Yesterday I spent about...4 hours watching the first two series of Black Books which was created by Graham Linham and Dylan Moran. It's a fantastically awesome series about three misanthropes. Bernard Black run Black Books, a used bookstore; Manny goes bonkers and starts working there and Bernard's friend Fran spends a lot of time hanging out in the shop. They live drinking, smoking and being all around ridiculous. The characters remind me a bit of a British It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia at times, the humor isn't as dry as some British comedies can be. It made yesterday pretty damn awesome as I started sinking into being depressed.
Speaking of being depressed...I went to counseling yesterday morning, like most Tuesdays. Prior to I did that stupid thing where I sleep for four hours. Seriously, I think it's a retarded side effect from quitting smoking. I don't know, it's really friggin' annoying. I woke up at 6, I was able to get back to sleep, but being awake was not plesant. It's not like I didn't feel rested, but I know me and I know my habits so I don't understand why I keep waking up after only four hours of sleep.
In councling I spoke about what's gone on over the past week including going to a festival this past Friday and going to a youth church thing. I can appreciate where the group is coming from by using rap to make the youth feel closer to the message [it was a predominantly black church group] but I don't agree. It sounded mostly like hardcore rap which seems a little counterproductive. What I mean is, if it sounds like gangster, shoot-'em-up rap and you can't understand what's being said, how do they know the message they intended got across to the youth? If you look at my track record of music habits I'm across the board, except for hardcore rap. I never liked that sound, it has never been pleasing to my ears so I was judgemental. If you remember my earlier blogs about my opinion of religion I was already going in judging. I tried to get with it but I couldn't. When the speaker got up on stage to preach I was more or less fine with the message. He spoke about not giving up because something is too hard. That's the Devil's work getting you off your proper path. That I could get behind. I could not agree with his use of a cancer analogy.
For the newcomers, my mother died from cancer. I don't like talking about cancer in that ambiguous manner that if someone died from it, they gave up. Bull-fucking-shit. My family and I never 'gave up hope' we held out candle for my mother the entire time she was ill. We prayed, our church prayed, her co-workers prayed. She's now on a prayer list or something with some church, still. People have not forgotten us. There were a lot of people who didn't give up praying for her. The doctors did the best the could and ended up trying to keep her pain manageable. She died because of science. Why do I not want to accept it as God's will? I'll tell you. I don't want to accept it as God's will because I still needed her. I still need her.
I have met a lot of people who care, who will give me advice and help me should I ask, and even if I don't ask all the time. That's all well and dandy but my mother is still dead. It's not the same. If God cared about me than why did she need to die? So I could grow up? What's going to happen in my life that I couldn't stay naive for a few months longer, a few years longer.
Why did she have to die, science can explain. The massive amounts of chemicals in her system took their toll on her body, it could not take it anymore. Her kidney's stopped flushing water from her blood; her lungs deteriorated from pneumonia getting a hold of her chemotherapy weakened system and her body was too far deceased and disconnected to continue. Her body knew it was time, it tried to keep up but it couldn't repair itself fast enough. The thought that biology happened, that it's the natural order of life and death, that all living things die at some point made me feel better than saying 'God wanted her to come home.' Science gives me answers. I believe in science. I believe in some deity getting things started and is now sitting back or just plain gone and this world continues circling that fucking star. Science has yet to give us all the answers. I can accept that. I mean, if the universe started from the 'Big Bang' where did the elements come from for that initial beginning? If they came from an even earlier universe, what happened to that one? And where did that one come from?
We don't know, so I believe in science as far as it can give me an educated answer. It might all be wrong but it makes enough sense and seems plausible enough for me.
I left counseling this morning with my counselor asking me to detail how I felt as my mother was sick, when she died and after. Thankfully I have so many damn blogs and journals it's kind of like aggregating it and maybe writing something new, or taking this. Not too sure yet.
I left counseling and killed some time until I went out to Jerry's Art-Arama to get supplies for my color theory class. I spent $184 to get my supplies, giant 19X24 bristol, color aid, pencils, triangle, compass and a shit ton of 'other'. I did get to save abut $20, my friend who is now dropping the class, is letting me borrow some things for the duration which is pretty sweet.
Now, the trip back from Jerry's, which is out in Virginia Beach was an interesting and highly irritating one. Remember how I said I was slipping into depression last night? Well it reared it's bastardly ugly head. Fucking bastard. People's driving was irritating me and my friend tried to give me some advice on how to deal with it. It didn't help. I was in the middle of being depressed, being told just about anything does not help. We were stuck in traffic because of an accident on 64 and people just kept irritating me. My friend couldn't placate me and was actually counter productive. When I cry I don't want to be told it's fine to cry, I like rationalizing things out. I like words, I like taking the elusive and explaining it to the best of my ability. Why? It focuses me. It keeps me in control. I like being in control.
That's not to say I don't let myself go and go with the flow of things. I have been stepping out of my box, out f my comfort zone for a while, trying new things. At the festival I tried crawfish, I went back to a church for the first time in three years, I've gone out with people I don't know. I have no problem feeling joy, happiness, bliss, anger, irritation, depression. I feel, I like feeling with words. Tears do nothing. No, crying doesn't make me feel better, I hate crying, I hate it when I cry, it's like I've lost control in an unpleasant way. Science on wikipedia gives me a few answers but not much is going on right now to really prompt this. It's irritating and I really can't stand crying.
And looking at that and knowing me I can now predict a few things. As I said yesterday I knew I was getting depressed. As I cried I said I was feeling depressed. I've written more journals in the past few weeks than I have in a while. Writing is one of the things I do when I'm depressed, I'm trying to put my feelings into words, trying to work through it. Writing about any thing that comes to mind. [Yes, I want 'any' and 'thing' to be separate words]. I've been depressed and I'm PMS-ing. I'm not as hard up about candy unless I'm pms-ing, and I want peanut butter. It was never chocolate for me, always peanut butter. At the moment it's peanut butter M&Ms, yeah there's chocolate, but it's about the peanut butter. It's usually Reese's Pieces, I know these things.
So I'm in my car, trapped in my traffic, in the Virginia heat [with A/C], and I'm crying and depressed. My friend it telling me it's fine. It's not fine. It's never fine when I cry. Very few of my friends have seen me cry and it's always when I can't put my frustrations into words.
I hate crying. Period.
I dropped him off, came home, and made a 16 oz Cosmopolitan in a water-bottle. I downed it in an hour and rolled around on my bed drunk and doing nothing on the internet until I decided to see Toy Story 3. I have been thinking about not seeing it, but in the long run I had to. It was awesome. I didn't like that the three trailer's before the movie were for 3D flicks, I saw Toy Store in classic 2D and these trailers seemed like those movies weren't going to be distributed in 2D, I assume they will be but we'll see. One of these days on my movie blog I'll put up my opinion about 3D and elaborate on my distaste for it. And if you pop over to my movie blog, you can see my opinion on making pseudo 3D/CGI animated films, as critiqued by the Smurfs movie slated for next year. I also have some ideas about photo-realism, which can fit into that blog but will get it's own, because that owl movie looks creepy (it had human eyes..wtf?!? -ovular-). But, I don't like barn owls, their faces are disturbingly flat, and the movie seems to 'star' a barn owl. Joy. Or it's a masked owl...I don't like the flatter faces. The other things I noticed in the trailers is that there are two animated movies for this summer/fall that seem like they're supposed to be sympathetic to villains. The Will Ferrel one, Mastermind or whatever (...'it's BIG for a reason'...great, penis envy jokes); and the Steve Carell one, Despicable Me (reading this plot, this seems weak. I like the beginning idea, but where it goes, not as much). I think the trailer could be made stronger if the minion characters said the word right, instead of tailoring it to kids, if they broke it down on the screen for the kid to learn the damn word and not having the minion stumble on the word then having the announcer say it correctly.
So, Toy Story 3, fantastic. It was also hella depressing. It was also hella brilliant. I loved the toys that were there in the the day care, I loved how things played out. It was all really well written an animated. I don't want to spoil much, but I do with that more had been done with Bonnie's toys, they were awesome. And great voices all around. I could have gone with the Spanish Buzz joke, it went on a bit too long for me and seemed to be a little contrived, but outside of that bit of nit picking I enjoyed everything. It was written on a kid's level, but was great for adults without it needing to be vulgar, a la Shrek.
Yeah...I came back home and wrote all this out. It's taken me a bit more than an hour. So today was a roller coaster of hell, kind of. But I feel better now that I've written..something! See, crying doesn't help, words do!
Jasmine P.
June 30, 2010
June 24, 2010
Dream: Flustered Awake
So, in my continuing tradition of writing out my dreams when they're especially awesome, here's my dreams from this morning. I'd woken up at about 7:20 and put myself back to sleep because I'd barely slept 4-5 hours and knew I needed more sleep. I covered my eyes with a bandanna and this is what I dreamed of.
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I'd laid down to sleep, thinking about Jon. Nothing dirty, just pleasant, you know. I don't remember the early part of the dream but at one point I'm going through my refrigerator and start throwing out things that are spoiled, my Gramma is there or something. I head to the grocery store with Za and as we're walking through the store I tell her about Jon when he shows up. I decide 'to hell with shopping' and go with hm outside where we talk for a minute or two. He seems to be nervous and coy, I am too; in the back of my head in my dream I'm annoyed that I can't say anything about the fact that I think we should try going out proper and not beat around the bush about liking each other. I have to leave, I have prior plans for the evening and leave. I get dressed for the evening in some sort of wrapping tube top shirt and pants/skirt (not sure which). I go to Sobo, but now Sobo is a bar/restaurant/club type lounge in a mall. I'm talking to the owner who is a cross between reg from Local Heroes; Duff, from Ace of Cakes; Gordon, from Sobo and one or two other guys. I start talking about Jon and being into him. The bar/club/restaurant owner seems to be aggravated about the entire situation and sends a text message to someone. He's giving me advice that sounds like he knows who Jon is and about the situation and most importantly that he knows that Jon likes me. We continue talking and the waitress, some Asian chick, is odd and sort of rude. Owner-man says he was happy to help and it only costs him $60 to help, I'm a little confused then Jon shows up...again, I know. He had some convoluted plan in the works for three months to get to know me ad to tell me he liked me. I think he's silly that he didn't just come out and say it from the beginning. I'm now flustered and start thinking I'd kiss him, or that I'd like a kiss from him I wake up.
I try to get back into the dream, but no, I'm pretty much wide awake, which is pretty damn irritating. I lay in b thinking things over because there's not much else I can do but be irritated that I haven't seen Jon since Friday, not really, so I can't really do anything. Yeah, there's facebook and I have his number, but I get crazy embarrassed at the thought of saying anything over the phone. Yeah, I'm an idiot, I know.
----
So dreams...yeah.
Jasmine P.
June 20, 2010
Sharing as Default is Wrong
If anyone who's reading this paid a drop of attention to the things I linked to back in May and maybe April during the very large Facebook ruckus what I'm saying now will be fairly recognizable and familiar. I was looking on Google to see what's been said about facebook in the news recently, nothing really major about the site, but looking at one site and seeing a sentence I've seen before made this idea click for me.
"In January, CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said that his company was updating its systems to "reflect what the current social norms are." So when Facebook announced in April that it would automatically enroll users into new features such as Instant Personalization--which handed users' publicly available Facebook info to selected Websites that users visited--the implication was that users' wishes, not the company's bottom line, prompted the move from a largely private system shared only with approved friends to a largely public system that freely gave data to search engines, marketing companies, and anyone else who wanted it." (1)
That entire paragraph makes oh so little sense. If that was the case people would be walking around, in real life, all the time telling people their full name, their age, sexual orientation, etc, all the time. It wouldn't be something discussed in confidence like it is now, it would be introduced as soon as you met somebody. There are actually things I've learned about people from their facebook pages that I'm not sure I knew from conversations. What I'm saying is, how can one site dictate how people are going to act? I don't share everything everywhere. I have different e-mail accounts for different things for a reason. My last name is not visible in full for a reason. I never made a nickname/url thing for a reason. If people want to find me they have to know me, know something about me, or know people who know me. I try to maintain a viable amount of control over my account because I don't know who may stumble across my account at any time. But more simply than that I interact differently in different circles. Who I am in front of my Grandma is not quite who I am in front of friends at school, which is still a bit different from how I act in front of friends from high school, cousins, my brothers, my sister, my father, everyone. I act different around different people, everyone does. Fine, I'll concede; not everyone but many people.
I don't think of that type of subterfuge as lying so much as I think of it as protection. Keeping friends close and enemies closer, but what's acceptable in some circles is not acceptable in all circles. I keep my account fairly locked down so people know can access it already know most of me or I'm comfortable with them being in the confidence of knowing more about me. But, with what I share here and what I don't share the world does not need to know. There are but so many people I'm friends with that don't have some connection with at least one other person I know somewhere.
What I'm saying is, how can sharing be the default if people work so hard to maintain different selves? How I present myself in a class is not how I present myself in a coffee shop. I think that's what bothers me more about seeing faculty outside of the academic situation because there's a certain expectation for one place that's different for another place. People know or expect different things and boiling it all down to what's common on both levels leave me as being very little of me as I try not to confuse or offend one or the other.
When you look at what sites say are the short comings of facebook you'll see what I said reiterated, probably in a more logical fashion. "As everything, Facebook is also used for good and bad activities too. In an interview with Mmegi, some critics launched a backlash against this ubiquitous website of modern civilization. They indicated that Facebook could be bad for one’s health - and wealth, career, personal relationships, living arrangements and reputation. They also asserted to the fact that the site can also be disturbingly addictive. With the issue of possible Facebook addiction comes its abuse." (2)
Everyone had different social circles. The biggest issue with facebook is that it wants to connect all of everyone's social circles in one place. That would be less detrimental in my mind if it was focused on one circle and not all circles. What goes on behind closed doors affects what goes on outside but so much. People's religious beliefs or their thoughts on other people's sexual orientation or political beliefs should not affect their jobs, but with bosses and coworkers knowing more about what their colleagues do over the weekends being more prevalent knowledge facebook is a downfall. It's the downfall to privacy and people don't like that. I understand how pleasant it is to have everything aggregated on one website and not having to shuffle all across the internet to interact with different people, but that would probably be the best step forward for social interaction. Keeping things in their various boundaries and comfort zones would probably be a lot less detrimental in the long run.
Sites/Sources:
1: http://www.pcworld.com/article/199162/can_you_really_trust_facebook.html?tk=hp_new - PC World
2: http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=10&aid=66&dir=2010/February/Monday15 - Mmegionline
Jasmine P.
"In January, CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said that his company was updating its systems to "reflect what the current social norms are." So when Facebook announced in April that it would automatically enroll users into new features such as Instant Personalization--which handed users' publicly available Facebook info to selected Websites that users visited--the implication was that users' wishes, not the company's bottom line, prompted the move from a largely private system shared only with approved friends to a largely public system that freely gave data to search engines, marketing companies, and anyone else who wanted it." (1)
That entire paragraph makes oh so little sense. If that was the case people would be walking around, in real life, all the time telling people their full name, their age, sexual orientation, etc, all the time. It wouldn't be something discussed in confidence like it is now, it would be introduced as soon as you met somebody. There are actually things I've learned about people from their facebook pages that I'm not sure I knew from conversations. What I'm saying is, how can one site dictate how people are going to act? I don't share everything everywhere. I have different e-mail accounts for different things for a reason. My last name is not visible in full for a reason. I never made a nickname/url thing for a reason. If people want to find me they have to know me, know something about me, or know people who know me. I try to maintain a viable amount of control over my account because I don't know who may stumble across my account at any time. But more simply than that I interact differently in different circles. Who I am in front of my Grandma is not quite who I am in front of friends at school, which is still a bit different from how I act in front of friends from high school, cousins, my brothers, my sister, my father, everyone. I act different around different people, everyone does. Fine, I'll concede; not everyone but many people.
I don't think of that type of subterfuge as lying so much as I think of it as protection. Keeping friends close and enemies closer, but what's acceptable in some circles is not acceptable in all circles. I keep my account fairly locked down so people know can access it already know most of me or I'm comfortable with them being in the confidence of knowing more about me. But, with what I share here and what I don't share the world does not need to know. There are but so many people I'm friends with that don't have some connection with at least one other person I know somewhere.
What I'm saying is, how can sharing be the default if people work so hard to maintain different selves? How I present myself in a class is not how I present myself in a coffee shop. I think that's what bothers me more about seeing faculty outside of the academic situation because there's a certain expectation for one place that's different for another place. People know or expect different things and boiling it all down to what's common on both levels leave me as being very little of me as I try not to confuse or offend one or the other.
When you look at what sites say are the short comings of facebook you'll see what I said reiterated, probably in a more logical fashion. "As everything, Facebook is also used for good and bad activities too. In an interview with Mmegi, some critics launched a backlash against this ubiquitous website of modern civilization. They indicated that Facebook could be bad for one’s health - and wealth, career, personal relationships, living arrangements and reputation. They also asserted to the fact that the site can also be disturbingly addictive. With the issue of possible Facebook addiction comes its abuse." (2)
Everyone had different social circles. The biggest issue with facebook is that it wants to connect all of everyone's social circles in one place. That would be less detrimental in my mind if it was focused on one circle and not all circles. What goes on behind closed doors affects what goes on outside but so much. People's religious beliefs or their thoughts on other people's sexual orientation or political beliefs should not affect their jobs, but with bosses and coworkers knowing more about what their colleagues do over the weekends being more prevalent knowledge facebook is a downfall. It's the downfall to privacy and people don't like that. I understand how pleasant it is to have everything aggregated on one website and not having to shuffle all across the internet to interact with different people, but that would probably be the best step forward for social interaction. Keeping things in their various boundaries and comfort zones would probably be a lot less detrimental in the long run.
Sites/Sources:
1: http://www.pcworld.com/article/199162/can_you_really_trust_facebook.html?tk=hp_new - PC World
2: http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=10&aid=66&dir=2010/February/Monday15 - Mmegionline
Jasmine P.
June 15, 2010
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.
----
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.
May 23, 2010
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.
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.
May 12, 2010
Faceook Privacy Issues and a Rant
Facebook's newest privacy policy
Why does any of my personal information have to be linked to what other people have put up or to Wikipedia? I currently have no information for my education, movies, books, interests or anything because I have to share it, or you can see it because Facebook has really retarded visibility previews. I don't know what anyone other than myself can see in relation to my information, but I disagree that it has to be linked to something else other than either a)Facebook or b) my network. If I want to find more information about what anyone I know has under their information, I can look it up myself without having to use a short cut given by Facebook, or forced upon me. This is bullshit and I feel that it's infringing upon my rights to keep things private. Yes, I want to share my reading or movie interests with my friends, but I don't feel that to do that I have to have it linked to whatever Facebook decides I need to be linked to. Yes, I say I like something, but does that mean I endorse it? Not always, and not for everyone.
I will again share a link I saw a few weeks ago [click here] How to opt out of some of Facebook's new changes that they never really announced. I mean, really, who updates or looks at their personal information every day? Hell, most of the time I only really look at anyone else information when I friend them, I have better things to do than to memorize what my friends love, and just reading it here would make me feel like a really creepy stalker.
[Click Here -2] This is a Facebook page about governing the changes, if you disagree with what they have automatically decided for you to share, you can voice your opinion here, now, let's see if they really care. Irritatingly you have to 'like' the site governance before you can comment, but if I must, I will. Only I plan on voice my opinion, do you? So far only 4 thousand of the few million Facebook members have voiced an opinion about the privacy changes, if you disagree with them say something. The more who do, the sooner we might be able to make our private information private again.
Another stupid Facebook thing I'm getting tired of is having to jump through hoops to see information about a group or idea. Like, if you want to see a list you have to join and possibly share the list with your friends. This hearkens back to about two years ago when there were a million and a half quizzes on the site and to see your result you -had- to share it with your friends to see some inane information. And if you wanted to see it again, you had to send it to more friends. Yeah, no. All those stupid lists and jokes are on the Internet and I'm sure I've seen many of them in some form or another over the years. It's not work it, I have other more interesting things I can be doing than whatever stupid tasks there are to see some group's information. Every day I see more and more little things that make me want to delete my account, clear out everything and leave one link to my main blog where all my other information can be found. My photos would only be on Flickr, what's on my mind on twitter and blogger and this would just be a front to my sites.
A few more Electronics Foundation Frontier (EFF) pages relating to current Facebook changes and Facebook in general
[Click Here 3] [Click Here 4]
[Click Here 5] - A very useful link, did you know your friends list was automatically visible to EVERYONE on Facebook?
Linked from an EFF post [Click Here 6] - Mark Zuckerberg "does not believe in 'privacy'"
Note, some of that information I may have shared in the past.
[Click Here 7] Our 'rights and responsibilities' according to Facebook
"Your privacy is very important to us. We designed our Privacy Policy to make important disclosures about how you can use Facebook to share with others and how we collect and can use your content and information. We encourage you to read the Privacy Policy, and to use it to help make informed decisions." From the beginning of that link. What the hell.
Good luck protecting your privacy.
Jasmine P.
Why does any of my personal information have to be linked to what other people have put up or to Wikipedia? I currently have no information for my education, movies, books, interests or anything because I have to share it, or you can see it because Facebook has really retarded visibility previews. I don't know what anyone other than myself can see in relation to my information, but I disagree that it has to be linked to something else other than either a)Facebook or b) my network. If I want to find more information about what anyone I know has under their information, I can look it up myself without having to use a short cut given by Facebook, or forced upon me. This is bullshit and I feel that it's infringing upon my rights to keep things private. Yes, I want to share my reading or movie interests with my friends, but I don't feel that to do that I have to have it linked to whatever Facebook decides I need to be linked to. Yes, I say I like something, but does that mean I endorse it? Not always, and not for everyone.
I will again share a link I saw a few weeks ago [click here] How to opt out of some of Facebook's new changes that they never really announced. I mean, really, who updates or looks at their personal information every day? Hell, most of the time I only really look at anyone else information when I friend them, I have better things to do than to memorize what my friends love, and just reading it here would make me feel like a really creepy stalker.
[Click Here -2] This is a Facebook page about governing the changes, if you disagree with what they have automatically decided for you to share, you can voice your opinion here, now, let's see if they really care. Irritatingly you have to 'like' the site governance before you can comment, but if I must, I will. Only I plan on voice my opinion, do you? So far only 4 thousand of the few million Facebook members have voiced an opinion about the privacy changes, if you disagree with them say something. The more who do, the sooner we might be able to make our private information private again.
Another stupid Facebook thing I'm getting tired of is having to jump through hoops to see information about a group or idea. Like, if you want to see a list you have to join and possibly share the list with your friends. This hearkens back to about two years ago when there were a million and a half quizzes on the site and to see your result you -had- to share it with your friends to see some inane information. And if you wanted to see it again, you had to send it to more friends. Yeah, no. All those stupid lists and jokes are on the Internet and I'm sure I've seen many of them in some form or another over the years. It's not work it, I have other more interesting things I can be doing than whatever stupid tasks there are to see some group's information. Every day I see more and more little things that make me want to delete my account, clear out everything and leave one link to my main blog where all my other information can be found. My photos would only be on Flickr, what's on my mind on twitter and blogger and this would just be a front to my sites.
A few more Electronics Foundation Frontier (EFF) pages relating to current Facebook changes and Facebook in general
[Click Here 3] [Click Here 4]
[Click Here 5] - A very useful link, did you know your friends list was automatically visible to EVERYONE on Facebook?
Linked from an EFF post [Click Here 6] - Mark Zuckerberg "does not believe in 'privacy'"
Note, some of that information I may have shared in the past.
[Click Here 7] Our 'rights and responsibilities' according to Facebook
"Your privacy is very important to us. We designed our Privacy Policy to make important disclosures about how you can use Facebook to share with others and how we collect and can use your content and information. We encourage you to read the Privacy Policy, and to use it to help make informed decisions." From the beginning of that link. What the hell.
Good luck protecting your privacy.
Jasmine P.
May 9, 2010
Some Thoughts on Sex, Religion and Other
I don't know if I'll ever get laid, I say this because of the hidridenitis I have around my vagina. It sucks enough sitting or bull shit, but the idea of anything other than my hand near it is kind of horrifying, all I can imagine is the pain. Not the good type of sexual pain that turns into pleasure, the horrible type of contact pain that happens when anything touches sore, irritated skin. It's a very depressing thought. When I first contemplated having sex with this shit and the fact that no sane man would ever want to go anywhere near it I actually wanted to kill myself. The idea lasted no longer than one, two days, then I realized I was being stupid. I no longer wish to die because I don't think I'll ever get laid, it just depresses me. I now wonder if I'll end up trying to push away any relationship that could happened because the proverbial 'happy ending' might not occur. That's a thought that's more difficult for me to shove away because I know that if I saw what I had on someone else I wouldn't want to touch it. It looks gross and it hurts like mofo. Everything makes it hurt. Movement of fabric over them, soap and water, stretching; hell, sometimes breathing hurts or even my blood moving underneath my skin causes sharp unpleasant pain. But I digress, I'll get back to my thoughts on sex, and my sexuality.
Sometimes I fear I won't get anybody because of how I act an dress. I am female, but I have said things and I think things that are not generally considered to be especially feminine. Those things make me worried that I won't be loved by someone. I know there are people out there that like people like me, but that's much harder to believe when none of them have approached me. I also wonder if because of how I dress that people think I'm a lesbian. I like men, I have no problem with ladies who like ladies, hell, I'm all for it. The only time not is when they're interested in me. I have said I'd like a compliment from anyone, male or female, but I think I'd be taken aback if too many women started coming onto me. I know I don't carry myself especially femininely, but it's another ball park if someone thought I liked women.
As I said before I'm all about whatever makes someone happy, but I guess a minor exception would be a female who was interested in me. I'd be nice about letting them down, but I doubt that will ever happen. As for men who like men, women who like women, or both who like both, party on! Do what and who [as long as it's not rape, incest or pedophilia] makes you happy. I have nothing wrong with homosexuality. I don't understand why other people have such an issue with people who like something they're against. I read an article, or heard a story somewhere where someone was gay and they asked a protester or someone who was against homosexuality why they cared so much. The response was along the lines of they were upset that they were going to hell.
Now, I care about people, I care a lot about the people around me, but I can't care to that extent about someone I don't know. I'm not religious, I'm Agnostic and/or Deist - something started it and isn't involved. I don't believe in heaven or hell. I believe that when you die, you're gone, just like when you're born you appear. It's not like your soul or spirit existed, got trapped in a body and is now free, it's there, then when you die, it's gone. What's the point of an afterlife? Why live a life, hellish or awesome, just to be shoved into another life that is a consequence of your first life. That doesn't make much sense. I don't believe if you're homosexual you go to hell, I don't believe that if you're heterosexual you go to heaven. I believe in what goes on on earth, if you're a good person life is alright, if you're a bad person life is less alright because you're possibly in prison or on the lam. Then when you die, you're gone. Said and done.
Back to the ideas of sex, I'd rather no know my friend's sexual proclivities. It's one thing to know if they've had sex, it's another thing to know any details. My life is going quite well without whatever details there may be. When I think to much about it, which is at all, my active imagination starts to picture things my life would have been fine without my thinking of. I mean, it's one thing to help and give advice. Actually, with my mind that's pretty bad, but it's another thing to hear about it. What he/she was like, how it started. I don't need to know. I'll wave a flag and cheer, but thinking much more than that is weird for me. I'll cheer for an promote safe sex and not using an abortion to 'fix' things, but after that I'm fine with not knowing. This goes for both genders.
I've noticed I really don't care about hearing people objectify either gender I'll just start tuning it out. Hearing all that much more is another thing. Talking about sex in general is fine, but putting a name, face, body to the situation is a lot weirder. I'm fine with knowing my friends quite well, but when my mind starts setting up a scene for them to go at it I need to stop, I need something else to think about.
I really don't know where this was supposed to go, this is a thought that I started some time ago. I figure I'll address it again at some point, but here's some type of starter. It's quite jumbled and nothing is really complete, but I feel it was good for me to give it a go and get some of thoughts down.
Jasmine P.
Sometimes I fear I won't get anybody because of how I act an dress. I am female, but I have said things and I think things that are not generally considered to be especially feminine. Those things make me worried that I won't be loved by someone. I know there are people out there that like people like me, but that's much harder to believe when none of them have approached me. I also wonder if because of how I dress that people think I'm a lesbian. I like men, I have no problem with ladies who like ladies, hell, I'm all for it. The only time not is when they're interested in me. I have said I'd like a compliment from anyone, male or female, but I think I'd be taken aback if too many women started coming onto me. I know I don't carry myself especially femininely, but it's another ball park if someone thought I liked women.
As I said before I'm all about whatever makes someone happy, but I guess a minor exception would be a female who was interested in me. I'd be nice about letting them down, but I doubt that will ever happen. As for men who like men, women who like women, or both who like both, party on! Do what and who [as long as it's not rape, incest or pedophilia] makes you happy. I have nothing wrong with homosexuality. I don't understand why other people have such an issue with people who like something they're against. I read an article, or heard a story somewhere where someone was gay and they asked a protester or someone who was against homosexuality why they cared so much. The response was along the lines of they were upset that they were going to hell.
Now, I care about people, I care a lot about the people around me, but I can't care to that extent about someone I don't know. I'm not religious, I'm Agnostic and/or Deist - something started it and isn't involved. I don't believe in heaven or hell. I believe that when you die, you're gone, just like when you're born you appear. It's not like your soul or spirit existed, got trapped in a body and is now free, it's there, then when you die, it's gone. What's the point of an afterlife? Why live a life, hellish or awesome, just to be shoved into another life that is a consequence of your first life. That doesn't make much sense. I don't believe if you're homosexual you go to hell, I don't believe that if you're heterosexual you go to heaven. I believe in what goes on on earth, if you're a good person life is alright, if you're a bad person life is less alright because you're possibly in prison or on the lam. Then when you die, you're gone. Said and done.
Back to the ideas of sex, I'd rather no know my friend's sexual proclivities. It's one thing to know if they've had sex, it's another thing to know any details. My life is going quite well without whatever details there may be. When I think to much about it, which is at all, my active imagination starts to picture things my life would have been fine without my thinking of. I mean, it's one thing to help and give advice. Actually, with my mind that's pretty bad, but it's another thing to hear about it. What he/she was like, how it started. I don't need to know. I'll wave a flag and cheer, but thinking much more than that is weird for me. I'll cheer for an promote safe sex and not using an abortion to 'fix' things, but after that I'm fine with not knowing. This goes for both genders.
I've noticed I really don't care about hearing people objectify either gender I'll just start tuning it out. Hearing all that much more is another thing. Talking about sex in general is fine, but putting a name, face, body to the situation is a lot weirder. I'm fine with knowing my friends quite well, but when my mind starts setting up a scene for them to go at it I need to stop, I need something else to think about.
I really don't know where this was supposed to go, this is a thought that I started some time ago. I figure I'll address it again at some point, but here's some type of starter. It's quite jumbled and nothing is really complete, but I feel it was good for me to give it a go and get some of thoughts down.
Jasmine P.
April 29, 2010
Dream: Rage Fever
Everything between the dashes is in edited English, mostly edited for spelling. A little bit edited for grammar, as you can see. And I am hella amused that I typed 'alarm cock' not once, but twice. I don't know why I was repetitive about The Guy's place, it just happened.
i keep waing up with fits of feverish blind rage. I don't know how they stared, it happened a the time. clickwork. I'd be fine all day, bt nigt would roll around and fits of rage and fever would hapen. I'd have chills, 'd start blacking out ad the only thing that would calm me from being hugged, one of those awesome ugs from behind. It was weird. I'd be weak unable t stand up, unable to move. Things would get broke, in a fit of rage.
---
--
I keep wakin up with fits of feverish blind rage. I don't know how they started, it happened all the time. Clockwork. I'd be fine all ay, but night would roll aroung and fits of rage and fever would happen. I'd have chills, I'd start blacking out and the only thing that would calm me was being hugged, one of those awesome hugs from behin. It was weird. I'd be weak, unable to stand up, unable to move. Things would get broken, in a fit of rage.
--
---
Before my alarm cock rang, I was at some guy's place, tall dude, he was too nice to me. It was day now, after a fit of rage. My father was there to get me, but from the looks of it I'd gone over there befoire in warlier rage things. I had ceramics pieces that needed to be glazed, and The Guy was awesome and started lazing them for me, so I'd have them for my final.
---
--
Before my alarm clock rang, I was at some guy's place, tall dude, he was too nice to me. It was day now, after a fit of rage. My father was there to be me, but from the looks of it I'd gone over there before in earlier rage things. I had ceramics pieces that needed to be glazed, and The Guy was awesome and started glazing them for me, so I'd have them for my final.
--
---
There was a weird bit from a backetall game I went to for whatever reason where some dude, a frend, kept trying ot run around naked. It was like he was having a Blind Fit of Eros, he tried having sex with his girlfriend and I saw his penis, it was werd, tiny and shrivvled. Tere wee a lot f penises shown at the game, they were all tiny and shrivvled Burnt looking.
---
--
There was a weird bit from a basketball game I went to, for whatever reason, there some dude, a friend, kept trying to run around naked. It was like he was having a Blid Fit of Eros, he had tried having sex with his girlfried and I saw his penic. It was weird, tiny, and shriveled. There were a lot of penises shown at the game. They were all tiny and shriveled. Burnt looking.
An army/navy cpatain or high ranking official was standing in front of me at one point, leaving onto the pet covered plexilass then...no, it was a teacher-coach from my school who was lleaning when a commanding occifer gave me the hirdest slap on te ass. Wild man. I somehow tried to get up and fell on the groun I was buy a friend, Clint, - from Borjo - and I mumbled if I had a fever call an ambulance. My teperature was 112, low fo a rage fit, but thy called anyway, I was losing control. I remmeber stumling around my apartment, kinda of, and friends drifted in and out of my awareness and got things togther for me.
---
--
An Army/Navy cpatain or high ranking official was standing in front of me at one point, leaning onto the net covered plexiglass...then not, it was a teacher-coach from my school who was leaning- when a commanding officer gave him te hardest slap on the ass. Wild man. I somehow tied to get up and fell on the ground, I was by a friend, Clint, - from Borjo- and I mumbled I had a fever, call and ambulace. My temperature was 112F, low for a Rage Fit, but they called anyway, I was losing control. I remember stumbling around my apartment, kind of, and friend drifted in and out of my awareness and got things together for me.
--
---
Next, I was at The Guy's house trying to udertad, but I idn't. My father showed up and tried to ask me if I was jut internallizing all my anger and I should exprss it, I said I did internallize, e tried to itnerript me, bt i interrupted im and tried to explain things that made me angry. The Gy was now glazing some random ceamic piece I had made, and my alarm cock woke me p.
---
--
Next I was at The Guy's house trying to understand, but I didn't. My father showed up and tries to ask me if I was just internalizing my anger and I should express it. I said I did internalize, he tried to interrupt me, but I interrupted him and tried to explain things that made me angry. The Guy was not glazing some random ceramic piece I had mad and my alarm clock woke me up.
--
---
----
I jst typed this up comppletely bleary eue, which I'm saying accounts for som of te typos, I'm tred from getting like, 1hour of sleep, I laid down at 4.35, I rembmer seeing 4.45a and then I guess I fell asleep and right into a fit of rage.
---
--
I just typed this up, completely bleary eyed, which I'm saying account for some (all) of the typos. I'm tired from getting like, 1 hour of sleep. I laid down at 4:35, I remember seeing 4:45am and them I guess I fell asleep and right into a fit of rage.
--
---
---
i feel as if Alex )theory101) was there somewhere, bt I don't remembe anything much lse than what I typed.
---
--
I feel as if Alex (theory101) was there somewhere, but I don't remember anything much else than what I typed.
Jasmine P.
i
a car was supposed to take me to The Guy's place, but it was weird, all full of old people. Well, they were 4 old chinese men in motrozed wheel cairs. The little little driver offere, bt Clint-friend spoke wo me and kept me calm then I was at The Gy's hous, calmer. Mayb I'd rallen asleep. I don't know, but what' what I kinda remember, i think. There may be more, but I dunno.
---
--
I (?)
A car was supposed to take me to The Guy's place, but it was weird, all full of old people. Well, there were 4 old Chinese men in motorized wheelchairs. The little little driver offered, but Clint-friend spoke to(?) me and kept me calm, then I was at The Guy' house, calmer. Maybe I'd fallen asleep. I don't know, but what I kinda remember, I think. There may be more, but I dunno.
--
---
----------------
----------------
----------------
I remember my apartment being weird. There was a tiered pink jacuzzi bath tub, and everything was get red. It was like being in a lowly lit club and not my apartment. That probably explains when there were random people there. It still doesn't make much sense.
i keep waing up with fits of feverish blind rage. I don't know how they stared, it happened a the time. clickwork. I'd be fine all day, bt nigt would roll around and fits of rage and fever would hapen. I'd have chills, 'd start blacking out ad the only thing that would calm me from being hugged, one of those awesome ugs from behind. It was weird. I'd be weak unable t stand up, unable to move. Things would get broke, in a fit of rage.
---
--
I keep wakin up with fits of feverish blind rage. I don't know how they started, it happened all the time. Clockwork. I'd be fine all ay, but night would roll aroung and fits of rage and fever would happen. I'd have chills, I'd start blacking out and the only thing that would calm me was being hugged, one of those awesome hugs from behin. It was weird. I'd be weak, unable to stand up, unable to move. Things would get broken, in a fit of rage.
--
---
Before my alarm cock rang, I was at some guy's place, tall dude, he was too nice to me. It was day now, after a fit of rage. My father was there to get me, but from the looks of it I'd gone over there befoire in warlier rage things. I had ceramics pieces that needed to be glazed, and The Guy was awesome and started lazing them for me, so I'd have them for my final.
---
--
Before my alarm clock rang, I was at some guy's place, tall dude, he was too nice to me. It was day now, after a fit of rage. My father was there to be me, but from the looks of it I'd gone over there before in earlier rage things. I had ceramics pieces that needed to be glazed, and The Guy was awesome and started glazing them for me, so I'd have them for my final.
--
---
There was a weird bit from a backetall game I went to for whatever reason where some dude, a frend, kept trying ot run around naked. It was like he was having a Blind Fit of Eros, he tried having sex with his girlfriend and I saw his penis, it was werd, tiny and shrivvled. Tere wee a lot f penises shown at the game, they were all tiny and shrivvled Burnt looking.
---
--
There was a weird bit from a basketball game I went to, for whatever reason, there some dude, a friend, kept trying to run around naked. It was like he was having a Blid Fit of Eros, he had tried having sex with his girlfried and I saw his penic. It was weird, tiny, and shriveled. There were a lot of penises shown at the game. They were all tiny and shriveled. Burnt looking.
An army/navy cpatain or high ranking official was standing in front of me at one point, leaving onto the pet covered plexilass then...no, it was a teacher-coach from my school who was lleaning when a commanding occifer gave me the hirdest slap on te ass. Wild man. I somehow tried to get up and fell on the groun I was buy a friend, Clint, - from Borjo - and I mumbled if I had a fever call an ambulance. My teperature was 112, low fo a rage fit, but thy called anyway, I was losing control. I remmeber stumling around my apartment, kinda of, and friends drifted in and out of my awareness and got things togther for me.
---
--
An Army/Navy cpatain or high ranking official was standing in front of me at one point, leaning onto the net covered plexiglass...then not, it was a teacher-coach from my school who was leaning- when a commanding officer gave him te hardest slap on the ass. Wild man. I somehow tied to get up and fell on the ground, I was by a friend, Clint, - from Borjo- and I mumbled I had a fever, call and ambulace. My temperature was 112F, low for a Rage Fit, but they called anyway, I was losing control. I remember stumbling around my apartment, kind of, and friend drifted in and out of my awareness and got things together for me.
--
---
Next, I was at The Guy's house trying to udertad, but I idn't. My father showed up and tried to ask me if I was jut internallizing all my anger and I should exprss it, I said I did internallize, e tried to itnerript me, bt i interrupted im and tried to explain things that made me angry. The Gy was now glazing some random ceamic piece I had made, and my alarm cock woke me p.
---
--
Next I was at The Guy's house trying to understand, but I didn't. My father showed up and tries to ask me if I was just internalizing my anger and I should express it. I said I did internalize, he tried to interrupt me, but I interrupted him and tried to explain things that made me angry. The Guy was not glazing some random ceramic piece I had mad and my alarm clock woke me up.
--
---
----
I jst typed this up comppletely bleary eue, which I'm saying accounts for som of te typos, I'm tred from getting like, 1hour of sleep, I laid down at 4.35, I rembmer seeing 4.45a and then I guess I fell asleep and right into a fit of rage.
---
--
I just typed this up, completely bleary eyed, which I'm saying account for some (all) of the typos. I'm tired from getting like, 1 hour of sleep. I laid down at 4:35, I remember seeing 4:45am and them I guess I fell asleep and right into a fit of rage.
--
---
---
i feel as if Alex )theory101) was there somewhere, bt I don't remembe anything much lse than what I typed.
---
--
I feel as if Alex (theory101) was there somewhere, but I don't remember anything much else than what I typed.
Jasmine P.
i
a car was supposed to take me to The Guy's place, but it was weird, all full of old people. Well, they were 4 old chinese men in motrozed wheel cairs. The little little driver offere, bt Clint-friend spoke wo me and kept me calm then I was at The Gy's hous, calmer. Mayb I'd rallen asleep. I don't know, but what' what I kinda remember, i think. There may be more, but I dunno.
---
--
I (?)
A car was supposed to take me to The Guy's place, but it was weird, all full of old people. Well, there were 4 old Chinese men in motorized wheelchairs. The little little driver offered, but Clint-friend spoke to(?) me and kept me calm, then I was at The Guy' house, calmer. Maybe I'd fallen asleep. I don't know, but what I kinda remember, I think. There may be more, but I dunno.
--
---
----------------
----------------
----------------
I remember my apartment being weird. There was a tiered pink jacuzzi bath tub, and everything was get red. It was like being in a lowly lit club and not my apartment. That probably explains when there were random people there. It still doesn't make much sense.
April 28, 2010
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 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.
April 27, 2010
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.
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.
April 3, 2010
Some Thoughts on Religion
This past Thursday I kind of attempted to explain my thoughts on religion to a Christian friend of mine. It was difficult because I didn't want to sounds disrespectful of religion but at the same time I was attempting to explain, sort of, why I don't really prescribe to any "religion".
I was raised primarily attending a Protestant church, Heritage Fellowship United Church of Christ. With my father I'd attend a Catholic church, and when we visited my Grandmother if we went to church it was to Moravian church. I was an usher for my church, I participated in Sunday School and went to Bible Camp in the summer. I was an active enough member and helped with some outreach programs that were both religious and not religiously motivated.
I was raised Christian.
Since my mother died I stopped going to church, mostly because she was the one taking me. Church was also getting annoying because I was really getting tired of people's sympathy, there was more to my short life of 18 years than my mother's death. I didn't want to hear condolences. I tell people my mom 'died' because outside of that and saying she is 'deceased' it sounds like you're trying to soften the blow. The moment she died, I grew up. In some way. In many ways I was still a child, but as far as the death of someone close to me, I had handled it. I didn't need to go to God to find answers because science had provided them. A random mutation gave her lymphoma. Chemotherapy and medication ruined her body, she was dead. She's not 'lost', hasn't 'passed on', she's not 'gone' or whatever 'kind' words people use. She was dead, I accepted it and I don't like other people bringing it up. It's one thing if I were to initiate the conversation, it's another when I'd hear every time they saw me 'how are you doing?' or 'is everything okay?' I was tired of the compassion, I had things to do such as graduating and getting onto college. I mourned in my own way which involved dwelling, writing and drawing. A deity had nothing to do with it. I didn't pray, I meditated and decided it was better with her dead. She wasn't in pain, and I'd rather her be dead and a memory then a constant depressing reminder of just how fucked up death can be. Daily visits to a hospital to sit next to the body of my mother who was barely able to do more than listen was not fun. It was fucking depressing. My senior year of high school got fucked over. Things were different, difficult and easier with her dead. I can see no reason why she would have to die, but shit happens and you move on.
I can almost guarantee I'd be more fucked up and depressed if I tried to pin her death on God.
A few years later and more sciences classes that gave me more answers about the world in general than the Bible had, I decided I was Agnostic. The way I understood it, there was some sort of deity out there, maybe God, maybe gods, maybe something else. Some time later I heard of Deism, and how I understand it, some deity started everything then fucked off. I believe in science, I believe in what's tangible.
Tangible (adj); capable of being perceived especially by the sense of touch; : capable of being precisely identified or realized by the mind; capable of being appraised at an actual or approximate value.
As a kid I understood the word 'tangible' to mean something that could be seen or felt. You can't see wind but you can feel it. You can rationalize it, it affects things. Think carefully, you can't see glass or water when either is without imperfections. You see light reflected off of it, you can feel either. I understand God to be intangible. Things happen because God deems it necessary. It's blasphemous to question God. Why? The world I prefer is one where questioning things isn't just allowed, but encouraged.
With everything I have said I have yet to address my opinion of other people and their following of religion. I say 'believe what you want to'. As long as someone isn't attempting to force me to follow their beliefs, I don't care what they believe. I may think their beliefs sound a little stupid, or impractical; I may feel negatively about them, but as long as they don't try to force it on my, whatever floats their boat and finds their lost remote. If it makes you happy, so be it. If I seem happy or unhappy let me work it out myself. Don't tell me that some deity that I can't see nor truly speak to will give me the answers I desire. I can come to my own conclusion well enough.
---
In thinking about religion I have thought about what it answers and contemplated why it exists. I think that as humanoid and humanity developed and evolved they questioned the world around them. Unable to understand it they decided that there was something they couldn't see and gave it various attributes. By saying that an all powerful being, or a group of all powerful beings controlled things, early humans felt more at ease with the world deciding they knew something. In our modern society there I think some people feel at ease having an answer to life, or having a guidance for life. I think that some people like believing that there's more to life than eating, sleeping and procreation.
I have decided on my own rules. My rules for life are to over all be a good person. Don't impede others, don't let them impede you. And accomplish something. In general, accomplish something positive. Why do I think this way, I dunno. Maybe it's some residual from when I went to church. My difference is there isn't any consequence for not being a good person. When you die, you're dead. I like the afterlife shown in the movie and book What Dreams May Come. It cheered me up after my mom died because people could look how they wanted, they could be reincarnated they chose and it was like life-plus. There was no point, everything just was and people were comfortable with it. I live working towards what I want to do with my life and I'm happy this way. I'm not trying to please some deity I can't directly interact with, and I don't care to try to dispel someone else's beliefs. To adapt one of my favorite quotes "I disagree with what you believe, but I defend your right to the death to believe it." I may not care to listen or to debate, but keep on trucking.
Jasmine P.
I was raised primarily attending a Protestant church, Heritage Fellowship United Church of Christ. With my father I'd attend a Catholic church, and when we visited my Grandmother if we went to church it was to Moravian church. I was an usher for my church, I participated in Sunday School and went to Bible Camp in the summer. I was an active enough member and helped with some outreach programs that were both religious and not religiously motivated.
I was raised Christian.
Since my mother died I stopped going to church, mostly because she was the one taking me. Church was also getting annoying because I was really getting tired of people's sympathy, there was more to my short life of 18 years than my mother's death. I didn't want to hear condolences. I tell people my mom 'died' because outside of that and saying she is 'deceased' it sounds like you're trying to soften the blow. The moment she died, I grew up. In some way. In many ways I was still a child, but as far as the death of someone close to me, I had handled it. I didn't need to go to God to find answers because science had provided them. A random mutation gave her lymphoma. Chemotherapy and medication ruined her body, she was dead. She's not 'lost', hasn't 'passed on', she's not 'gone' or whatever 'kind' words people use. She was dead, I accepted it and I don't like other people bringing it up. It's one thing if I were to initiate the conversation, it's another when I'd hear every time they saw me 'how are you doing?' or 'is everything okay?' I was tired of the compassion, I had things to do such as graduating and getting onto college. I mourned in my own way which involved dwelling, writing and drawing. A deity had nothing to do with it. I didn't pray, I meditated and decided it was better with her dead. She wasn't in pain, and I'd rather her be dead and a memory then a constant depressing reminder of just how fucked up death can be. Daily visits to a hospital to sit next to the body of my mother who was barely able to do more than listen was not fun. It was fucking depressing. My senior year of high school got fucked over. Things were different, difficult and easier with her dead. I can see no reason why she would have to die, but shit happens and you move on.
I can almost guarantee I'd be more fucked up and depressed if I tried to pin her death on God.
A few years later and more sciences classes that gave me more answers about the world in general than the Bible had, I decided I was Agnostic. The way I understood it, there was some sort of deity out there, maybe God, maybe gods, maybe something else. Some time later I heard of Deism, and how I understand it, some deity started everything then fucked off. I believe in science, I believe in what's tangible.
Tangible (adj); capable of being perceived especially by the sense of touch; : capable of being precisely identified or realized by the mind; capable of being appraised at an actual or approximate value.
As a kid I understood the word 'tangible' to mean something that could be seen or felt. You can't see wind but you can feel it. You can rationalize it, it affects things. Think carefully, you can't see glass or water when either is without imperfections. You see light reflected off of it, you can feel either. I understand God to be intangible. Things happen because God deems it necessary. It's blasphemous to question God. Why? The world I prefer is one where questioning things isn't just allowed, but encouraged.
With everything I have said I have yet to address my opinion of other people and their following of religion. I say 'believe what you want to'. As long as someone isn't attempting to force me to follow their beliefs, I don't care what they believe. I may think their beliefs sound a little stupid, or impractical; I may feel negatively about them, but as long as they don't try to force it on my, whatever floats their boat and finds their lost remote. If it makes you happy, so be it. If I seem happy or unhappy let me work it out myself. Don't tell me that some deity that I can't see nor truly speak to will give me the answers I desire. I can come to my own conclusion well enough.
---
In thinking about religion I have thought about what it answers and contemplated why it exists. I think that as humanoid and humanity developed and evolved they questioned the world around them. Unable to understand it they decided that there was something they couldn't see and gave it various attributes. By saying that an all powerful being, or a group of all powerful beings controlled things, early humans felt more at ease with the world deciding they knew something. In our modern society there I think some people feel at ease having an answer to life, or having a guidance for life. I think that some people like believing that there's more to life than eating, sleeping and procreation.
I have decided on my own rules. My rules for life are to over all be a good person. Don't impede others, don't let them impede you. And accomplish something. In general, accomplish something positive. Why do I think this way, I dunno. Maybe it's some residual from when I went to church. My difference is there isn't any consequence for not being a good person. When you die, you're dead. I like the afterlife shown in the movie and book What Dreams May Come. It cheered me up after my mom died because people could look how they wanted, they could be reincarnated they chose and it was like life-plus. There was no point, everything just was and people were comfortable with it. I live working towards what I want to do with my life and I'm happy this way. I'm not trying to please some deity I can't directly interact with, and I don't care to try to dispel someone else's beliefs. To adapt one of my favorite quotes "I disagree with what you believe, but I defend your right to the death to believe it." I may not care to listen or to debate, but keep on trucking.
Jasmine P.
March 11, 2010
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.
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.
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.
February 21, 2010
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride - Hunter S. Thompson
This is a collection of quotes from the deceased Hunter S. Thompson. I think they're all interesting. At the end are the two longest quotes, the Wave Speech from "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", and the Edge Speech from "Hell's Angles: A Strange and Terrible Saga". This was collected so I'd say things other than quotes from him today on Twitter, and as a belated recognition of his suicide and death from five years ago yesterday. I was preoccupied which is why this is being done today.
-On my tombstone they will carve, "IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME."
-"I haven't found a drug yet that can get you anywhere near as high as a sitting at a desk writing, trying to imagine a story no matter how bizarre it is, [or] going out and getting into the weirdness of reality and doing a little time on the Proud Highway."
-No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten."
-It never got weird enough for me."
-Some may never live, but the crazy never die
-"So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?"
-"Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio."
-"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!'"
-"Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives... and to the "good life", whatever it is and wherever it happens to be."
-"Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously."
-Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex."
-"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. "
-"All my life, my heart has sought a thing I cannot name.
Remembered line from a long-
forgotten poem"
-"There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die."
-"I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted that it was worth knowing."
-"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.
Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can."
I-t was obvious that he was a man who marched through life to the rhythms of some drum I would never hear."
-"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used."
-In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."
-No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt"
-"A word to the wise is infuriating. "
-Yesterday's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why."
-For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled. "
-"Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits -- a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."
-I miss Nixon. Compared to these Nazis we have in the White House now, Richard Nixon was a flaming liberal."
-Some people will tell you that slow is good – but I’m here to tell you that fast is better. I’ve always believed this, in spite of the trouble it’s caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba…"
-"I understand that fear is my friend, but not always. Never turn your back on Fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed. My father taught me that, along with a few other things that have kept my life interesting."
-"We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness."
-Too strange to live, too rare to die!"
-The highways are crowded with people who drive as if their sole purpose in getting behind the wheel is to avenge every wrong done them by man, beast or fate. The only thing that keeps them in line is their fear of death, jail and lawsuits."
-"We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws."
-Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish—a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll."
-"You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands. "
-It gave me a strange feeling, and the rest of that night I didn’t say much, but merely sat there and drank, trying to decide if I was getting older and wiser, or just plain old."
-"Fear is a healthy instinct, not a sign of weakness. It is a natural self-defense mechanism that is common to felines, wolves, hyenas, and most humans. Even fruit bats know fear, and I salute them for it. If you think the world is weird now, imagine how weird it would be if wild beasts had no fear."
-I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling."
-"Hallucinations are bad enough. But after awhile you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip-the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs."
-"The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug."
-Sane is rich and powerful. Insane is wrong and poor and weak. The rich are free, the poor are put in cages. Res Ipsa Loquitur, amen. Mahalo."
-Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect.
-If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.
-No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
-"We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or where will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Irag, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for war seem to know who did it or where to look for them.
This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed--for anyone, and certainly not for a baffled little creep like George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it off."
-"We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer."
-There may be flies on you and me, but there are no flies on Jesus."
-As things stand now, I am going to be a writer. I'm not sure that I'm going to be a good one or even a self-supporting one, but until the dark thumb of fate presses me to the dust and says 'you are nothing', I will be a writer."
-"I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me"
-I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going. "
-"We came out here to find the American Dream, and now that we're right in the vortex you want to quit ... You must realize that we've found the main nerve."
"I know," he said. "That's what gives me the Fear.'"
-"The scene I had just witnessed (a couple making love in the ocean) brought back a lot of memories – not of things I had done but of things I had failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back. I envied Yeoman and felt sorry for myself at the same time, because I had seen him in a moment that made all my happiness seem dull."
-Weird behavior is natural in smart children, like curiosity is to a kitten."
-Anything worth doing, is worth doing right"
-A lot of blood has gone under the bridge since then, and we have all learned a hell of a lot about the realities of Politics in America. Even the politicians have learned – but, as usual, the politicians are much slower than the people they want to lead."
-I'm a relatively respectable citizen. Multiple felon perhaps, but certainly not dangerous."
-But our trip was different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country-but only for those with true grit. And we were chock full of that."
-"I'm sure I must have sounded like a fool and a borderline psychotic most of that year, when I talked to people who thought they knew who and where they were at the time ... but looking back, I see that if I wasn't Right, at least I wasn't Wrong, and in that context I was forced to learn from my confusion ... which took awhile, and there's still no proof that what I finally learned was Right, but there's not a hell of a lot of evidence to show that I'm Wrong either."
-I felt a strange tightness coming over me, and I reacted instinctively – for the first time in a long, long while – by slipping my notebook into my belt and reaching down to take off my watch. The first thing to go in a street fight is your watch, and once you’ve lost a few, you develop a certain instinct that lets you know when it’s time to get the thing off your wrist and into a safe pocket."
-"All we have to do is get out and vote, while it's still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House."
-"He had come so far from himself that I don't think he knew who he was anymore."
-...To show man the best that is in him; not the most appealing or the most amusing or even the most realistic - but the best, which is rare and common and understood by all of us in all our different ways ... to include all the others - the meanest, the cheapest, the most cowardly - as a background and a foreground for something better ... to dig in the old scum that covers us all and find something that might be a tool for a man who would use it to fashion his self-respect in a world where all those tools are buried or broken or illegal ... and finally to tell it as it is, trying to see it all and especially the best, for to miss that part is to shovel shit on men who were born in quicksand and find no novelty in the heave and smell of doom." "
-If you can't make yourself understood by your friends, you'll be in trouble when your enemies come for you."
-If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up."
-Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles--a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other--that kept me going."
-So much for Objective Journalism. Don't bother to look for it here--not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms."
-from Hell's Angels...One of the worst incidents of that era caused no complaints at all: this was a sort of good-natured firepower demonstration, which occurred one Sunday morning about three-thirty. For reasons that were never made clear, I blew out my back windows with five blasts of a 12 gauge shotgun, followed moments later by six rounds from a .44 Magnum. It was a prolonged outburst of heavy firing, drunken laughter, and crashing glass. Yet the neighbors reacted with total silence. For a while I assumed that some freakish wind pocket had absorbed all the noise and carried it out to sea, but after my eviction I learned otherwise. Every one of the shots had been duly recorded on the gossip log. Another tenant in the building told me the landlord was convinced, by all the tales he'd heard, that the interior of my apartment was reduced to rubble by orgies, brawls, fires, and wanton shooting. He had even heard stories about motorcycles being driven in and out the front door.
-"One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."
Conclusion:
The Wave Speech
"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
-Fear and Loathing in Las Veas: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream
The Edge Speech
Months later, when I rarely saw the Angels, I still had the legacy of the big machine—four hundred pounds of chrome and deep red noise to take out on the Coast highway and cut loose at three in the morning, when all the cops were lurking over on the 101. My first crash had wrecked the bike completely and it took several months to have it rebuilt. After that i decided to tide it differently: I would stop pushing my luck on curves, always wear a helmet and try to keep within range of the nearest speed limit...my insurance had already been canceled and my driver's license was hanging by a thread.
So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head...but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz...not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all-night diner down around Rockaway Beach.
There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. the momentary freedom of the park was like one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip.
The into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out...thirty-five, forty-five... then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals, but only some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out, too slowly, to start his own run. not many of these ... and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost anything ... then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-five and the beginning of a windscream in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a high board.
Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping and wavering int he wind. Taillights far up ahead coming closer, faster and suddenly—zaaapppp—going up past and leaning down for a curve near the zoo, where the road swings out to sea.
the dunes are flatter here, and on windy days sand blows across the highway, piling up in thick drifts as deadly as any oilslick ... instant loss of control, a crashing, cartwheeling slide and maybe one of those two-inch notices in the paper the next day: "An unidentified motorcyclist was killed last night when he failed to negotiate a turn on highway I."
Indeed... but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and not there's not sound except wing. Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and the wind-burned eyeballs strain to see down the center line, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes.
But the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right ... and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You cane barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. the only sounds are the wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it ... howling through a turn to the right, then to the left, and down the long hill to Pacifica... letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge...the Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. the other—the living—are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions. (269-271)"
-Hell's Angels, a Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs
Jasmine P.
-On my tombstone they will carve, "IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME."
-"I haven't found a drug yet that can get you anywhere near as high as a sitting at a desk writing, trying to imagine a story no matter how bizarre it is, [or] going out and getting into the weirdness of reality and doing a little time on the Proud Highway."
-No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten."
-It never got weird enough for me."
-Some may never live, but the crazy never die
-"So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?"
-"Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio."
-"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!'"
-"Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives... and to the "good life", whatever it is and wherever it happens to be."
-"Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously."
-Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex."
-"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. "
-"All my life, my heart has sought a thing I cannot name.
Remembered line from a long-
forgotten poem"
-"There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die."
-"I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted that it was worth knowing."
-"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.
Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can."
I-t was obvious that he was a man who marched through life to the rhythms of some drum I would never hear."
-"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used."
-In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."
-No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt"
-"A word to the wise is infuriating. "
-Yesterday's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why."
-For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled. "
-"Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits -- a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."
-I miss Nixon. Compared to these Nazis we have in the White House now, Richard Nixon was a flaming liberal."
-Some people will tell you that slow is good – but I’m here to tell you that fast is better. I’ve always believed this, in spite of the trouble it’s caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba…"
-"I understand that fear is my friend, but not always. Never turn your back on Fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed. My father taught me that, along with a few other things that have kept my life interesting."
-"We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness."
-Too strange to live, too rare to die!"
-The highways are crowded with people who drive as if their sole purpose in getting behind the wheel is to avenge every wrong done them by man, beast or fate. The only thing that keeps them in line is their fear of death, jail and lawsuits."
-"We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws."
-Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish—a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll."
-"You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands. "
-It gave me a strange feeling, and the rest of that night I didn’t say much, but merely sat there and drank, trying to decide if I was getting older and wiser, or just plain old."
-"Fear is a healthy instinct, not a sign of weakness. It is a natural self-defense mechanism that is common to felines, wolves, hyenas, and most humans. Even fruit bats know fear, and I salute them for it. If you think the world is weird now, imagine how weird it would be if wild beasts had no fear."
-I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling."
-"Hallucinations are bad enough. But after awhile you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip-the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs."
-"The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug."
-Sane is rich and powerful. Insane is wrong and poor and weak. The rich are free, the poor are put in cages. Res Ipsa Loquitur, amen. Mahalo."
-Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect.
-If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.
-No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
-"We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or where will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Irag, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for war seem to know who did it or where to look for them.
This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed--for anyone, and certainly not for a baffled little creep like George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it off."
-"We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer."
-There may be flies on you and me, but there are no flies on Jesus."
-As things stand now, I am going to be a writer. I'm not sure that I'm going to be a good one or even a self-supporting one, but until the dark thumb of fate presses me to the dust and says 'you are nothing', I will be a writer."
-"I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me"
-I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going. "
-"We came out here to find the American Dream, and now that we're right in the vortex you want to quit ... You must realize that we've found the main nerve."
"I know," he said. "That's what gives me the Fear.'"
-"The scene I had just witnessed (a couple making love in the ocean) brought back a lot of memories – not of things I had done but of things I had failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back. I envied Yeoman and felt sorry for myself at the same time, because I had seen him in a moment that made all my happiness seem dull."
-Weird behavior is natural in smart children, like curiosity is to a kitten."
-Anything worth doing, is worth doing right"
-A lot of blood has gone under the bridge since then, and we have all learned a hell of a lot about the realities of Politics in America. Even the politicians have learned – but, as usual, the politicians are much slower than the people they want to lead."
-I'm a relatively respectable citizen. Multiple felon perhaps, but certainly not dangerous."
-But our trip was different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country-but only for those with true grit. And we were chock full of that."
-"I'm sure I must have sounded like a fool and a borderline psychotic most of that year, when I talked to people who thought they knew who and where they were at the time ... but looking back, I see that if I wasn't Right, at least I wasn't Wrong, and in that context I was forced to learn from my confusion ... which took awhile, and there's still no proof that what I finally learned was Right, but there's not a hell of a lot of evidence to show that I'm Wrong either."
-I felt a strange tightness coming over me, and I reacted instinctively – for the first time in a long, long while – by slipping my notebook into my belt and reaching down to take off my watch. The first thing to go in a street fight is your watch, and once you’ve lost a few, you develop a certain instinct that lets you know when it’s time to get the thing off your wrist and into a safe pocket."
-"All we have to do is get out and vote, while it's still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House."
-"He had come so far from himself that I don't think he knew who he was anymore."
-...To show man the best that is in him; not the most appealing or the most amusing or even the most realistic - but the best, which is rare and common and understood by all of us in all our different ways ... to include all the others - the meanest, the cheapest, the most cowardly - as a background and a foreground for something better ... to dig in the old scum that covers us all and find something that might be a tool for a man who would use it to fashion his self-respect in a world where all those tools are buried or broken or illegal ... and finally to tell it as it is, trying to see it all and especially the best, for to miss that part is to shovel shit on men who were born in quicksand and find no novelty in the heave and smell of doom." "
-If you can't make yourself understood by your friends, you'll be in trouble when your enemies come for you."
-If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up."
-Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles--a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other--that kept me going."
-So much for Objective Journalism. Don't bother to look for it here--not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms."
-from Hell's Angels...One of the worst incidents of that era caused no complaints at all: this was a sort of good-natured firepower demonstration, which occurred one Sunday morning about three-thirty. For reasons that were never made clear, I blew out my back windows with five blasts of a 12 gauge shotgun, followed moments later by six rounds from a .44 Magnum. It was a prolonged outburst of heavy firing, drunken laughter, and crashing glass. Yet the neighbors reacted with total silence. For a while I assumed that some freakish wind pocket had absorbed all the noise and carried it out to sea, but after my eviction I learned otherwise. Every one of the shots had been duly recorded on the gossip log. Another tenant in the building told me the landlord was convinced, by all the tales he'd heard, that the interior of my apartment was reduced to rubble by orgies, brawls, fires, and wanton shooting. He had even heard stories about motorcycles being driven in and out the front door.
-"One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."
Conclusion:
The Wave Speech
"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
-Fear and Loathing in Las Veas: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream
The Edge Speech
Months later, when I rarely saw the Angels, I still had the legacy of the big machine—four hundred pounds of chrome and deep red noise to take out on the Coast highway and cut loose at three in the morning, when all the cops were lurking over on the 101. My first crash had wrecked the bike completely and it took several months to have it rebuilt. After that i decided to tide it differently: I would stop pushing my luck on curves, always wear a helmet and try to keep within range of the nearest speed limit...my insurance had already been canceled and my driver's license was hanging by a thread.
So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head...but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz...not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all-night diner down around Rockaway Beach.
There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. the momentary freedom of the park was like one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip.
The into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out...thirty-five, forty-five... then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals, but only some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out, too slowly, to start his own run. not many of these ... and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost anything ... then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-five and the beginning of a windscream in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a high board.
Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping and wavering int he wind. Taillights far up ahead coming closer, faster and suddenly—zaaapppp—going up past and leaning down for a curve near the zoo, where the road swings out to sea.
the dunes are flatter here, and on windy days sand blows across the highway, piling up in thick drifts as deadly as any oilslick ... instant loss of control, a crashing, cartwheeling slide and maybe one of those two-inch notices in the paper the next day: "An unidentified motorcyclist was killed last night when he failed to negotiate a turn on highway I."
Indeed... but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and not there's not sound except wing. Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and the wind-burned eyeballs strain to see down the center line, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes.
But the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right ... and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You cane barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. the only sounds are the wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it ... howling through a turn to the right, then to the left, and down the long hill to Pacifica... letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge...the Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. the other—the living—are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions. (269-271)"
-Hell's Angels, a Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs
Jasmine P.
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