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| september 1st 2005 autumn is my favorite season. always has been. i love the slight chill in the air, the smell of burning leaves, the riotous colors and the twilights that linger just a little bit longer. give me hot cocoa. better yet, spiced cider. i want the scratchy wool socks. i need the brisk breezes. i crave the corduroy pants. i know it’s only the first of september. i understand that autumn is a fair way off yet. my mind gets it. the rest of me looks longingly at my mufflers and mittens. but last night, while waiting for my computer to finish defragmenting, i started to wonder what it was that i was yearning for. and although a nice big bonfire is one of my favorite things in the world, and nothing compares to candy apples, i began to realize that they are just the halloween costume that covers up the child underneath. thus began my search for the elusive reason for the season. spring is for new life, summer is for lovers, winter is strictly hibernation time. and autumn is for…what, exactly? some would say reflection, maturity, acceptance of the quick passage of time with the seasons and our lives. i won’t disagree, but i think those are the easy answers. and far be it from me to do anything easy. i prefer the hard stuff. why do I love a time when things are dying? when families break apart? when all that stretches before me is bleak and washed in white? granted, a lot of bugs die, but that’s small consolation for alienation and loss. when i was a child, the one supremely onerous item of autumn was raking leaves. my parents picked a weekend, and we all moaned and complained and generally put off pitching in as long as we could. we had crappy metal rakes, a large front and back yard, and depending on the designated day we were either drenched in sweat or freezing our patooties off. my parents were lucky if they got a solid productive hour out of any of us, and were usually left holding the bag, literally, while we groused about blisters and breaking backs, hightailing it inside for a "little break" that usually lasted the rest of the day. but once the leaves were all gathered, my parents would call us all outside and let us run kamikaze-style around the yard, jumping into the piles, scattering the results of their labor and whooping with wild abandon when we found a heap gloriously free of slugs. they never complained, just smiled at our delight and put the piles back together when we had exhausted ourselves. at the time, it was a fun, temporary diversion from the chores of the day. but when i think about it now, i realize what my parents really did for us. they let us have a moment of unfettered freedom, the blessing to make an unholy mess without regard to thoughts of consequence or accountability. they gave us that split second of time when we were suspended at the apex, the exact moment between ascension and falling where the world seems unimaginably vast and the possibilities endless. and though our trajectory was fixed and the outcome inevitable, for that one perfect second we were creatures of the air with the undeniable right to make that headlong plunge into the unknown. my computer dinged to signal the end of defragmentation as my brain buzzed with the coalescing of thought. maybe it’s not the autumn I’m looking forward to. maybe it’s the fall. september 8th 2005 i chart my course through madison daily with the various kooks and characters i see on my travels. here, in particular and chronological order, are the prizewinners for today: 1. a man standing on the sidewalk on willy street, looking through a pair of binoculars. peculiar: he was looking at oncoming traffic. 2. a old man biking down atwood wearing a yellow polo and madras shorts. peculiar: he was going about 2 mph, admirably unconcerned with the line of cars backed up for blocks behind him. 3. a man sitting in a chair in the middle of the sidewalk on east washington. peculiar: a man sitting in a chair in the middle of the sidewalk on east washington. 4. a man on east washington rummaging in the trunk of his car, wearing only shorts and a top hat. peculiar: top hats are kinda cool, in a creepy sort of way. 5. a man sitting on the ground against a fence on winnebago with an open laptop and a smile on his face, gazing up at the sky. peculiar: not much. more like beautiful. it should be noted that all these were spotted within 20 minutes. i love madison. peculiar: there was not one interesting woman in the bunch. looks like a job for cara the bruce… september 12th 2005 i’m a woman of few vices. jack and coke in one hand, cigarette in another, good food in my belly and i’m a happy girl. sure, i have a few too many pairs of red shoes, and i can’t resist anything covered in chocolate, but i’m a pretty wholesome gal when it comes down to it. webster’s dictionary defines vice as “moral depravity or corruption” or “a habitual and usually trivial defect or shortcoming.” i define vice as “it’s bad for me, but hell if i’m gonna stop cause it feels so damn good.” i like my vices. i find comfort in them, knowing that when life gets bad, there’s always hershey’s. or marlboro. or jack. they form the net below my tottering psyche, so that when i peer into the abyss, the interweaving imperfections blur the darkness below. not much, mind you, but enough so that it doesn’t look quite so deep. i could try and tell you that these “defects” are not really “defects.” i could try, but i’d be wrong. and i hate being wrong. ah, pride. add it to my long list of “shortcomings.” for the sake of argument, let’s do away with it all. clear up my lungs. restore my liver. reduce my belly. any and all sins of omission, dereliction or neglect, consciously committed or not. and the red shoes, too. what am i left with? a perfect little girl. boring. that’s right. i’d rather die sooner than later and have some fun along the way than commit what i believe should be a cardinal sin: perfection. i have no desire to precision-march through life, never digressing, blinders on, earplugs in, steadfastly moving forward to an unattainable goal. cause that’s what perfection is, folks. the oasis in the desert that vanishes just as soon as you think you’ve reached it. and, parched for water, the sand starts looking pretty good. we’re human. we fuck up. honest. all of us do. none of us are beyond reproach. granted, my argument is painted in broad strokes. it’s never right to hurt someone else. if you’re engaged in activity that is harmful to others, that’s not a vice, that’s a sickness. but hell, screw yourself up as much as you want. what’s the point of trying to get everything right? don’t get me wrong, life is about challenges and opportunities as well. it’s all good to strive to better yourself. but where we get messed up is when we strive for goals that are set by other people. not skinny enough? not stupid enough? too honest? too passionate? fuck that. what do you want? who do you think you should be? at the end of the day, the only opinion that should matter is yours. and it’s your imperfections that define you, whether you like it or not. your idiosyncrasies tell your story, make up the unique you that goes out into the world every day and tries to make sense of it all. so, vices? bring ‘em on. accept them. revel in them. try some new ones on for size. you just might find yourself in the process. i’ve gotta go. it’s just about time for my cigarette break. september 13th 2005 let’s talk about money. as of this moment, i have $3.24 in my checking account. payday is two days from now, and while i have enough food in my fridge to see me through, none of it is especially appetizing (budget gourmet, anyone?). my car is running solely on fumes. i may have enough cigarettes till then if i conserve. i really need a new pair of work shoes, i’m seriously low on toilet paper, and my cell phone bill is way overdue. there is nothing that gets me more stressed out than money woes. you’d think i would be used to it by now. my parents were quite poor when i was growing up, and almost all of my clothes were handmade or hand-me-downs. i’ve had a string of minimum wage jobs, living from paycheck to paycheck. i had to sell all my stuff once when i was fired, and couldn’t afford rent or food. multiple temp jobs without health insurance have taken their toll on my finances. not to mention paying off school loans, credit card debt, and being the frustrated owner of a car that seems to find a new way to break down every month. couple all of this with a bad head for math, and you’ve got a fiscal disaster in the making. and while i’ve got a job now that pays me more than i’ve ever been paid before, i still can’t seem to save a penny. it makes me crazy. it screws me up. it takes on a life of its own, becoming a monster of national debt proportions, destroying my options, confining me to an ever-shrinking cell of constant worry where the rations get smaller every day and my freedom recedes into the distance. so this morning when i woke up, my funk was blue and my heart was heavy. and then i read the paper. item 1: a disabled man was found sealed in the back of a car by police officers. he was stuck in there for hours in record high heat while his caregiver (who works for the good life, inc. – ironic, yes?) had lunch with his girlfriend. this elderly gentleman is unable to feed or clothe himself. he doesn’t have speech capability, and cannot move. the caregiver, who is currently suspended without pay pending an investigation, said he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. item 2: 11 disabled children were found locked in cages by sheriff’s deputies in wakeman, ohio. the cages were less than 3 feet high, and rigged with alarms. one child said he had been caged for 3 years. their parents are the adoptive or foster guardians for all of them, and have been receiving thousands of dollars of government funds a month for their care. they have stated that they caged them on the advice of a psychiatrist. although the children were sent to the hospital to be examined, the parents have yet to be charged with child abuse. item 3: 40 dead bodies were discovered in a flooded-out hospital in new orleans by relief workers. under pressure from the public to determine the cause of death, hospital spokespeople have released a statement that supposes some of them died before katrina hit, and others perished from unrelated causes. there is currently an inquest underway, as officials do not believe this explanation; however, they have been unable to come up with any answers as of yet, as much of the city is still underwater and an eyewitness or any possible evidence seems to have been swept away. holy hell. suddenly i don’t care that my bank account has flatlined. i look at the polish on my toes and the netflix dvd to be returned, feeling like a louse, a lout, a lug of the worst degree. i’ve got a frickin’ bike, it wouldn’t kill me to take a time-out from smoking (the opposite, in fact), i’ve got twenty-something pairs of shoes in my closet, a roll of paper towels, and a land line. i’m the friggin’ queen of the world compared to these people, and i have the nerve to whine about my sorry life? these people can’t defend themselves. they have no power, no recourse, no freedom. they are placed at the whim of others, of fate, of the vagaries of life itself. money? it’s just a symbol, one that most people (myself included) poorly understand. the real currency of life is the ability to act. i consider my ass duly kicked. tonight i will feast on budget gourmet. tomorrow… who knows what life will throw at me? but whatever it is, i know i have the freedom, the will, the ability to do something – anything – about it. ain’t life grand? september 26th 2005 welcome to the first part of a series focusing on gender relations in america, entitled gettin' it on in the aughts. i’ve broken it down into five easy sections for your reading pleasure: 1. technology 2. trust 3. the sexes 4. the sex 5. love love love i’m just proud of myself that i’ve thought this far ahead. and while i’ve had no formal training in cultural anthropology, i consider myself expert enough to speak on it simply because i’m human. and horny as hell. part 1: technology i have a pretty rich fantasy life. my mind is the fertile playground for numerous scenarios; 20’s jazz singer mixed up with a dashing but dangerous mobster or lady in waiting secretly lusting for the lord of the manor; civil war wife being tempted by the hired help or wild scottish warrior-maid hot for the hunky clan leader; i’ve had countless assignations courtesy of my very own cranium. i suppose my childhood is to thank for this. middle of iowa, poor mormon family, fourth kid out of five, shy, sensitive, not many friends, intelligent, precocious, artistic and naïve, what else did i have to do but bury my head in a book, wash a canvas with color and make up worlds entirely different to my own? i also grew up in a blessed time: the 70’s. schoolhouse rocks! was teaching us about adjectives and the constitution, the apple IIe boasted solitaire and 2-d miniature golf on green screens, eight-tracks were ultra-cool and cordless phones seemed like something from a sci-fi movie. now let’s look at the aughts: blackberries, ipods, pagers, e-mail, laptops, cell phones, fax machines, tomb raider, fear factor, big brother, the internet superhighway and 5,000 channels of pay-per-view. we now have countless ways to communicate, to bring the world to us. best friend teaching english in brazil? no worries. instant message. having a party and want to keep track of it all? e-vite ‘em. feel the need to share your left-leaning, slightly silly and often asinine thoughts with the world? upload to your blog. hell yeah, technology kicks major ass. i can’t imagine life without washing machines, or microwaves, or elevators. i get to talk to my family as often as i want (which admittedly isn’t that often) even though we’re strung out across the states. i get to listen to awesome mix cd’s on my awesome cd player and watch compelling documentaries (and escapist action flicks) on my primo dvd player. but we’ve become irrelevant. humans, i mean. it seems like we’re all figments, fragments of digital information hurtling at super speed through wires and cables and fiber optic networks. we exist only as a contact in a cell phone, an e-mail in an address book of global proportions. no wonder we’ve lost ourselves. we can’t even find each other in the bits and bytes of data that flood around us daily in the ever-deepening whirlpool of this virtual non-reality. and the biggest casualty in this techno war is courtship. sex. love. feel the need to talk to someone but too lazy to get off your ass and find some compatible conversation? chat room. forget the fact that about half of the people out there aren’t who they say they are. we don’t want them; we want the faceless, emotionless idea of them. we have become a society of the anonymous fuck. cyber sex gives us the pseudo-release we crave free of messy commitment. call me crazy, but, i’ve never found the idea of frantically pounding out “oohhhhhhhh ahhhh baby i’m gonna cum i’m cummmmmming” on the keyboard while pleasuring yourself particularly sexy. it’s all out there. from fucking inanimate objects to snuff films and child pornography, you can find it. embarrassingly, frighteningly easily. sure, some people turn to techsex because they’re lacking in social graces and it’s difficult for them to meet people. for others, it’s a way to ameliorate past sexual trauma or abiding loneliness. but it’s cyclic. logically, it’s absurd to prescribe isolationism as a cure for isolationism. but logic rarely enters into the world of little heads and big tits. personally, i find the brain to be the biggest sexual organ of them all. give me a nice juicy cerebral cortex and i’m a happy girl. but that’s become harder to find amid the detritus of digital desire, where gratification is instant and those we couple with go by handles like “hugecock4529.” not to mention that boob-jobs and penis-enlargement pills engender unrealistic expectations. 98% of the population does not look like porn stars. we have cellulite and hairy backs. we jiggle. we snort when we laugh. with the exception of that 2%, we’re full of fear that we won’t measure up. either in life, or in assuming the position. humans are funny creatures, complex at best and insoluble at worst. but we are wondrous in our ability to confound, and our breath-catching uniqueness should be celebrated, not mechanized. when did "pda" change from "public displays of affection" to "personal digital assistants?" when was the last time you touched someone because you were there and they were there and just that simple fact made you happy? when do we stop trying to convince ourselves that we’re satisfied when we go through the day without looking anyone in the eyes? unplug yourself and engage your brain. stop e-mailing, start exploring, and see what happens. it will be messy, if will be painful, and it will be unexplainable. it will also be unbelievably erotic, down and dirty, and yes, i’m going to say it, spiritual. and it will be human, which is the biggest turn-on of all. now if you’ll excuse me, i’ve got a date with my vibrator. |
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| sept 05 blog |
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| it's always good to visit the past.. i just wouldn't want to live there. |
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