Category: Commentary

A Shack of My Own

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So this happened:

I was feeling kind of shitty Friday night, so I was marathoning Amy Poehler’s Ask Amy, and this commercial came on which I think is hilarious because Ask Amy is essentially for children.

I’m amused because I was basically sitting in the dark in my underwear, kind of sort of crying about the turn my life has taken and the Gods of the Internet were like “this looks like a woman who needs luxury accommodations quickly and easily.” Like, I know that it was probably just reading all the cookies I got from ogling rich people’s houses on Curbed, or however that works, but I thought it was hilarious, so I tweeted about it.

Good to know that whatever fate this shitshow deals me, I will at least have the support of whoever runs the twitter for an upscale Manhattan real estate broker. That’s all that really counts, isn’t it?

We also saw Iron Man 3 this weekend. I’m already guilty about spending good money on a movie when I still don’t know if I’m about to get laid off, but I feel like sometimes you just need to escape into an action film. They’re so full of innocent hope that the impossible could just be possible if we were only wonderful enough. I think a person needs that when things are difficult.

You know, sometimes you just have to drag your iron man through the snow for a little bit (don’t trip, it’s in the trailer), but you’ll be back on your feet soon enough. I know Tony Stark is a super genius and I’m just a fat whore but we do actually have some things in common. For example, we both suffer from insomnia. We’re both brunettes, and we’re both to some extent fictional characters. And No, I’m not going to think of the emotional implications of believing I could prevent bad things if I were just smart enough, cool enough, or possessing of enough firepower. That’s not what were doing right now.

Anyway, no spoilers but my one major complaint about any movie with women in it is how the writers so frequently use the irrational behavior and/or demands of female characters instead of actual writing in order to advance the plot. Can we please fucking stop this? For real, Pepper Potts is just a screaming plot device this entire film. If it weren’t for her, the movie would have been great. And it’s not like it would have taken that long to figure out some other, better motivation for half the shit Tony does than “well, my girlfriend said…” It pisses me off so much. If you don’t want spoilers, don’t click this link behind which I talk about my growing hatred for Pepper Stupid Potts. I can’t believe she’s named after my dog.


Who’s the best Pepper?

P.S. You probably noticed that I still don’t know if I’m going to get laid off. To my knowledge I am still employed thus far, and in fact may be employed for this entire week without knowing if it’s me on the list. Since I already had some really great getting laid off contingency plans, as well as some not getting laid off contingency plans, hearing that I may not know for at least one more week was basically the worst news I could have gotten. One more week of not knowing and not being able to do anything but impotently apply for jobs that never call me back. I’d be really frustrated if I weren’t almost completely numb. I can’t possibly deal with this stress any longer.

The Cost of Living

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I see a lot of poor people like myself really upset about their student loans. And sometimes I think to myself that I live in a shitty apartment, we can’t afford to take vacations or buy all the nice things we’d like because the money that would pay for those nice things is going to student loans. But I have a very strong suspicion if Ben and I hadn’t gone to college, all that income we’re currently paying back in student loans would probably not be coming in in the first place. We both work jobs that, for whatever stupid reason, require a degree to even interview for.

I’m not saying you need a degree to be comfortable in life, but if you have determined that you want to do the kind of work that, just or unjust, requires a degree to do it, you have to weigh the cost of that degree against your desire to work in your chosen field. Maybe it’s unfair that this cost is higher to the poor, but what in life is fair? So much time is wasted in sitting around looking at other people’s outsides and wondering why it’s so easy for them, or how they have it so good. The answer to that question is always that they don’t. When we judge other people based on random impressions, we’re looking through a keyhole at a twenty story building. It’s going to provide some clues as to what’s inside, but it’s nowhere near enough information for a real judgement.

In this life you will take damage. You’re going to graduate with more in debt than you’ll make the first two or five, or fifteen years after graduation, you’re going to love people who can’t or won’t love you back, and at several points along the way you will load all your hopes and dreams onto a vehicle only to watch it crash and burn in increasingly more complex and impressive ways. But this is better than the alternative.

If you don’t want college debt, make other choices. You don’t have to do something just because everybody else did. Weigh your options, make your decision, take your knocks. You’ll find we’re all just working to gather what resources we have available and figure out what we’re building with them. It’s a construction project that none of us will ever finish. It was left to us, and we will leave it to others. It has a lot of problems, but it’s also pretty impressive.

As usual, there’s a lot of stuff going on and I’m extremely worried about my job situation. But it’s really only the most obvious feature of a problem I’ve been working on for awhile now. I keep taking apart all the pieces of my life and laying them out like they’ll tell me something. As if somewhere there’s a recipe that calls for one English degree, 6 years of marketing experience, fifteen years of 12 steps, significant childhood trauma and a really strong conviction to be more than the sum of one’s parts. Overachieving gutterpunk cake with dick cheese frosting. But for all the times I pour my guts out and put them back in, I’m still the same weird fat bastard I’ve always been.

I know what I have, I know what I want, and I know who I am, and yet I’m no closer to knowing what to do than I’ve ever been. But I guess that’s kind of my style. I tend to careen through everything by the seat of my pants, telling everyone who will listen that I know exactly what I’m doing when I really only have the vaguest outline of a clue. I mean, that makes me sound reckless. But it usually turns out OK. In some ways, not having a plan is superior in that it makes you flexible to new opportunities.

So I don’t have an exact plan. When was that ever a requirement for fun or success?

How To Know If Your Boyfriend Loves You

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This was one of the suggested search topics I might want to cater to according to my SEO keyword thingy. Finding out if your boyfriend loves you is a simple three step process.

1. Ask him.
2. Listen to his answer.
3. Go on with your life.

If you have the type of boyfriend who you can’t trust to answer you honestly, you have way more problems than love can fix.

There is so much nonsense out there that tries to act like love is the be all and end all of human connection and that’s shit. You love things and people that are bad for you all the time. I still love my abusive mother. That’s complete idiocy! That’s like loving the bear that mauled you.

Nobody does this with any other impulse. I was hungry, so I ate some nails, yeah I know nails aren’t edible, but I was really hungry you guys.


You see what I mean?

Anyway, goodnight.

Share the Hate

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I’m not having a good day.

Rather than talk about that, let me introduce my new Tumblr project: The Hate Report. I’m collecting quotes and stories that have to do with hateful-ass shit that people say to each other. I think it’s doing pretty good, I got 4 submissions in the first day. I hope to keep this going, so if you have any hateful memories, please feel free to share. The more hateful the better. Nothing is too much, although I will be starring out portions of slurs.

I also bought this tonight. It has no reviews, and subsequently no stars, but I thought I might as well give it a go. It beats playing Candy Crush. At least productivity-wise. It actually seems quite a bit more boring and far less forget-yout-troubles-ey than Candy Crush. I’ll let you know if it helps me. In any way.

Also also, we just watched the Odan episode of Star Trek the Next Generation. What the actual fuck, Beverly? (BTW, this is the one where Beverly falls in love with a Trill who’s host body dies and gets temporarily implanted into Riker if you haven’t seen it before.) It’s totally cool that you totally hog-headed your nominal brother, never mind how Riker might feel about such an arrangement, but if there’s boobs involved, you’re suddenly all cold fish? Ugh.

Mr. White Man

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I was walking in to work this morning, listening to the music on my phone and Brother Ali’s The Travelers came on. If you’re wondering how a person could make a serious version of Accidental Racist that still has flow and a beat, here it is.

Lyrics:

Shackles are heavy on the wrist
Stacked like sardines, belly of a ship
Live in your own piss and shit and being seasick
Cracked across your back with a thick leather whip
Salt water burns through your wounds
Women are starving with babies in their wombs
On your hands and knees trying to cry God please
Exhausted your voice is too weak to speak
Neighbors and strangers are dying beside you
Their decaying bodies you’re tied to
Cling tight to your fight for survival
Wonder if your tribe will ever try to find you
Arrive somewhere strange, the air is cold
You can see your breath and you’re barely clothed
Your first time ever seeing snow
Sleeping next to it on a hard dirt floor
Go from can’t seeing see in the morning to can’t see at night
You work till your hands bleed white
Your native language you can’t recite
Murdered on sight if you try to read or write
When you bend all of your life and can’t see the light
It get’s painful to stand upright
Right?
And your eyes bear the sight of your wife
Being being pulled from your shack and brutalized at night
You only taste joy when babies are born
Which becomes an occasion to mourn
Separated, torn from your celebrating arms
Then as quickly as they came they were gone
Sold away from your farm this is all they’ve known
Never heard stories from home
They forget your name
The culture from which you came
Teaching it’ll get you slain.
Praying to your god will get you the same and tortured to near death lest you complain
No choice left you sing through the pain and pray that your suffering wasn’t in vain
End of your chain, end of your life
Your grandchildren born with no end is sight
So you muster up all of your might
And your last breath comes out…fight
This is actually true
Now stop and imagine that’s you
Now stop imagining unravel the truth and ask just who is it happening to
Everything that the passenger do
The driver experience too
So if humanity is one
Then we all get burned when it’s hell that we’re traveling through

(Chorus)
You’ve got to save my soul
Put me back together make me whole
Said we don’t know which way to go
Take my hand and place me on that road

(Verse 2)
Trapped in a history we don’t understand
Can’t remember how this blood got on our hands
Never been taught about the ugly past
Expecting God not to punish man
Our ancestors brought us control
We realize now that the cost was our soul
Got me feeling like an empty shell
Prison guard that inherited a cell
I’m desperate to find my place
Emptiness lies behind my face
Flowers only die in a vase
A heart only dies encased in a lie we call race
I hear the song but I can’t sing along
Something’s really wrong I can’t put my finger on
Terrified to admit it’s wrong
Cause I’m hiding in the ruins of a legacy that still lives on
Our identity is hinged upon the miserable myth we’ve been caught since we’re born
Until we mend what was torn
The debt of a sin lingers long after the vicitim’s moans
This is actually true
Now stop and imagine that’s you
Now stop imagining unravel the truth
And ask just who is it happening to
Everything that the passenger do the driver experience too
So if humanity is one then we all get burned when it’s hell that we’re traveling through

(Chorus)


Brother Ali is someone you should familiarize yourself with because he is a rare find: Someone who is positive, progressive and political without sounding shitty.

As far as Accidental Racist goes, now that everybody’s got their giggles out people seem to be divided over weather to pan Brad and J for making such a corny mess or break out the participant ribbons. I mean, they did come all this way to join the conversation about race in America. Their song was bad, and their ham handed dad-like awkwardness didn’t help. But should they feel bad? I mean, how many people listened to that song and didn’t see a thing wrong with it? I’m not sure, but we know of at least two.

On the one hand, bigotry is far from over (honestly, may never be over) and Coke commercial platitudes aren’t doing anybody any favors. On the other hand, this may be somebody’s introduction to the discussion, and the welcome wagon seems to be packed with snarky academics with itchy critics fingers.

I feel like there needs to be some kind of progressive scale of engagement over here. Ok yeah, this shit pretends that the centuries old tension between majority and minority in this country can be solved with a simple acknowledgement that one man’s do-rag is a other man’s cowboy hat (tactfully ignoring that both headgear choices are fucking stupid looking.) We’re so used to extremely schooled apathy couched in unwavering expertise that when we see this earnest but doomed attempt it’s difficult to move past mockery or moralizing.

I’m the kind of person that loves to see other people lose their shit. Not because it makes me better than them, but because it proves I’m not worse. I am an awkward mess, and not in the Zooey Deschanel way. In the awkward fucking mess way. So Accidental Racist is kind of a steaming pile. Good. We all make shitheaps, and not just sometimes. We make shitheaps constantly. It’s the human condition. Why do you think we all get so excited when one of us finally had an excellent couple of minutes and makes something actually really good?

The college educated, or more likely college attending public will eat race politics for breakfast and shit feminist post-modernist analysis mid morning between their Psychology of the Romantic Poets lecture and the bi-monthly meeting of the Progressive Atheists for Meaningful Action. Clearly, this ballad is not for them. But Accidental Racist is more than just an awareness booster for the unwashed, ungraduated masses. What I, an educated middle class Latina have in common with my working class sisters is so miniscule it’s basically statistically irrelevant. Because of racism, we are tied together politically and socially, which is important, but that working class Latina can relate far more easily to a working class white person or another working class person of color despite the cultural differences.

The poor are the most powerful lobby our nation has, and so far they don’t work together because of cultural and racial divides. What if this shitty song turned out to be the banner that marked the turning point in American history from race warfare to class warfare? Even as our economy recovers, low earners continue to get trampled*. What if, instead of allowing themselves to be distracted by artificial cultural divisions along racial lines, America’s poor finally stood together for once? Honestly, I’m cool with a thousand Accidental Racists if that would be the case.

*That article is sort of doomsday-ey, but the links seem legit and the statistics are far-reaching.

“Check Your Privilege” Trolls

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This is one of those things that’s been bothering me for awhile. I try to write about it whenever it seems to flare up, but I’m not always sure what to say when comes right down to it. Every liberal under the age of 30 who spends more than 4 hours a day on social media has experienced something like this. You’re having a convo with somebody online in a public forum. Somebody else comes along and says “Don’t say X, it makes me uncomfortable.” Most of the time my answer is something along the lines of “I’m only joking, come on I don’t actually think that, what do you take me for?” The merits of the ‘I’m only joking’ defense for sexist, racist, homophobic language have been gone over (and over, and over, and over) by much more articulate, less cunty people than me, so I leave that in their capable hands.


Via College Humor

The right answer, the one I did not give (and probably will never give, not because I don’t care, but because I don’t care enough) is to say something along the lines of “I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable, please allow me to delete this conversation and in the future I’ll just say all the racist, sexist, and homophobic shit I want on IM or text message and you’ll never know.” Of course, the last bit is internal monologue. So actually racist/sexist/etc./etc. people can go about their business having been successfully policed into using the right kind of language to make it seem like it’s just a coincidence that all their friends are just like them, think just like them and look like them too. Congratulations person who goes into other people’s conversations on public forums and makes everybody stop joking. No nobody can see them, your activism at least looks to be a success. Are you comfortable now?

But if I’m not a racist (or at least I’m less of one than average, let’s be honest there is a lower limit here), then what’s the harm in me saying the right thing and then continuing to not be a (more than average) racist with my friend in private forums away from situations where we’ll be making innocent bystanders totally uncomfortable? I keep asking myself that. Why not just go along to get along?

I’m really not ok with random people telling me how I should talk on the Internet, on my own blog, in my own space, and in public forums. Obviously I’m not going all over ad homonym attacking people with racial slurs, but I will be making dick, pussy and asshole jokes as I see fit, especially when those anatomical parts can be used to highlight how fucked up a situation is. That’s what I do when something really bothers me. I make a joke. I don’t go running around trying to tell everybody else what words can and cannot be used within my line of sight. I think this comes from my personality, but also from my history of having to solve my own problems and deal with them in my own way in an environment where I could expect no support, and in fact regularly got the opposite of support.


“My therapist said I should ask for what I want, and I want everybody to do what I say.”

Like the majority of people on the planet, I’ve been bullied my entire life. Nothing I ever did was good enough. My speech was wrong, my posture was wrong and I was wrong. It was so powerful when I finally said, to myself, to the bullies, and to anybody that would listen “Fuck you, I do what I want.” Over time I’ve embraced (to varying degrees, depending on the day) my loudness, my fatness and my wrongness. I stick out all over in all the worst places. So what. That’s my superpower, and anybody who doesn’t fucking like it can lick an old, dirty dick.

I spent a lot of good spitfire for a lot of good years telling patriarchy apologists and puritanical busybodies to eat shit when they tried to police my language and my actions. This is my house now. And I’ll be God damned if I’m going to let somebody else come into it and try to accomplish what the entire monoculture could not. I sit how I want, I wear what I want, I’ll fuck who I want, however I want, and I sure as hell will say whatever the fuck I want, whenever that fuck I want, however the fuck I want.

Admittedly, I have at least tried to subdue my total contempt for authority in order to be a good friend, and a good citizen (or at least a better one than I was), but it still really bugs me when people try to police my actions. It also bugs me when people try to police other people’s actions. This blog is a safe space, as is my house, my car and my general vicinity on any given day. I’m not going to turn you away for being who you are. Whoever that is, I’m cool with it as long as you’re not otherwise a shithead. What I am not cool with, however, is being told what to do on my own time. I’m not responsible for the feelings and insecurities of others. I will fight a motherfucker for any person’s right to do what they please as a consenting adult, and I expect the same consideration for myself.

I’ve entertained the possibility that I’m the one being childish here. I said something that hurt somebody’s feelings, and they’re just letting me know. It’s true, this reaction does stem from my experience as a younger person, so there is some childishness in there. Nobody likes to be called on their shit, but I’m not saying fuck anybody that tries. I’m an open book, if anybody wants to talk to me about me, or something I said, I want to talk to them too. What I can’t stand are these conversation bombs that make any kind of attempt at dialog impossible after that, because then you’re just being an asshole by belaboring the point when it clearly hurts this random Internet person to even ask them why the fuck it’s ablism to say that you’re “a basket case” today (true story). I’m not here to hold your hand, Internet. It’s grown up time. Let’s stop this bullshit. We need allies, and all this language shaming is not helping anybody.

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April Fools.



Because men don’t want to smell a flower. Men want to eat a steak.

Empower yourself to make his night.

I’m happy to announce our official sponsor: The Blackstone Group’s newest brand collaboration, Hungry Man Tampax Essence. As a woman with a vagina, I feel like this product was made for me.

Market research shows that since we got the vote, women have been getting jobs of our own. I know none of us understands the phrase ‘market share,’ but the boys at Blackstone do, and they’re coming up with all the things we never even knew we needed.

My body is my own to adorn inside and out in whatever way I feel will best please my man. Thanks to Hungry Man Essence, I now have up to five flavor profiles to choose from when “Aunt Flo” comes around comes to gross everybody out and threaten my physical attractiveness. It’s like I never menstruate at all anymore.

Tomorrow I’ll be doing a write up on the new Orbits Superglue Gum. Finally a product to fix how much I talk!

You are Not Broken

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Trigger warning: rape, molestation, attempted murder. Party.

Before I get into anything else, I feel obligated to point out my own trauma privilege, for lack of a better phrase. As far as I know nobody has ever fucked me against my will. Part of that is the luck of the draw. It was more fulfilling for the people I was left with to punch me and tie me to furniture and choke me. The rest of that is maybe a personality thing. When adults tried to get handsy with me as a child, my reaction was violent and loud. Not good qualities in a potential victim. I realize, however much a person can realize this, how significant the difference between my mother’s boyfriend trying to murder me is to my experience than if he had tried to fuck me. I think a lot of that has to do with the weird way our culture feels about sex, and the unusual power we put on it because of our fear of it. However ridiculous, this is a real cultural phenomenon and I want to say that I recognize that.

I’ve been trying to write this damn blog post forever, but I can never seem to get the wording right. I either sound like I’m trying to downplay the impact of violent and sexual assault, or I’m bragging about my incredible constitution when really all I’m trying to do is address something that’s been bothering me in the way we talk about abuse and assault survivors.

Every time there’s a major rape, molestation or child abuse case in the news, I get really frustrated with the coverage of the victim. Well, I get really frustrated at the initial coverage that usually insinuates that the victim might have been asking for it, and in fact that women everywhere should maybe not be so slutty all the time, causing otherwise honorable dudes to completely lose their shit and rape us all. Or something. (Steubenville, I’m talking to you.) Then after that, I get really frustrated by the well meaning characterization of the victim as being totally, irreparably broken, never again able to feel the warmth of the sun on her face, or the incredibly soft fur of an adorable little puppy.

I’m so fucking tired of the only images of abuse and rape survivors being crying ladies in darkened interview rooms, carefully describing their terror for a “normal” audience at home.

Don’t get me wrong, this type of crime is a motherfucker. It’s not something you just get over, but it’s also something that you can get over in time. If someone victimizes you, that makes you a victim for the duration of that assault. After that, you’re whatever you want to be.

A recent CDC study found that Nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men in the U.S. have been raped at some time in their lives,” and that “nearly 1 in 2 women and 1 in 5 men experienced sexual violence victimization other than rape at some point in their lives.” And that’s not even mentioning people like me who experienced violence but no sexual assault. For some perspective on those numbers, 1 out of every 50 people is a red head.

So why aren’t we all just crying in a corner and living off the nut check? Because you move on! Terrible things happen, and you are affected. There are bad days and good days, and triggers out here in the real world, but there’s also everything else. It’s not like my friends all want to go to the beach and I have to tell them no so I can stay home and think about my childhood.

My abuse started over 20 years ago, I’m done crying. I’m going to the damn beach. I got shit to do.

There’s a misogynistic expectation that assault only happens to women at the hands of men, that women are the only people weak enough to experience the bad effects of unwanted physical or sexual contact, and that once we have this experience the rest of our lives are stained with the mark of it. That’s bullshit.

Abuse happens to and effects all genders in every different sort of category available. It’s serious shit, but people are strong and resilient and we don’t have to let it define us if we don’t want it to. We aren’t broken.

Work/Life Balance and Other Things I Don’t Understand

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It’s no secret that I’ve been stressed out lately. All my friends seem to want to talk about is when the last time I slept was (Look, if I’d gotten any sleep in the last week I would tell you. I’d tweet about it, or post on FB or start mass texting people or something. Girl, believe me, you would know.) and when’s the last time I talked to my therapist (it’s been awhile, but honestly since I bought a $120 waterproof vibrator, I don’t think I really need therapy much anymore). This weekend’s Nerf War was the first time I felt like a human in months. I’ve started taking Saturdays off and purposefully working on Sundays in an attempt to stop the near 24-hour, 7-day work week I was cultivating before. Any time I was left alone for even a second, I’d be bent over my phone or my computer “working” on something.

I’m not trying to be whiney. I understand that the vast majority of my suffering is self inflicted. In fact, that’s the silver lining to all this stress. I’m acting with the vague belief that all this effort will pay off at some as yet unknown future date. I’m not going into this completely blind, I know from experience that acting with purpose is generally rewarded, even if it’s not in the direction you expect.

From time to time, when I tell myself these things as I labor over the laptop, I wonder if I’m just trying desperately to be more interesting and more bougie than I’m really meant to be. The worst insults in my family all center around trying to be better than you are; or worse: thinking you’re special.


Batman, stop being such an uppity bitch.

I mean, the Internet is full of this ‘follow your heart‘ shit. Not to pick on Zen Pencils, I actually really like that comic (how else would I know four separate pages with the same topic?) It only happens to be the best, most attractive example of the inspirational literature explosion that’s going on everywhere right now. There’s nothing really fundamentally shit about it, just that it tends to strike me as an extremely middle class, college educated sort of thought process.

If you have time to follow your heart, time to fail over and over again, time to work at something for free just because you love it, you must have all the money that time affords. You must at least have a living wage coming in from somewhere in order to support the protracted indolence your project requires. So, you’ve either got some kind of trust fund, very patient parents, or you’re like me: squirreling away what little hours you can after the stable job is worked, the dog is walked, and the dishes are done.

Maybe that’s why all this schlock is really necessary. So that us kitchen light hopefuls can have some kind of beacon when our thinking turns morose. I mean, something has to keep you throwing those hours into the pit of ‘God knows where this is going to come back to me.’ But it’s not flowery words or hopeful twinkles that keep the most determined of us going.

When I was at Chapman you could always tell who was on scholarship because you’d walk into class and see 5 Mexican kids with their books out, waiting patiently for the professor and the rest of the students to arrive. There’s a lot of heart involved in forging a new path. There’s a cliff you have to jump off, be it of perception, or condition, and you don’t necessarily know how you’re getting to the ground. But there’s also the climb up to that altitude to begin with. There’s late nights, and homework done on breaks, and there’s listening to your gut when you never knew anybody to do what you’re doing, you just think it can happen, and that’s all you need.

But where is the ground, exactly? I thought graduating from college would be a big deal. After all, neither of my parents made it that far. Technically, neither of them made it out of high school, except that my dad earned his diploma in boot camp, and my mom earned hers in lock-down.

Then I thought working would be my reward. If I just got a flash enough job, earned enough money, had enough status in the company, enough responsibility or credit, I would be set. I ended up feeling like a fly in a jar. Which brings me to this blog and all the associated work I’m doing behind the scenes to finally find something I like to do, something I feel like I could do forever and never get bored.

Part of that is writing, part of it is marketing. Now that I’m not trying to pack all the meaning of my existence into my day job, I’m a lot nicer to be around and work with. But I still sometimes forget how this is supposed to be fun for me when I get home from work. So, I become obsessed with arbitrary deadlines and milestones, and I stress myself out over projects I came up with in the first place, always needing to have that reward of momentum.

The discipline that I developed as a student, and as a young worker earning poverty wages seems to burden me now. Should I be happy? Should I just stop this nonsense? Eight hours is not enough hours of working in a day. Eight hours is a fine number for an employer to demand, but there’s so much more time to do stuff in. Is this an admirable perception, or a stupid one? Some days my answer is just a flip of a coin. Some days I can’t believe anybody would ever stop striving, stop straining towards what they want, even as that changes and their wants become realities, each one tumbling into the other like dominoes down the line. I wonder if I’ll always pace restlessly through life, never happy for long with the victories I afford. Is this the kind of person it’s good to be?

I honestly have no idea. But I guess I’m at least living proof that you can do things you never expected you could. Even if all it amounts to in the end is the 2 inches of wall that separates me from the woman next door, who is yelling at her baby at 11:30 at night.


GPOY