Only those who stay Dead shall remember Death.

Quick Note on Personal Room For Improvement.

I guess because I am bi, I am more sensitive to certain LGBTQ issues, because most of my friends are straight and therefore more likely to be ignorant. Even I am ignorant on many things, but I am trying all the time and learning. I don’t bring things up solely for the sake of argument, only when the issue presents itself. I have learned that I get really passionate about these things: marriage, freedom of gender expression (especially in children).

Today some friends and I were confronted with a transgender situation. It was hardly a situation, really. We sat at a table in public and a person entered the building with an appearance that was hard to notice. An MTF individual sat at a nearby table in a mini skirt with wild hair and exaggerated eyeliner.

I got offended at things my friends were saying. They didn’t know what pronoun to use so they opted for “it”. I wish English offered a less derogatory neutral pronoun. “Just say she,” I told them. I figured that would be the courteous thing to do. That’s what I do.

“Which bathroom do they use?” they wondered. My attempt at answering this was “whichever they feel most comfortable in”. But it’s scary; homophobes get really violent about the bathroom thing. Unisex bathrooms are a great alternative in such cases.

The other question was dating. I had to try to articulate the difference between transgender, transsexual, and sexual orientation. The way I understand it, an FTM who dates girls is straight. It’s not his fault if he’s got a female body, and vice versa. It can really confuse people. I got worried that I wasn’t getting it right.

In the end I felt really embarrassed for not being more knowledgeable on the subject. I felt bad that my friends were using terms like “it”, and that they wanted to photograph her for laughter’s sake or whatever, which I was opposed to and stopped from happening. Strangers were giving looks because the skirt was so short and she seemed to be going commando.

The point is, I care about these things. I care about people who think bisexuality doesn’t exist, or that little boys shouldn’t play with dolls or even simply like the color pink (associating color with gender is such an arbitrary construct, not to mention total bullshit). I care about marriage and trying to combat ignorance when I can.

I think transgender issues are overlooked. It’s still taking adjusting for many, and I should make more of an effort to educate myself on these things. I have a few silly, basic questions myself. It’s important to me to be well-versed on these matters; I don’t want offensive remarks and ignorance to flourish in my presence or under my influence.

Sometimes I flush my thoughts to Facebook, instead of here. On Facebook, I can’t be sure anyone pays attention. I’m positive they don’t care, though. I think that’s the appeal. I can ramble on about anything, with the guarantee no one will care. It validates the only real fear I have: that no one gives a fuck what I’m doing, or what I have to say, much less how I feel. Lately I’ve adjusted to that lack of online attention, where no one is really going to show any genuine interest. Because, sometimes I just want to talk, and it’s more for my benefit than anyone else’s.

There’s a satisfaction in being invisible when you want to be.

little bits of __:

On all fronts, I am a lover. I love loving because in that way you see beauty in another even if there is a certain illusion to it at times. I think one of the best things  in the whole world is the experience of seeing the good things in a person: their passions, their truths, their fears and just the evolution of their lives like a tiny thing blossoming in your palm, under your careful watch.

In the beginning, I am sort of figuring things out: learning the mechanics of you, seeing what grinds your gears and what makes you sing. I like to talk so I look for opportunities to host conversation.

I am still very shy, very self-aware and afraid of not being perfect. 

It’s all very silly. I try not to be afraid of people. Liking someone means I confront them and I get to know them and I find little things to love and big things and if I think I can make you happy, I try because you are always at the forefront of my mind. I am terrible in the sense that sometimes I hold things in and harbor feelings. I get scared of potential and facing the reality my effort is for naught. It’s not rejection, but the sadness of no longer being allowed to love you. There is no hope to it afterwards.

I want for once to be on the receiving end of a love like that, where you’ll find me in the world around you and where the smallest corner of my mind fascinates the whim of your curiosity and imagination. 

I want to be that light. I love love, and always will. It is the affliction of affection that kills me: all I give, I do not get.

Don’t Hit.

Corporal punishment creates either fear…or aggression. So I’ve been told by peers who are taking Psychology but even without reading it in a textbook, I see and live the truth in that statement all the time. Discipline is a funny thing with children. They are so impressionable, and it’s often “easier” to condition them to not do a certain thing by teaching through pain. It’s the psychology of “If you touch the stove and you get burned, you won’t touch it again.” So parents, weary and frustrated, figure the same logic should apply in teaching children what is okay and what is not.

Why this doesn’t work is because you completely remove the “why” of the equation. The reason for not doing something shouldn’t be because you’ll get punished, but because it’s simply the wrong thing to do. That understanding is what will really prevent children from doing things and I think sometimes parents lack the patience to reason these things out to kids, because they want them to obey their rules without question and trust their judgments and policies on blind faith. Instilling fear that leaves no room for discussion, and when the temptation to do the “wrong thing” rises again, curiosity and temptation will usually win out because there were so many unanswered questions.

In my family, my father tries to be the parent who uses discussion and reason with me and my siblings because when he was growing up, a beating was usually the way things were handled and there was no “love” displayed in the relationships he had with adult authority figures. My father never liked that and has chose not to carry it on with us. For other reasons, my parents don’t take the route of hitting anymore at all but now do things like “taking things away” and “grounding”, things that don’t exactly always work because that was not the method they used from the beginning with my younger siblings.

Often it’s easier to hit and say “Don’t do that!” but it’s lazy parenting. I do that with my brothers and it gets me NOWHERE, and this is where frustration builds. The prevention and correction of “bad behavior” has to be built on an understanding of why that behavior is bad in the first place, not on yelling and threats.

I’ve been thinking it over and taking a gap year seems really desirable…and safe. I was going to just take a semester, but the full year might be beneficial. I’m really set on Boston, and the experience of being gone for a while. I get really exited, but I also know that what I want for myself isn’t exactly conventional or completely on track with what’s expected. I’m going into entertainment. Screenwriting. I don’t exactly have the perfect financial situation. I don’t want to just go and be lost and whatnot.

So, a year off. That’ll help. It’ll be the first time I’ve never really had any academic responsibilities, and that’ll be fantastic. I think it’ll make me a lot happier doing that. I’ll have to work, meaning a job is something I desperately need NOW, and with a steady paycheck, I’ll be able to:

• Save up for Emerson.
• Lean away from being dependent.
• Enjoy things more.

Of course, my fear is that only working will also leave me restless. Which isn’t something I want. I need to keep myself reasonably busy. Something.

I don’t have it entirely figured. I think a break is necessary in my case. Emerson is pretty perfect for me, but I want to enroll when I’m at a place where I’m not…lost. I feel lost all the time. I don’t want to jump to Boston just because I feel like “getting away” from home. I’m not really like that; I don’t hate my house enough to want to be drastically far.

But I do want to go because I think it’s the best choice for right now.

Quick Note on The Pursuit of Happiness in the Face of Disaster.

One of the scariest things is to be completely without parental support in your efforts. They don’t care, they don’t have any hope, and they are completely discouraged. Even when these reactions to your ideas and dreams are understandable, justified, and entirely your fault, it still hurts. You question your decisions, and you let the state of your future rest on the opinions of those who you figure have your best interest at heart. Even when you’ve disappointed people, you do not want your failures to determine your worth in their eyes.

I think leaving will help me, and there are doubts. How can I be expected to change, they say. There is no foundation of trust, no example of responsibility. True, but the exhilaration of a fresh start can aid in that reform. The experience of a new place, new people, and working towards a career in what I love will ease the reform into better habits. I don’t know. I feel stuck here, and I have resented it for a long time. Things I loved and took pride in became chores. Things I’d once looked forward to became miserable.

And my response is that a new environment will make a difference. Insanity is repetition: settling for less, staying local, these things will not change me. They will add to the problem, the trouble that there is nothing for me here and what I am looking for is a place to foster my ambitions and advance myself. I see these things with my sister: even as she “does well” in school, she continues to hold grudges for not having permission to go where she felt she would have striven. I don’t want the burden of ‘What if?” to linger.

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“What do you even say to that?” she asked me. She backspaced a sentence she’d typed out, sighed in frustration, and turned her head to look at me. She was clearly out of uplifting advice to dish out to her suicidal friend. By now she had probably exhausted all the cliche things you say in these cases, had probably already run down every reason dotted on her mental “Don’t Do It!” list. And I sat beside her, staring at the screen too and assessing everything silently. “What would you say if it was me?”

I sighed and said, “There’s nothing you can say. He has to find a reason on his own.”

I went on to try and explain it: Suicide, I said, is an option people should have. It’s a right people are entitled to. And if this person has been going about this for months and tried…they must mean it. But the thing is, it’s not fair to tell them to stay because you want them to stay. When you say that, you’re making their life about yours. And you’re saying that you should be their reason to live. 

That’s more selfish to me than anything. To keep a person alive only for your sake. People get caught up in that idea all the time, hooked on prolonging death whenever they can, for however long it lasts. And let’s supposed you are listened to. You may be resented, which is undesirable. But even more importantly, “you” as a human being who is fickle and tired, are not a stable thing to depend a life on. You are a superficial reason for someone to keep going. It doesn’t work.  

“He needs to find something to live for,” I said quietly. “Something that’ll make it worthwhile.”

I don’t believe that life should be lived for other people. And so she said nothing, decided to talk to him later. And if it had been her, I would have reminded her that I cared, that I was there for anything, but ultimately she needed to know what she wanted out of life and that I would never want to guilt her into doing something she didn’t enjoy or want—even something as “precious” as living. 

She doesn’t seem like the type, though. Something she said in an prior conversation has made that clear. 

But those words have been dancing in my mind all day and now I am thinking of what keeps me here, of what my reason is. 

I don’t have one. I’m just waiting to see how things play out but in the back of my mind, things are settled. Maybe life will surprise me. I think so, and so that hope keeps me going, but I am always ready to be knocked down by disappointment. I am convinced that I am not cut out for living, and if it comes down to it, then…

Balloons. 

Quick Note on My Writing…and how that’s going.

So…let’s talk about my writing. But, I should warn you: this post is going to be all over the place.

There’s a guy in particular who likes to discuss my stories with me. What they’re about, what I’m really working on, etc. If he spots me with a notebook, it’s a given that he’ll ask if I’m in the middle of a project. He claims that I MUST see Star Wars even though I don’t really care to sit through it anytime soon. But, I digress. 

The point is, I really appreciate these conversations. For two reasons:

1. His interest in what I’m working on seems genuine. Most people just take the fact that I’m a writer at face value and care little beyond that. They assess that I carry around notebooks, and they’ve heard other people compliment me, and that’s the most they know of what I do. People don’t really care to know what I’m writing, and if they ask I can tell they’re not really interested, they’ll sort of just nod along and leave me alone. People do a lot of that—leaving me alone. 
2. It helps me reassess what I’m really talking about, what I’m trying to say, and how I want to convey my ideas. 

Back to what I was saying with #1: It’s not that I expect everyone to volunteer to read my writing or to give me useful feedback (most people fail to criticize me constructively which is the most FRUSTRATING thing). But, it makes most compliments I receive empty. I try to take what I do seriously when I get myself to stop bullshitting and commit to sitting at a desk and getting words down. And I can be so enthusiastic about all these stories in my head and they’re turns and how fantastic they are. 

And it makes me sad when no else really cares but me. So, to have a guy willing to discuss my characters or my plots—even if I disagree with what he’s saying? It really, really helps. Unfortunately these conversations are not very long, but they make me feel better about my my projects, unfinished as they may be.

Which brings me to my second point: talking out loud about what I’m writing makes me aware of what I’m saying. I noticed this yesterday with Amanda. I’m telling her about what happens in my necrophilia story and I realized how gruesome it sounded. And then she countered my plot with logic, pointing out the holes in my planning: how long was the span of the story? How many murders were being committed, and how practical was I going to be about the execution of them? Things like that, which I had given NO prior thought to.

Also: It’s only when I’m giving an oral synopsis that the dark undertones of my work seem so obvious. There’s always somebody dying. There are ghosts. There is mass destruction. It’s just…WHOOOSH. There you have it: blood, murder, magic. On paper it seems detached and normal and logical, only because I’m outlining and focusing on the details of how to get from A to B. But, in spoken words it all seems fantastic and wild and confusing and interesting. I mean, I think what I’m writing about is interesting! And often these stories are trying to say something. When I wrote Project UNDO [teens used for illegal drug testing] I wanted to talk about the importance of emotions and the past influencing personal struggle. With Noah’s Arc [includes: clones, zombies, teenagers with heightened mental ability] I wanted to write about identity and holding grudges and again, pain. There is a lot of pain in my stories. 

At first, I found myself apologizing for having “dark” trends but now I realize how much it suits me. And lately I’ve been thinking I should go back to fixing some of these projects. I have seven things I could try to rehash. And these kinds of chats are the things that get me excited again. I’ve been bored to death and too __ to work on anything I’d be proud of and writing is usually my constant and lately it hasn’t been. 

If you ever want to know how sadistic I can be, just ask me what I’m working on. 

Today my mother wants to know why I do not believe in God. I don’t give an answer. I don’t want to read the bible, or go to Church. It was different when I was younger; I didn’t realize what was going on nor did I really understand it.

What really disturbs me is the idea of christianity being such a missionary religion. I don’t see other members of other religions handing out pamphlets, shouting on buses or subway platforms, or trying to publicly make known how “awesome” their beliefs are. Maybe because other groups are not the majority and have a non-dominant voice.

Liz and I had a discussion like this yesterday. “Isn’t it like you’re part of a cult?” she said. I agreed wholeheartedly. I feel very weird about having my life—my opinions, my decisions, my actions— revolve around God or Jesus or whatever. It’s creepy. It’s weird.

But, I think some people need that. Some people take God seriously, or believe in him just enough, I guess. And that’s fine. I respect that, and will not object to attending church events in support of my friends. I understand why religion is important to people.

I just want no part of it.

“I’ve been in a mood lately,” I tell her.

I have not really spoken much of the matter to anyone. Yesterday I kind of just kept quiet, I didn’t have much to say. It was one of those days. I vaguely discussed this with Liz, which helped in a way. Later Esther would bring it up and by then I was okay again and it was fine because nothing really mattered so I didn’t explain the all of it. But I was feeling okay, so there.

At her suggestion that it’s the weather, I say no. Around this time, I am alive with spirit, with laughter and energy. We are on the verge of spring, my second favorite season. I should be…happy. Instead there is lethargy. There is indifference and misery, and I feel myself on a bad path to self destruction.

Her reply seemed almost too simple: It’s your heart yearning for another belonging.

And well, this could be it. You know, an indication that my efforts are not wasted and that I am not doomed after all. I have been searching in vain for such a sign, finding nothing, and left to bear the echo of my mother’s discouragement.

In a sense, I was beginning to fade, to lose color. My presence in classes dwindled. My drive was dead. Ambition, none. Hope that I would even make it out of the hellhole of high school faltered at every angle. I quietly slipped out of discussions involving prom or other senior events, afraid to admit I might not be able to partake. Other times I’d play along because I didn’t want to seem like I was pulling the same stunt as my other friend—saying I wouldn’t go and ultimately being convinced (or forced) otherwise. I figured it wouldn’t matter, being there or not. It would go on. Like most things do.

But you know, I may have just proven to myself that I am not a lost cause. Which means, I should not treat myself like one. There are a few issues I am afraid to face. But it’s not impossible. It wouldn’t kill me to find some motivation and try. In fact, it might kill me not to.

It’ll come, she told me.

I think it’s already on its way.

If You Say It Out Loud: “Porn is boring.”

We sat in a circle at the park. The wind proved too much interference with games of catch and throw, so the grass offered us a seat and that was fine. We were talking. What about doesn’t matter so much; the topics ranged from this to that. At some point, however, somebody said something to which I replied, “Porn is boring.” I got a few looks of disagreement, like I had to be watching the wrong stuff to say that. But, no. 

I didn’t explain myself, didn’t say that I thought so because I used to watch the stuff so often I became desensitized to it. Kind of weirded out by it. I just…didn’t say anything. I don’t care much for porn, I didn’t say. I am too picky with it, I didn’t say. I watch a bit of it maybe twice or thrice a year. I am not kidding.

It was fun, when I was new to it. I didn’t quite understand what I was looking at, or why it was enjoyable. It was just very secret and rather…addicting. I’m serious about the addiction aspect of watching—I’d look at the stuff once a night…every other night…when I began to ‘cut down’ it was like, once a week? I don’t know. I’ve forgotten. 

This one time at the bookstore I picked up a book about pornography in our culture and it was interesting to read. Something about the videos are really just aimed at men. Anyway, I was a lot younger and kind of curious about what else was out there…so I skimmed categories. By this time I was not very interested in hetero sex at all. It was just men…doing stuff. The women were kind of just there and they were very pointless. And unrealistic or not, it sounded too artificial. No bueno.

Eventually I could only get my kicks out of lesbian videos. That hasn’t changed really. Sometimes I filter through fetish things. Most of those are terrible. They’re still pretty artificial, but at least there’s some fictionalized intimacy. I can bandwagon that. 

Anyway, porn is very strange. Like, it’s fine and then it’s…odd. Like, kind of abrasive and kind of sloppy and very, very fake. I don’t know. I can’t watch too much of it. And then, even so, I’m picky. So. 

I do kind of think that the ‘category’ a person prefers is kind of fun to know. But I don’t have these kinds of chats often. We should, I think. It’s amusing.

Pictures.

I like taking pictures. I’ll never be a photographer, but I like what I refer to as “picturesque” moments. I like pictures of that variety.

I visited my aunt today. It was really nice, I have a few things to say in an upcoming post, but she was showing me pictures. From weddings, parties, graduations, etc. Pictures of wedding cakes she’s baked that she keeps in her portfolios. Portraits of relatives. Pictures are a big deal.

I mean, digital cameras kind of ruin the value of a picture. I imagine that with film being rather pricey, if you were going to shoot a photo, it was going to have something to say. Something memorable and special was happening.

I kinda want a film camera for that reason. A polaroid, an old fashioned camera, whatever. My parents still have the old one they used before digital cameras even existed. Maybe I’ll acquire some film and use that. I just feel like…I need to take some pictures!

They used to be so important! I couldn’t leave the house without my camera. Last year I wanted to capture everything. I forgot why I stopped caring, but I did. September came and it didn’t matter so much, and so my camera is dead now because my brothers destroyed it.

The end.

The LBP 2.0 - The Letterbook Project 2

It’s in a way exactly what it sounds like, a book full of letters. In the past, I’ve attempted to address the letters to an imaginary stranger, romanticizing the idea that I would leave the book to be found and kept by someone I’d never have the chance to meet. Doing things that way, you come to feel like you’re telling a story out of your life. And well, your life isn’t really a story. And it’s not as compelling as a real epistolary novel. Mostly I just pasted in lists, little tidbits of myself. I might have actually completed the book, too…if it wasn’t stolen/lost.

Anyway, I’m going through a time when I’m full of emotions or thoughts I don’t necessarily always have an outlet for. Some of these feelings involve other people: things they’ve said or I’ve said or done, etc. It’s easy to omit names on a blog and vaguely rant because it’s important to be wary of unwanteds reading your words and gossiping about them. So…I grabbed a blank journal, and decided to direct my emotions at the people behind them. I’m sharing this because I think it might be of use to others to go along with this.

With this project, each letter is addressed to an actual person in my life. The letters don’t have to always be to people though. You can write them to inanimate objects, to things that don’t exist, to things that used to. Whoever or whatever you want. But I established a few “rules” - the first being that:

1. No names are allowed. I guess it’s to preserve a certain aspect of anonymity (in case anyone were to eavesdrop, for example) but also to direct focus away so much from who the letter is to and onto what the message is. With mine I usually just start “Dear You” but “Dear __” or any variation might also work. 
2. There are no dates. I stopped using dates in a lot of things I write, because they tend to have more weight in a way they wouldn’t if you could neatly plot them on a timeline. Besides the fact that dates clue you on content, allowing you to violate #5, they aren’t needed. In the future, these feelings won’t matter. You won’t remember when these things happened. The minute, the month, the weekday of a feeling is irrelevant. Time only matters in the now of you writing what you need to say, so let your words be the timekeeper. Omit dates, and just write.
3. Write to a given person/thing as often as necessary. No extra explanation really needed here.
4. It’s personal! Remember that these letters are for you and don’t have to be made known to anyone else unless you choose so. Simply because I’m an open person, I feel that after a while I would have the urge to perhaps share some of these letters with the people I wrote them for. But right now, it might not be the best idea. I don’t know if I’ll choose to share my thoughts with those people later, when it stops mattering, or if I’ll use the letters as a sort of prequel to a conversation we’ll have in person.
I also don’t know if this rule excludes people being allowed to read letters that don’t involve them at all. But I guess you can interpret “it’s personal” to mean that what you say is confidential. Share in accordance with your own discretion.
5. Don’t reread old letters. At least, not right away. With writing, freewriting especially, it’s suggested that you put down as many words as you need to, without thinking, and you set them aside for a while. Let yourself heal from whatever anger you’ve just vented or be humbled by the gratitude you’ve expressed to a friend.You want to leave your thoughts (good or bad) alone for a while, not go back to them and let them fester in your head as you think about what you left out or what you shouldn’t have said. With my book, I just open to a new page and move on, not stopping to look at old feelings. Which is why it helps not having names or dates—I can flip through pages and I can’t even accidentally be reminded of what says what unless I bother to peruse the content of each note. 

It’s a great project for venting in a way that isn’t just…”I feel angry” or “I’m sad.” Instead it’s taking a feeling and tracing it to a source, or retelling the way you would in person. I find it’s relieving in a different way than just throwing out anonymous thoughts. Stronger, too. I really just try to find better ways of understanding myself or what’s on my mind. 

So if you decide to try this (all you need is a notebook and something to say!), I’m sure you’ll find it relieving, too.

Why Be Tan?

The other day I met a woman from the Philippines who I think is very nice. She looks twelve but is 28 and we were talking and she asked me, “Why do Americans want to be tan?” We were talking about the beach, and summer when the question came up.

And you know, I don’t have an answer to that. I couldn’t understand. I have never wanted to be tan because I can’t get any darker. It doesn’t look good when white people (who are mostly guilty of this) come back from some exotic vacation all orange or red. It’s strange that there are people like the cast of Jersey Shore, going to tanning salons regularly or buying spray. They don’t look good tan. Just…odd.

It’s weird that being of a dark complexion is not celebrated yet there’s a fascination with being this weird orange color. Sometimes I see pictures of people and almost think they’re black until I realize they’re not. There was one such picture on my dash a few minutes ago, which reminded me of that conversation and prompted this post.

I don’t get the obsession. I don’t know why it became part of the “attractive” criteria people (not just women!) model themselves for. It’s not a pressing issue, it’s just an interesting/amusing thing about our culture.