Lights

The sanctity
of society
depends
so much
on the color of
one light
shining through the
hardest rain.

Lighthouse
Stoplight
Beacon
Outright
Downright crazy
Toy's got you hazy
On the details
but you know.

Green for leaves
Red for my fire
Yellow for a sun
Blue for my eyes
My, how time
does seem to fly
when you're waiting
for the sun to die.

~~~~AEW~~~~

Three Poems and a Flush

You with your shoes of spiderwebs
and your castiron clothes
You get your feet wet but
are so afraid to swim

You choke down pretty wasps
with a smile and swear
The stings make your lips
look not so very thin

You with your woodcut eyes
and your waterlogged ears
You're dying to hear voices
but can't stand the radio signal

You save babies every day
with careless brush strokes
You upset your glass heart
and pretend it was intentional

~~AEW~~ WIP

I'm working on it! It's not done. (WIP = Work in Progress, even more so than the rest of them).

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Ugh, just got majorly sick with a guatita problem, yuck, how unhappy! Oh well, I'll go to bed after this last one or two.
This one was published in Plume, my university's foreign language literary magazine, in the Spring of 2003. Umm, maybe I'll put the translation up some day.

~~~~~~~~Riesgo de Piel~~~~~~~~
Tengo la piel poderosa.
Ya no me pinto más con pólvoro de colores.
Me pinto con la sangre.

Me pregunto: ¿Si me vistiera así,
y me tintara el pelo así, si me bronceara,
también me llamarías con estas palabras de tinta?
¿O, después de correrse encima de mí tantas
palabras, me tintarían la piel
tus gotitas de desesperación y miedo?

Ya no grito ni lloro. Ya me rio; me entierro
en la risa de los que sobrevivieron tantos años
con la risa irónica y sin la risa pura.

¿Cómo me llaman blanca? Cuando yo era niña, sabía
que tenía la piel como tel trigo, como el durazno.
¿Pueden tantas mentiras y prejuicios limpiar
el bronceo de mi cuerpo, dejándome en la
blancura?

Ya no alimento al olvido, hypnotizado,
ciega por culpa de la luz que refleja
en mi piel.

¿Por qué me llamas blanca? Blancos son los papeles
que se hacen de la carne de árboles.
Su madera interna, vulnerable, tiene este
mismo color que tiene mi piel.

Blanco es el marmol, frío, que no sangra.
¿Tengo yo sangre?
Blanca es la nieve que se cayó recién.
Mi color es lo de la nieve ensuciada por el suelo.

Si esto sea blanco, ¿harían de mi piel los
papeles en los cual puedo marcar mi "raza"?
Tal vez soy el pardo que desaparece por falta
de sol, o la tela que pierde su color
después de tantos años de vivir sin la sombra.
¿O soy yo la nieve sucia?
Te dijé que tenía yo la piel poderosa.
~~AEW~~
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~~~~~~~~Charcoal~~~~~~~~
Hair blackened with charcoal.
Eyes rimmed with kohl.
Skin smeared with bronze paint.
Voice practiced to give no hint.
Would you make of me a native?
Or would you raise me up to live
Your shining goddess, glistening
with sweat, my moonskin denting.

If I understood all about love
I could unpin this specimen dove
To awaken my corrections.
And so with mental convections
Black out, white out, mix us,
Animate the too-quiet masses.
Unfurl a flag of perfection
Instead of dirty reflection.
No riddles, doubts, or empire fears
Would slip into my pregnant ears.

What shade of pedestal goddess
Will you want me to address?
Sculpt me in marble cold
Or meld me in bronze bold
And color me exotic,
Or write me quixotic.
I did say I was a queen,
But I see this is your dream.
~~AEW~~
Wow, it actually rhymes.
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Unhelpfully yours.

Cheapverses

So tired that I'm seeing weird flashes while I'm coming up from the basement into the darkened kitchen in a nearly empty house. You know those flashes and bizarre traces you see when you've been staring at a computer or movie screen too long (both of which I did today, thanks L., A., and E. for an awesome hysterical time -- the cow was freed by the claw, gotta be a first!). But I promised myself I would put up some of my cheapverses (though they cost me a bit emotionally) to have a record of them other than that on my clogged and tired Mac.

Back to work in the city tomorrow, on M.A. and Nature (hippos). Then we'll have a Buffyfest (hopefully), and I will be able to rest my weary eyes and overthink and overanalyze as usual, or maybe I can sleep. Get to talk to H. tomorrow too, got in too late and couldn't hear him on that darn cell -- stupid overseas connections -- and I told him to visit me in my dreams. He's asking me to come every time I talk to him, now, it hurts not to be able to just fly to him, to be at his side, but I know we are both strong and that it will be worth the wait. I hope, sometimes I think this is an insane romance, and that it will all be so different when I see him again that it will be a huge waste of my money and time and his...but then other times I remember how only he can make me laugh when I am mad at him, when I don't want to laugh. Only he can pick me up after a long day of being sick or upset or annoyed. I remember how everything we did seemed magical, whether we just talked and walked around Vina or whether we traveled for hours to see beautiful beaches. I wonder how he would like it where I live. I wonder if he would want to leave his country for me, or whether he will ever have to.

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~~~~~~~~Faster~~~~~~~~
Run fast move free through the fields
model rockets eaten by the forever trees
hay; strong, sweet smell before cut & bale,
crisp strands below the aching restless feet.
Smooth surface hides depressions of dark earth,
where wilderness lives, winds change toward
groves of infant trees. Could bend them easily,
dented tough skin moving over deep land.
Forest conceals eons of imaginings,
surveyors' ghosts measure topography or moving bodies.
Dreams of wildflower crowns kept at bay by
realities of house fules and ground of cement.

Run faster move freer stop to leap or no.
Deer charge forward from red house goal,
clouds: fake snow cloth, see-through fantasies.
no lying down! Pass-over winds move bright
Vivid kites hearts tied to tails for stability.
Soar through cartwheels and collapsed dances,
moments stolen in early morning worship life.
Spirits so liberated, confines, never to touch skin.
Reconcile expected and wild nature. Thorns
mix blood and earth: old magic, no owners
belong to universal forces uncontrolled,
unlayer simple freedom over earth to fly.

Run fastest, move freer than ever to escape
memory of time almost tamed as much as can.
Touch outer insides no emotion hatred not
stong enough to describe disgust at control.
Could never domesticate indomitable but
every sweet smell invades, bitterness stays.
Increased bonds: silicon spider webs whisper
man-made shadows over path of sun all over.
One refuge: free spirits roam green true eyes,
races over crisp hay not yet baled in sunrise
pounding of earth dried with blood sky fed
to wild outrunning spirit, pure vibrant life.
~~AEW~~
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Too rough
too bold
too sexy for my own damn goods
To barter, so sell me
to yourself and forget that I mind
If you're late coming out

Too sweet
too smart
too stifled to swat mosquitoes of
velvet words covering my skin.
Nobody likes an introspective woman
And Shakespeare doesn't give
good enough head to make it
worth the effort.

Too talkative
too daring
too cold when it is time to curl
me around your fingers that
puncture my callouses, little missiles
seeking your idea of the truth.
Off the vine that I cut to escape
from you, the better to hate the
roots by disassociation.

Too black
too white
too red for this flourescent hospital
light of ages that I power
with flailing veins.
I would inspire you where it hurts but
there's not enough space to hate
and you'd think I was playing along.
You like the hard chase, the fast win
and the easy sandbox where your
plastic dinosaurs never go hungry.
Nobody likes the herbivores, they
remind us that we take the easy way out,
that extinction is self-inflicted
battery drainage.

Too alive
too inspired
too blunt to be a murder weapon of the
stars; preservation is no consolation
for lemons and their sweetest seeds.
Bring me a double take and you can
take my appetite with images loved and lost long.

Too perfect
too excited
too strange to change my mind about
a voyage that destroys your blow-up
motorboats and makes my paper sails
bow and smile.
Too much.

~~AEW~~
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Unhelpful As Always

~~~~Little Pink Heart~~~
This patch on my skin
I don't quite know what it means.
I'm the girl who wakes up with scars in odd places
But I affixed this patch to my ribs.
Does it mean I'm sick?
Will it bring illness to me?
Does it mean I fight the unseen,
Or rather the seen-through-society's-filter way I see?

What is it doing to me, that I can't do myself?
I should do this without help.
Is it cheating death? Or is it worth it
To cheat death to win back life?
Who do I hope to win over with this bit of plastic?
Am I a child, presenting the bright pink sticker
To my friend, to the teacher, to show everyone
That I am the place to be, the one to be inside?

No one ever could get inside me
I tried so very hard to push away, to open up
But I run too slow to catch up to
My mind spins and pulls little fractals of emotion
And none of them add up to make sense
On a daily basis. It's too thick, my membrane
I can't even steal through it.
How can you hope to? Do you hope to?

So why this attempt? Will it prove
That I am stronger, better, more alive?
Will it hurt me? Am I afraid I will do more damage
To my should-be-greatful body or to my
Ineffectual, wavering mind? I don't feel it working.
I hate that word, placebo. My mind is too wary to fall
Into traps of the heart. I hate you, mirror heart.
Are you pink, too? Open me up, boys, see my sticker throb.

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~~~~~Jumbled~~~~~

Memory wiped
I writhe in dreams
Flashes of fear
Sting me while awake.

It's not a fog,
It's a carousel image
Gone sane;
Jumbled and reformed.

Not a pretty
Puzzle am I.
Half-moon marks
Would show a caring world.

Fall apart, me?
Impossibility wears
The corners of
Visions of oddly soothing filters.

Logic no longer
Reigns when disoriented.
Shattered memories form
A vast twisted museum.

Faith lies to me
Soft feathers in my ears
I can no longer hear
My own weak sounds.

Protest too little
For anger tidal waves
Vengeance has no bite:
I can read a million variations.

Wrong, skin was
To be kept safe
Make room for invisible bruises
I hope it was broken at birth.
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All I ask is that you don't try to pass my poetry off as someone else's or your own, or in some bizarre crime-fighting superhero scenario. If you want to use any of my blog, let me know! I learned to share years ago...I'm pretty good at it...I think...Hey, give me that!
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Unhelpful laugh of the day: "Holy soothing feathers, Batman!" Muahahaha!

Lightning-Inflected Ruminations

I am so very tired of not knowing what I want to do with my life. It seems a very silly quandary to me, that I should need a purpose and should strive for it for years. I know people can change their ambitions, their lives, their careers, but I struggle with wanting to make a difference and wanting to be happy and unbothered.

Part of my problem stems from my perfectionist tendencies and my habit of reducing things to either-or situations, where I need to make some sort of committed decision before I get unstuck in a loop of living life without a goal or plan. I'd like to get a good job, but what is a good job? One that lets me save money, makes me happy, lets me express myself, one that I'm good at or something else, much more intangible and still unidentified? Is it a perfect combination of all of the above? People always say pick what you are passionate about, but very few things rifle my feathers anymore, and the ones that do don't have "career" attached to them in even the most unconvential uses of the word.

So, a dream job, let's brainstorm. Help me out, here. I'd like to...
Perhaps I could be an artist who sells her work for graphic designs, like those who make posters and images that are often reprinted. A graphic artist then. What would I need for that? Grad school, night classes, etc. That would be a long haul until acceptance struck.

How about an interpreter? Work in the government or abroad, or how about for the FBI? I would need civil service test, FBI training, perhaps night classes. Then, would I be able to travel? What is the pay like? What is the end goal, a desk job in the FBI or at a consulate? Or is this a semi-permanent thing? I don't know if I could follow without conscience.

Ok, I could, for the short run, take interpreting classes at a summer school or night school and teach English or Spanish in another country or this one. That would conceivably allow me to travel, but that's a low-pay, temporary type of position. That would be a tough post to get, but would not take a lot of training.

Oh well, I just can't reconcile my need to help people, my desire to travel, and my want to make enough money that I don't spend years working when I should be retired. What I really want is a job I love that I get paid for that lets me travel. And perhaps leaves me time to make a difference in the world. Everyone wants the world, only those who persevere get their corner of it. Or something. What could I make a difference in? Mistreatment of children, of women, how society portrays women and girls, racism, homophobia, poverty, world hunger, war, what would I do if I had a million years and tons of money? It doesn't matter, I don't. That's not me being pessimistic. Maybe instead I have to think, what would I do if I had ten minutes every day and $5 to spare? What would you do?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is such a big deal right now because I need to decide whether or not I want to move heaven and earth to be with someone I love, or if I should stick it out in a several thousand mile commuter romance, or give up the ghost. I know it's not the end of the world if my relationship dies after I base some decisions around it, but I can't help worrying that I'll be stranded without even a plan Z to fall back on. My strength is making plans, not thinking them through in detail, and then being resourceful if they fail.

Anyway, my dream job, dear emotional part of my brain, what is your deepest desire jobwise?
An artist. A game designer (content and character end). A writer/illustrator. A teacher to underprivileged kids. A supporter of women's shelters. A travel writer. A criminologist. A language teacher. An astronomer: study interspecies communication (Sign Language, symbols, etc.) A graphic designer/logo designer. An astronaut. A linguist who works to preserve, protect, and revitalize indigenous languages.

Wow, too many to choose from. It's hard not being passionate about one field alone. It's difficult not being so excellent at one thing that it's obvious that X or Y will be your career path. It's hard not knowing if you should try to make love or a career or charity the foundation of your life's or years' work. I wish I could push on and get a masters' degree, but what would I get it in? That's the eternal question: what do I focus on? Focus, focus, focus. That's always my problem.

All I know for sure is that I want to travel, and that right now I miss H. and I want to see him soon. It will have been a year since I last saw him by the time I get there in January (or so my plan is right now). That's such a long time, but we are strong people and we can make it through without constant physical proximity. I wonder if I will have changed or if he will have, and if we still get along.

I have felt so much happier since I studied abroad. It was like something inside me decided to let go in 2002. Something snapped open or fell back into place, in a good way. It was as if I decided to just be happy, no matter what, or that I let myself be happy, relax, live the way I wanted to and not the way others wanted me to. I finally threw away my acts and poses and stepped into the shell where I had kept my robot self, my actress self, my expectations and everyone elses' expectations of me. And I know I'll never be the same.

At the same time, I lost a little of my drive while in college, of my ambition and my need to succeed, to be in a hurry to get nowhere, my striving for empty goals. It is a marvellous thing to be able to spend time playing with kids, to write poems and play games, to talk into the night with your friends about politics, about life, to tell jokes and to laugh at them. It is a wonderful feeling to sit in the sun and read your favorite book or a new soon-to-be-favorite book. And it is especially sweet to just spend time with the ones you love, to hug someone, to be hugged, and to learn everything about someone that you can.

Still I struggle with this never-ceasing desire to climb, to be someone, to do important things and to be work now so I can play later. I try to remind myself that I will regret it later if I spend all of my time building a future and no time enjoying my present, but one never listens to one's own advice, no? Some would love that kind of drive, I have lived with it for too long. I want to have memories that make me so happy that I smile until it hurts. That make me laugh. That make me know that I have lived.
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Unhelpful quote of the day: "You can go through the broken looking glass, but you can't help leaving a few scars behind."

A Relative Rant

Did you ever meet anyone whose practices in general just boggled your mind and made you wonder: "How could they possibly think that X or Y is an appropriate thing to do?" Well, the few that have me spinning my spiky wheels are relatives and friends.

I severely dislike not receiving information that concerns my immediate or distant future, especially when money and time are involved. Take, for example, the issues of my cousins. We had heard from our aunt that one of them (a teenager) was spouting a bit of racist nonsense. So we decided to hang out with said cousin and said cousin's younger sibling. Thinking our enthralling conversation would bore them to tears, we decided on a trip to Great Adventure, and invited them along. They never called us with a date, so I eventually called them. We decided on this coming Saturday (I know, GA on a Sat. -- NOT a good idea, but what could we do) and to buy the tickets online. That was over two weeks ago. So, yesterday I give their mom a call and she starts in about how she doesn't think it's a good idea, and that she won't pay for them to stand in line, and how the older cousin went with his friends on Monday and they waited forever, and that this weekend is bad for her, that the younger one can go with another cousin.

Let's review. Not only did she not tell me this when we first discussed the date (and checked with her), neither she nor her son thought it wise to call us and inform us that he had already gone and that she wasn't planning on letting them go. I had to call her and find this out. It's a damn good thing that I hadn't already bought the tickets, because then it would have been relative snafu! And she complains about how irresponsible her kids are, how they don't tell her things, etc. Hmmm...I wonder where they get it from.

So we wash our hands of them and pretend they're not relations. Too bad, they were so sweet when they were young. I guess I can join the CIA after all, now that I've shunned my parientes.

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Today, I go with D. to drop of M.'s car and while I am stopped at a light, some woman rolls into D.'s car. I was turning left, so was she, and I looked back at her, ready to get out. Then the light changes, so I figure I'll pull into the car place down the road and she'll follow. She went blasting by on the outside lane. I got her number though -- her license plate number, that is. She didn't do any visible damage, but I was so mad I cuold have spit llamas. Trying to get away with hitting someone is worse than an accidental tap. The bad part is that, the last time that car was hit, D. didn't get the insurance info from the woman-putting-on-lipstick-while driving who hit him, and when next he took the car in for repair, the styrofoam in the bumper had to be replaced because of that innocent-seeming tap.

Talk about irresponsible! Ten to one she tells the husband or wife and kids and they pick it up.

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This is my playground theory.

When we were small, the playgrounds at schools, parks, etc., were made of metal. They were maximum-fun, maximum height and scare factor, creating endless situations of mayhem and spurring the imagination on to new heights.

I understand that plastic is safer, that metal rusts (and lead paint is obviously horrific), that metal chainlink climbing apparatus and huge fifteen-feet-high wooden totem poles for climbing and sitting on were a wee bit dangerous (though it was great fun for older kids). But never did I hear of anyone dying, falling and injuring themselves, flipping over in the swings, getting caught in the climbers, or any such trauma.

The totem poles were occuppied mostly by older kids, especially the very high one. If a kid was scared, he played on the myriad of other equipment around. If a child fell, it was his carelessness, not the playground equipment's fault (Zachary, I told you not to climb so high and then let go with one hand. Kimmy, do NOT go down the slide face first. If you fall on the ground, no more playing for you.)

Now, with a lack of self-governed safety (meaning children themselves decide (hey, it's not a good idea to leap off of a ten-foot-high beam) and parents actually WATCH their children (a beautiful experience, kids are so great to see playing, they make you feel energetic), a novel concept, I know) comes an inclination to sue the town, the school, and the playground equipment manufacturer, thus ensuring that no one can pay for children to enjoy themselves in the future. More to the point, the child learns that it's NEVER his fault. He fell, and even though the swing is still attached and no other kids have fallen out of it (because none lean back and try to), it must be shoddy workmanship. The kid smacks on the plastic wall with a stick, what does she think is going to happen? Well, the parents think the park should be cleared of sticks and dangerous apparata. They were just telling Betty, who's also not watching her little dear ones (that have bullied a preschooler out of his swing), that they might file a complaint. It could have lasting damage to scrape your knee!

I am, of course, exaggerating. The playground replacement system is not the root of selfishness or the cause of a decline in social responsibility. It is just a minor, semi-example of how we'd rather be right than truthful, rich than just, and manic than happy.

I'm not talking about preschoolers, who will eat bugs and paste and think they can fly backwards when they can't yet do a cartwheel. These have plastic toys for a reason, have lower-sized equipment, etc. I can remember, when a little kid tried to go up the stairs, it ws difficult for him/her. When he got to the top, he stood, looked around, proud, and went down the slide. Once. Then he played on those bouncy toys shaped like animals and on the special toddler swings (because they WILL jump out). Then he probably fell asleep. The older kids made of those inventive designs huge castles, spaceships, and underwater caverns. The new toys are plastic, reproduced, and seem to focus on making kids bounce around in brightly colored play areas with shaky walls and boring tic-tac-toe games. Children's centers have to do this. But parks, parks are where older kids should be able to play. I'd like to build an adult-sized playground. Amusement parks don't count, because they require only the physical exertion of walking and squeezing between people in crowds. How much more fun would exercise be if we used monkey bars for arms and swings for our abs! Hmmm...I'm getting a patent, so don't even try it! I mean, a place where the swings are adult-sized and not brightly colored plastic jobs, where the equipment is elegant and fun, with great, neat curves of metal and wood that make a maze to play tag or hide-and-seek in, where you can dare your friends to jump off of the beam, slide down sideways, or to swing higher.
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Today's unhelpful thought from my dreams: The military should use jingles and epic poems set to music to help them identify and remember the facts on the targets for their snipers, while teaching salsa in a bathtub the size of a barrel on the edge of a road. Yes, I have odd dreams. If you think they're disquieting to read, you should try having them.

Wish List!

Oh great muses, thwacketh me on the head with divine inspiration...OUCH! Hey, I didn't mean literally.
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For lack of better topics, I've decided to compose on my captive html blog the following:
My wish list! Ok, so world peace and no more children dying and cures to diseases and world hunger are givens. But besides those things, this is my personal wish list.

~~~~~~~~~~I wish...~~~~~~~~~~~~
*That people came with neckaces around their necks that glowed when you were near the person (of any gender) that you were supposed to be with. It would save all of this running around and mucking up and knowing that if you chose to throw away the necklace, it would not be that you hadn't found the right one, that you'd decided to forego mystic forces and find your own way.

*That you could easily determine what you wanted to do in life, to pick up cards like in the new Game of Life and say: 'all right, I could do a doctor' (or an environmental lawyer or a paleoanthropologist or an art therapist). Then you would know when it was time to change your focus, to turn it around.

*For a truly excellent pair of slippers. Fuzzy, understated, and warm yet not too winter-driven. NO marabou trim, please.

*That honesty were always the best policy, and that trust would not be broken easily.

*That children were not cruel to one another. For that matter, that people would not need to hurt to be amusing, to be amused, to get revenge, or to feel better about oneself.

*That we could see each person as not part of a group, of an ethnicity, as a stereotyped knicknack to fit a little, but as a single, unique unit, connected eternally to background, family, and friends, born of experience and environment, but as a unique, handblown glass ornament, a snowflake, a self-painted canvas that has its merits and its drawbacks, but always as a person with something to offer the world.

*For pillows. Decorative pillows, floofy pillows, pillows with stripes and patterns and silk flowers all over them and ethnic prints and wonderful, lush or delicate colors and fabrics. Ok, I love bedding. I admit it, I am not ashamed, I love sheets and comforters and most quilts and shams.

*For my favorite artists to come out with new albums.

*That I could reconcile political moves with national and international needs, that I could see a solution and find an answering alternative to war, to commerce, to a system that creates classes and creates needs.

*That I could remember everything I've ever seen, heard, or read, and to be able to recall the appropriate knowledge in an orderly manner when needed, and for it to take no more than 20 seconds to remember.

*For a $500 gift certificate to buy new work (& play) clothes.

*That our climbing tree where healthy again.

*For a great job that lets me get in on the ground floor and gain experience in the industry of my choice. Anyone in the computer games industry? How about graphic design? Indigenous language preservation? Using graphics to communicate interlinguistically? All right, I can't have everything, probably I'll only get the slippers.

But it was fun to create a short list now, and it will be interesting to look back on it later....for me at least.
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Today's unhelpful event: I've decided to switch my birthday to June 30th. You all owe me back presents.

A Little Less Sick to Our Stomachs

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/july-dec03/gay_7-31.html

Ok, so be prepared to be offended, and remember i'm just blowing off steam...

Ok, so here's my thing. Our population is exploding, disease is rampant, orphanags are full to busting, children are dying of hunger, being sold as sex slaves, and working in terrible conditions without receiving an education or wages. Meanwhile, people keep having babies. Ok, I understand that you want to create something, a lasting token of your union, but a dog or a cat would work, wouldn't it? (I know, I know). There really should be requirements for becoming a parent.

And so, what does the Catholic church do? Say that marriage must be defended. In the past there was at least a logical reason for this (or logical as the church gets, anyway, I should say mercenary): to increase the Catholic population and thus provide more money and profit for the church, as well as driving dissenters down and non-Catholics out of the country. Then, you could use fear tactics to get the people to give you their full and undivided devotion (the protestants did this too, only they couldn't buy their way out of sin, so they just knew they were going to hell anyway.), and rake in a little profit from those seeking redemption. Also, there was the possibility that one kid might become a priest and go missionizing, colonizing 'heathen devils' and making for more Catholic influence internationally.

Now, so many children live in the streets, are sold into slavery, to pay off debts or sent to become prostitutes or victims of sexual abuse. More still lie in hospitals and orphanages. We are destroying our resources with the sheer need of human consumption, from animals to water to fields to workers, we just don't have enough. And it doesn't have to be this way. It will take too long for us to see, but it could turn around. Something has to give, and it will most likely be the human population, which will die out eventually, a faint spark and a shell of a convenience store packed with glossy magazines and Coke will be the only evidence.

Same sex marriages seem a rather trite deal next to all of this. You can still have kids. The Catholics, in fact, should welcome them in with open arms, because, since the church no longer officially accepts payment for sin, it would leave the priests more free time. Instead of spending hours of confession time listening to purportedly straight people confessing same-sex acts, they could have potlucks and do some more missionizing. It could get in on the ground floor with this same-sex thing. Change its tune, freshen up its image, help some starving kids. There ya go, set out a newspaper ad, or a web site: "SAVEYOURCHILD.ORG: We find homes for your kids, good, Catholic homes, with those who choose adoption over insemination...in that Mecca of all mekkahs, the U.S." Good PR to counteract the recent scandals. Plus, now there's twice the income: from those politicians who accept same-sex marriages and support it, and from those who must tolerate it as law-abiding lawmakers. Yeah, right. Not gonna happen. Check out Chile's reaction to the church abuse scandal: to say that gay priests should not be allowed in the church. So gay=pedophile=gay. Well, if they had their way, homosexuals would be kicked out of the country. Oh, except for the performers. They can be gay. Nice touch.

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Maybe we'd all feel a little less sick to our stomachs and more able to appreciate things if we knew someone were taking care of the needy, the sick, the unhappy, the poor. I hope not. Complacency is a dead oyster, an apple that rots when it likes the tree too much to let go. Your roots are showing, time to dye your skin.
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Fear is a basic animal instinct, it's what makes us tick. Fear of being alone, of losing one's job, of pain all stem from the fear of dying, the self-preservation instinct that make us insanimals. Insanimals because we are animals that try to distance ourselves from animals and from life, as far as possible inside boxes and wires and magnificent machines that make us ever more lonely every day.
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You got your quote already.

Shiny New Obsession

Oh yay!, a shiny new obsession...Just what I always wanted. Oh well, imsomniacs of the world, unite! I blog, therefore I rave...better than sleep anyway.
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Right, so what's spinning my mental wheels so much tonight? Besides the usual, a bunch of stuff.
Went to the concert in the park yesterday, and while there, saw a great group, but there was this family I guess with these two teenage boys.

I knew this would be trouble. Not as bad as I expected, but still, it's like, I'd like to breathe without being watched with creepy crawly pubescent eyes. Anyway, how do I know I was being watched? Well, walking over to get the bug spray, They came up and said "beautiful" in passing, and I don't think they meant the boy camp counselors or the old guy helping them.

So, then I was self-conscious which is stupid I should just let it roll of my shoulders, but it still bugs me and I bolted after a while to the bocce courts to be able to breathe, drew some while there, and slipped back onto the blanket with the rents. Then my mom wanted me to take her up & dance, and I did, ignoring the disgusting sensation of being undressed with some freak's eyes.

Well, mostly ignoring, it's hard to do. Some day I'll publish a long rant on misogynism and female-shaping and slavery, but not right now, I'm not angry right now.
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Who do I have to thank for that? Mostly, my pololo, H. I really miss him right now and I feel horrible that I can' t be there when he needs me the most, and I just wish I could hold him and tell him it's ok and let him be tired and not so brave. I could just thwack him one for getting out of the car to check without driving the freak far away, but he's too brave for his own good. I wish I could just take away his pain just by thinking hard enough and putting it on myself, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Mostly I just want to be near him. My skin aches to be by his side, and I've got the shakes sometimes, and it was SO hard not to cry when he told me what happened, but I didn't want to upset him. If wishes were horses, then I'd trade em in for a plane ticket (well, I'd keep two).
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It's so bizarre reading your old high school and junior high work when you're done with college. It seems so juvenile. Plus, I can't remember half of what I was talking about since I haven't studied history in forever, and my short stories see, so trite and cute now.
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I realize I'm switching subjects. I make no apologies. I am human (mostly).
So occasionally, I'll post poetry and stories and stuff. I probably won't want to talk about them face to face, but e-mail is ok, I guess. But remember, if I get snippy, well, I won't get snippy. Just don't take a crack at my writing. It's not supposed to be profound. But it sure feels good.
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Another day, another unhelpful quote: 'You're not outdoorsy enough to be pond scum. You must be bathroom tile scum...yes, you may even be toilet scum.'