dirty sweatpants to charge my cell phone (which was dead for over 24 hours) in my car, my car charger being the only functioning one for me nowadays. I sat in my car for 30 minutes waiting for my phone to get juiced, shouting Jimmy Cliff lyrics about crossing rivers and traveling difficult roads and humming Jewel's tune about the usefulness and purpose of one's "Hands."

After a few more hours of dicking around on internet, nerdily reading pieces of the encyclopedia and dated news articles. I went to the website: Hunter-Gatherer.com to read up on the Paleo-lifestyle. I cannot do it justice in a summary here but I will direct you the NYTimes Article about these folks: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/fashion/10caveman.html

I wanted to be skeptical about the new diet, I mean "lifestyle change" that has captured attention. John Durant, a prominent "Caveman" in NYC, was a guest on the Colbert Report, which drew my attention to the website and the Paleo- or Caveman way of life. Watching and reading about this new way of eating makes sense. How did early man survive in "the jungle" amidst prehistoric beasts, new to fire, without agriculture, salt, and barely with any tools beyond his own hands. He hunted and gathered and when food supply was sparse he fasted. He chased his next meal with cunning and dexterity that middle-aged women today display in chasing down deals on Supermarket Sweep. A return to his way of life seems logical. Our fore-bearers were at their physical peak because to not be so equaled death in their age. But we their distant progeny have grown obese and lazy. Everything is within our reach. Survival is a convenience most of us overlook. In our pursuits to find the best way to stay in shape and fit and healthy, the Paleo-lifestyle not only makes sense, it makes the most sense today.

But that's the problem and my primary dilemma. To someone, somewhere Atkins and South Beath make sense, Jenny Craig makes sense, Weight Watchers makes sense, The Zone, Veganism, Fat-Smash, Nutrisystem, and even anorexia makes sense to some of us, some of the time. Now that Survival is no longer our priority, how do we learn which is the "right" way to live? How do weed out the caregivers from the charlatans getting their 15 minutes? Atkins was a doctor, Weight Watchers is nearly 50 years old and Vegans are annoyingly so light and spry. How do I decipher amidst the slew of people wanting to teach me a better way to live, who's right and who is literally and figuratively full of crap? How? Who? Why? Someone else has got to know better than me because if my morning is any indication, I honestly don't have a clue how to live.

Vampire Weekend's Oxford Comma

2010-01-17T11:37:00.002-05:00

I write poems to express what's going on in my mind. I am not sure if I am any good at it. I feel so egotistical, narcissistic, so self-serving.I hope to be good at it. I want to be good at it. I need an escape from this office grind. I know how common I must be to hope to be special, to stand out in some way. But, is it possible that everyone feels as I do? So oppressed by the limitations of ordinariness? I am destined for greatness, I must be, I might explode if I remain just me for next 40 - 50 years. I have to wait, wait for my chance but isn't that how some have achieved greatness because they are too eager to wait for someone to give notoriety and fame to them, they take what they want, make it happen for themselves.

How to break out, get my chance, my big break? What I am doing? What should I do? Even if fame knocked in an hour, what have I done to earn such acknowledgment? How limited is my repertoire? I must be more patient with myself, do that most difficult task of forgiving myself for not realizing my own potential. I must slow down and be more understanding that reaching 24 does not put me behind, life too far ahead, too complex, too self-sufficient to be as fragile as I've assumed, in need of too much exposure to the balance of light and dark to be developed before its time.

To Carolyn Wilson

2010-01-11T20:04:00.001-05:00

The People Who Matter To Us

Recently, I've been going on trips and participating in fairs on behalf of the admissions office. The students who dare to consider an all-girls boarding school in Simsbury, CT occasionally ask what makes Ethel Walker different? or What is the best thing about your school? My answer to either is the people. The connections that I made, the relationships I built amongst friends and teachers, and teachers who I know hold as friends. When I answer those questions Mrs. Wilson, Carolyn Wilson is the person who is most forefront in my mind. In the face of all my complicated experiences in this place, Mrs. Wilson, before all others, stood by me, guided me, chided me, supported me and, I feel that I can say with great honesty, she loved me. Although, I may not have called it love in the midst of my teenage angst and changes. Love was definitely the emotion shared between us.

It had to have been love to help me deal with my troubles...
Love to share in my victories and commiserate my downfalls...
Love and patience to teach me how to knit...
Love to bring me back to Earth when my ego got too big...
The same love to tell me later that I was better than I thought...
Love to take pride in me, to be disappointed, to hold high expectations...
Love to always remember my birthday over the summer...
Love to open her home, heart and family to me...
It was a love that asked her son to drive down to CT, to then drive me up to Boston, and then drive them to NJ...I was so surprised that he would do all that driving and I think I apologized and said "thank you" for most of trip.
It was a special kind of love to embrace and treat me as a daughter.

Mrs. Wilson believed in me, trusted me, and she was like a second mother to me. It is my hope that in the time that we shared together at EWS, in the emails we exchanged while I was at college, and the last time we saw each other in May that I was able to convey my love and adoration for her. For a woman who loved so much, who nurtured and offered up her full self to her students, her family, and her colleagues and friends every day that she graced us with her presence.

She used to have her class down in the underbelly of Ferguson and in that short time frame before my Ethics class with Mr. Deeds, I would run down to her class and sit and talk with her. We would talk and talk about moments from her past, my dilemma at the moment, our shared frustrations and life in general. Although the discussions could get quite heated in Ethics I regretted when the bell rang or when a confused student knocked on the door asking Mrs. Wilson for help. I regretted the disruptions that curtailed our conversation and the harsh bell that cheated me of quality time with my adviser and friend. I cherish our time in the dungeon.

Those memories and many more like them will stick with me beyond the sadness. The sadness of realizing the advisees she will never meet and help, the granddaughter she won't be able to teach to dance or to knit. Although I am deeply saddened by her departure, I will not say that I feel cheated. I will not let the world feel cheated because it has lost someone who brought so much love and light into it. I will not let death tarnish a life so beautifully well-lived. I revel in this time to remember and celebrate a life, a life shared with others. I take great solace and joy in this memorial because it is not a time to mourn our loss. No, it is a time to happily remember. I beseech you to remember Carolyn, remember Carolyn - the teacher/Drama Director, remember Carolyn-the actress, remember Carolyn-the wife, mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, remember Carolyn-the friend & colleague, and most of all remember Carolyn, as I will always remember her, remember her as someone who loved you.

Watching & Waiting

2010-01-10T20:33:00.006-05:00

The following is the result of further reflection on my last post on emotions and how to appropriately deal with them. My therapist and I are still at stand still working on figuring each other out. I've not been adequately eloquent as to why I avoid emotions, she is confused and intrigued by my low-self esteem and self-deprecation. Furthermore, over the course of burying my grandfather and the New Year I have become disenchanted with my job and the possibility of dedicating my life to helping others. I want to run away, escape and "Anthropology" captures bits and pieces of all that...my escapist personality, my confusion as to what I ought to be in this life, and my unwillingness to engage emotionally in the real world.

Anthropology
All the things I'd rather not be.
All the things that I am.
All the places I'd rather be.
The only place where I am.
All the people in my life
The only person I wish were here.

The perpetual observer.
Too fearful to take action.
Energy only to watch others live.
Too frightened to play a role.
Inspired only to take note.
Written 1/3/10

A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.
~ John le Carre

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T01:41:00.007-05:00

My therapist told me that I am too rational with my emotions and I approach them too practically, too logically, too methodically. It made me wonder if I have ever allowed myself to truly feel anything. I think myself a sociopath, faking it and reacting to what others believe I ought to feel in the moment.

On the eve of my grandfather's passing, I have not cried once. My eyes welled up a few times but true and honest tears have not fallen. I don't feel nothing...

How to Deal?
My grandfather died when I was 23
It terrified me, scared me, me me me
I wasn't sad to see him go
On some level, at the time we expected it

I cried, I was sad, but I didn't, don't feel
an emotion so deeply, me me me
I wasn't that close to him
I can't recall a particular conversation

Between us, no advice shared
Life lessons from him to me,me me me
I didn't miss him immediately
I understood and comforted those who did

The hardest part of my granddad's passing
I became a real adult officially...me me me
It was the second funeral of my year
It was the point at which I became

Someone who bore witness to death
And its wreckage, life's wake left upon me me me
It was that moment in Harry Potter
Where life's unseen magic became strange black horses

I felt everything and nothing, angry, empty
Insufficient: the world too much for me and me
Staring off at it blankly, no sight, no sound
No refuge, no solace, no way of understanding

Wondering if God is...more than surreal
Are they watching from above, guiding me me me
God saves some, lets the others go home
The distance from adulthood and death is too brief
Written 12/23/09

Well I feel angry and alone and sad and confused as to how to properly express any of that. Therein lies the issue...if I acknowledge the emotion I feel as though I have to do something with each emotion. What do I do with anger, loneliness, sadness? How do I use this? Where do I put it? How ought I express it?

I don't get it cause life's easier, less clouded for the practical, the emotionless. Nothing seems good, nothing feels happy
I don't wanna feel nothing.
I just want to sleep and sleep and sleep until emotions are less hard to bear.

She called you meek and gentle. He called you a lesser man.

2009-12-08T00:23:00.004-05:00

What’s a Guppy?
Guppy Fish, Guppy Fish
Why do I love you so?
Snug in my petri dish
Bright red, sunken yellow

Guppy Fish, Guppy Fish
Too small to cause a stir
Names and words form the list
Your strength lies in numbers

Guppy Fish, Guppy Fish
So much of you to count
Love so large, just might miss
Some piece of you, no doubt

Guppy Fish, Ugly Fish
Why do I love you so?
Guppy Fish, Scaredy Fish
It’s You I can’t unknow
Written 12/2/09

And He Said...

2009-11-22T20:10:00.003-05:00

"You should let go." She told me, "You need to change!"

The hardest thing to do to stop being who I am, who I've been for the last 23 years. But this way hasn't gotten me very far and I am confident only in the knowledge that I don't know who I am.

Every strategy falls into old patterns. Not sure how to react, how to grow because I don't even fully understand where I am starting from. Are there qualities to keep or is it that "Everything Must Go!"

So many songs running through my mind. Therein lies my greatest problem. I've worked so hard to relate to life through songs and books and TV rather than really living it for myself. My anxiety and desire to control keep me from fully experiencing all that life is and could be. I've built these walls and get mad or upset when people respond to being blocked out.

I don't want to be alone but I am not sure what I should let go or how exactly I ought to be changing...

The FUCKED Side of Progress

2009-10-18T13:50:00.003-04:00

My laptop crashed a few weeks ago. I was optimistic. The last time this happened to me, I was stranded in a foreign country and my laptop was my only form of communicating with any one who wasn't standing directly next to me. Somehow in a 3rd world country some whiz kid using spare parts in his mother's basement managed to SAVE my thesis, music, pictures and sentimental writing. However, in New York, the city that never sleeps, the unofficial capital of the world I find myself fucked out of 6 years of work, music, ramblings, notes and all of the other randomness one tends to accumulate on a laptop. My only solace is the geek standing in front of me, feigning empathy while trying to explain to me how a hard drive is a like a record player...

WTF?! A record player?

It is two-thousand fucking nine and you’re sputtering to me about a goddamn record player. Vinyl is great and is some musical genres absolutely essential. But in this, the age of mp4s, bits and RAM, and feeling like an ass because I had no concept of giga versus megabytes, you dare bring up as dated a comparison as a fucking record player?? FUUUUCCCKK YOOOUUUU!! Fuck you so hard, I hope your ass is sore for a month!

Don't feel bad for the scraggily bearded nerd. I thankfully did not share my rage with him. I was far more depressed in the moment and had to pause twice to ensure that I didn't break down crying on the spot. I am annoyed, frustrated, and so amazingly saddened. I expected so much more from the 21st century, from technology, from progress, from the collective brain power of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. I even held remarkably high expectations for the cocky hipster dork standing in front of me before he took it back to the fucking 1920s. But, I guess I'm having the typical female response: 1) Despair, 2) Outrage & Fury, 3) Blame the WORLD!!

I lost about 75% of my poems, 90% of my thesis research, 50% of my pictures, and 100% of a major appendage. I am scattered, easily flustered, and mean as FUCK! Although, I can remember life before computers it has been depressing and outright tragic living life without MINE.

Wholly Unoriginal

2009-09-27T22:26:00.005-04:00

My journal was once filled with my own random musings: poems, pieces of short stories, ideas, definitions, bits of inspiration. However, as I reviewed it today it is overflowing with quotes from other people. I have given my space over to pretense, to a lowered self-esteem. I have nothing particularly new or unique to add so I have begun to fill my journal with Goethe, Churchill, Lincoln, and Rouchefoucauld.I haven't had time to sit down and write and rediscover myself and my writing.

I am beginning to think that life gets in the way of freely living...

A-Muse-ing
I realized today what
I want to be
Not a simple wife, doting mother
But an admired Beauty
I want to inspire a poet
An artist, some songwriter
Be the subject of a piece
A woman for others to aspire
Searching for Lilith’s boldness
Paired with Eve’s humility
Embodying feminine equanimity
But the reality, honestly
This desire channels narcissism
A thriving need to be built up
At the core, I do not feel enough
As if I am good enough
In search of a third opinion
Confirmation of the mirror’s second face
Don’t we all seek adoration, admiration?
Perhaps the work begins with me,
Being worthy
Written 02/15/09 – 03/28/09

Could this be all there is?

2009-09-20T18:03:00.003-04:00

I fall into the same patterns. Mixing love and liquor with friends and drama. I can't seem to get out of my own way so that I can make the best steps towards change, towards loving myself, towards find real, lasting love. I am frustrated and confused and terrified of looking like a fool.

Wrote this 3 years ago but it seems to ring true after every complicated hangover:

Regretting Friday Night Again

Never drinking again
That’s what we always say
This time I’m done
Hungover, head pounding, Stomach churning,
Alcohol IS BAD
Foreign pains, bruised limbs, and
That ever-surfacing sense of foolishness
“My stupid mouth has got me in trouble
I said too much again again”
To a friend over drinks yesterday
Exposed the dark secrets of myself, of friends
One-way ticket to Emo-City with angry and hurt eyes
Shameful, shameless
Drunken ramblings of a silly girl’s yearning, screaming, blabbing for attention!
Written 6/1/2006

Dabble, dabble, Diddle

2009-09-13T23:37:00.003-04:00

Daydreams to Reality
I want to tell my story, a story
Manifest one of the many that resides within
I hear their voices and imagine their faces
Express their tales of sorrow and joy
I know their thoughts before they’re spoken
Bear witness to their conceptions

I want to be a writer, a novelist
Dreaming of a different day for me
I leave this present, become the second man
Seeing through history and tomorrow
I live amongst artists, poets, and actors
Struggling for a shot, a chance to prove our worth
Living out the true definition of liberal art

I am unsure of where I should going
Faint idea of where I’ve even been
I have no clue of where I actually am
Clear that this is where I’m meant to be
I want my fantasies to be glorified
Golden awards for consecrated imagery

I want to be a writer, a storybook
Tell my story, your story, any dream
I imagine a life lived seamlessly
Pressed between the pages
I trust the intent of imagination
Strife undone at the push of a key
Captured life made real from a daydream
Written 03/10/09

Writings on the Wall

2009-09-03T21:10:00.004-04:00

When I was in high school, I was compelled to surround myself with positive words and wisdom. So I plastered the walls of my bedroom with the lyrics of my favorite songs and poems. I mention this only because I have found kindred spirits in my compulsion, kindred spirits amongst today's youth. However, they are compelled to write powerful thoughts and words on their bodies, to having moving quotes etched permanently and literally upon their hearts.

Different Dog, Same Tricks, New Pains

2009-08-27T20:53:00.003-04:00

3rd Wheel Flat
How did I come here again?
Did I ever leave?
I love him, he loves you
You are my so-called “friend”
So I brought it to an end
Before we could even begin.
I hate this, this fucking feeling
Why my heart to be the one yielding
I back out, bow out “gracefully”
I feel as though I always lose
And never to a better woman
Who are you? Who have you been?
These girls always chosen by my men
How the fuck did I come here again?

******************************On A Different Note...

"He just hasn't realized that I'm the biggest fish in his pond"
~ A. M. White

"It's time to start the countdown. I'm gonna burn it down, down, down"
~ P!nk

The Ties that Bind you Against Your Will

2009-08-23T20:04:00.005-04:00

Sometimes family makes it so hard to love them. You don't get to chose them, you know you have to love them, and yet by puberty you get the ever-sinking realization that you really don't fucking like them.

Once You Go Black, You Start Running Back

2009-08-18T23:15:00.002-04:00

The television is filled with news about the Town Halls, anti-Healthcare Reform, anti-Obama right-wing fanatics proclaiming that “their” country has gone to the socialists. They state passionately that they’ve LOST “their” country. I can’t help but ask a question, one that hopefully hangs on the tips of the pundits’ tongues, To whom have they, lost “their” country? That many of these protesters attend largely Republican Town Halls in Red states, these groups consists of middle to upper class white men and women, I think that their reply, their honest-to-God answers, whispered only in the private corners of their homes would be “We’ve lost it to the niggers,” socialists and fascists are titles that mask the racial undertones that are pulling at the fears of this demographic.

Now, I admit that I do a great deal of supposing and assuming about these people, about their beliefs. It must be stated there are many African/Black Americans (in Blue and Red) who are anti-Obama and anti-healthcare reform. However, could there really be this much unrest and hoopla about universal healthcare? Questioning his citizenship? Heckling Congressmen and Senators? Carrying guns to rallies (Gun Control = Healthcare, when and on what planet?!)? All this is to prove what point?

We’ve been told that we live in post-racial America. Obama’s election has ended racism in America. How is it that Obama’s desire to address a major social/socioeconomic inequality in our society makes him a tyrant, akin to Hitler, but Bush pursuing a personally motivated war without founded evidence that lead to the execution of a foreign dictator, the deaths half of his family and most of his regime (along with the loss thousands of soldiers American and foreign) is a only misguided leader persecuted the leftist, liberal media machine. That isn’t to say that Obama is clean in his healthcare pursuits or any of his politicking, politics is a dirty game and Obama would never have made it to the Presidency if he didn’t know how to play. Nevertheless, I sense, I just feel that there is a racially motivated tension that everyone is too PC to bring up. This passionate anger must have some deeper source.

Or perhaps, I’ve underestimated how easily enraged Americans can become by healthcare reform and increased taxes…

I Lack Desire...

2009-08-14T19:52:00.002-04:00

I am a virgin and I am shockingly happy that I've made it thus far. I mean that I've made it to 23 with it all in tact. One of my student's asked me:
1) Do I have boyfriend?
2) Am I looking for a boyfriend?
3) Do I have any prospective boyfriends in mind?
My answer to all 3 question was a solid NO.
I don't understand why it is but I have no desire to engage in a real romantic relationship. I embrace my virginity wholeheartedly. I embrace my current "Single Status" unrelentingly.

The Gift of Grace

2009-08-11T21:58:00.002-04:00

For by grace are ye saved through faith, and not that of yourselves it is a gift of God. Ephesians 2:8

Grace (n.) 1. Courteous goodwill; 2. The free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings; 2a. A divinely given talent or blessing; 2b. The condition or fact of being favored by someone.

Living beyond my means, while trying to live with meaning

2009-08-08T20:44:00.005-04:00

"I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart." ~ e.e. cummings

In 2 days, my best friend is going on vacation to Las Vegas and then off to the Dominican Republic. All of my college roommates took a vacation to L.A. in July and a few other friends invited me go with them to Puerto Rico in January. All the while, I am not sure if I can afford to go grocery shopping this month or any month that follows. I share a bedroom in my mom's house and have a job that gives me slight satisfaction and pays me far less.

It makes me angrily sad. I have money saved but not enough to live the life my friends seem to lead. However, whenever I talk to my parents about my financial woes they tell me I'm too young to hold myself back or to believe that I can't live that life. At the end of the day everyone sucks, money is the root of evil, inequality, and unhappiness.

I just want to be happy and comfortable and out of the fucking hood and doing something that I enjoy (fully) and that won't leave my scraping by. All that hard work, boarding schools and Ivy League education have left me impatient when is my break coming, when will I be the success I was meant to be, destined to be? In high school, a teacher once told me that my name sounded famous and I took/take that statement too seriously. I feel as though I am meant for greatness just not sure in what, for what, how, to what end, yadayadaya...quarter-life crisis BS continued ad infinitum...

I...Dabble in...Poetry

2009-08-07T22:55:00.006-04:00

Good & Clever
If all the good people were clever,
And all clever people were good,
The world would be nicer than ever
We thought that it possibly could.

But somehow 'tis seldom or never
The two hit it off as they should,
The good are so harsh to the clever,
The clever, so rude to the good!

So friends, let it be our endeavour
To make each by each understood;
For few can be good, like the clever,
Or clever, so well as the good.
By Elizabeth Wordsworth

Love & Change
If all love were ignorant of change
And change made separate from love
Never a couple need be rearranged
And change seen only by the doves

But it’s rare and seemingly strange
To find the two somehow uninvolved
Love ought to persist despite change
And change naught deter the aims of love

So let’s insist that it all be reframed
And grasped tightly from earth to above
Devote ourselves in the face of change
To an evolved state of unconditional love.
Written 05/10/09

Urban Youth like buying EXPENSIVE Basketball Sneakers

2009-08-07T22:25:00.003-04:00

This summer the Subway in NYC is plastered with ads for Al Harrington's ProtegeMVP Basketball Sneakers, sold exclusively at K-Mart and Sears. Now I think it's absurd for urban youth, mostly Black boys to spend hundreds upon hundreds of dollars on Air Jordans or Kobe's Nike Zooms (I-IV), or Zoom LeBron Soliders (I-III) delusionally buying these overpriced pieces of rubber and fabric with the hope, the dream that they could one day Be Like Mike. However, I am somewhat perturbed by Harrington (currently of the NY Knicks) and his passionate promotion of the Protege. I mean it's K-MART!?!

This is aggressively elitist, but I have the scariest vision of some wannabe the next LeBron James, playing hard in Rucker Park and as he goes up for a glittering slam dunk in his $35 Protege Sneakers (a willing b-day gift from his public-ly assisted 68-year old granny), a strong gust wisps away his "kicks" and as he touches down after his brief space exploration, lands to find himself in holey socks with what remains of the laces, ankle guard and scraps of velcro.

It is against all logic, but even to me, a woman who shops for $10 shoes online, it seems wrong, almost counter intuitive to invest in the reasonably priced, judged "decent" Protege sneakers. Basketball shoes just aren't basketball shoes if you aren't sacrificing half a month's rent to buy them for your undeserving, semi-talented son who you can one day hope will get you out of the projects into an overpriced, opulent mansion in the suburbs.

So does urban, Black America agree with me? How well is Harrington's shoe doing in the market? Could he be the revolutionizing force that helps poor Black people shop within their limits and start living more economically in the recession?

Skinny Bitch, Fat Bitch, You're Still a Fucking Bitch

2009-08-07T08:03:00.005-04:00

So I am overweight, technically obese. Not like I can't move without a crane obese but just uncomfortably fat and as 20-somethings go, me naked isn't a thing men dream about. My favorite time is the point in the morning when the mirror gets so clouded that I don't even have to see me naked...well I'm not that self-loathing but it's just bad.

A few months ago I started to write a "book" about my weight loss journey but the ride was jerky, too much stop and go and it ultimately came to a halt and I am 11 lbs heavier, so needless the say the book, like the journey ended abruptly. Weight Loss seems so complicated. I don't want to be Halle Berry or Tyra Banks or any other model/actress with tight abs and a nice body, I wanna be Anesha, Lite. I just want to be healthy. I hate gyms, paying to feel insecure and watch overgrown men and women traipse around stroking their own egos while looking for external validation and intimidating those like me searching for a better emotional release than Ben & Jerry's Half Baked (which is seriously HEAVEN, so I hate those guys for creating it and making it 1100 calories)

All that to say I am making a declaration...by my 25th birthday (~24 months from now) I want to be 80 - 100 lbs lighter, between 156 and 176 lbs (176 is ideal because it would allow me to keep my boobs and the little bit of the booty that I got and as a Black woman, both are essential). However, you are not to worry this won't become some weight loss blog where I bitch and throw fits about the food I eat or don't eat, or want to eat but can't or all the emotional drama that comes along with losing weight and "lifestyle change", all that kind of kvetching has been stated and repeated in my short-lived book. By July 26th, 2011 I will still be attention-seeking, narcsisstic, emotionally confused me. I just needed a "public" forum to make a pledge to myself to being me with a lot less meat on these bones before it's too late to care, so Thanks, thanks for being my forum...

Pressure Cooker

2009-08-06T22:05:00.000-04:00

I hate bloggers...they seem narcissistic and desperate for attention. Some are and some are just amazingly clever and have every right to share their wittiness with the world. I am of the former category, so, many, many apologies...

The name of this blog is dedicated to the synonym for Pressure Cooker.
A pressure cooker is 1) an airtight utensil for quick cooking or preserving of foods by means of high-temperature steam under pressure; 2) a situation or environment that is fraught with emotional or social pressures.

French Physicist Denis Papin invented the first Steam Digester in 1679, "a device for extracting fats from bones in a high-pressure steam environment" (Thank you, Wikipedia) and it seems to fully summarize my current state of mind. I am becoming more and more malcontent, I kinda, sorta hate most people all of the time and at the green age of 23 I know that is a dangerous road to travel. So this "blog" will serve of a way of extracting the fat (aka bullshit) that seems to build up in my heart, head, and life. Hopefully, the end result will not be as dramatic as Papin's invention, "rendering (what remains) brittle enough to be easily ground into meal"

Write on, read on, and we'll see...