My brother, sister and I are chock full of 'get rich quick schemes'. Everything from lightweight, foldable carseats to selling packs of home rolled cigarettes outside of the local methadone clinic have arisen like promising bubbles into the stifling air of our financially challenged worlds and popped almost immediately. Unfortunately, the most practical steps we've taken towards achieving these ends have been planning our interviews on Barbara Walters concerning our ingenious inventions.
'Well, Barbara, I was always the quiet type in school, but I was always thinking- one of those 'still waters run deep' kids.'
'Yes, Barbara, the idea just came to me from out of nowhere. A stroke of genius as they say. Other than that I'm a pretty normal person.'
I myself have taken the extra step and planned my public persona to a T. I will be a decisive, steely eyed business woman with a collection of quietly expensive business suits. I will own a top of the line Maserati, and have a spacious office with a huge shiny chrome desk. I have a vivid daydream of myself on the line (one of many lines) with a family member, brusquely getting them out of trouble with a $100,000.00 check which I scribble absentmindedly with one hand while silencing a thin, sleek Blackberry with the long, red fingernail of another.
Until my ship comes in, however, this shrewd business woman will have to lie dormant and put up with a small apartment, a car which neither I or my mechanic could believe passed the yearly inspection and the harsh reality of waking up to an apologetic yet firm National Fuel man coming to turn off the gas. Sometimes I find myself wondering why she refuses to come out and rescue me from my financial woes. The closest she's come to revealing herself to the world was the day after I decided to become an art therapist, which happened to be a holiday. My brothers and sisters stared at me aghast as I confidently clacked through the house in a pair of high heeled, knee high boots and made, as my brother described it, 'normal conversation' at the dinner table. What they didn't understand was that this was not a facade- this was the first glimpse of the business woman inside of me, my true self. Everything else about me was the facade- my mismatched clothes, my odd conversational skills, my apathy and my smudged eye makeup. Unfortunately, my business woman self retreated back inside of me the next morning, when any goal beyond a cup of coffee seemed utterly pointless to aim towards and art therapy seemed as lame as any other pastime- not to mention a hell of a lot of work.
So, I go on quietly through life, remembering even in my darkest hours the words of Langston Hughes:
'Hold on to dreams, for when dreams die
Life is a broken winged bird that can't fly...'
I quietly nourish the business woman inside of me in a variety of ways; by making shrewd, albeit minor financial transactions with others, by silently referring to acquaintances as 'colleagues', by owning a shiny black plastic organizer for my bills, and by speaking in a clipped bark to customer service representatives. I feel sure that I will need her one day, and it is this assurance that pulls me through the good times and the bad.
'Hold on to dreams, for when dreams go,
Life is a barren field covered with snow.'
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
What's 'really going on'
I don't know which I love more- conspiracy theories, or the people who believe in them. There's nothing to brighten up a dull life like thinking that perhaps there is an Ed Harris- esque secret agent/ general tracking your every move through a hidden and deeply complex survellience system. And there's nothing quite like speculating with an avid consiracy theorist, confirming old suspicions and being introduced to new delightfully horrifying possibilities.
I've traced my interest in these theories to my oldest sister Gen, whose pot induced paranoia finds a perfect outlet in the alleged presence of an all seeing, top secret government agency. In fact, my first experience with this new and exciting level of reality took place years ago during one of Gen's brief and usually disturbing pitstops home from the Dead tour. Feeling complacently cool walking down the street with my fashionably bedraggled sister, I had not yet learned to be continuously wary of Gen's ability to pull the proverbial rug out from under my feet, and was as usual completely unprepared for the world that I was about to enter via her hallucinigenic enhanced mind. After a vigorous toke, Gen nudged me and pointed to a telephone pole.
'You see those boxes up there?' She asked in a strained voice, a musky little curl of smoke escaping from her peirced nose. Exhaling the rest if the smoke in a long stream , she looked at me with all earnestness through red, glassy eyes.
'Those are cameras that the President put up there. He watches everything that you do.'
Being who I was, and still am to a certain extent, I took this startling news at face value. It was both shocking and deflating, as I was an accomplice right then to an illegal activity. I pictured a grainy black and white movie of us breaking the law being transmitted at that very moment to the Oval office, where George Bush sat in front of rows and rows of small monitors evocative of the television section of Walmart. Leaning forward, he zoomed into our faces using a small controller and nodded slowly and disapprovingly. I was now blacklisted.
As usual, Gen's mind had immediately moved onto other things, leaving me alone with the implications of a nosy, all seeing government- casual 'facts' or statements on the part of Gen, which to me were earth shattering news, was an alarming pattern in our relationship. (She had no idea that I, an already unstable eleven year old, was considering the easiest and most painless way to commit suicide after her informing me that everything about me (my astrological sign, a strand of my hair, my initials, my birthday) pointed to my unique role in history as being the future 'bride of the Antichrist' (an entirely different story in itself)). Likewise, she had no idea that her information regarding the President's cameras not only engrained itself into my mind. It would later on both form and pricelessly enhance my adulthood, as the initial discomfort I felt at my walks down the long, monotonous road of my youth being observed from telephone poles developed into a ghoulish fascination with what is 'really going on'.
As a conspiracy theorist in today's world, it is not only my pleasure but my duty to reiterate to any willing audience what I have learned from 'Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theory' TV show, taking the liberty to fill in obvious discrepancies with my own ideas. I fritter nights away watching Youtube videos about 9/11, relishing the outrage that I feel for the United States government. And kudos to Gen, who was in fact far ahead of her time for 1995, as the internet, cell phones and the especially diabolical GPS, the conspiracy theorists' sure fire evidence that something is terribly, thrillingly amiss, were twinkles in the eye of the CIA.
I've traced my interest in these theories to my oldest sister Gen, whose pot induced paranoia finds a perfect outlet in the alleged presence of an all seeing, top secret government agency. In fact, my first experience with this new and exciting level of reality took place years ago during one of Gen's brief and usually disturbing pitstops home from the Dead tour. Feeling complacently cool walking down the street with my fashionably bedraggled sister, I had not yet learned to be continuously wary of Gen's ability to pull the proverbial rug out from under my feet, and was as usual completely unprepared for the world that I was about to enter via her hallucinigenic enhanced mind. After a vigorous toke, Gen nudged me and pointed to a telephone pole.
'You see those boxes up there?' She asked in a strained voice, a musky little curl of smoke escaping from her peirced nose. Exhaling the rest if the smoke in a long stream , she looked at me with all earnestness through red, glassy eyes.
'Those are cameras that the President put up there. He watches everything that you do.'
Being who I was, and still am to a certain extent, I took this startling news at face value. It was both shocking and deflating, as I was an accomplice right then to an illegal activity. I pictured a grainy black and white movie of us breaking the law being transmitted at that very moment to the Oval office, where George Bush sat in front of rows and rows of small monitors evocative of the television section of Walmart. Leaning forward, he zoomed into our faces using a small controller and nodded slowly and disapprovingly. I was now blacklisted.
As usual, Gen's mind had immediately moved onto other things, leaving me alone with the implications of a nosy, all seeing government- casual 'facts' or statements on the part of Gen, which to me were earth shattering news, was an alarming pattern in our relationship. (She had no idea that I, an already unstable eleven year old, was considering the easiest and most painless way to commit suicide after her informing me that everything about me (my astrological sign, a strand of my hair, my initials, my birthday) pointed to my unique role in history as being the future 'bride of the Antichrist' (an entirely different story in itself)). Likewise, she had no idea that her information regarding the President's cameras not only engrained itself into my mind. It would later on both form and pricelessly enhance my adulthood, as the initial discomfort I felt at my walks down the long, monotonous road of my youth being observed from telephone poles developed into a ghoulish fascination with what is 'really going on'.
As a conspiracy theorist in today's world, it is not only my pleasure but my duty to reiterate to any willing audience what I have learned from 'Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theory' TV show, taking the liberty to fill in obvious discrepancies with my own ideas. I fritter nights away watching Youtube videos about 9/11, relishing the outrage that I feel for the United States government. And kudos to Gen, who was in fact far ahead of her time for 1995, as the internet, cell phones and the especially diabolical GPS, the conspiracy theorists' sure fire evidence that something is terribly, thrillingly amiss, were twinkles in the eye of the CIA.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
My Beloved Black Shoe
More about me- - -
I'm in a very dysfunctional relationship with my baby daddy, I'll be the first to admit it (although my family and friends are a very close second). It's actually shockingly cliche, and involves money, bars and kids (you can fill in the blanks, I'm sure). The gravity of my situation only truly struck me when I found myself on my porch yelling 'Well, move out to your stupid shack in Angola you $%#@*! See if I care!'- shortly after the receiving end of this scathing declaration had finished a stint in the slammer for a DWI. It was then that the boundaries between being broke and being white trash seemed just a little too fuzzy. I found myself thinking as I slammed the door (leaving it unlocked for the culprit to slink back in, of course), 'How did I get to this point? Further, if I keep heading in this direction, I will be living in a trailer park drinking Red Dog in only a matter of time' I call it the Gervaise syndrome.
I've put up with far more than any righteous Ani DiFranco era female ever should have with Joe. He also claims that he has put up with far more than he should have with me, pointing out my tendency to lose things and my moodiness which resembles that of Kathy Bates' character in Stephen King's 'Misery'. I find it difficult to understand how these compare in any way with him returning home at 10:30 in the morning while I spend the night in a cold fury, or taking the car out again and again when his blood alcohol level is through the roof and his license is already suspended AND we had a six month old baby (he inevitably got arrested and sentenced to a year in jail). All of this Joe casually brushes off as minor flaws eclipsed by his otherwise exceptional character. And since he sticks to his opinions like a leech, to my impressionable mind they often take on a sort of realism, no matter how absurd. How trying it must be for this stellar character indeed, my emerging unexpectedly from dark doorways with a strange gleam to my eyes and tears streaming down my face, and my 'losing things'.
My Achilles heel with Joe is my tendency to laugh inappropriately. Even after he's done something particularly outrageous and infuriating, I find myself fighting back a ghastly smile while in the midst of berating him. Often, I will pretend to rage out of the room only so as to let out some desperate giggles. The truth is, I really can't find it in myself to expend the energy of full fledged anger on him and his ridiculous exploits. It also doesn't help that Joe himself is hilarious, and since he has me laughing more than he has me crying, sometimes both at the same time (which points to some sort of abnormality of my own, I will admit) it's basically a losing battle on my part.
Don't get me wrong, Joe's far from a monster. He's more of a character, and although he is continuously pulling off shockingly self centered escapades, his quirky personality is pleasantly stimulating enough that I can't bring myself to pull the plug on our relationship. For the truth of the matter is, I will never find another Joe. There's always another sensitive artist out there, or upright businessman, or macho jock. But find me another testosterone driven maniac who I will come home to find tears trickling down his face as he plays a sentimental song on repeat? Or a beer drinking, football watching machismo who refers to himself as 'the li'l guy' and threatens to 'wobble down the street with all of his possessions in a hanky on a stick' if I don't give him a snack? Or a taciturn grouch who has the ability of making me laugh hysterically with just one look? Or someone who holds within themselves the capabilities of both lying on a couch for 24 hours straight requesting snack after snack and working a twelve hour day in the burning sun consuming nothing but a bottle of water? It's all just so amusing. Give me another Joe, and I'll kick this one right out the door.
I'm in a very dysfunctional relationship with my baby daddy, I'll be the first to admit it (although my family and friends are a very close second). It's actually shockingly cliche, and involves money, bars and kids (you can fill in the blanks, I'm sure). The gravity of my situation only truly struck me when I found myself on my porch yelling 'Well, move out to your stupid shack in Angola you $%#@*! See if I care!'- shortly after the receiving end of this scathing declaration had finished a stint in the slammer for a DWI. It was then that the boundaries between being broke and being white trash seemed just a little too fuzzy. I found myself thinking as I slammed the door (leaving it unlocked for the culprit to slink back in, of course), 'How did I get to this point? Further, if I keep heading in this direction, I will be living in a trailer park drinking Red Dog in only a matter of time' I call it the Gervaise syndrome.
I've put up with far more than any righteous Ani DiFranco era female ever should have with Joe. He also claims that he has put up with far more than he should have with me, pointing out my tendency to lose things and my moodiness which resembles that of Kathy Bates' character in Stephen King's 'Misery'. I find it difficult to understand how these compare in any way with him returning home at 10:30 in the morning while I spend the night in a cold fury, or taking the car out again and again when his blood alcohol level is through the roof and his license is already suspended AND we had a six month old baby (he inevitably got arrested and sentenced to a year in jail). All of this Joe casually brushes off as minor flaws eclipsed by his otherwise exceptional character. And since he sticks to his opinions like a leech, to my impressionable mind they often take on a sort of realism, no matter how absurd. How trying it must be for this stellar character indeed, my emerging unexpectedly from dark doorways with a strange gleam to my eyes and tears streaming down my face, and my 'losing things'.
My Achilles heel with Joe is my tendency to laugh inappropriately. Even after he's done something particularly outrageous and infuriating, I find myself fighting back a ghastly smile while in the midst of berating him. Often, I will pretend to rage out of the room only so as to let out some desperate giggles. The truth is, I really can't find it in myself to expend the energy of full fledged anger on him and his ridiculous exploits. It also doesn't help that Joe himself is hilarious, and since he has me laughing more than he has me crying, sometimes both at the same time (which points to some sort of abnormality of my own, I will admit) it's basically a losing battle on my part.
Don't get me wrong, Joe's far from a monster. He's more of a character, and although he is continuously pulling off shockingly self centered escapades, his quirky personality is pleasantly stimulating enough that I can't bring myself to pull the plug on our relationship. For the truth of the matter is, I will never find another Joe. There's always another sensitive artist out there, or upright businessman, or macho jock. But find me another testosterone driven maniac who I will come home to find tears trickling down his face as he plays a sentimental song on repeat? Or a beer drinking, football watching machismo who refers to himself as 'the li'l guy' and threatens to 'wobble down the street with all of his possessions in a hanky on a stick' if I don't give him a snack? Or a taciturn grouch who has the ability of making me laugh hysterically with just one look? Or someone who holds within themselves the capabilities of both lying on a couch for 24 hours straight requesting snack after snack and working a twelve hour day in the burning sun consuming nothing but a bottle of water? It's all just so amusing. Give me another Joe, and I'll kick this one right out the door.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
The Plump, Complacent Artist
I read an article a while ago titled 'Hipsters on Foodstamps'. This perked my interest because I am on food stamps and the hippest I've ever been was during the grunge era of the late 90's, during which I apathetically found myself riding the crest of the fashion wave. 'Is it possible I could be cool again?' I asked myself when I saw the title, and proceeded to read on.
As it turns out, there's a small population who find that their art degrees are impractical in the long run. After graduating, these staunch bohemians find themselves jobless yet unwilling to commit to a main stream, corporate job. The old 'starving artist' phenomenon. So they fall back on good old Uncle Sam who provides them with a certain amount of money for food each month. Good for them, as far as I'm concerned- what fool would turn down free food?
What really struck me about food stamps being utilized by these artsy hipsters is that it very well could signal the end of the perennial 'starving artist'. In it's place would be the plump, well fed and unemployed artist, or as my brother said, the 'plump complacent artist'. Just think how food stamps could have changed not only the history of art, but the history of the world! Van Gogh's gaunt self portrait may very well have been two tormented eyes staring out of a healthily rounded face. Hitler might not have become so catastrophically embittered by the need to sell his unpopular painted post cards. Perhaps Dylan Thomas would not have been driven to his fatal alcoholism if he had had access to comfort food, in turn providing the world with even more of his breath taking prose. Interesting stuff to think about, what might have been...
On another note, reading this article helped my own self confidence tremendously. Ever since being strongly encouraged to go on food stamps by my thoroughly practical sister (just picture the forceful decisiveness of an elementary school nurse behind the facade of a thin, fashionable blonde) after noticing that all that I had in my fridge was a half gallon of milk, a small part of me died every time I flashed my EBT card to the cashier. I would sheepishly scan the checkout lines for a very specific type of cashier, this being a person of a minority race, preferably over fifty, and so obviously absorbed in their own misery that they had no energy to judge me and my poverty.
Not anymore. As a Hipster on Foodstamps, I no longer have a problem unloading my groceries in any checkout line I please. In fact, I feel a certain affinity for the more cutting edge cashiers. I proudly swipe my blue benefit card, all the while staring the heavy lidded youth sporting their trademark stiff diagonal bangs and skinny jeans straight in the eyes.
As it turns out, there's a small population who find that their art degrees are impractical in the long run. After graduating, these staunch bohemians find themselves jobless yet unwilling to commit to a main stream, corporate job. The old 'starving artist' phenomenon. So they fall back on good old Uncle Sam who provides them with a certain amount of money for food each month. Good for them, as far as I'm concerned- what fool would turn down free food?
What really struck me about food stamps being utilized by these artsy hipsters is that it very well could signal the end of the perennial 'starving artist'. In it's place would be the plump, well fed and unemployed artist, or as my brother said, the 'plump complacent artist'. Just think how food stamps could have changed not only the history of art, but the history of the world! Van Gogh's gaunt self portrait may very well have been two tormented eyes staring out of a healthily rounded face. Hitler might not have become so catastrophically embittered by the need to sell his unpopular painted post cards. Perhaps Dylan Thomas would not have been driven to his fatal alcoholism if he had had access to comfort food, in turn providing the world with even more of his breath taking prose. Interesting stuff to think about, what might have been...
On another note, reading this article helped my own self confidence tremendously. Ever since being strongly encouraged to go on food stamps by my thoroughly practical sister (just picture the forceful decisiveness of an elementary school nurse behind the facade of a thin, fashionable blonde) after noticing that all that I had in my fridge was a half gallon of milk, a small part of me died every time I flashed my EBT card to the cashier. I would sheepishly scan the checkout lines for a very specific type of cashier, this being a person of a minority race, preferably over fifty, and so obviously absorbed in their own misery that they had no energy to judge me and my poverty.
Not anymore. As a Hipster on Foodstamps, I no longer have a problem unloading my groceries in any checkout line I please. In fact, I feel a certain affinity for the more cutting edge cashiers. I proudly swipe my blue benefit card, all the while staring the heavy lidded youth sporting their trademark stiff diagonal bangs and skinny jeans straight in the eyes.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Well, I had my second daughter five days ago, so I'm pretty much home bound for a while. Which reminds me of something I forgot to put in the 'interests' section of my profile: after taking two anthropology courses, I've taken the liberty of referring to myself as an 'anthropologist' and observing the different mini- cultures in my immigrant friendly neighborhood in what I like to think of as a 'scientific' light. Apparently, according to Victoria, the 'kind but rude' Vietnamese woman across the street, I am '...VERY STRONG'. (The caps lock conveys her forceful way of speaking, I hope.) Further, Vietnamese women 'STAY IN BEDROOM FOR ONE MONTH AFTER BABY, BECAUSE OF THE WIND'.
Fascinating. I'm beginning to think it's not a bad idea, although I don't know what the wind has to do with anything. I will have to look up the correlations between cultural behavior and weather.
Soooo, other than checking little five day old Piper every few minutes for SIDS and amusing my cheerful, cheerful little two and a half year old Myla, I was as ready as I would ever be for an invitation to read my sister's blog (sent via email the day after she'd insisted that in no way, shape or form were any of us- my brothers and sisters and I- going to be able access it, and that there was no use in begging). So I took the bait. And of course, as all of us anti- social recluses know that one outgoing gesture eventually leads to a complete invasion of our precariously sealed little worlds, upon reading her meanderings (which were, incidentally, pretty interesting) and commenting to her on them, she casually suggested that I become her 'follower'.
Waaaait a minute here. Rewind. Back up. Your FOLLOWER? Red alert! And what does this 'following' entail? Some sort of power shift, obviously. Unspoken, maybe never referred to aloud, but a definite shift in the likewise precarious balance of inter- personal relationship. If I'm your 'follower', then what does that make you? Ooooh no, very smooth, but I'm not that easy. While everything else in my life and personality may have dissolved into chaos long enough ago that I've simply given up trying to remember non- compartmentalization, I have retained my independent frame of mind. And I plan on keeping it.
Needless to say, after a few seconds of outrage, I shrugged and clicked on the 'Become a Follower' button. And decided to write my own blog, in which she could become my follower as well, and hopefully bring any sort of leverage lost in my decision back to me. What's independent thinking anyway- so American. And ultimately not necessarily as conducive to a healthy society as more of a 'collective' mindset. Ask any anthropologist.
Fascinating. I'm beginning to think it's not a bad idea, although I don't know what the wind has to do with anything. I will have to look up the correlations between cultural behavior and weather.
Soooo, other than checking little five day old Piper every few minutes for SIDS and amusing my cheerful, cheerful little two and a half year old Myla, I was as ready as I would ever be for an invitation to read my sister's blog (sent via email the day after she'd insisted that in no way, shape or form were any of us- my brothers and sisters and I- going to be able access it, and that there was no use in begging). So I took the bait. And of course, as all of us anti- social recluses know that one outgoing gesture eventually leads to a complete invasion of our precariously sealed little worlds, upon reading her meanderings (which were, incidentally, pretty interesting) and commenting to her on them, she casually suggested that I become her 'follower'.
Waaaait a minute here. Rewind. Back up. Your FOLLOWER? Red alert! And what does this 'following' entail? Some sort of power shift, obviously. Unspoken, maybe never referred to aloud, but a definite shift in the likewise precarious balance of inter- personal relationship. If I'm your 'follower', then what does that make you? Ooooh no, very smooth, but I'm not that easy. While everything else in my life and personality may have dissolved into chaos long enough ago that I've simply given up trying to remember non- compartmentalization, I have retained my independent frame of mind. And I plan on keeping it.
Needless to say, after a few seconds of outrage, I shrugged and clicked on the 'Become a Follower' button. And decided to write my own blog, in which she could become my follower as well, and hopefully bring any sort of leverage lost in my decision back to me. What's independent thinking anyway- so American. And ultimately not necessarily as conducive to a healthy society as more of a 'collective' mindset. Ask any anthropologist.
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