when exactly do you mean

negative comments have led me to hold back from blogging. and that's stupid. i shouldn't have to justify why i write what i write, right?

i wrote a mission statement for my blog a few months back, but the mission has changed over the last few months. synchronicity has kind of lost its luster for me. most of the mystical garbage that once held my fascination is really falling to the wayside these days.

i share personal experiences on my blog, not necessarily in an attempt to get attention, rather to make connections with readers. and it works. it happens. i shouldn't be ashamed of that, but after some of the ridiculous things this nameless, faceless, sense-of-grammar-less person who is prone to misspelling words wrote, i felt ashamed.

i had written a post about what my brief stint in saratoga meant to me. deleted.

i had written a post reflecting on how i've grown and changed since the beginning of the year. deleted.

there were a few others that i forget now. that's stupid. i should have published them.

my new year's resolution? continue on my journey of self-acceptance and self-awareness and saying "f*ck yo*" to all who pass ill judgment on me. i have a great support network of people who think i'm alright. thanks, dudes! xoxo

to the h8ers, talk to the hand!

electricity and lust

watching this flick on my train ride home yesterday (home meaning chicago in this sense, not my other home) had me feeling the pains of false nostalgia. i wanted to be there in my flannel shirt with a copy of my zine in my backpack, one-joint high, wearing lipstick and ready to rock with a long-haired boyfriend.



then today i was thinking how my generation* hasn't really gotten to experience a major musical revolution. we were kids during the 90s (which wasn't an era of amazing music, technically speaking. but i could listen to nothing but 90s rock and be perfectly content). no music scene in this first decade of the 2ks has been remarkable or revolutionary, right? there hasn't been a huge movement.

i could be totally wrong. please bring to light anything major i have blocked from my memory. i just can't think of any specific music that i will hear again in 20 years and think "ahh ... the beginning of the millenium. that was good stuff." i won't hear something from the aughts and be transported like i imagine my dad is everytime he listens to sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band. and please, don't argue that animal collective is our musical revolution. please. don't.

now, the indie rock movement of the 90s wasn't huge and sweeping and not everyone was into it. but it was something: the whole DIY scene, which still exists today, but isn't as genuine and authentic as it was back then. i want something new and authentic like that!

sure, the whole digitalization of media in general is a pretty big thing and myspace as a means for band PR is big, but that's not what i'm talking about.

i'm talkin' about a whole scene wrapped up in some new sort of music that has heart and value and that lends itself to a subculture defined by it and vice versa. boys bands have come and gone and dj danger mouse made mash-ups huge and there's the whole emo/screamo scene, but those are nothing compared to our big brothers' and parents' teenage years.

is it radiohead? no, radiohead doesn't belong to us. radiohead belongs to our big brothers. we don't own anything. hand-me-downs are all we get.

*people born around 1983-1987

sexie

a recent post on the XX blog has a number of women discussing catcalls -- complimentary or harassing?

i've had a few conversations with my lecherous womanizing (this is not slander, he will admit to it) roommate about this and he doesn't understand why i hate having a vagina after a complete stranger hits on me when i'm walking down the street. i shouldn't take offense, he says.

it does offend me though. and it's hard for me to pinpoint why. if i'm at a bar or another social setting and a dude starts flirting with me, i (usually) am flattered/amused. never disgusted.

maybe i don't think it's fair that men are allowed to be so damned blatant about their horniness. men are allowed to be hypersexual all the time, everywhere. i think they should have to keep their lust to themselves like women do.

maybe it offends me because i know these men are not catcalling because i'm a stone fox. they are catcalling because i have breasts and a vagina. it's totally impersonal and as soon as another woman passes they will say something equally lewd to her. it makes me feel like i don't want to be a woman.

here's a little vignette i wrote about 2 months ago, titled " 'all day i dream about sex' by KoRn":

I had it all planned out. He would say "What's wrong?" and I'd come back at him with "How's that saying go? Insanity is repeating an action and expecting a different outcome? Aw, nevermind, I'm okay." Then he would look through my eyes and into my soul and understand that I'd been wronged and he would decide then and there to never make me feel insane.

It didn't unfold that way at all. Does it ever?

A few days earlier, I'm standing on the train. Morning commute. Dead eyes scan free newspapers. Cold hands clutch germy poles. Bodies jostle and doors open and people move and no one wants to be where they are. I try to think about something, anything. My brain is blank. I am no better than these lifeless cattle.

Fast-forward nine hours and we're all doing the same thing in the reverse direction. Fingers manipulate touch screens and buttons and e-mails are sent and the office comes home with them and no one can force a smile and that lady in the fancy suit is drooling while she naps.

My days are spent in a cubicle. I'm a content manager. It's a mindless job and I think about sex most of the time. The actions I make on the computer screen are repetitive and after half a cup of the shit coffee we brew upstairs and 15 minutes of click-right-click-click-highlight-backspace-save, I am on auto-pilot. Mostly I wonder what it would be like to take different men in the office as lovers.

now that i've shared that, maybe i've offended a few men. "how does it feel?" -- bob dylan

dead an!mals

last night we had what we like to call a "meth night." there is no meth involved, but on a few levels, we wish there was. basically it means we work at the cafe until way too late.

we did this last night because we were led to believe that the health inspector would come in today between 2pm and 430pm. we were led to believe this by the conversation she and i had when we scheduled this appointment.

so i got home around 330am and fell asleep shortly after sending a few sleepy-brained-thus-wordy emails and woke up a few minutes late and jeff scooped me up in his honda accord around 725am and we hit home depot for the billionth time in the last six weeks.

yaddayaddayadda the health inspector's boss called me at 215pm to tell me we wouldn't be inspected until monday. cue air leaving sails at record speed.

still, the space looks great and we celebrated tonight. we feasted upon duck and we drank beer and then we retired to said space and drank more beer and played 'never have i ever' with the owner of our coffee roastery. it has been a relatively pleasant 48 hours.

this is what happened to me at a recent meth night, via squeege:

bateman incarnate

in light of recent flame comments on my blog, i've been thinking about self-expression and anonymity. why do people hide behind usernames/stage names/noms de plume? what's the point of expressing an opinion or a feeling or an emotion -- the building blocks of our identities -- if one won't state his true name?

i know there are times and places when this makes sense: political dissidents under rigid rule. people testifying about being raped. the son of a famous so-so who wants to publish a novel and see if he can make it to the NYT bestseller's list without having a blingin' last name.

i do not understand it on the internet. what, you're afraid your employer will find out about your affinity for BSG fanfiction? worried a google search for your name might turn up an embarrassing scuffle with the law from years past? brave enough to say big words but nervous to stand behind them?


i guess my biggest issue with anonymous commenters (not only on my blog ... on the internet in general) is the lack of accountability. it seems cowardly, right? to criticize someone/something while hiding behind your computer? we should all be granted the right to face our accusers. this facilitates learning and understanding and personal growth.

if something is worth saying, isn't it worth putting a name (and maybe a face) to the words?

to my personal flamer (it's a pun, get it? i'm playing on the latent homosexual tendencies you're repressing that give way to your homophobic comments): why did you delete your blog? i was going to subscribe to your RSS feed!! :(

practicing high wire moves

so last night, like many eligible bachelorettes in my demographic, i made a vlog.

talkin' while tired from ally brisbin on Vimeo.

watching it today, i realize i left out a lot of positivity! it's all laying on the cutting room floor!

i guess i kept what i kept because it illustrates the spiritual fatigue i am feeling.

what was left out is this: i am feeling really positive about the whole experience and the future. i am feeling really lucky, as well. i get to spend all day being my own boss with one of my good friends. he doesn't ever bug me with stupid stories and we drink soda every day. we are receiving unending support from friends and family and neighbors and it feels fantastic. it is a lot of work and a lot of brainpower and i learn something new everyday (today i taught myself how to upholster!!).

also, i recanted a story about meeting the drummer of a band i really dig on the bus one night and showing him that i had the button of his band on my purse and he said i made him feel a little famous and that it was the first time he had been recognized. being recognized from my vlog seemed to make it all come full-circle.

oh, and does the man with the feline vagina remind you of a certain renaissance unicorn?

oh, you silly

at the end of the semester, i declared i would read one book a week between then and the first week of january, when my second semester begins.

i am overly ambitious and have too much confidence in my future-self sometimes.

here we are, a few weeks later, and i am two chapters into book #1.

problem is, when i get home, the only things i want to read are on the internets. that makes me really angry with myself. i had a stretch of time when i couldn't stay focused on texts that weren't graphic novels/comics. i overcame that by rereading 'good omens' by my homeboy neil gaiman. i think tonight i will begin rereading 'american gods' by the same brilliant mind.

i'm typically very antsy and don't like to stay in one situation for too long, but for some reason when it comes to appreciating arts, i fear the unknown. i will read and reread and reread and reread the same book. when choosing a movie from the 'watch instantly' section of netflix, i almost always rewatch something i've seen. i've watched every episode of the first few seasons of the american office at least three times. i've blogged before about how i am stuck in 90s indie rock fandom.

blah blah blah i'm just procrastinating brain exercises.

also, does this photo/caption combo, spotted in yesterday's usa today by jeff, make anyone else LOL/cry inside?

never a dull moment 'round here

'excuse me ma'am, i stay at a nursing home. can you spare a quarter?'

what's that? you have a roof over your head, three meals a day and you can play board games all day? sure, you deserve my quarter more than that homeless-looking dude in the purple sweatpants and the huge grey dreadlocks that spends all day everyday standing on the west side of the grocery store watching the cars.

the trib ran an article recently about my 'hood:

... the lakefront communities of Uptown and Edgewater, which contain the state's densest concentration of mentally ill and criminal nursing home residents, a Tribune analysis of recent data from the Illinois Department of Public Health found.

though it gets old having to deal with some of the nursing home residents when they come into the coffee shop and it is incredibly depressing to walk past somerset place and see the milieu puffing away on their cigarettes and swishers sweets, i can't imagine living in a less 'colorful' neighborhood.



there are a lot of normals up here, too. not everyone is begging quarters and preaching jesus love into a dead microphone on street corners. and the normals are totally normal. i've had brief flashes of desire of living further south and/or west to be nearer to live music. then i think about the types that live around there.

i am not a big fan of my demographic. i tend to lean toward older dudes for friends. i'll take david (somerset resident) asking me for a cookie over living among unshowered ironically-bad-fashioned 20-something children any day.

magnet in my head

i was born ten years too late.

all evening i've been trying to write a blog post about all the cool handyman things i've been learning since we took over the coffee shop and i've been trying to write responses to the blogs of worthy humans, but i am way too scatterbrained and distracted.

i keep watching/listening to youtube music videos. i have little interest in keeping up with stupid flash-in-the-pan bands of today. so instead i watch live footage from the 90s of bands i was too young and naive to even know existed until i had internets and music chat rooms.

this song melts my soul:



this song makes my whole self want to melt (the visual comes in once the song kicks in):



well, i don't want to get bogged down in too many videos. no one ever watches them. what are your top three soul-melting tunes of the moment?

wtf?

via

i can't sing it strong enough

OMG I HAVE SO MUCH TO TELL YOU!

srsly. i already had one thing on the blog burner from lunch today, then i got home after a 13 hour day of TCOB (taking care of business) and found out that the ny senate said no to same-sex marraige. WTF?! in case you haven't been paying attention, here is what i think about homophobes and why i don't want to get married. oh, wait, i'm getting ahead of myself.

before i found out about jerks being jerks, i found this on my bed:


i thought brian, my thoughtful roommate, picked it up for me because it's about new media. nope. it was sent to me. i have never had a subscription to time out. i do not know how i have one now. if you are the kind soul who signed me up for this, lemme know. i'll repay you ;) the coolest part about this is the synchronicity that the first issue of time out ever sent to me is about new media!

ok. and here's what i really want to tell you about:

so, most of you that know me know that i do not eat fast food. there are a few reasons for this. one is the obvious: it is totes unhealthy. but that's not really the biggest reason, because jah knows i love me some sugary milk chocolate. that is totes unhealthy. one of the biggest reasons is that i don't want to give them my money. the reasons for that are for an entirely different blog post (that i will never write, but will gladly discuss with you IRL).

anyway, it's not a big deal. i try really hard to be choosy about which big corporations i give my money to. i'm not overbearing or preachy about it (i don't think, anyway. i don't really care what other people do, for the most part), it's just the way i do. i'd rather support independent companies, or at least corporations that kick ass. mcdonald's and burger king and taco bell do not kick ass.

today i asked jeff what we should do for lunch. "five-dollar footlong?" he said. i realized at that moment that i had never eaten a subway sub. in my 24 years of living in america, i hadn't done it. when i tell people i don't eat fast food they usually say, "well subway's not that bad!!" and then i have to explain that it's not only nutrition i'm concerned with. i kind of think subway is sort of evil. but staying on topic, i said "sure." a sandwich sounded great. i was hungry, it was almost 2 and i hadn't eaten since 7ish.

guess how much my five-dollar footlong cost?

JUST SHY OF TEN DOLLARS.

so bogus. ok, so i did the add a drink and chips for $2 thing, but still. i also added bacon for fifty-cent. whatever. jared, i'm over your stupid diet.

i can get a damn good banh mi sandwich at ba-le and a can of diet coke for under $6 and it is money much better spent than at subway. also, the food is waaayyy better. my sandwich wasn't even that good (partly because i didn't really know how to order and i was scared. raul, my 'sandwich artist,' also had a distracting half-moustache).

ahhh...i'm glad to have gotten that off my chest.

in other news, does anyone want to come over and clean my room and do my laundry and catch up on the internets for me? i'm too tiiiiiiired.