My Life: Different From What I'd Expected

Many adults at some point realize their life isn't what they had expected it would be when they were kids. I was blind, in a sense, to what my life would be come. Everyone is, the adventure wouldn't be much fun if we know what we'd be doing or where we'd go from the beginning, the exploration and adventure aren't the spice of life, they are life.

Few people expect their parents to die when they're young. It's not the misconception that people never die, it's more that it's something to worry about in the distant future. My mom was a rock of strength,  goal and a guide for my life. I figured I'd live how I wanted, but at the same time doing what she wished of me. I'm not who she thought I'd be, but I don't think she'd completely disapprove of who I am.

My life is interesting, the people I meet are all pretty damn great. I'm quiet, until I've decided I'm comfortable with people, I'm not always who people first think I'm going to be. I dress relatively conservatively, I don't flash a lot of skin, I never wear make-up, I wear a hat and headphones constantly. I could be considered anti-social with how much time I spend with my nose in a book or hunched over my sketchbook or being my laptop, but I'm not. I'm bright, I light up when people I like are around. People seem to put up with me. I'm brash and aggressive, and I have a variety of friends who have seen so many different aspects of who I am it's weird to think about how differently they all perceive me.

I spend time watching and judging before I actually interact with anyone. I'll judge, not in a hateful way (unless they seem like a prick) but so I know how to act around different people. People I met my freshman year of college wouldn't expect me to drink and smoke. Well, they'd accept the drinking, but the type of person I am, I don't seem to be the club type. I'm not, I'm the hang out and have a new experience type. I want to explore and try something new while I can. It's a special person who can put up with me or even wants to exert the energy to try to put up with me. I don't know. My life is not what I would have expected it to be, but in a way it's exactly what I knew it would be.

I think I lost some of the feeling I initially want to go for with this, and that's alright because I'm happy with my life. I hit fucked up depressions and hate everything, but I have different people for different types of conversations who can and will help me.

Jasmine P.

I Have Witnessed History

Everyone has witnessed something momentous in their lifetimes, but a part of me feels this is something I should say now.


I'm 22, going on 23, I've been alive during many historic moments, I turned 1 the day the Berlin Wall fell, I was in school or daycare when the OJ Simpson trial happened, I heard Bil Clinton say "I did not have sexual relations with this woman" a million times on the news but I wasn't aware of that. I've been alive when things happened in other countries that were big and I'm still just looking into these events.


I became much more socially aware when a few kids shot of their high school when I was still in elementary school. A few years later religious radicals took down the World Trade Center. I was in seventh grade in the middle of class and kids were being pulled from school by their parents. I don't remember if my day officially ended early, or if I just went home with barely whispered rumors filling in what happened. It's the only thing that was on television that afternoon, it stopped America in it's tracks. People fretted and mourned, there was chaos and confusion. The Pentagon had been hit (between  few and several) miles from where I was in school, from where I lived.

At some point there were the DC snipers and Bush sent troops West to find and destroy Al-Qaeda.  The troops stayed West and things happened. I apparently wasn't all that aware if I can't tell you what happened for about 6 years, school happened an my mother died things I remember but don't make history. Someone attempts to destroy the British Underground, but doesn't quite succeed. Gay marriage is an important political topic of discussion and wed is decriminalized. I'm older and go off to college and vote for the first time and a black man becomes President of the United States of America, something that has always been possible but somehow not plausible for Americans to accept.


An oil spill fucks over the environment and the oppressed rise up over dictatorships and the nation stops when the celebrities die but that last has always happened. The earth itself rises up to remind humanity that they are not the greatest and that superficial differences ought be forgot and people send aid to New Orleans, Haiti and Japan. Racism is alive and well in America, even as people act like old racist symbols aren't racist, but they totally are. I'm focused on my non historic finals and classes when Osama Bin Laden is taken out.


In ten years, a few months shy of the 10th Anniversary of the WTC going down the man we were told was pretty much Enemy Number One has been killed. The nation revels in the death of one, someone who has been Othered to the point of being a concept and less a person. I can say I heard the information, then went to sleep. I think this is something that people need a moment to absorb, things are going to be interesting for a minute. I don't know. I just wrote this.  Maybe I'll continue to write about historic moments when they happen, but you really don't know if something will be big until it's been years, but I think that waiting hours is fair for something like this.


Jasmine P.

Some things I've learned: 2010

I'm terrified of my future, what I want to become, what I need to do and how I'll accomplish it. I'm terrified because I know I can succeed.

The Rules of Irby* are applicable to pretty much all factions of my life.

I can accomplish more than I think I can, I just have to get to it and finish things

Life is perplexing

One good friend makes up for a shitting week, can help me forget all of my regrets and reminds me of what important in my life.

I will always strive to be someone my mother would have been proud of. I'm sure she'd be bragging about things I do now, but I'm not there yet.

I dream big. It's daunting, terrifying, I will survive

More people care about me than I think sometimes. I'm hard on myself because I'm not as great as the me I am in my head. I still have time to become that amazing.

True friends just accept, no questions asked.

Music.

Adventure comes in many forms and may not be recognized until after the fact.

The people around me support me, even if they don't know me that well. They support me because of who I am, how I carry myself and the little things that I don't think are all that important. They notice the things I do that I ignore. They see the good I accomplish and can forgive that which is less good because my positive out weights my negative. I thank them because they have the potential to help when I can't help myself.

I will miss Norfolk when I leave.

I don't belong in Reston anymore. There is little left in Reston for me, not enough opportunities for me to grow into a better person. I need to stop returning and move on with my life if I'm really going to accomplish anything in this life.

My friends and family encourage me, but I need to keep in mind what I encourage myself to accomplish, starting with moving forward. Forward is opportunity, adventure and new friends. Back is stagnation, degradation and loathing.

I don't know what will happen on this road, I don't know where I'll stay or how long I'll be there, but I do know that the journey is the important part. I've started on this journey, I think officially in 2010, it's slow going with uncertain terrain before me. Many have walked similar paths, many will follow behind me. I need to figure this out for myself, find my way and accomplish something great, and I can.


* The Rules of Irby:

1. There are no rules! 
2. DON'T talk about Fight Club!
3.  BOOM! 
4. Own it! 
5. Learn the rules to break the rules 
6. If you're not cheating, you're not trying hard enough 
7.  ...and I'm okay with that 
8. Practice makes better 
9. You know how Irby is
10. Draw the damn cat! 

Jasmine P.

Networking and Opportunity Knocking

I have always considered myself to be someone who's not memorable and I think that I fly under the radar, but I've apparently made a mark on a few people. From being in my one class, Rhetoric of the Graphic Novel I have made three opportunities to not languish in obscurity. I have a foundation for making a name of myself and it's terrifying. I want to run away, but this is what I want for my life.

First opportunity is to get a comic going in a few university newspapers, I've been lazy about that, putting it behind my journal comic, which has not been the smartest thing, but I was afraid of success and how much time it would detract from my ideas.

My second opportunity is in general talking comic art and working with someone. Getting him started and being someone he can ask for help and advice and possible collaborate on something.

My third opportunity is the one that's really freaking me out, there's a dude in my class who's trying to start being a small press publisher, and I could use his publishing house to print my comics. It seems overwhelming to have so many opportunities all from one class.

I have an older opportunity to draw and sell an art book for a local business I frequent. All of these feed and support each other. I know college is where these things happen, it's just shocking to think of it happening to me. I need to really get serious about my comic work and progress and finish things. I have a million ideas and now I have so many opportunities to really get somewhere with it all that I'm freaking out.

An opportunity I instigated in my journal comic and drawing bands. I went to a concert this past weekend and sketched out the bands and performers, I'm planning on doing nice ink and wash images for the bands. This is a door I'm opening myself to get my art out there. I plan on sending scans of the images to a local paper to put them up online and to also gt my work out there. I'm planning on taking commissions and getting my work out there, if these bands like these little pieces, I'm imagining what it would be like to make much larger, much nicer pieces but as commissions and not just these little sketches.

I wonder how many successful people wanted to run away. I bet they were all equally terrified about where things were headed. The difference is they didn't run away, so I need to keep from running and accept and work toward what I imagine. I'm terrified of my imagination becoming a reality, I don't know if I'm ready for it yet. I have to have myself ready at some point and now is as good as ever. I started on this road and I don't want to diverge from it. This is what I need to prove to my family that my art work will get me somewhere. I start small, I start local and I will have to work to get what I imagine. I make myself into a local legend, a local name, then I take on the rest of the small press community one event, one book, one image at a time.

Jasmine P.

Journals and Journal Comics

I just finished reading Craig Thompson's Carnet de Voyage, it was a journal comic and sketchbook he wrote over a 2 month period when he was on a comic tour and vacation in 2004. At the end of the book he talks about why he did it. He talks about his motivation to draw it and his trepidation about selling his sketches and a journal. It made me think about why I like reading diaries and journal comics, and why I did my own journal comic.

I am a nosy person. In the past I've gone through bathroom cabinets, purses, wallets, bags, pockets, rooms, cellphones,  anything. I'm curious about other people. The things people keep in their wallets, the stories the items tell and the explanations their owners give. Items in a way, tell what someone finds important. IN my own wallet right now I have one dollar, my campus ID, my driver's license, my bank card, a membership card for Local Heroes, my social security card, a copy of my savings and checking account numbers, insurance cards, an expired bank card and a few other scraps. The sweatshirt I wore today has my wallet, phone, cigarettes, two lighters, two pens, scraps of paper, some garbage, and pain killers, it had my laptop and mp3 player in it earlier. My bag has ball point pens, inking pens, mechanical pencils, a set of Derwitt drawing pencils, two sketchbooks, two novels, one comic, hand lotion, some candy and probably garbage and loose pain killers.

Those items tell you I enjoy drawing, reading, I smoke, I don't remember my banking numbers, I like comics, I either don't carry cash or I have no cash. That's a lot of things to learn from not talking to me and just going through my things. I think that's why on dA the room meme or bag meme goes on, people are interested in what people keep with them. On formspring I've gotten the question 'what's in your pocket right now' a few times, people are curious about what people keep with them. I think that why I enjoy reading journals and diary comics, to see how others live.

As I was reading Carnet I was thinking about how I'd draw a different journal comic than 100 Days, I want to do another one at some point, maybe this spring. I've been thinking about limiting it to interesting events, but anything can come up, I don't know yet.

Carnet was interesting because of how personal it is. On the last page when Thompson is talking about why he did it, even with the pressure from his publisher, a friend told him he should draw it for himself. I went that route with 100 Days, but I think I may try something different with the last 50 or so pages that I haven't finished yet, in a way make them more personal, even though some days get incredibly personal. I don't know, I might save those ideas for another journal comic.

Some other Internet journal comics I've enjoyed are Dar, Ellerbisms, The Everyday, Journalin' Comix, Johnny Wander, Kid with Experience, Little Gamers, So Far Apart, Three Panel Soul and I'm sure I've got others I'm forgetting. Some published autobio comics I've enjoyed are Will Eisner's work, Blankets, Spent, Too Cool To Be Forgotten, Persepolis, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, and all the ones I can't see from my perch on my bed. Some biographies and published journals I've enjoyed are David Carradine's Kill Bill Diary, Room Full of Mirrors, everything I've read by Jonathan Ames, and as before, what I can't see form my perch on my bed. I really like being able to peek in at different people's lives, see how they live, what's important to them and how they change over time.

I think part of that was my motivation for 100 Days, to be able to look back at what my life was for a summer when I was 21. To see times when I was happy, what I enjoyed doing, watching, reading and then being able to reflect on things. Even now I find it enjoyable to look at what I did only three months ago, some of these pages I haven't seen in months so I've forgotten what I did, how I felt. Sometimes I get swept away by my own emotions, falling into a mild depression because of what I did that day or remembering happy days. It's been interesting and good I think. I don't regret drawing this out, I don't regret posting it online, I don't really regret anything I said there either. I do have a moleskin sketchbook/journal that's a larger format waiting for something to be put in it, I might use that for my next one. We'll see. Maybe I'll have a reason to start it earlier. 

Jasmine P.

Complexity of an Art Degree

Every fucking time I have a friend or family tell me that art is an 'easy' degree I want to slap them in the face.  For many reading this it's preaching to the preacher but to continue trying to make it on my own or with a tiny group of friends is not easy. I'm not trying to work for a big company, I have my own stories and ideas that are bursting to be released. I'm like a zombie but instead of craving brains and entrails I crave time and paper because I always have ideas. I have ideas I think I can sell, I have ideas that I think people will buy and I have skill and talent, and it's hard. I always want to draw, but I'm always up for social engagements, take tonight for instance: I have my journal comic that I need to continue inking and preparing to upload. I have pages I need to go back to and refine and I need to rescan everything I've scanned/posted so far because days didn't have full shading, but I went to listen to Christian Lander speak instead. Dude was funny and it was a good evening, but I didn't work on my comic. I need it get off the ground so I can start selling my fiction and not just my reality.

What makes art so difficult is that even as I'm laying on my be typing this my fingers are itching to pick up a pencil and draw something, ink something create something anything and I have a million other things I need or want to be working on first. I have offers left and right to create things to sell, which I need to get going on before I forget for one thing, and I have other offers to get my name out there and be published once again in my college newspaper. I want to drop out of college so I can devote more time to comics, but I don't have the money for that. I want to take out a hypothetical loan on my future for now, I'm not going to because there are things I want to improve while I'm in this environment to find ways to make things better. I'm working at getting more of my work known and out places. And art degree is serious and difficult business because of the market. The work isn't especially 'hard' because you're selling what you can do, but it's harder then other jobs because every project is tailor made for whoever you're selling things to or creating things for. I'm taking everything I'm learning now, flipping it on it's head to make it all work for me.

In doing all this I talk big. People tell me I sound like I know what I'm doing. I don't, I'm fucking terrified. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to move home, that I'm going to fail and I'll just keep dreaming that I made it in comics and sequential art. I'm also terrified that I'll succeed, I'll make comics that people like, I'll have fans and people will want to buy every stupid thing I draw. I also fear staying in the middle, being known to a handful of people and selling some things, but spending most of my time in some horrible office job were people didn't know I spent my night and weekends creating comics and my life ever got better.

These ideas keep me from picking up a pen and being jealous of everyone who has made it. It also inspires me to grab hold of a pen even sooner so I can prove my worth and get my foot in the door. I want to be known, but I'm afraid of what I have to do to get to that point. That time comes every night where I have to buckle down and get things drawn, it's time for me to work on my journal comic, I've put off doing more than a few pieces of spot shading for a about a week and I need to be prepared to spend Monday scanning and prepping more pages. I can make it, I'm not so afraid and my work is good enough. People will want to buy my pieces and I won't be too afraid to sell them.

Jasmine P.

Aggressively Passive-Aggressive

Going with me being so estoeric is I am aggressively passive-aggressive. I swear, I'd own this if it was a competition. My passive-aggressive tenancies include and are not limited to: telling other people to invite me out when they can, being esoteric, acting disconnected so other people will ask me what's wrong and I can get attention, craving attention and validation by showing off but acting like I'm not stealing the limelight, asking if other people support my ideas before I follow through, maintaining a blog where I whine about things every time I get a little depressed and sharing it on twitter.

I'm so passive-aggressive that I forget I am until after I've acted like a right twat. It's getting to be incredibly irritating. I think I know what I want in life, but I'm so afraid of rejection that I don't want to take any initiative, but I want to appear open for what I want to accept me.

Passive-aggressive is really weird power play. I act submissive or passive so I can then decide weather or not to accept someone or something that I already do. I am such an asshole.

Jasmine P.

Visual Identity

I just read an article about a lesbian woman who is now with a man. She spoke about how she would display her lesbian habits and pro GLBTQ community ideas in her younger years with a mohawk, rainbows and radicallism.

I look at that, then I look at me. I have thought on more than one occasion that I am a gay man in a woman's body. Seriously, I don't dress like a woman, I rarely admit to liking woman's things, I enjoy hanging out with guys and to a point I'm much more comfortable around men. Something I working with at the moment though is how I present myself. Like I said, kind of, I'm straight. I like men. I've contemplated women and end with men. I dress like a lesbian and worry that other people think I'm a lesbian.

In saying I dress like a lesbian, I prefer wearing men's clothes, I keep my hair cropped short and rarely display my breasts. [I was going to use the euphemism 'assets' but decided we're fucking adults, call them what they are.] I have been called sir on many an occasion, which is irritating. I wear a cap every day very rarely outwardly display myself as female.

With how I dress and present myself and my vulgar sense of humor I'm really not trying to make a statement, I'm just trying to be comfortable. Because of my hidridenitis I don't really wear revealing shirts, I know it is possible to show off breasts without showing off arms. But, I can't wear tank tops because the edge of the material cut into the wounds or bandages causing pain, and I don't want people to see the bandages and judge or question them. They're kind of disgusting and not really socially fun to talk about. I accept my weight, but am still a bit self-conscious of it. That self-consciousness leads to what I wear, I don't wear sleek, tight or formfitting because it would show and highlight all of the fat. All of the fat everywhere.

Most days I'm wearing a tee shirt from Threadless, if it's cool or cold a sweatshirt or a light shirt/jacket. In the summer I wear man shorts, the ones that stop below the knee, and in the winder jeans or cargo pants. I prefer buying man pants because they have better pockets, I swear you can only fit a condom into woman's pants pockets. In man's pants pockets you could save the moon, or at least hold onto a sandwich.

I wear what I consider to be comfortable. Dressing like a woman is rarely comfortable in my mind because there's heeled shoes which I rebel against. There's primping which I dislike because that hiding who I am in a way I don't like. Make up and nail polish, why? I don't want it so I don't wear it. Then there's tight, form fitting clothes, or even just clothes cut for the female figure. I prefer to know my breasts aren't going anywhere. I don't care if people stare, they're fat. Breasts are fat, fat my body decided I needed hanging off my front. I don't understand why people are so uptight about men looking at their breasts and I'm tired of that joke in movies. I actually find them to be annoying, seriously. The pains that you go through with large breasts, not worth it. If you have average or a small sized bust, rejoice! Bras costs too much as is, but the bigger the boob the more they cost. Hell, my bras cost more than the shirts that cover them, seriously. It's fucked up.

But as I was saying, sometimes I feel as if people give me the title of Lesbian when they see me without knowing me. Everyone judges on first sight, but I want people to value me for my mind and not because I have a large bust that is on display. My figure is far from an hour glass, but I like it, it's mine dammit. I do want to lose some weight, but I am happy with where I am.

I dunno, just some thoughts. 

Jasmine P.

Intelligence and Knowing You're Intelligent

Disclaimer(?): I'm not trying to sounds vain here, but this is what I've experienced from having "above 'average' intelligence" in school and the education system. Long story short, it fucks you up, or it just fucks me up, we'll see.

----

So, it's pretty common knowledge now that schools and school systems test the shit out of children every year to find out who's 'gifted and talented (GT)', to find out who has the ability for more abstract thinking than their peers, so they can put them in classes to challenge and strengthen this type of thinking. This is relatively easy to do because there are a metric shit-ton of other tests going on generally if you tell a kid they have to take a test, they'll do what you ask.

Well, this is what it was like for me 15 years ago in elementary school when more parents told their kids to sit down and shut up, as opposed to now where it's always a compromise between parent and child. Also 15 years ago when it's not like children weren't respected and spoken to on their level by their teacher, but their teachers found ways to deal with them and it was closer to 1 in 15 being on Ritalin, or something else for ADD, as opposed to 1 in 5.

This isn't about that, this is about being an 'advanced thinker' and having people acknowledge that you're not 'average.'

Yes, as a kid I was proud to learn that I was 'intelligent' enough to be put into a special class for people who understood in second grade why triangles and domes are stronger than straight lines; in a class where in fourth grade I decided to use 'queer' by it's proper dictionary definition. Only odd thing about use of 'queer' is other people in my class laughing so it showed a part of my out-of-the-loop-ness that happens every now and again because I'd only ever known queer to mean something was strange or odd and not an insult to homosexual people.

But I digress. I'm saying from a young age, what...about 8 when I started in the 'advanced' classes in second grade, I was told I was different. I was told I was smarter than my peers. This information went straight to my head, giving me my inflated ego. I mean, who at the age of 8 wouldn't be all over the fact that they were 'better' than someone else? Also, to be honest, I enjoyed the GT course for a few reasons: it got me out of regular class once a week, what we did was interesting, and I was told I was better than other people. (Aside: maybe this started my superiority complex...) Third grade I went to a different elementary school where the entire class was GT, we were doing fourth grade work. Aspects of that year sucked, not the work so much as the school, not an encouraging environment so I went back to my original elementary school. I did get to raise chicks in my third grade class, an now I'm wondering what happened to the chickens and roosters. I don't know why I never did ask that question.

I went back to my primary elementary school for my last three years and went back to a 'pull out' GT program. In middle school I was in a GT program all day, every day, except this time it was called the IBMYP- the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program. Upper level thinking, reading, writing all the time now. I've been taught MLA citation format ever since the seventh grade started. It also introduced me to who would be in most of my classes for the next six years. Seriously, my school system didn't lock down the IB program, in high school at least, but it was fairly contained. Many people took more than one IB class so it was fairly common on the first day of class to see about 1/3 of your first period class also in your second period class. I mean, my graduating class was something around 300-350 students. Of that number I think we had about 75 get the IB diploma, and another 100 or so get one or more IB certificates for the individual IB exams they passed.

Well, I've spent much of my time chronicling my education and what it was like, kind of. We all knew each other, would cheat off of each other and had been told we were special, smart for many years. We got to read multiple banned books over the years. Hell, I think at least one of my teachers tried for everything to be banned, and not just by religious groups, but by anyone. It made for interesting reading to say the least.

As I was saying earlier, sometimes being 'smart/er' sucked. I got tired of hearing "you're too smart to be failing" or "you're smart, so if you only applied yourself..." That shit never helps, it makes it worse because I'm already irritated that I wasn't passing, I don't need to be reminded that I'm failing, generally for stupid reasons. I said I was never good in a quiet environment, and my ability to focus is a bit worse when I'm in a quiet room because then I start making my own music for entertainment instead of drifting in and out of ignoring music that's playing while I do something. Hell, I've got music playing while I write this and I'm writing alright. I was never good at tests, in testing situation because it was always unnaturally quiet. It was a forced heavy silence, like an extended pregnant silence. Since it felt uncomfortable it distracted me more than noise might have.

Showing you were smart as a kid was just as bad as failing. I have been told 'You speak good English' many times. Every time I smile and say 'thank you' while inside I respond 'you don't.' Every time. I have been called articulate many times, my cousin told me I spoke like 'white people,' but he doesn't use proper grammar or pronunciation, I think he was trying to make fun of me, not to sure though. I was a reader as a kid, I still am. I actively seek out controversial, weird or interesting things to read. When I read comics I like something that questions or critiques our culture, same goes with novels and film. I also turn around and love and appreciate much lower brow humour. I enjoy The Shawshank Redemption just as much as I enjoy Tropic Thunder or The Fifth Element. Yes, Tropic Thunder does have more to it than the explosions and the silly, but that's what people see. I like explosions and boom! I like talking and critiquing, I like getting and understanding 'smart' things and enjoying 'not-smart (?)' things.

With what I've said I still haven't quite gotten to my point. The biggest flaw in being smart if knowing that you're smart. You want to be recognized as such when you succeed and when you don't you don't want people to think too hard about it because it's salt in the wound. There are things I've realized, things I know about myself from sitting and dwelling on it. I wonder, how many people sit down and think about when they stop thinking of themselves as a kid, and actually think of themselves as an adult? I'm not talking about turning 18 or 21 and saying 'I can smoke, drink, vote and die for my country; I'm an adult.' I'm talking about how many people can actually acknowledge and articulate, to some degree, why they think of themselves now as an adult. While talking with Alex this weekend we spoke about this for a minute which drunk, but we both have come to the point in our lives where we're looking less to our parents for guidance and we both want to strike out on our own and forge our own paths. In my mind stopping and attempting to put into words a gradual change like that is a very heady thing to do, thinking and dwelling and focusing.

Being smart, intelligent, gifted has been my life in the education system. No one is more annoying than I am with myself for bad grades. When I try to explain my career plans to my family I can hear the disappointment in their voices when I say I don't want to go into science anymore. That doesn't bring me down as much as it annoys me when I say I want to work for myself, drawing my own comics. They keep trying to dissuade me thinking it's childish precociousness and it's not. They think it's about money, I'll find the money, getting money's the easy part. Working the job, the career, I really want is the hard part.

Want to know another shitty part about being smart? I know why I'm depressed almost every time. Usually it's some sort of 'I don't feel loved' bullshit. Every now and again it's about my mom being dead. Knowing I'm not at a point to forgive my father for all of his bullshit, or any of it, I know I'm not ready and I know why. He won't listen, he won't try to listen. He thinks of me as a child, I'm not a child anymore. I don't think I'm a young adult anymore, I just am an adult. I think I'm finally moving out of categorization limbo, now everyone I know needs to learn this so they don't think of me as less then I am.

See, that thought process right there, I want to be respected on my level; I want to be taken seriously on my level. Not everyone is on my level. I think ultimately that's why I drifted away from people from high school. Not just that they knew the 'old' me, but that they weren't really looking to be Adults yet, they were looking to be Young Adults. I've gone back to speaking with some of them and it seems things are leveling back out, we're reaching our next maturity level.

Jasmine P.

Concepts of Beauty

My Grandmother keeps trying to get me to change what I like about myself. We're supposed to be going on a cruise this August around the Bahamas. When I spoke to her last week she told me what it was like on the boat, "you're going to forget you're on a boat, it's like being in a mall' or she'd tell me about the Governer's Ball which happens one night on the ship, and that I have to be dressed nicely for dinner. I'm like 'alright' and she continues asking me if I'm going to 'get my hair done' or wear earrings, or telling me I can't wear denims, she's old and doesn't usually say 'jeans' for whatever reason.

I try to listen, but when she asks me an honest question I decide I'm going to answer honestly:
-"Will you get my hair done in a beauty salon": no, I like my hair short and natural
-"well, will you go to a barber? How much does it cost?"; between $10-15, and no, my friend can cut my hair;
-"how do you know they can cut hair? What if you don't like it?": I'll cut it all off then let it grow back. Hair will grow back.
-"You're not going to wear a hat every day, your hair won't grow long if you wear a hat all the time.": I like my hats and I don't want my hair to grow long, Grandma.
-"Fine, you're going to wear earrings right?": No Grandma, they irritate my ears, I don't like 'em. As I kid I didn't like them.
"Well, you have to dress nice, you can't go out to eat wearing denims. When you go out with your friends you have to look nice so you can meet people."

You'd think I'd be dizzy from rolling my eyes so much. I finally get her to stop this ridiculous attempt at changing me by explaining I wear and present myself how I like. I don't like dresses or earrings so I don't wear them. I like my hats so I wear them. I have the commonsense to not go to a nice dinner in baggy messy jeans or cargos, but it's the same commonsense that keeps me from going to a messy art class in a really nice shirt. It's neither the time nor is it the place. No, I won't wear make-up, no I won't conform to society's conventions of beauty because I don't like them.

I am me, let me prove to you my life is fine, that I'm happy, when I'm not depressed - my appearance doesn't affect my depression, so I'm happy in how I look, how I dress and ow I carry myself. I have been told that things I have ae nice, that they look good, stop trying to compare me to my mother. Stop trying to compare me to other people, be happy that I'm happy.

I don't know. I could easily just say yes to everything she says I should do, but I wouldn't be happy. It's better to get this stupid non-important argument out of the way now instead of it being a stupid non-important argument in three months when sh sees me to wearing earrings, not wearing make-up, not wearing nail polish. I'll primp to my own tastes not hers. The thing is, like I said, I like how I dress, I like the clothes I wear, I don't want to 'work' that goes into being 'beautiful' and that shit all costs too much. Concealer, mascara, lipstick, blush, facial wash, zit cream, nail polish, nail polish remover, hair rollers, hair relaxant. If I had one of each of those things I'd've spent $100 easy. Why? To fit into what society considers to be beautiful. I want to buck trends and fuck convention.

It's like I questioned in this image http://dichigo.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d1kcwn9 a scribble from a few years ago, I want to go back to it again at some point, but why should I listen to the magazines, the voices outside. To hell with them, if I'm happy how I am, why do I have to listen to people out there who work so hard to change themselves and others to their own conventions and beauty, to what they think society would like. No, that's not me.

When I leave for that cruise I will have some nice shirts, I will have one or two skirts, I will also have sneakers, sandals, denim gouchos, one or two of my hats, either my FreakAngels or Israeli Paratrooper bag, at least one sketchbook, pens, pencils, two or three novels and my DS, plus other odds and ends. I'll have things to look nice in, to look nice with that I like, and I'll have the things I like that are comfortable. It's what I like

Jasmine P.

Glossing Over Life

Oh hello there April 28th. My life has been to enh these past few weeks...well, just key days and most nights when the depression hits that so far today hasn't been shit. It has been three years since my mom died in her hospital bed in Reston, VA. It was shit.

I had something that was much more entertaining after I addressed her death, but now I don't feel like going into any of it. I spoke about Nerimon - Alex Day- and the fact that everything I'd written before was much more entertaining as I had been thinking in an English accent...he's English. I lso spoke about plans for next week and going into finals week. And Pringles, I was eating Pringles before. I'd gone on about needing a shower and not wanting my roommate to see me naked, which has happened before, it was awkward. I like the original blog a lot more. I also addressed my possible carpal tunnel, it's a mofo in my left wrist, if I have it. I really don't know. My internet acted up, so I had no draft saved, this bites. I'm making lunch, grits and ham, then I'm working on my fundamentals of drawing and design portfolio.

Jasmine P.

I think I see the bottom

started 11:35pm-12:29am

So, I'm hella depressed. I want yesterday and Friday to return, they were great days. They were pretty happy, relatively carefree. Now I'm just fucking depressed. I'm just about out of money, so I can't buy things which is my usual short term remedy for being depressed. I'm mostly down at the moment because of that. It's a really stupid reason to be depressed, but things are going to change, it seems. I'm going to try to apply at Borjo again, and apply for a loan through campus. Maybe I'll get a few hundred, maybe a thousand or so to help with everything. Life sucks when you're coasting along and them BAM! Shit happens. I know, I've been headed this way since sophomore year, actually, but since it's now aggressively in my face I need to rectify the situation. Why couldn't this have happened next week? If it was next week instead I'd be planning on going home and I'd be able to wallow for a bit instead of wavering in and out. Maannn, this is rough. I almost want to cry, i think I might. My text message ring tone makes me smile. Maybe tomorrow I'll talk to Alex, that should help. It might not. I think I might raid my meager possessions to see what I can sell. I think this might just be an immediate reaction. Hopefully it'll go away soon. I do know I have to cut a few things out, like coffee and cigarettes. No more daily coffee, it'll be once a week, but I'll still hang out there. The people are a good part of why I go to Borjo every day. Fuck, now I'm crying. I want to be a kid again, I want my mother to take care of everything. That can't happen, she's dead. Oh look, it's almost three whole years since the shittiest day of my remembered life. Ugh, I hate this, I'm just whining right now. Seriously, why didn't my brothers withold my money before, when I was but a child?

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I want bliss, I want joy, I want to be loved. I want someone to hug me and love me. I know it probably wouldn't help my full situation all that much, but from where I'm sitting right now, it seems like it would be a fair bit better. I know I'm just imagining the highs of being loved, but it would be a hell of a lot better than me sitting here wallowing in depression.

Man, I talk about Friday, but I haven't really said what happened. I wasn't me, it was amazing. I was at Borjo doing the usual. I happened to see Megan, one of the Sobo bartenders on her way back to the bar, she told me a dj would be there. I haven't been to the bar in a while so I went over. Joe M. was there with some friends, and he was paying for drinks, at least up front, so drinks cost 1/2 as much as usual. I accepted it, free drinks, yo. I meet some friends, Christina, Zack, and Abraham. Christina was druuuunk and pretty damn funny. Zack was a bit of a whiney bitch, but entertaining. I didn't speak with Abe much, he rolled out pretty early. After maybe 45 minutes there Joe decides he want to go to the Boar's Nest. I had no one else to talk to, so I tagged along. I met some other friends and acquaintances there and as I drank my regular self slipped away and I started getting louder and dancing. This one dude, Micah, he was tall, adorable and hella nice to me. I harassed him so much, but he let me. He had the cutest smile when I called him out on that. I had a weak ass apology of 'I wouldn't do this if I was sober' after some of the shit I did, and I did relatively few things I would have if I was sober. I danced, lewdly which was fun. I dropped a lot of ice down his shirt and down the back of his briefs. Coup de gra, I got one down the front of his pants. That was the most amusing one. Some other dude, John I think, had his wrists so he couldn't stop me, then I took his hands to keep him from automatically being able to get the ice. God, I was mean. I grabbed his ass, twice, his reaction was adorable. I told him I thought he was adorable. I should have told him I liked him. I did, I still do. I wish I was less of a coward, worst he would have said was he didn't like me. Best, as far as I'll allow my imagination, I could have gotten a kiss. A drunken kiss, but still a kiss. I got a lot of hugs, and he was willing to hug me every time I asked. Too damn nice. I also tweaked and rubbed a few nipples, I remember that and had Micah pull up his shirt and she me his tattoo, I don't even remember why, I think I was looking for his nipple then. It was great not being me, and kinda horrible at the same time.

I had a delicious drink called a Florida Storm. Vodka, peach schnapps, mango rum/vodka, bitters, grenadine. Maybe something else. It was good, I'd buy it again. It was unbelievable fun to be not me. I can't do that all the time, money aside, I don't like sleeping on the bathroom floor, in case I vomit, or the feeling of drinking too much. My last LOIT was one too much, I've leaned that 7-8 drinks/shots are where I should stop. Now I know for the future. But Friday was still glourious, I felt loved. I felt like someone liked my body, maybe a little, or maybe he liked the attention, I know I loved the attention. For the night, he had my heart, and now he's going home to Kentucky and chances are I'll never see him again. It's probably better that way, I don't know how I could face him sober. I'd probably just pretend most of what I did on Friday didn't happen. From Friday there are some other people I hung out with and enjoyed drunkenly talking to, but I kind of had a little bit of a one track mind so, ah-hem I can't write much about them.

Do I regret Friday, not on my life. Would I do it again, yup. When, maybe at the end of May, maybe later then that, I dunno yet. Have I cheered myself up, you know it! I'll handle the money situation later, but for now I'll go back to my awesome memories of one fantastically no-me night and go to sleep.

Jasmine P.

Elementary Genius

Yesterday morning I had breakfast with a friend of mine I've know from 4th grade. We were reminiscing and she told me a story about one of our first conversations. I don't remember this nor saying this but I could totally see myself saying this.

I was sitting, possibly at recess, with a book. She noticed I was just staring at the pages and not turning them. "You're not reading, you haven't turned a page."

I responded "Well, if I sit here and just look around, people will think I'm looking at them and ask me 'what are you looking at?' If I sit here and stare at the ground people will come to me as ask 'what are you looking at?' over and over. I look at a book so people think I'm reading and leave me alone."

That was fucking brilliant of me to say as a kid. In 4th grade I was ten or eleven, so I was young-ish. I dunno, this story amused me, so I decided to share.

Jasmine P.

De-odor or Do-odor

Warning: I discuss my disgusting medical problems to get a point across. I generally call it 'medical shit' or 'what I had surgery for'. It's why I am now on antibiotics and have painkillers because it causes me a lot of discomfort. I wrote about extensively last year when I had my surgery, if you don't want to read about my medical crap feel free to close the tab or window. I'm being nice because I didn't give a warning the last time I described this crap.

-----

Not too long ago I read a thing about how when Matthew McConaughey announced somewhere that he didn't used deodorant that Axe sent him a case of their shit. I keep seeing here and there that little tidbit of information, then people's disgust of his supposed body odor.

That said, I haven't used deodorant in about two years and I don't think other people notice. I can't use deodorant even if I wanted to and I'll explain why. My hidradenitis is located in a few locations. I have them and surgically removed patches of skin underneath both of my arms. It's open skin that needs to be covered with gauze daily, or else pus and disgusting gets on my clothes and sticks to the wounds making them hurt when I go to take a shower. My second set are all around my vagina, on the labia and now down in the buttocks which makes going to the bathroom suck I can't bandage them properly and am in varying amounts of discomfort because of this. I do my best and try not to go into too much detail because it's gross. I don't really care about personal, it's just disgusting and I do want people to continue to talk to me.

As I said, and with the point of this, I don't wear deodorant. I haven't since about a year prior to my surgery, so 1.5 years at this point. The only time my odor has been brought up has been less me and more the disgusting puss, bile, and whatever else is pouring from my bandaged wounds on a daily basis. I have asked my roommate about my odor, she says she doesn't smell anything. Nobody around me has told me my odor is all that offensive. Not my body odor and not the stench from my wounds, and that can be really rank. Back in September when I had a new abscess opened, it was causing me a lot of pain and discomfort, that stank. It was like rotting eggs, and it was inside me, underneath my skin. Fucking horrible is what it was. I take one shower a day, in the mornings so the bandages are good for whatever I have to do for the day. The hidradenitis hurts like a mofo after about ten hours, so I have to shower daily. The only times I may skip bathing are when I don't go out and it's getting late and I don't want to waste bandages. I hurt when I do that, so it's not often. Not bathing actually hurts me, I think the daily shower does help my cause, and the fact that I don't wear deodorant. But nobody says anything about my odor. I notice it, but I'm always around it, I know what it smells like, I know what to look for. I also know what my own odor smells like, I know the difference. My own odor isn't that bad.

One's natural body odor isn't inherently a bad thing. I like the way men smell, their body odor and their cologne. It's not like I want them to put on sweat as a cologne, but average day to day odor isn't bad. In extreme cases then body odor is rank. If people don't bathe normally like they should, if it's an oppressively hot day, yes, they should take a god damned shower and wear deodorant. But people are fine without it. Not all people emit loads of offensive odor, I'm not saying the world should drop the use of deodorant all together, I'm just saying it's not that noticeable if people aren't wearing any.

On the note of people and odors, I fucking swear, last Sunday there was a woman in the coffee shop who smelled like a gatdamn port-a-potty. That was rank. I mean, did she put on Eau du Biffy that morning?

Jasmine P.

Important links

Matthew McConaughey on (1)not using (2)deodorant - two links
Wikipdeia on Hidradenitis suppurativa (warning, kinda gross)
My blog about surgery and hidradenitis (ranty, angry and gross)

On Having A Boyfriend, and why I Haven't Had One

On Friday I updated my Facebook status to 'man, Facebook really wants me to find a man' to which a cousin of mine, who is 8 months older than I am inquired to if I ever had a boyfriend, I replied no, he asked why, I ignored him. He somehow inferred that I was a lesbian, to be more specific, he was surprised that 'I didn't like boys' to which I explained that is not the case, and he was wrong for inferring that. I explained that I've have and have had friends whom were male, but not fulfilling the title of 'boyfriend'. I continued by saying I decided to ignore the previous question. In all honesty, I don't know why guys don't like me enough to date me. I didn't say that last sentence, he replied along the lines of seeing why I didn't have a boyfriend. I told him to enlighten me, since he apparently knows so much, which brings me to here.


I don't really care for bringing my lack of a love life to attention unless I'm ranting about it. I didn't want to really have a conversation about it with a cousin I barely know. I was also tired of his writing as if he doesn't know the fucking language. I don't really know why he writes like he doesn't know proper grammar and sentence structure, so I tend to ignore him on Facebook until he decides to say something to me, which was sadly the case this time. This isn't the worst written post from him, but he's had some that just made my brothers and myself wonder what the fuck happened when he got older.

Brenton, my cousin, is 21, has a kid, is also an uncle, and is ignorantly proud of having not finished college, because he now has a family. His sister also never finished college before having a kid. My family values education so we don't think he should be so proud of having a kid and barely attained a college education, not even a 2-year partial degree thing. He's proud of his "baby's mama" and joined the army to appease her father. I can't remember if he got married. As far as I'm concerned, my cousin has not acquired anything to be able to criticise my life nore my lackthereof of a significant other. He only has a few months over me, which isn't enough for me to really respect his opinion. I humor him, in my mind because he'll ask me the same sort of question every few months, I respond once or twice, then I ignore him. He has some obsession with my having a boyfriend. Part of me does, but I have better things to do than wait for someone else to 'make me happy'.

I've gone 21 years on my own, I've really only wanted someone for the past 6 years. I haven't hd one for a few reasons: in high school any guy I was interested in was gay or taken. In college that has persisted, but I have attempted to pursue guys which failed each time. Now I'm content on my own, it's only when I start PMS-ing that I want somebody. It gets annoying, but it doesn't last long until I'm content to being back on my own. I love me, I worship me on a daily basis and I make myself the before fucking food ever. I feel like I'm bragging, and I probably am, when I tell people the awesome things I make for myself. Cornish hens, pan-cooked boneless pork ribs, steak, pots of chicken noodle soup. I decided if I don't make awesome things for myself, why does anyone I meet from here on in deserve things I don't give myself, or those types of things.

I'm on my own and I'm well enough as is. I have plenty of friends, I have a bunch of guy friends so it works out. I get them to do things for me, I pay them back. I'm around guys in general all the time that helps me because I can't stand being around girls all the time. Hell, my roommate this year, Megan, she weirds me out a little. she has some obsession with talking to me every time I walk in, EVERY TIME! If I open the door to the bathroom she's there sometimes, wanting to talk. She'll watch me cook, we're not even talking, and she'll just watch me cook. It's kind of creepy. I don't get it. I don't have anything interesting to say, but she'll be there. I've no problem talking, I generally talk most people's ears off, but it's an odd situation that kind of makes my skin crawl. It's like she doesn't have social skills, which could be stunted actually as she is an only child, but yeah, it's weird.

I just creeped myself out, so let me get around to my reasons on why I have never had a boyfriend. First, I can be quite loud, obnoxious and brash. I talk like I'm one of the guys, I'm vulgar and can be quite abrasive. I may not seem as feminine as I really am I considere myself more or less the best damn Drag Queen ever because if I was a guy I think I'd be a drag queen, if not that then I'd be gay. Second, I'm overweight. Why would anyone want to date an overweight chick who never flaunts or oversized assets. Hell, I only draw attention to my chest when I'm making fun of it. They're like painful, natural air bags, flotation devices, I can use my chest as a shelf to hold things, which I have done before. My chest can enter a room before my feet do. I've got more, but I have a large chest that I cover up because it's not just large, it's flabby and I'm fat. Third, I have too many guy friends. I said before I kind of act like I'm one of the guys, well it doesn't help that most of my friends are guys. I prefer being around or talking to guy. My best friend is a guy, most of the fencers are guys. I assume that it either looks like I'm dating one of my guy friends, or guys think that a friend of mine will 'steal me away' during a relationship. Fourth, I value intelligence to some degree, and displaying it. It takes more than brightly colored feathers and a skillful dance to attract this mate, you have to show you have a brain that's useful for something. Yes, I love an attractive body, few people don't, I mean, who wants to look at someone they consider ugly, fuck society's perception of what's attractive. What I really like is a brain, someone I can have an intelligent conversation with, but also knows how to have a great stupid conversation. They don't have to know all the things I know, it's better if they don't and they can make something I don't get understandable. We can both bring something to the table, and of course some mutual things, but who really gets in a good relationship with someone they don't have something in common with. Too many guys run around acting like chickens with their heads cut off. Being intelligent is one thing, displaying it is another beast all together. Fifth, being able to take my bullshit. I go back and forth all the time from being sane to being ridiculous, so being able to deal with me and my bullshit is pretty much a necessary. That's a given about any sort of relationship if you really thing about it. I'm a vain son of a bitch sometimes, in that vanity is intelligence, now just physical attributes.

I realized how that last paragraph was written switched mid-way through, but ehh, it all still gets the point I was intending across, I think. I'm too ridiculous for anyone, and that's why I'm alone. I also figure that why rush into something with someone I either barely know, or don't really like. Someone will accept my ridiculous ass at some point, and then who knows. Until then I fly solo, paralleling people every now and again before I'm back on my own.


*edit*


So, the saga of idiocy continues. The pirate outfit he's talking about is simple. I was dressed in a striped red and gold tunic-ish shirt, white skirt and had a scarf in my hair for a banquet I went to. I was at my university's sport club banquet as one of the representatives for the fencing club, I realized with a saber in my hand I kind of looked like a pirate and thought the picture was fun. My cousin on the other hand thought it was lame. He says I have an attitude because I act like I was raised educated, I'm sorry* if acting like I have common sense is offensive to you, but fuck off. Really. What the fuck does he mean by presentable? Wearing hoochie skirts and low cut shirt? Wearing what's popular? Fat people don't look good in that shit, and it's shit. Fuck fads, I work with clay twice a week and various drawing supplies the rest of the week. I don't have time for that shit I'm function over fashion. I don't consider 'feminine' clothing to be all that functional, which is why I stray away from it usually. But, when I need to dress nicer than I normally do, I have nicer things, but if I know I'll be using something that stains and messes up good clothing why should I wear it? He needs to stop focusing on my life and get a job and an education and better himself. He's not from skid-row, he's from a damn suburb of Cleveland, OH, an upper-middle class suburb at that. ['Skid Row' Little Shop of Horrors Watch the first 30 seconds]. Learning how to type properly he can do from home. Trying to decipher his last message I realized it's all one sentence with no period at the end. My ten year old sister can write better than him, and she's a gat damn kid 12 years his junior.

*Edit 2* My retarded cousin has shown a lack of reading comprehension and straight up ignorance. I can't talk to this fool. I'd rather be poor and fucking homeless than to go to him with his normal like of 'girls n cash n cars'. I'm about to drop him from facebook. He does nothing positive for me and my decided upon life style.


Jasmine P.

* Not sorry in the least.

Twitter

I spend a lot of time on Twitter, well TweetDeck specifically. It has ended up becoming my first source for news because I'm not really news mined enough to just go and check out Washington Post, or NY Times that often. I'll glance at CNN every now and again, Hufington Post when I decide I want to laugh at the right then hate the left for bieng just as bad as the right, and periodically I check out BBC for the fuck of it. I'll read interesting sounding news links, as bad as it is, I have sensationalist leanings toward my news, and every now and again the sensation is actually news and not just attention fodder, so it works out.

I have had varied conversations with people I don't know, people I don't know if I'll ever meet and those have been interesting. I'm am entirely intrigued by my followers. I consider myself to be a comic and art person, but I have a habit of talking about movies a lot. My followers astound me. I truly wonder how they find me. I know it's from the front page, or my '@' mentions to people, but still, I'm an 'Internet Nobody' and there are a few people I don't know IRL who take any time to read the stupid things I spout every day. I may post a movie quote, a song lyric, other quotes, or I end up just cursing the stupid things in life that happen. I promote my dA account periodically when I post stuff, but other than that my Twitter is just a place for me to yell into the void, just so what I have to say is heard by something and doesn't just echo off my skull.

But for me this relatively short and not super verbose journal is a wee bit of a shot out to some of the people I follow. On TweetDeck I have people broken down based on how/why I follow them, in some cases people who know each other if I have no other reason, and what they do. From Left to Right it's: All Friends, DA People, Thinkers, News, Webcomicers, Comics, Directors, Actors & Celebs, Critics and Reviews, Writers, Real Friends. My real friends are so far to the right because they as a collective don't say as much as the other groups, and they're always a pleasant surprise when I finally sit down and read my tweets. The groups have grown as the number of people I follow increases. It is currently at 152 accounts. It will grow. I break them down as such so going through all of them is less overwhelming. Some of the groups were one group until I realized I had too many in one group, Webcomics/Comics is one such, as are 'Directors-Writers' it's broken apart for my sanity.

But from all of my groups there are my gems. I'm taking a moment to highlight some of the accounts that I follow and a little bit about why.

@Joe_Hunter: Somebody I watched over on dA starting just this past January. It's been an amusing ride thus far. Conversations btween here and dA are an amusing combination of 'why the fuck do you have the Internet' and 'Hay! This movie owns!!1!' and 'Fuck I want to shoot my 13 year-old self in the face'. A person I gab with and horrify because it's all good and amusing.

@ThatKevinSmith I like the man's movies. They make me laugh and were a part of my shift in movie culture this year, it's been an avalanche ride since I finally sat down and rented Clerks back in February. His lve for his wife is easy to see, and the crudeness all in all I find amusing. I'm also a nosy frig, so taking a peek at someone else's life with as candid as he is in intriguing.

@mental_floss: Just about any sort of trivia can and will pop up here. I like trivia, I love the magazine and it's one of my favorite sites to check out when I'm killing time. It's also one of the accounts I retweet the most because their random trivia is always interesting to read, and I think some people need more random facts in their life.

@JonathanAmes: I was first introduced to his larger than life writing when I picked up 'The Alcoholic' out of the blue in my campus bookstore, and I do not regret that move. His writing is real life fantasy, some thing seem amazingly fantastic, but it's not shroud in magic, it's from his amusing way of looking at the world. His tweets are about his new TV show, and... not sure what else, I've only recently started following him on twitter.

@PauloCoelho: I loved The Alchemist when I was first assigned to read it back in 9th grade Pre-IB English I. I liked the adventure, I had a great introduction to his writing then. I didn't read another thing of his until I got to college and bought The Alchemist again, and some of his other books. His tweets are interesting, they kind of make me evaluate my life, my world and the people around me. Not so much in a negative fashion, but to get another look at things. He's very active with his posts, philosophical.

@EdgarWright and @JasonReitman I put these two together because it's their combined banter that makes me laugh. Edgar is doing a daily photoblog this year, so those are interesting to see. I like hearing about interaction between the directors as they're both editing films at the moment, or as they're taking them to different festivals.

@Slashfilm, @FirstShowing, @MovieGeeks a trifecta of movie reviewers and critics right there. I hear about a air number of movies from these accounts which is cool. Only downside to following them is it makes me really want to get to a movie festival some time, and also makes me annoyed that nothing interesting happens in Virginia, and if something does, it's far as fuck away from Hampton Roads.

@CameronStewart is the writer and artist for a Harvey Award Winning webcomic Sin Titulo. He has angry comments about Canada, nice comments about Canada and talks about drawing professional comics. He shares sketches periodically, and is pretty entertaining

@CalaveraKid another person makin' with the funny pages on and off the internet. His two comics are awesome to see when he has the chance to update, life and conventions happen often. Kukuburi is full of adventure, bright colors and a story that I can't wait to see how it continues. His other comic Butternut Squash is a slice of life comic that is fun to read. Fantastically silly happenings

@hawkster @ananathymous @aidosaur @konistehrad and @grohac all together inter-tweet and their collective conversations are entertaining. Hawkster draws Applegeeks, Ananthymous writes for both AG and Johnny*Wander which Aidosaur draws. The last two are friends of theirs, but between reading J*W and them on twitter their lives are highly amusing to read/see about. I've been reading AG for years and totally hopped over to J*W when Ananath started pimping it last fall.

@Serafinowicz I really only know him as 'Dwayne' from Spaced and the roommate from Shaun of the Dead, but he's been amusing to follow. He spends a bit of time every day tweeting short jokes which I know I've retweeted on more than one occasion.

@StehenFry He just is. I dunno really what to say, he's an English actor. Comedian, friend to Hugh Laurie who is a technophile and writes a blog where he periodically reviews new bits of technology that gets released. I enjoy following him. I dunno what else to say.

@Theory101* he is my best friend and a good third of things I quote are because I know he'll get a kick out of it. We frequent different universities and talk and quote the same shit all the time. He is The Ficus of awesome, he's a special frig, and that's how it should be. He's also the inspiration for Ficusxander the Great, yeah. Fuck yeah, best friends.

Well, for other people I follow and who happen to follow me, it's nothing against you for me not saying something, I just had more to say about these. This year I've been wrapped up in the romanticism of movies and film which may in part explain why I chose these accounts to begin with. I may do this again, go through the accounts I follow and comment on them. I'd work at not repeating accounts from this one, or I may go to some of those I copped out on and give better reasons for why I like following them. I mean, this is barely the tip of the following iceberg here. I think it's easy to see where I lost concentration when I typed this, but it's still something. I've been needing to just write for me for the past week, and here is it. I guess this one's for me, and for everyone I decided to pimp.

Jasmine P.

*note! he has a locked account as is, so no link will be provided...as if I don't openly tweet to him anyway, but no link nonetheless. Enjoy :)

Life- At A Glance

I dunno, kind of wanted to prove to myself that I can write without being irrational angry or irritated with something. I am saddened by the fact that I haven't 'reviewed' a movie in over a month. I've watched plenty, just not really reviewed them. I have some beginning in Word for 1932 Scarface, Heat, and Rounders, but seem to be nowhere near actually getting them done. I'm also fighting my desire to wrap up the year three months early. I might write it, but not post it because I like what I had, how it was planned out. This 'year in review' is very movie centric because all I did this friggin' year was watch movies, but I would have addressed it and how I feel it affected me.

But that is for another post.

This past week hasn't been as hellish as it might have been. A CS assignment was less annoying than I initially thought it would be because it didn't use the CS software. I had to look up how to do some things, but that's just because it's a different layout than Word 2003 is, and I just didn't know where some of the options were.

I had my stressful night when I thought Duke had died Wednesday morning, only to be sleeping. That would have been more sucky than it had been if not for Nick Frost replying to me on twitter. That made me morning. It was fucking auto-magically made better, so it's all good.

I got introduced to some new music on Friday, and will hopefully have my new CDs by the end of the week. One is a Swedish band called Movits! they're an odd jazz-rap combo, but I like it. I also finally shelled out the dough for the MASH soundtrack, then again, I really just want Suicide is Painless, but the entire soundtrack should be interesting to have. After watching the Woodstock Doc, I want more things by a band called Canned Heat from the 60s.

Jasmine P.

I Am A Judgemental Scunt

Earlier this week I was having a conversation about inappropriate clothing with some people in my local coffee shop, Borjo, and ultimately realized I am a judgemental scunt when it comes to other people's clothing. In part it's based in my mother's opinion, but it's also about a bit of professionalism. I mean, going to class is baggy messy clothing is one thing, but going to class in pajamas looks like you don't care about how you present yourself, or shorts that are just barely more material than your underoos looks very whorish in my opinion

These are all so fucking unnecessary to wear on a daily basis to classes. It's not really warm, we keep getting cold, wet and rainy days and girls are going to class in these. Going out in shorts that cover so little is unnecessary. There's a time and a place for things like this, and going to class on a daily basis is neither of those. I mean, I've seen more pantyshots than I'd ever care to because people's clothes are stupid small. I mean, why not just go out in your panties, these aren't really covering much. I see girls, sitting in chairs, trying to pull their two inches of 'skirt' or 'shorts' down because their legs are cold or are touching the seat. I mean, really. You don't know who had what on where and you're showing that much leg. It's not like we're at the fucking beach. I think I'd be a little less judgemental if I saw this at the beach. But no, people are going to college classes dressed as if they're tricks.

I think my biggest issue is the lack of professionalism in wearing clothing like this. If I ran a business, I would not take someone seriously if they came into my place of business wearing something like this. Hell, even if it was retail, if someone is coming to me for a job, I want them to dress at least as professional as they need to. Business casual or something similar and not the shortest shorts they can find.

I look at girls around campus wearing this crap and seriously, the first thing I think is that they look like tramps. It leaves so little to the imagination that if I were a guy I wouldn't see the need in talking to someone dressed like this. With someone who dresses like they have some sort of sense there's a challenge. A challenge of getting them out of their clothes, but also the challenge of actually getting to know them. Someone who dresses like this in my eyes, doesn't present themself as someone who really has a lot of self esteem, and therefore has to dress like this beause they want the attention that so little clothing brings.

I'm not saying women should be wearing hemlines to their ankles and to not show any skin ever, but be classy about it. If not classy, dress to be respected, it doesn't always have to be to impress. I have never thought I looked like much more than a bum in what I wear on a day-to-day basis, but hell, I like wearing hat, I bought a new one that looks more 'presentable' so when I talk to professors I don't have a pin that says 'fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck' above my temple. Hell, most days I think I look like a bum, baggy pants, a tee from threadless and a cap. I've overweight and usually cold so I grab a sweatshirt or something in general to cover my arms. When I need to look a bit better, I do. That second photo if from my summer conference, we didn't have to be super dressed up, but I did want to dress nicer than my day-to-day of tee-shirts and apparent gender ambiguity. I'm a function over fashion individual, so yes, I wanted to look a bit nice, but I dislike skirts for the simple reason if I need to haul ass, a skirt is a whore and a half to run in, and if I can help it, you know, it's nice to not give people a chunky-panty-shot as I'm running from a fire or some shit.

All in all, I'm judgemental, and I think most girls on my college campus look like whores on a daily basis. There's a time and a place for short-shorts, but class every day is not one of those places and seriously not one of those times.

Jasmine P.

This, The Day of My Father's Wedding...

Or, 'My Father Has Commitment Issues'

September 5, 2009 was the day my father got married for the third time. The first time was about 27 years ago when he married my mother and sired 3 children. He divorced her about 20 years ago not too long before I turned 1. One of the reasons given for that is 'she spent too much money' it wasn't even a joint account, it was her money, so he had no real place to tell her what she was spending or wasn't spending too much money on.

Some time later my two older brothers and I are in a rhythm of visiting him every other weekend, for two weeks during the summer, and for a few days after Christmas. We spent all major holidays with our mother. Father's Day we'd sometimes switch up the weekends so we could see him, and the same for Mother's Day if it was his weekend, we'd stay with out mother. In this period of time he got married a second time. His new wife could not produce children, so about 9 years ago he adopted a girl from birth, my energetic little sister. He divorced the second wife about 6, 7 years ago, for reasons I either can't remember or haven't been told. I disagreed with it because of my little sister. But he is a dick and does as he pleases.

Two years ago, a few days after my brother's and I buried our dead mother, he and his 'girlfriend' whom my brothers and I have known for maybe 2 years then, announced that he was engaged. We were floored, because that was another year that my father took home the great big golden 'bad fucking timing' award. Yesterday was the culmination of at least two years of being engaged.

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History done, now onto yesterday and my issues with just many things.

My brothers, Shani and I arrived at the Catholic Church about fifteen minutes early. We first saw our sister who was adorable was passing out programs for the wedding. She was excited to see us like usual. Inside was a mixture of doctors from the Veteran's Affairs hospital in DC, where both my father and Pattie work. There was family, so I said 'hi' to my Titi [diminutive of 'aunt' in spanish. I think it's akin to 'aunty'] and to my Abuela [grandmother]. I saw some of my cousins and some family friends, then there were all of Pattie's family, most of whom I didn't know. Hell, even the ones I've met, I didn't remember. One woman seemed annoyed I didn't remember her, but I met her, once, 5 fucking years ago!!! Over the past 4 gatdamn years I have more important things to remember, such as the nams of people I see daily, information for my classes, my own characters. I have my own life and it's not like I see you all the time.

Adults need to remember that, you see photos of my on my father's desk, or in his house all the fucking time. I only see you when when I go to your house, or to the VA with him which I haven't really done in ten years or so. It's not me being offensive, it's me being a kid and having much more pressing things to think about all the time and not some nurse who works with my father, or some family member who isn't really apart of my family.

We move onto the wedding, which is some sort of condensed Catholic wedding I assume. It was my first Catholic wedding to attend, every other one I've been to has been some sort of Protestant. There's the procession, that's whatever, I applaud like I should. Then Pattie enters, it's the bride's moment. The first time that 99% of the people attending even see the dress. She's all made up and smiling like she's a queen, or a princess. This I decide to take a little issue with due to her age. Let's say she's upside of 50, from what I hear later it's not her first wedding, and she's wearing white. I know she's not a virgin, disgustingly enough I know that. I look at her and thing 'isn't she too old to try and act like she's a princess at her own wedding anymore?' I've been to weddings for grown adults, I was in one, yeah, they looked happy, insanely happy, just not like how they imagine when they're a little kid imagining their wedding. I also think she's too old to be wearing a backless dress, but that's neither here nor there.

We get to the ceremony. Throughout it, I'm wondering what the presiding priest is saying to make them laugh throughout the wedding, but whatever. It's wrong to me every time they say 'Patricia' and the first time it's said I feel that something isn't right. That simply stems from my mother's name having been 'Patricia', she on the other hand hated to be called 'Patty' or any spelling of it, so I could deal with Pattie being called as such. Going through the vows and ceremony and shit I have to start tuning out. I start singing songs in my head to keep my composure. I still am irritated with this because I don't think my father has what it takes to stay married. He may prove me wrong, I don't know, but the vows of longevity and staying together have been broken twice with him. I wonder if they mean anything to him anymore.

I had my usual grievances with being in a Catholic church. The call and response crap, I don't know what to say, I'm not fucking Catholic, like how I'm not fucking Irish [that journal's on LJ] I just dismiss it like I did when I was younger and was forced to go. Huh, go figure, my first time going to a church in the past 2 years was for a wedding, before that, it was for a funeral.

The reception took forever and a day to get to, but there was an open bar. I didn't get drunk, but I did have a LI Iced Tea that was pretty killer. The lunch, was alright, it was really small and I hadn't eaten since 11 the previous night so I wanted food. No real issues with the reception, I was impressed with the MCs Spanish abilities, but I guess he was chosen just for that. The music was a combination of Spanish things and old Motown music. You'd think my father would run out of love songs about the longevity of marriage because he's had to failed marriages to date.

Thinking about it now, I don't know how I feel about the institution of marriage. They say that kids froma single parent household are quick to get married, but that's something that neither of my brother's nor I have really even thought about doing. Yeah, Miguel has a girlfriend, but they've been together for 2 years or so, I haven't heard a tittering about getting married, but I also make it my business to not be around them too much.

The only thing that really came out of this whole sham for me was being able to see my family that I rarely see. And I got to see my sister. I don't think much of this wedding. I doubt the two of them will have kids, my father is still paying my med. insurance, and has to pay child support to Debra I assume, but who knows, he's done stupid things in the past.

Jasmine P.

Touched By a Book

This is not the first nor will it be the last time that I write about how a book I've read has affected me. One of the last was A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints by Dito Montiel. Before That I wrote about how Hells Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga by Hunter S. Thompson affected me, I think more how aspects of his writing had made me think because I know I have referenced the Wave Speech from F&L in Las Vegas.

The new book, the new story, is that of one police officer Mr. Frank Serpico. At this time his name is mostly tied to the film where Al Pacino did a fantastic job of dealing with the stress and difficulties that the real man had to deal with only a few years prior. I watched the movie and fell in love. While reading the book, some things were pulled straight from it, and the tapes that the real Serpico made during these trying times, so it was easy to transpose the film into the book. They were one in the same, but they are also wholly separate entities. The book, like any book, was able to cover more details about what Serpico had to deal with and more instances of his altruism were shared with the audience. There were more chances to see how and why he'd become disenfranchised with his job. Reading about is temper, I could only think of Pacino blowing up and just how well the actor fit the part.

There are a few things the book made me consider. First it made me consider what makes a truly good person. I like to think I'm alright, but I have severe doubts that I could do anything that Serpico did. I'd probably turn a blind eye to the corruption in the precincts. I'd probably accept my share; maybe use it, maybe save it up. I'm not sure, but I couldn't deal with the pressure he lived it, and I don't think I could deal with it for as long as he did. He had conviction that what he was doing was right, that it made a difference. It did. More than thirty years after the fact it brought to light what was going on inside precincts and just how corrupt the system is. Every yea we hear about some short comings, but they're never as extensive as what Frank Serpico's story shared with readers and viewers. They're also not as gripping, they weren't as ground breaking. It's interesting to think about just how different things are; it's also a little bit disgusting to see what was going on inside the heads of these people. The police officers, not the people they were booking. How the officers thought, that black people cried rape after it was wanted, shaking down people because of their race. The racism, it's painful to read. I know it still exists, but sometimes I like to stay in my little bubble where those things don't happen, where people look past the color of one's skin and onto the more important parts about them.

Reading the book I wanted to see again just what Frank Serpico had to deal with. His own moralistic hell. People not helping him because he was classified as a hippie. I know people brake off into groups based on their appearance, but it's still a bit bothersome. How many times he was shot at or harassed because he actually looked like he didn't belong to the NYPD, the point since he was undercover. He had to not look like a cop to be a cop. The separation between him and the other officer was insane. I'd say unreal, but it was real. We have the news papers to tell us the truth of what happened, the reporting. A lot of it's there, just waiting to be read.

Something this book did for me was make me consider about my few interactions with people of the Badge or Shield. I have apprehension every time I see a cop that I'm going to get pulled over for something, that I'm doing something wrong. I could be walking down the street to class and I wonder about a cop stopping to ask me a question. I worry about being pulled over again. After first being pulled over last year, that's what I think of. I know he's doing his job, but I was fucking terrified. I then think of when I was out in Wisconsin and I needed some stamps that some officers in the blue and white about to go and police something helped me. I asked them where I could find some stamps, they gave me a name and general direction and I found a grocery store. Something little that helped me out.

That little instance of the cops in Wisconsin helping me makes me think simple of Serpico, or a bit of the other way around. I needed help, sought it in the police, and things were fine. They didn't talk down t me; they expressed confusion, but were willing to help me on my quest for stamps. That makes me think I should be a little less apprehensive the next time I'm outside leaning against my car for a smoke. What I'm saying is that the story of Frank Serpico reminds me that cops are good. They can be trusted, and they accomplish more than pulling people over and arresting criminals. That's important, but giving the public a sense of safety ad well being by helping them on their way can be just as useful It improves the public image, and possible starts competition between the officers to perform more little good deeds.

This story kind of makes me want to try harder as a human to help my fellow person. Should I be able to help someone with a quick phone call-that would be fantastic.

Jasmine P.