Kiss The Morning Star

I called in sick to work today.  I hate calling in sick to work or school.  For example, I didn't skip a single class last year except when I let my prof know ahead of time that there was literally no other time that worked for me to take this mandatory training thing.  Even when I was super sick, that is.   But last night I was feverish and shaky and I couldn't sleep because I was so sick to my stomach.  I never threw up, of course, because that's what I ended up wanting.  Anyways, I decided that 2 hours of sleep wasn't enough after yesterday, which was already a super tiring day, and I asked to stay home.  It's a good thing, because I'm still tired and it looks like my stomach is not about to approve any food.  I had a bagel and it's burping at me a lot now.  Every food sounds just gross.

So I had time to finish reading a book today as I took it easy.  The next book was Kiss The Morning Star, by Elissa Janine Hoole.

The first half of this novel went by in one sitting.  I kept reading and reading, and I couldn't stop.  The only reason I did was because I needed to get up and stretch and I got distracted by life and my own sad things.  Otherwise this YA Fic novel was read easily and anxiously (for this book was dipped in delicious tension!). I found the characters on my mind as I did other things, sometimes. 

This book's protagonist, Anna, is struggling from the loss of her mother.  With her best friend Katy, she decides to take off on a road trip leaving her grieving father behind, hoping to find things.  It's definitely a book about creation/searching/finding, which is illustrated by the many number of things she seems to be looking for.

For shits and giggles, I've been reading other reviews of this book and the largest complaint I think is that the first half of the book seems to be about Anna's search for God, but then at about the half-way point, the book changes course and starts talking about other things.  I read these reviews before I read the book, so I decided to keep a mind of it as I read, to see if I saw the same thing.

And I did.  But I would never have it any other way.  As a character develops and grows, it would seem only right that they should look for different or additional things.  Anna changed a lot in this novel.  One of Hoole's best talents in writing (as well as the thing that seems to come easiest to her) is her character development.  No character is without purpose or vivid imagery, but her two main characters are dripping with complexity.  She doesn't just say "Hey, these girls go on a road trip and they have no past or anything, they are just going to move forward."  NO.  Anna and Katy lived and breathed in their experiences, past and present, and the story stayed true to Anna's inherent indecisiveness and constant reminder of loss.  Better yet, the characters that the reader gets to know and love have flaws!  I think that a lot of writers are afraid to give their good guys too many flaws in fear that they will appear weak or just plain sad.  But no, Hoole gives Anna and Katy flaws that make their story seem like a real road trip, something that really happened.

It's just real, okay.

I liked this book very much, and I urge you to give it a glance.  Like Hello, Groin that I blogged about a week or so ago, Kiss The Morning Star is YA LGBT fiction, so there are some gay and lesbian themes throughout.  And like I said for that other review, LGBT fiction is essential for the uncertain young person discovering themselves.  Very good.  At the book launch party for Kiss The Morning Star, 15% of the proceeds made that night went a local LGBT youth group, which of course is awesome and honorable.  I went to that group!

Check it out.

Favorite passage:

Anna and Katy visit a shaman late into their trip, and they inquire about the proof of God's love. 

"If you want to find proof of God's love, you can't go checking off a list, chasing after all these things, all these experiences you think will present evidence for you one way or the other.  If you want proof, Anna, you have to be the proof.  If you open up, you will not lose everything.  You will find it" (189).

The ending of this book reminded me of the ending of one of my favorite movies.  I don't think I should tell you the movie though because I don't want to take away any of the tension from the novel.  Maybe if you read this and know me well enough to know my taste in movies, you will see what I mean.

It's the American way

So I was talking to some gentleman a couple of days ago, chillin.  He isn't "above" me in authority, but he's sort of someone I am supposed to respect.  I mean, it is good to respect or at least be polite to nearly everyone in the situation I'm in, so he is not unique in these matters.  I actually like this guy quite a bit, but I guess we've never talked about anything below surface-level conversation.  These things always happen to me when I am socially prescribed to sharing my major.

"What is your major?"
"Uh, Political Science"

is usually followed by either a

"You should change it to something else" statement or a

"please talk about controversial issues with me or at least hold still while I ear-rape you with my opinions that you never asked for."

I mean, it's alright, but sometimes it's very inconvenient timing.  This culture demands so many complex social behaviors that it's hard to both be myself (charming, intelligent, self-absorbed, politically moderate, blunt as an axe) and be polite.


Well, as I was saying, we talked a tiny bit about politics.  Correction: He talked and I listened.  Then he moved on to what he's been up to lately and he started talking about how he doesn't like people from Michigan. I asked, curiously (mostly because I thought he was from Michigan, actually) why he felt that way, and he said

"oh, you know.  It is part of my American Pride: if you aren't like me, I can't stand you."

really.

I have been kind of brooding upon that conversation since it occurred.  I'm glad that my initial response was to nod and smile and take mental note to think about it for a while, instead of what I feel like doing now, which is asking WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.  who are you???


I don't know even where to start about what is so wrong with this.  This is such a textbook illustration of racism and homophobia and general discrimination and needless conflict and POLITICAL STUBBORNNESS IN DC.  I lose sleep over the bipartisan "system" that we have.  I put system in quotation marks because systems usually work because they usually involve a process, and the parts follow themselves, and that's the point of it working.  It doesn't work, at least not anymore.  I mean, politics have always been pretentious here but jesus.  People break up/lose friendships/never get to know each other for the reason of "oh, he's a republican, therefore he is an asshole" or "what are you, some kind of liberal? get the fuck out of my way and save a tree."  Both of these are equally as offensive/annoying to me.

Anyway, I hope someday that we don't dismiss someone because they aren't like us, or we make an effort to let a little Pluralism into our lives.  If we must stick to our insanely non-useful habits of rejecting people who are different, can we at least not attribute it to American Pride?  This is why no young person is a patriot.  People try to justify sickening behavior off of celebrated concepts, like American Pride or The Holy Bible.  We've always done it, and I think we always will.

I wrote a final paper last semester on Pluralism.  It was pretty good.  I went back and read it yesterday to see if I still liked it, and I do.  If you want to hear me ramble about Pluralism with fewer grammatical mishaps, or you want to humor me, ask me to send you my paper.  It might not be great to you, because you may not have been in my class (therefore a lot of the material out of context) but it's alright anyway.  Hopefully you'll still like it.

I think it will always have a special place in my heart.  You see, my professors for that class graded us by narrative, not by letter grades.  In my final evaluation, they said that my paper was one of the best they had seen at Augsburg.

If you think that that's the kind of news that could drag me out of bed, you're right.  What an impressive thing to say.  Needless to say, also, I think about pluralism a lot and the effect it could have on our culture and even our local interpersonal relationships.  This shit rubs me the wrong way.




ANYWAYS

I think we are a lot further from peace than us naive, young, passionate people hasten to believe.  Especially, since, you know, disliking someone different from you is patriotic.  And of course The Great American Melting Pot means nothing.  Clearly this man hasn't watched School House Rock.  I wonder what he would have done if I had stood up and said that I am a homosexual and I like trees and I'm biologically female.  That's awfully different from him.

Here's a reminder..

Hello, Groin

I finished my second book off of my summer list.  As predicted, I'm not going in very good order but I don't much care! :) The book I read last was Hello, Groin by Beth Goobie.  Hello, Groin is a YA (Young Adult) fiction novel, 271 pages.  It only took me about 3 or 4 days to read, if that, and that is during a full time work week.  This is kind of an indicator, perhaps, that this book was a page-turner.  Certainly it wasn't the Hunger Games degree of pager-turner-ness, but damn.

Hello, Groin's protagonist is 16-year-old Dylan.  She is a closeted lesbian, and although she has a relatively supportive family and best friend and stuff, she is still very afraid to tell them.  It's complicated, of course, and naturally she falls in love with her best friend of many years, and things get kind of out of hand with bullying at school and stuff.

This book was kind of annoying a little bit.  I guess it's been a long time since I've read a YA book, which is catered to ages like 13-17.  I mean, it's not like I'm 25 and well beyond those years, but I feel like I've obtained a lot of wisdom since I was 17.  Just sayin.  So once I recognized that it was a YA book and I should judge it on that and not with the rubric of "how does this compare to Catcher In the Rye or A Tree Grows In Brooklyn," the book was actually quite great.

What I liked most about it was that Goobie made love really real.  Like, the subject of love is talked about and expressed in art in literally every art form imaginable (and unimaginable).  Love isn't ever going to be not-talked about, and sometimes it's difficult to imagine that anyone will ever think of something new to say.  But what Goobie did was she really dug up the right ways to talk about it.  I mean, Dylan was 16, so she is a character of naivety, confusion, conviction, and uncertainty, so the author somehow found a way to tie it in to very very realistic scenes in her book.  I read some of her descriptions of her longing to be touched and loved and I totally believed them because I recognized those exact italicized thoughts in my own head, sometimes even today.  It was just kind of accurate, I guess, and I liked that.

The protagonist has a serious blush problem, so I think that helped me connect too.  She blushed at everything, and described blushing in like the perfect way, just like the shame and embarrassment that goes along with your already blush-causing feelings.

This book reminded me of the excitement of love, and it gave me mixed feelings.  Of course, I haven't had a serious relationship in a long time, which makes me sad because I miss that feeling, but at the same time, many people my age have only had superficial relationships.  I'm lucky and I forget that.  Love is so exciting and mind-boggling!  As cheesy as that sounds.

Another reason this book was good is that I cared about everyone in the story, especially Dylan.  Like when things went wrong for her, I felt it like in me, and when things went right, I started skimming excitedly because I just wanted her to reach happiness faster.  So, yeah.  That is cool.



And just because I liked the effect that my favorite passage had with my last book review, I will do it again:

"Should doesn't have much to do with real life," Ms. Hersch said thoughtfully.  "As long as the people you spend time with are just like you, you don't have to ask questions about yourself.  It's only when you meet someone different that the questions start" (245).

That sentence isn't mind blowing or anything, but I thought it was wise and I think it's wise for all age groups.  It reminded me of my pragmatism class and it reminded me of a lot of the people I love, who only surround themselves with mirror images of themselves.  I'm friends with a lot of people like me (white, academically smart, female, 19, and politically liberal or moderate) but it's the friends who are most different from me that I learn the most from.  Again I understand this sounds cheesy, but I mean all of this in all sincerity.



This kind of book is not for everyone, but speaking rather intimately as a young homosexual, this kind of book was essential for me as a kid.  Once I hit 11, I was pretty sure I was attracted to people of the female variety, and it scared me.  Although, I was still in the stage of "No, I'm just attracted to girls sometimes, but, you know, hardly at all, and I would like never kiss one or anything" and it seemed impossible that I would ever be a lesbian (a few things have changed...).  But on a serious note, LGBT YA fiction was a lifeline while I was in middle school.  Every summer I'd read books and books and I would literally start to shake if I saw one that had a gay person in it.  I craved to know that that kind of love was normal and okay.  Even if I knew it in my brain or my heart or some other wise organ, a book with things like that in it helped me a lot.  So Hello, Groin perhaps isn't for everyone, but it is perfect for anyone who's ever felt scared or ashamed of who they are.

When I'm rich

Lately I've been thinking about what kinds of things I would want to get right away if I were rich.  I seem to be thinking about money almost all the time, since my life seems to revolve around how I can reduce my debt and how many hours of employment I can manage to scrounge up for the school year next year.  (So far I have two jobs for next year and the summer has barely begun, and that isn't including the obvious, which is being a full time student).  I'm shooting for a third job but we will see what happens.  I have to maintain a 3.6 or something to keep my scholarship so I have to work a ton AND be a good student.  Kind of a tall order.  But I suppose everyone who has to put themselves through school has to do that.

I think I'm going to steer clear of talking too much about money and my lack of it today because it stresses me out so terribly.  It makes me cry.  So yeah.  Done with that now.

Sometimes I turn around my thinking, or encounter something cool, and I'm like, yeah, I want that in excess, goddammit.


So here are ten things that I will have when I am rich:



Wait.

I'm going to pause because I can feel judgement already.  You mean, if you get rich you are going to be selfish?  You aren't even going to share or give to charity?  Just get things for yourself?  Yeah.  I'm an asshole.  Actually, I'm going to pay off my debt and my sister's debt if we both still have some and then I'm going to buy myself things.  Once I'm situated (depending on this level of wealth) I'm going to find a good charity.  So calm down.  People get so weird and I'm sick of it.  Money isn't evil... it's not even real for fuck's sake.

ANYWAYS, MOVING ON:

1. Smoked Salmon

I love smoked salmon.  My ex-girlfriend's family owns a smoked fish house up the shore and I almost dated her just for the access to salmon.  (jk).  I worked there one day too, and I made their famous salmon spread.  It is so delicious, you guys, omg.  But anyway, dad just got some smoked salmon from the store.  It's not as good as my ex's store, but it's still quite delicious.  It's not like smoked salmon is like hundreds of dollars or anything, but I could seriously eat it and lox every day of my life.  It's so salty and delicious.  I definitely can't eat it regularly on a college budget.  I'll stick to rice and potatoes and Taco Bell for now.  But when I'm rich, smoke salmon all the time! :D

2. Androgynous Clothes

As you may or may not know, I'm kinda queer.  I'm queer in the dictionary sense of the word, yes, but I'm also queer in the LGBTQIA way.  When someone looks at me without knowing me (now correct me if I'm wrong.. I really like to hear other's perspectives on who I am) I don't believe it's immediately apparent that I like the ladies, despite my charm and good-smelling ways.  You see, I don't dress like a "dyke" but I hate dressing like a "girl" too.  So I buy things that are in the middle, or just like.. I dunno.  Androgynous.  Such a style of dress reduces me currently to buying tshirts and jeans, almost with no exceptions.  With less monetary constraint, I'm sure that I will be able to find a store with androgyny in the name, and I can wear hot fitted woman-y suits like every day. 

3. Starbucks

I spend a lot of my money on starbucks.  I want a starbucks store either inside my home or across the street.  I've also considered hiring a private barista who will make my drinks for me on the spot.  This barista will probably be super hot and be willing to engage in deep political and philosophical discussions.  Even setting Starbucks aside for a moment, I would love to buy unnecessarily expensive coffee that is both extremely rich and delicious, and from a company that treats their employees fairly.  I tend to not like the taste of some hippie coffee very much so if I could find a hybrid of very fair company and very good coffee, then good.  I'd like that. 

4. Jillian Michaels

Haha, just kidding.  A personal trainer.  It would be cool if I could have Jillian Michaels as a trainer, but I'm not sure that it would work out.  HAHAHAHA  "work out".  Omg pun I didn't even try to do that.   Anyways, greater wealth would give me access to more delicious foods and therefore I would be fat.  If I am not active, of course, it would be much worse.  So I kind of want a personal trainer who is super awesome and can push me to try hard but would go easy on me when I'm really menstruate-sick, which happens sometimes.  I want to look like Jillian Michaels!  She's bi you know.  Also she apparently rides a motorcycle, as demonstrated above.

5. Write

I want to write a book, and I think that when I'm rich it will be easier to do that.  I sort of go through the "I wish I novelist" phase about once a year.  I regret the fact that I haven't written more, or at least more good things.  I write blogs, which is good.......... but not what I want, ultimately.  This desire to be a writer of an actual novel is much greater since my junior high English teacher just published her first novel.  She book launch party was yesterday, and she told me that I was the very first person to read her draft of this one.  Oh my god!  It's so cool.  I'm so proud of her and she's so great.  She deserves this very much.  It just also made me think of how that opportunity is so close by.  It feels like an achievable goal now.  I'm not saying it's easy or anything, since my friend busted her ass and writes alllllll the time, way more than I do, but now it seems possible.  With money I would be less restricted by work and school, and if I stick by my goal of not producing offspring, I won't have little kiddos to look after either.  Less distractions.  Also when I'm rich, I might have the money and resources to, at the beginning, travel and have experiences I wouldn't normally have, giving me good experience from which to draw in my writing process.  Later, money would give me more ability to find a good agent or know people who would know people who would publish my book.  So, yeah.

6. A Really Nice Car

I know a lot of people would rather have a beautiful house or something but I'm like attracted to cars.  I've had a lot of car racing games as a kid so I enjoy those and have as some exposure to really nice cars.  Honestly, I don't give a shit about what kind of house I have.  Sure, it would be cool to have a mansion or something, but the only thing I'd really care about is having a room especially for books.  I don't plan on having kids or tons of things in general.  Like this list of ten is mostly it.  Like of course I'll have like the basics, like a tv and a fridge and stuff but I don't even give a shit about tv.  I don't need surround sound enough to buy it.  I don't even really want a pool or any of the things you think about when you think of a rich person's house.  I just want a nice car.  I want it so nice it will turn heads.  Who needs a nice ass (which I guess I was blessed with) when you have a nice car?  I for sure want a custom paint job, some really awesome purple or crazy indigo or something.  I'm not picky about exactly what brand or something, but it has to be expensive as fuck and it must turn heads.  I will probably need to buy the best security system ever for it, though.  I don't want it stolen or anything.  That would be just a bother.

7. Books

I want a library. I want a friend to be like, "hey, do you have such-and-such book?" and I want to be able to go to my computer (or maybe I'll have an app on my phone) and I'll be like, "Just a sec, let me look it up for you.  Oh yes, I have three copies of that on shelf 34.  When we get to my house via this Lamborghini then I will lend it to you."  I want thousands of books and I want to be able to have read all of them.  All of my favorite books can have their own set of shelves.  I'd love to have sections of non fiction and fiction, maybe a set of shelves just of books that I've had to buy for school that I never sold back to the store.  I spent some time at the library yesterday and some time at a book store and it would just be great to tell the person at the register, "I'll take them all."  And he or she would be like what?  And I'd be like yes.  "Here, let me pull out my wallet from my suit coat pocket because I dress like one fine son of a bitch every day".  That would be so awesome. 

8. A nice bed

I wouldn't have thought of this if not for one of my friends from Augsburg, but I think a nice bed is a must.  I would like to spend a couple grand on a bed that will be so comfortable, a night of insomnia will never happen again.  I would get good sleep.  If I have to get up in the morning for work (I think I would go crazy if I didn't have a job or school.  I would want to take a ton of college courses all of my life, truly.  I could never be a rich person without having to work hard too.  I would go nuts.) I want to wake up feeling very rested and relaxed and great.  I wouldn't have said that nice beds are that important before, but I tried sitting on my friend's bed once and oh my god.  That stuff is magic.

9. Plane Tickets

I want to travel.

10. Kittens and Puppies 

I want kittens and puppies.  And a lot of them.  There isn't much more to say.  I'll probably be a single cat lady for my whole life but if I have dogs maybe it will cover it up a little bit.  Yes?


Thanks for watching.

Into the Wild

I finally finished the book Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer.  The paperback copy is only 203 pages, so I cannot say that the length was the problem.  I'm pretty sure it was just my life that got in the way of finishing this book in 2 or 3 days.  It's not a page turner like something super easy to read like The Hunger Games is, but it is still an intriguing story that pushes the reader to consider life and its motivations from multiple perspectives.

You might be psuedo-familiar with this story because a movie was made about it in 2007, and a lot of people were buzzing about it for a while.  I'll sum it up for you.  Don't worry about spoilers-- the tale is told right away with little attempt to conceal any plot details (and yet there is tension, which is like a gold star for a writer--you don't need a surprising plot to deliver tension).  The story is that a young man, just graduated from college with like a 4.0 and a ton of conventional and academic promise, left after his college graduation and took off to tour the country and be free.  He was gone for about two years.  He spent a lot of time in the west.  Basically the most east that he ever went after his graduation was South Dakota. 

Yeah yeah, a boy goes on a trip. So what?

Well, he did some radical things.  For example, he burned all the cash in his wallet and abandoned his car and donated over $20k in savings (all the money he had. he came from a pretty wealthy family) to a charity.  He hated the government, he hated the restrictions of man and the hindrance from adventure embedded into this culture.  The more independent he was, the happier he felt.

The boy, Chris McCandless (who later renamed himself Alex Supertramp) was not satisfied just hanging out with the desert anymore; he sought a much greater adventure in Alaska.  He wanted to live completely off the land, with almost no tools or resources or anything for a whole summer and return to tell the tale. 

Well, he didn't.  He starved to death.

Into the Wild shares his story and tries to explain some of his unconventional behaviors.  Not every boy drives his car to the other side of the country, abandons it, and pushes himself to start over without even telling his parents.  His parents knew nothing of his adventure and were worried sick about him for two years until someone came up to their doorstep to tell them their son was dead.  Terrible. 

A lot of people have heard McCandless's story and have harshly criticized him.  Others have called him a simple moron, idiot, etc.  People have generally thought of him as either stupid or suicidal.  Krakauer (and I) disagrees.  The guy knew what he was doing, and he was enjoying himself.  He took pictures of himself numerous times over the trip, and all of them were like alight with happiness.  He was overjoyed, even when he was emaciated.  It's almost impossible to imagine.  If I go more than four hours without eating I want to rip someone a new one.

I have a very humble theory to sort of illustrate Chris McCandless's motives.  Please remember that I know nothing about psychology or adventuring or .. Alaska.  But I was thinking about it all and I came up with this.  Why was Chris so "crazy?"  He was very intelligent... why did he let himself die?  It seems ridiculous.

Well, are you familiar with Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs?

Most people find food more important than than self-respect or the respect of others.  For example, if you haven't eaten all week long, and then someone gives you a bucket of chicken wings.  Unless you are a committed vegetarian (perhaps even if you are) that bucket of chicken wings is gonna be amazing.  You would eat that and it wouldn't matter to you what you looking like--if you were a total slob it simply wouldn't occur to you because you are too busy fulfilling your basic physiological need of hunger.  Some of these categories are fuzzy, and I think acts like fasting for a religious cause attempts to blur these lines in respect for a "higher self". 

Anyway, it seems like even when McCandless was very skinny to the point of unhealthy (even much prior to the Alaska trip) he was extremely happy.  He was fulfilled.  It is my opinion that the traditional view of this pyramid is simply reversed for McCandless.  He put his spiritual journey far above his need for food.  Obviously he needed to eat, but it seemed like he was trying to feed himself with experience and reflection of his own soul a lot instead of chicken wings.


Very interesting book.  Pick it up sometime.

I'll share with you my favorite passage.  McCandless wrote some people letters on his journey...he met some friends along the way (usually people who gave him rides or jobs) and wrote all of them once in a while to assure them he was okay.  This passage is from the last letter he wrote to one of his best new friends:

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change this situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure fence.  The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure.  The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

Into the tame

It's very difficult to write clever, happy posts when I am not happy.  It's impossible sometimes to get up and form a sentence, let alone create something entertaining.  Hence the silence.  My damn name is attached to this blog now because I decided to be an Augsburg blogger.  I don't mind at all, but now my name is permanently attached to this URL, destroying all hope of being anonymous to future employers and perhaps future mates.  So I have to be "professional" (never mind the fucks, political tension, and dirty jokes..?).

I started work on Tuesday and I share a cubical with my supervisor.  Actually, my real boss is someone else, but she is the person who gives me all the work and we are good friends so I kinda call her my boss.  This summer we have to share a space since our building is so over-crowded.  Last year I had my own cube and it was actually slightly bigger than some of the long-term contractors.  I felt important.  I still feel important, like I still have to look nice and I still have my name plate and everything, I just have to spend 8 hours a day with my supervisor.  Good thing I like her... otherwise I'd go nuts.  Anyway, we were sitting, only day two, talking about things and such.  I had one earbud in, listening to my ipod.  She's like, what are you listening to?

I blushed for no reason. Probably because I wore my white shirt today and I always gravitate toward embarrassment or something so I can turn bright red, further contrasting with the brightness of my shirt.  I think I blushed because about 30 seconds before she asked, it was some song I don't want to talk about, and I was grateful she asked me after it ended.  But actually, I was listening to Otis Redding, which scored SO many points for Gryffindor, like oh my god.  She's like 50 or so and said Otis is kinda old for me. I explained he's like my favorite ever.  "Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay" is one of my favorite songs of all time.  I feel like an old soul when I listen to his greatest hits album, but I'm too busy enjoying myself to notice.

But yeah, she asked me to play my music out loud instead of using my earphones so we jammed to some Otis for a while.  I'm really cool ok


I haven't finished Into the Wild yet.  Probably because of mentioned unhappiness.   I'm long overdue to finish the book.  I mean, it's short, first of all.  I think I'm going to return Pride and Prejudice because I mean, Christ, it's long and I am scared of it.  Some people want to lick Jane Austen's feet but most people are like "omg she's so boring she was probably good in her time but jesus she's like so dull". If I have trouble reading Into the Wild in a timely manner, I think Pride and Prejudice will just kill me off. 

Instead of reading, I sit and play games on my phone and read other people's blogs and wait to fall asleep.  Also I think about how I might not be happy again, ever.

It's been pathetic, really.


In other news, I can't spend money anymore, so if you see me spending money you should hassle me.
Exceptions:
- Starbucks
- Gifts for others
- Unnecessary food at 1am
- bitches
- hos
- apostrophe tutorials for others
- bras or underwear
- music
- books
- my medication
- bowling
- paying people to bowl with me because nobody ever does
- kitties
- puppies
- unnecessary food at other times of day
- food I might actually need
- coffee at caribou if I'm desperate and there's no starbucks around
- fruit
- gas
- soy milk
- nail polish that glows in the dark
- anything for emma watson
- paying kristen stewart to finally admit she's a lesbian
- tattoos and piercings and mohawks and personality
- spontaneous trips to other parts of the world
- oil change
- new wipers
- paying someone to go waltz with me
- pens
- some sort of bumper sticker for Larry (the car, not the cat or the professor or the husband of my first favorite history teacher) that screams "I'M A BADASS" so bitches aren't trying to bully me on the road since my car is so small
- feminist propaganda to spam someone in particular at work because he is incredibly rude to me so I think I can at least get a little even
- nutella
- a hot girl to feed me nutella
- a porsche
- a hot girl in a porsche feeding me nutella and creating starbucks out of thin air

Mother's Day

For the sake of curiosity, I paid a visit to my Mother's Day post of 2011. 

Last night I went to bed at 2:30AM.  I was out to pizza with a good friend and we had a great time.  I returned and had the hardest time falling asleep, but with all the time it took, I of course conveniently thought about what today would mean.  I was encouraged by the fact that it was 2:30.  Maybe since it was so late I would sleep effortlessly into the day, maybe waking up at noon.  Already, many hours of the day would be over and I wouldn't have to deal with figuring out what to do with my mixed emotions.

Nope, I woke up today at 7:30.  I tossed and turned for an hour, waiting for me to prove to myself it cannot be so, I must sleep at least another three hours--I mean, come on.  My efforts were futile.  Then a friend of mine called me and I decided to give up on trying to sleep.  And then my boss called me and said I can't start tomorrow as planned.  I kind of panicked and got upset but it's fine and everything, I was just very very awake.  No chance at falling back asleep.



I don't want to do today because I feel like I can't do anything right.  My step-mom is in Philadelphia so I can't hang out with her, and of course my biological mother is even further away, at least emotionally. 

I kind of feel like spilling my heart out to you on this blog but there is no way to make it sound like I'm simply sad, not just trying to bitch about my mom to you.

The truth is, I'm a coward.  Every day and week goes by and I blame my mother's absence on myself more and more, and it grows with my cowardice.  I just feel like a sham today.

Thanks to all the women who have mothered me.  Some of you are friends, some of you are family, but all of you mean something to me and I love you even if I never tell you.  Regardless, a mother makes a mold that only one person can fill.



I hope the day for you is lovely, and that you did not read this and think less of it.

Last day of summer before work? get sick

I was driving home from my old work (the one I will NOT be joining again this summer, despite how lovely I find all the people) and this post came to mind.  You see, I wasn't driving home while cheerfully singing country songs in the privacy of my own vehicle.  Instead, I was moaning and saying things to myself like "maybe I shouldn't be driving when I feel like this." 

Yep, today was a sick day.  The intention was to have lunch with my former work ladies and chat it up and enjoy my last day of summer before my job starts--40 hours/week with no vacation days.  It is a fabulous gig, and I am ever-so-grateful, and I'm gonna make serious bank, but there is no denying that my summers of reading 10 hours a day or, later, browsing the internet 10 hours a day are over. 

But I couldn't enjoy today as I originally had planned.  You see, I got my period.  Oh no, you say!  You can't talk about periods!  First of all, my dear, this blog is called The Fallopian Way and basically you should have expected female anatomy.  Second of all, I have very little understanding for the notion that properties of anatomy should be so taboo.  Like whatever.  Basically 50% of the population is either a menstruating organism or at least has menstruated before.  This shouldn't be scandalous.  Anyway, mini rant over.  I got my period and of course these things are rarely comfortable, but sometimes, my very first day is nearly unbearable. I was like in my cold sweat, ready to pass out/throw up/cut out my uterus right then and there.  This isn't just your typical cramps, this is severe discomfort.  I sat on the toilet at one point and wondered if I should go to the doctor or something.  (Of course I didn't, because what would that have done?  Oh, I have iron deficiency? Thanks for that brand new information.)

I don't get cramps very often.  I didn't get them today, either.  My ladies were kindly trying to offer me ibuprofen and I don't take drugs if I don't have to, first of all, but also?  I was not in pain.  At all.  It is just intense, intense lethargy that just takes me over.  The best cure I've found in the past few years is a 45 minute nap, which I later took after perhaps foolhardily driving myself home early from my lunch with my ladies.

Anyway, back to the beginning of the post!  I was driving in my super out-of-it mindset and I began thinking about how horrible my day would be if I didn't live where I did.  It's kind of annoying when some philanthropic individual scolds us whiny Americans for being so full of complaint when "So many people have it so much harder."  Typically this is not a helpful statement.  In fact, it tends to me an irritant.  So I felt like shit about something to begin with and now I have to feel guilty about it? yeah.  No.  But I was my own irritant and I'm like

Jen, you feel awful, and you've spent a lot of time on a toilet today or a floor in the fetal position, and later, you will take a nap in a cold sweat on your soft bed.

Imagine how shitty it would be if you didn't have a toilet.
Or a carpeted floor.
Or a bed
let alone a soft one.

Like I'm not saying I'm changing my worldview or saying that my sick day wasn't really terrible and actually kind of scary a few times, but sometimes I remember that some people don't live in this place.  They can't even get access to a tampon.  Jesus!  No tampons, no pads, no toilet paper or even a toilet.  God that must just suck.  A ton of women pop a Midol (which is just ibuprofen with a brand name, by the way) whenever they feel the slightest symptom.  I don't, but I am at least able to drive home in my car that I own and go to my home that I have a key to and sleep in a bed that is soft and way too big for just one person.  Imagine how much shittier of a day I would have had if I wasn't able to drink water that was clean, or even COLD.

I was thinking about this today.  This post didn't turn out as beautifully as I'd hoped but I am still hoping you can see what I'm saying.

Also, I'm feeling a bit better now. I have some food in me and I took my nap and I'm just spending all day in PJ's basically, reading and playing on my phone.  Which reminds me: I finally started my first book.  If I'm this slow to start reading books already, I don't have a shot in hell of completing even half those books.  Sigh.  I chose Into The Wild first, though.  My sister demanded it, you see.  It's pretty good.  Hopefully I'll have a review for you tomorrow. (Or a good excuse, at least).


May your reproductive organs treat you kindly, (unlike mine sometimes).

I used to produce art

I'm in the process of cleaning my room (no grandma I'm not done yet because it's a several-day project) and I am basically reacquainting myself with my former self.  I have a set of heavy plastic Rubbermaid drawers that hold pounds and pounds of notebooks.  Some of the notebooks are completely full, some have like 4 poems in them, scattered throughout the book arbitrarily.  And, of course, there are tons of empty books.  I don't even know why I go school supplies shopping (other than the fact that it is super fun and 10 cent notebooks are awesome and I seriously get a little hot and bothered when I'm in the pen section at OfficeMax) because I have so much fucking paper and pens that it's a little out of hand.  Regardless, I'm recycling a lot of materials that I know I will not use and I will still have plenty of paper to last me a long time.  The part that is taking me the longest though is sorting through all my old writing.  I only want to throw out really bad writing or writing that has duplicates.  For example, I have several copies of "The Lobster" and "What I Never Understood About God" because those are my two favorite poems I've ever written. 

It's fascinating though, because I've written thousands of poems.  I dropped poetry after junior year of high school, more or less, and I eventually kinda... forgot how much of a poet I was.  Some of this shit is actually pretty decent, too!  And that's saying something because I'm pretty hard on myself.  These plastic drawers contain all sorts of my thoughts and feelings from the past 7 years, as well as English-Teacher feedback with smiley faces and praise and stuff that I knew would make me feel good to look back on. 

Part of why I'm cleaning my room and it's taking so fucking long is because this is the third time I've moved into this bedroom.

The first time, of course, was to move from my old house, to my new one. 

The third time was to move from my dorm back to this room. 

The second time was to move all of my things from my mom's house to this one. 

I guess my school friends might not know so much, but my mom kicked me out two years ago.  It's two years ago today, actually.  The official word was the day after mother's day, two years ago, but it was basically decided on Mother's Day itself.  I hate Mother's Day because it's essentially laden with guilt and sadness and anger and regret (even though my therapist reminds me that the situation is out of my hands).  But yeah, my step dad moved all of my shit from her house to this house and it sat in boxes in the corners of my living room and my bedroom, where they sat for a long time.  It was quite honestly too painful to go through my things.  It took me months.  Actually, I never finished the last two bins and my writing drawers--this is what I'm doing now.  It was only yesterday that I realized that I was doing this literally two years later.  If you want some blog references to my feelings, go [here].  That might give you a little background if you only met me in September.

I miss her a lot.  I'm suddenly nervous because what if she reads this?  What if she reads my life all the time even though she unfriended me on facebook and changed her number and completely cut me out of her life?  I have the right to be angry and sad but I feel like one negative word on my blog and suddenly I've ruined everything.  Of course, the word "everything" is used loosely because we have absolutely nothing.  Not a text on my birthday, not a card for graduation, not a peep.

It is just one of the hardest things a girl could go through.  Even all this time later.

I was worried that today was going to be rough, since I (many of us, I think) hold anniversaries on some sort of higher level.  Something to celebrate, or at least observe.  I am blessed and cursed with having a pretty good memory for dates that are important to me, so I won't be forgetting this one for a long time.  It has truly affected me even though I spend a lot of time wishing that I could just get the fuck over it and move on, like she clearly has. My own mother.

So, let's celebrate getting disowned by talking about something else.

-

I used to produce art.  This is what I've been realizing as I go through my writing drawers.   Tons of poetry, yes.  A few short stories and many beginnings of stories without endings.  I have a lot of plot maps and character descriptions for people who were never brought to life.  I found some paintings yesterday.  Paintings!  Like, I used to paint a ton of things all the time.  Well, let's be specific.  I used to paint things, and I used to paint on canvas, and I used to watercolor too.

If people are talking about art around me, though, I usually say that I have basically no visual art capabilities what-so-ever.  This doesn't feel unnatural to say, either.  It's not like I briefly think of my painting days and go hmm I shouldn't talk about that.  I genuinely have forgotten.  It's not like I'm picasso or some shit, I mean jesus.  But I managed to make that blob of colors look like I'm reading a book on a beach, and that group of colors to make it look like a father is teaching his toddler to walk.  I don't want to show anyone, of course, but it was something that I used to enjoy doing; I've forgotten.

Also, I used to want to be a comic book artist!  You guys, can you believe that?  I had a series going called Cow and Turtle.  It was about a cow and a turtle, obviously, and it was based off of events from the life of my girlfriend and me.  Like, when we broke up, cow and turtle broke up too.  It was all very sad.  But I loved doing that drawing.  I can't draw for shit but I can teach myself to draw cartoon versions of some animals and I can make them interact sometimes.  I have quite a few pages of that series and also a comic about a lobster. 

What the fuck though.

I don't think of myself as an artist.  The only thing I can credit myself with is being a writer, and only half-assedly.  Seeing all these attempts at art is making me wonder why I ever stopped.  Did something die?  Did I get bored?  I literally have thousands of poems.  You guys.  THOUSANDS.  That's insane!

I talked to my friend about it and she said maybe I "Got real" and that's why I stopped.  I thought that was rather mean actually but maybe that's what I did.  I was like, fuck this poetry bro, F these paintings--they won't make me bank. 

Perhaps I was too busy sleeping 16-18 hours a day and contemplating the end of my life to churn out something creative.  Depression is incredibly disabling.  There is no way to understand it unless you've been in it.  It is not cured with a little ice cream or a little walk around the block.  Bullshit.



I've been really honest with you in this post.  I hope you will be respectful of this, and know that I am doing my best.  Thank you.

Bake Sales Are Illegal

Hey.

I have read some articles about news that the USDA is planning on banning the use of bake sales for fund-raising more or less across the entirety of the US.  [NPR] [Bostinno] [HuffPost].  Re-reading these, I guess it looks like just Massachusetts?  It's kind of unclear.  A lot of the sources I looked at were pretty vague about who was actually doing this, but as far as I know it is the USDA, and they are pretty Federal, just sayin.

Anyway, assuming you're too lazy to read any of those articles (I know I would be!), I'll summarize.  The USDA (or, "The Dems," as many conservatives argue) is banning bake sales in schools.  This has already happened in individual schools around the US and a couple of city-wide ordinances, but the strictest and most wide-spread rules have been applied to the entire state of New York.

The rules vary but from what I can tell, schools are being restricted to a much shorter list of vendors of sellable snacks.  Poptarts can be sold, but not Grandma's homemade brownies.  For some reason, the state belives it is okay to tell school organizations what they can and cannot do.

Jen you're getting conservsative, acknowledge the other argument.

The ban is attempting to address the obesity epidemic.  Obesity rates in children have tripled since 1980.  We've heard a lot of these stories before: people are super overweight.  It's a problem.  America is fat as fuck.  You go to Germany (well, I went to Germany) and basically nobody is fat.  There wasn't a single obese person anywhere.  It is my understanding that most of Europe is like that.

The selling of fatty sugary treats has, perhaps, a connection to this health problem.  I just have an enormous problem with making it illegal for the basketball team to try to sell cookies in order to simply buy uniforms.  Fund-raisers are everything to a student group.  If I hadn't been able to sell cookie dough, I would have never been able to go to Germany and see how fat we are.  This is my main example, but traveling in general of course requires help from external sources if you don't make $300,000 a year.  So yeah, travel is what I'm familiar with, but most kids my age went to a high school with sports.  Think about all the sports teams that sell fatty delicious homemade foods in order to go to state or buy a new scoreboard or improve their conditions.  Most of the dollars raised from bake sales go to athletics, to tell you the truth.  If the USDA is looking to make us healthier, why don't they look at that?  These sales are sold so people can be more active.

Also, I should add that this applies to Girl Scout Cookies as well.  Are you mad yet?  Don't fuckin' mess with my Samoas!

And don't get me started about budget cuts.  Working on a school board taught me a thing or two about school budgets, and Oh My Lanta is it tough sometimes.  I'm not sure how I feel about the Department of Education (being a soft libertarian in ideas and kind of policy but mostly ideas) but we have it.  If we are in this system we have to acknowledge that most governments are in some sort of debt, and education is one of the first things to be cut.  So, with my finger pointed at nobody in particular, how are kids supposed to use money if you cut their school's funding AND their way to supplement it!?

Man.

Supporters of this ban suggest doing walk-a-thons to raise money, or other active activites.  That is nice, but I think that diseases and cancer research has that covered, idk.  I don't think that selling bananas at a table in a high school is going to make much money.  I think the USDA means well, and I'm not saying they are evil, but this idea is sad to me.  Americans may be fat, but I seriously think we should be allowed to largely make our own decisions.  If we want to be fat and stupid, let us, idk.  Maybe if you fuckin stopped subsidizing a nutrientless crop such as corn, we'd have healthier snacks.  Maybe we wouldn't have High Fructose Corn Syrup every damn place and we wouldn't gain so much weight.  Let's stop the problem at its source, not the middle man.  It is ridiculous to say that a Poptart is safe but a homemade brownie is not.  At least a brownie has real sugar.  And marijuana, maybe.   But that's another conversation.