gravity rides everything.

i am unhappy.

why oprah will rule the world.

I'm kind of a creepy person, i've decided. sometimes i don't look people in the eye when they speak. i look at their mouths almost persistently, only fleetingly meeting their gaze when i catch myself in the act. i don't know why I do it. i mean, i talk a LOT as anyone at work (or that i randomly encounter) will tell you. i go off on ridiculous tangents and feel the urge to contribute in some way even if there's a chance that i'll come across ignorant or awkward (which of course is generally always). for all this talking and coming across as an extrovert, i still have a hard time looking people in the eye. i don't mind what i see, it's what they'll see that i guess worries me. my insecurity manifests itself in rather peculiar ways i'd say...

i got home from the stephenie meyer's event at b&n tonight. it was pretty lame... but i needed the money. it's pretty ridiculous how people rush about like chickens without a head to purchase a book of such poor quality. you'd think oprah was making them buy it or something. it's a mormonised rip-off of the Underworld movies and it's poorly written with a weak and helpless central female character. way to make a good role model and simultaneously counteract feminism with incoherent drivel. "you're all lemmings!" i wish to shout, but instead i point them past the escalators on to the back of the line. people think they're so cool in this city, but honestly, if someone makes another "witty" and "original" statement like "i bet you cant guess why 'I' am here" while wearing a team edward/twilight shirt during a stephenie meyer book event or smugly inquiring "why so serious?" intermittently, two days straight after having watched the dark knight... i'll be forced to punch you in the throat. maybe then i'll make eye contact, to catch the look of surprise.

the chapstick incident (or how gladys taught me how to win at tetris and at life).

So. this entry is awesome and random. it's about gladys and it's about chapstick. it's the story of my life. first, my friend gladys, is awesome. end of story. sometimes you have the kind of people around you who are flawed enough to let you know that they're human. she's definitely one of those people. but, in her twenty-one years she still has a peace about her... a kind of unforeseeable wisdom in someone so young. and a confidence that is more often than not, rather unsettling. it really brings out the best in me- or at least pacifies the worst. she also has a brilliant sense of humour that calms my pessimistic or even realistic (albeit cynical) outlook on life. she is perfect and i love her. i've admitted i love her and she loves me too but never in a way that's beyond friendship. and that's what makes me love her even more. our friendship is perfect and complimentary- it's one of the best relationships i've had in a long time, but one of the things i've learned- one of the things she's taught me is that you can't always strive for more. an actual relationship with her would certainly ruin what we have.

i hadn't spoken to anyone besides my insane mother for almost a week. that's enough to drive anyone up a wall of angst and anxiety. sure i received a random text or email here and there but all in all it was naught but her and her passive aggression. on thursday i decided i'd had enough and left, much to her chagrin. i arrived home to an empty house (save for that really gross millipede looking thing - ew). i threw my bags down and sat there dejected and miserable and stayed that way for a few hours. later on, who else but gladys decided to check in on me as i hadn't been at work in a few days. it was the best thing that happened to me. she offered to come over after i expressed my misery and i gladly accepted. my elation at her presence really let me know how much i deceive myself and the world. i pretend as though i don't need her or anyone else but she got me away from what could have turned into an all-encompassing pity party/bout of depression. as i think back, she didn't even do anything major while i was here. she shut down all of my self-deprecating humour but as much as i'm sure that helped my self-esteem and ego in the long run, that wasn't it. we went to the 24hr laundromat and as my clothes were on a spin cycle we sat in silence as i watched her play tetris on her bright pink game-boy. she explained as she reached level 24 for the third time in a row (she's an expert!), "i'd rather have the kind of friends that are close enough for me to never have to talk to". i was confused at first but then i understood. if you're lose enough to reach a new level of compassion and understanding, who needs words? you can just sit and "be". sometimes on my own or with acquaintances i feel the need to fill the silence. it's a manifestation of my own insecurities and lack of trust for others. i realise this, but still i ramble. i decided to give it a shot, or rather... i had nothing to say, and i was okay with that. i sat there for a good 15 minutes, chin on her shoulder, watching her win at tetris with that calm, focused approach. that unbridled compassion and confidence. i didn't envy her like i usually would, but i saw someone i could learn from. i sat there in that perfect quiet and silently thanked her for teaching me how to beat a game of tetris against a computer. and life, which is like a computer with a rogue manufacturer.

the random bit? the chapstick incident (so named by gladys), happened about a week ago when i was walking around the city with gladys. we'd just left the old navy and as we crossed the street i took out some chapstick to use. and the exact moment that i took off the top and it slipped through my fingers was the very moment i passed a sewer grate on the corner of the street. the timing was so unfortunately impeccable that the top dropped onto the concrete and bounced several times landing precariously close to the edge of the grate before slowly and mockingly rolling one last time to the bottom of the sewer. it's hard to describe but it was amazing, almost purposeful and artistic how the top bounced within my reach only to tumble out of sight. gladys and i paused before we broke into fits of laughter lasting all the way to the train station. "dude that's like the story of your life!" she wheezed in between breaths of laughter. i agreed, it seemed like it was. i continued to laugh although i really got more pensive about the chapstick top and what it really symbolised. moreover, gladys bought me another chapstick, top included. that's the story of my life. surrounded by the ones i love, even for a few hours at a time, that's what makes it all worth it. i may get uber pessimistic, sardonic and downright anger but i Can count a blessing or two. i can sit in silence and just "be" with a loved one. i can laugh about the mishaps in life as small as the chapstick incident. i know that now, i just have to live it. that, ladies and gentlemen, is how gladys grape taught me how to win at tetris and at life. those awe-filled, wondrous moments of nothingness and silence. and when you can say life is hard, but yes, i have a reason to be alive.

bad faith.

Bad Faith is seen as any denial of free will by lying to oneself about one's self and freedom.

as far as existentialism goes, my faith is among the worst. no matter what i do i feel as though i am doomed to a life of ill-informed yet pre-determined decisions. i act as my own Other and look upon myself with pity and self-loathing. this vicious cycle knows no bounds. it lends coincidence and dismal rationality to every facet of my essence/existence. it renders them equal and they become One, turning my world of absurdity into a poorly tuned guitar, playing to the dischordant beat of another. the Others.

madam, i'm adam.

Dammit, I'm mad.

Evil is a deed as I live.

God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.

To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.

Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?

Man, it is hot. I'm in it. I tell.

I am not a devil. I level "Mad Dog".

Ah, say burning is, as a defied gulp,

In my halo of a mired rum tin.

I erase many men. Oh to be a man, a sin.

Is evil in a clam? In a trap?

No it is open. On it I was stuck.

Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.

Be still if I fill its ebb.

Ew, a spider... eh?

We sleep. Oh no!

Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.

Part animal, can I live?

Sin is a name.

Both, one... my names are in it.

Murder? I'm a fool.

A hymn I plug, defied as a sign in ruby ash,

A Goddam level I lived at.

On mail let it in. I'm it.

Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!

A loss it is alas (sip). I'd assign it a name.

name not one bottle minus an ode by me:

"Sir, I deliver. I'm a dog"

Evil is a deed as I live.

Dammit I'm mad.

truthiness.

1. sometimes when i was growing up, even after a knock down, drag out fight with my mother, i'd still want to ask if she thought i was beautiful. i never did, because i wasn't sure of the answer. 
2. i used to tell people i was an orphan at my boarding school or that my dad had died so they'd invite me to their summer cottage or winter cabin for skiing during breaks. neither my parents (nor my stepfather, for that matter) are dead, but still, i don't think i was that far from the truth.
3. i joked about pretending to be drunk in order to tell her i loved her- i guess it was insane karma that when i DID tell her i actually was. i felt extremely guilty and embarrassed because i thought i subconsciously got myself there on purpose (even though i was told it was a good idea by others more drunk than i). not to mention, she doesn't love me back and i can pinpoint the exact moment that our friendship veered off course
4. i'm still uncertain and evasive when people ask me whether or not i'm gay. i'm not (at least, not in those black + white terms), but for all intents and purposes the answer (at the moment) is yes. i'm afraid to say so,  because no one in my family knows and neither do most of my friends or acquaintances. what if i change my mind? i'm passively out, but i still find myself needing the approval of men, while being equally repulsed by them. this probably has more to do with the fact that the men (if you can call them that) throughout my childhood and adolescent years have simply been absent or disappointed me in increasingly traumatic ways. 
5. i'm often thought of as a token self-hating black girl, mostly as a result of living in america and being unsure of my new cultural standing. i was insecure before but i guess prior to living here i'd been oblivious to the labels. i feel really uncomfortable around the "typical" 50-cent loving, BET watching african-americans that come in to barnes & noble and ask "yo shorty where sista souljah at? where your black authors at?" and i feel extremely guilty about that, but i let them know, unfortunately we don't segregate our authors. i also don't like to classify myself as african-american. i'm not american and my father's hispanic, i say to myself, as i check the 'other' box. when there are three or four people at the info desk but they pierce me with their gaze so i can look up and help them find the latest zane book. with a blank stare, i ask them to repeat it and look it up on the bookmaster. they're in disbelief that i haven't heard of the author. i have but i don't want to relate by running to the fiction section with any kind of recognition or enthusiasm, which says nothing good about my character.
   
6. i have insomnia (or narcolepsy, that has yet to be determined). i live on my own in a brooklyn neighbourhood with a reputation that doesn't match the street i'm on, but living here on my own, taking up just under 6 feet of space in a two bedroom apartment, signed onto all the internet messengers with no one signed on at 3am except my best friend in ireland and perhaps emily from b&n... i may talk to one or both of them in a chipper tone of voice as the tears stream slowly and silently from my face.

greggers and the death of the zine.

so... i decided to start this blog after much rumination.

okay, so i've already lied. i've only thought about it briefly for a few days, but yeah, i guess i decided to start one. i've had my qualms about starting a blog, mostly because of my impression of blog writers and the fact that maintaining a blog must require some degree of narcissism. also, i'm unduly lazy and even though i may have something to say, such thoughts are fleeting. i'm not that funny and more often than not, awkward and obnoxious instead. it's recently seemed appealing after i finished reading a slue of zines from much cooler people. (as an aside, it's interesting how "blog" and all of its variants is a word, yet "zine" is not. so thoroughly has the blog eradicated the zine).

well, i'm probably going to be bored with this fairly soon. i tend to have a really short attention span and also have severe bouts of apathy, so who knows? it's not like i sleep, so why not log on and recount my latest encounter with ignorance, humourous homeless people and other fourth floor scuffles at barnes & noble. it's not even that i'm truly bored, it's that i'm not an interesting person. i know i'm surrounded by superficial people who seem to be interesting. who smoke clove cigarettes and are fashionably vegan instead of politically so. who are fans of dave eggers (and everything else in 'stuff white people like'). these people infuriate me on a daily basis. i feel insecure but it's pretty much unfounded because although they're talking to one another and making connections it's pretty much all bullshit and a waste of my time. conversely though, i try to analyse these feelings and i feel like it's making me dumber. maybe it is, who knows? all i know is this: me being focused on me and not outside news-y things or brain-thinking type uh.. things = me stupid. also, me 'fixing' me and lessening the crazy = me being less interesting... maybe.

to hell with normalcy, right? and by normalcy i mean trying not to be normal just like everyone else. maybe i'll try to be a less awkward/obnoxious hate-filled person. (i'm not hate-filled really, i just have a general distaste for humanity- especially if you're a french, canadian, french-canadian, j-pop loving, sailor moon advocating american, eckhart tolle reading, oprah winfrey book-club loving capitalist who listens to 311 or some other shitty band). i'm a weird girl, to be sure. i avoid cracks even when walking quickly on the sidewalk. i eat ice cream with a knife when all the other utensils are in the sink. i fall hard and fast, and the only way out of that vicious cycle is to find a flaw in you and trump it up so that i'll wind up hating you forever. i love holding grudges. i love meeting your gaze with a withering stare when you watch me reading in the subway. i alienate myself but i really want to get to know you better. i'm judgemental. i'm english but have been here long enough to increase my insecurity and decrease the british humour i love so much. i am probably narcoleptic, but it's largely due to the three or four venti caramel macchiatos i have each day. yeah, i'm a feminist, punk rock grrrl who went to a boarding school in westminster, uk. i have a faux hawk (formerly the real thing) and piercings, but i'm black and try not to speak with an accent so you see 'urban' or 'straight edge' instead.

this is me. well, most of it.. take it or leave it, yeah?