Owning a Pit Bull, Despite the Bull$h!t

For the past few months I have been struggling to find the words to explain to others why I exert so much of my time, energy, and money to keep my dog. Now that she is napping on the couch next to me, I think I can attempt to rationalize.

Since I was a little girl, I have always lived by simple virtues: Family comes first, always be honest, and everyone carries their own burden.

Nobody leads a life without trouble or difficulty. I have always been aware that all people suffer in their own way. I wasn’t born with some incredible gift for understanding, this was just something that I observed early on.

What I failed to see, and continue to struggle with, is the way people choose to carry their burdens. Not only that but I’ve been baffled when I see people choosing to bear a weight that they could easily put down.

Over the past few years I have carried an unnecessary burden for the sake of proving a point. Why? Maybe I'm just stubborn. I won’t change my mind about what’s right just because it’s difficult.

You won’t hear me say this often, but, Olive is just a dog. Yes, she is my friend and I love her a lot, but if I lost Olive I could get a new dog, or just not have a dog. The world would not explode and I would not die.

When I was about 9 I had a Golden Retriever. I loved that dog more than anything. He was my best friend, just like Olive. If Olive were a Golden Retriever I would never have to fight to have her. That’s not okay with me. She deserves a happy life as much as any other dog and to me that’s worth fighting to prove.

I have always chosen the simple path, the easy way. It was just efficient and peaceful. Now, I choose to work hard for what I have because it benefits me greater than simply receiving. 

The lessons that I’ve learned by keeping Olive are invaluable.

Laundry Day

Lately it feels like I’m carrying a big load of laundry from the dryer to my bedroom without a basket. Little things keep slipping out from the bottom and if I try to pick something up I lose five more things.

In the last week I have managed to lose my car, my dog, and my peace of mind. And my relationship is dangling on the edge of my pile of responsibilities.

So far being an adult has just been one load of laundry after another.

On Thursday I got a (rude) letter from my landlord threatening to evict me if I don’t get rid of my dog within 7 days. Apparently, not only are there ridiculous breed restrictions at this rental company, but dogs aren’t even allowed to VISIT unless the company gives consent.

On Friday I attempted to drive to my parents’ house to get supplies for a backpacking trip and to drop Olive off for a couple weeks. In between two distant exits on I-95, my car completely gave up. Olive and I waited in the dark for my parents to pick us up. The next morning I scoured the internet for a reliable car repair place. In the end, the repairs were going to cost more than the car is worth and we left it at the repair shop to be junked.

So I spent Saturday and Sunday being harassed by car salesmen. One offered me a 30% interest rate and then asked me how he could make it a better deal. Another saw me looking at a used car and tried to convince me to buy a brand new car almost 10,000 dollars over my budget instead.

Monday I looked for a psychiatrist to see if Olive can qualify as my Emotional Support Animal. I hate doctors and looking for one online was almost as uncomfortable as sitting in a Lysol-coated waiting room.

Tuesday I looked for lawyers because I thought maybe my rental company would still have the right to evict Olive, even if I could prove that I need her for emotional support. Lawyers’ websites are as annoying as car dealership websites.

I’m writing this on Wednesday. Tomorrow I leave for a backpacking trip and I haven't packed at all. I don’t even have a backpack to pack yet. I watched 5 episodes of How I Met Your Mother when I got home from work and I’ve probably watched 15 more since Thursday.

But then I got a text from my sister:

How could something so tiny make all of my problems seem so small?

God/Science

Have you ever heard of a false binary? A binary is made up of two opposing ideas. Obvious examples include: black/white, male/female, even/odd. So the best example of a false binary, and the one that irks me the most, is God/Science. I haven’t encountered too much debate over the matter recently since we’ve had better things to talk about (e.g. racism, tragedies, marriage equality, police). However, recently my niece, in typical soon-to-be-eight-year-old fashion, blurted out something that her best friend told her, “People who believe in God don’t believe in science.” I calmly explained to her that it’s important not to listen to everything that other people tell us and that plenty of people believe in both.

This is something I hear somewhat often and unfortunately it does have a taste of truth to it. But here’s the problem I have with this way of thinking: It’s small-minded. The God/Science binary may seem logical based on the news, some loud-but-ignorant people, and American politics but if we took some time to think it out it really doesn’t make any sense. I’m not denying that it is ridiculously common to find people who ignore scientific concepts in the name of God, what I’m denying is that this is a correct way of thinking.

God: A concept that varies between different religions but the general idea remains the same. God is mysterious because it is beyond human intelligence and understanding. A god is larger than life, incomprehensible, incredible, unexplainable, unattainable, all-powerful, and whatever other hyperbolic superlative you want to use. God is an abstract concept and one that simply cannot be proven or explained or put into a little human brain box. People who believe in a god use their logic and intelligence in their spirituality but they would be fools to say that they completely understand their god. That would go against the very nature of the word.

Science is nothing like a god. Science can be explained. Actually, science is almost literally synonymous with explanation. Science isn’t just this overarching, over-general term of  “science” it’s biology, ecology, chemistry, physics, all those classes I almost failed in high school plus a thousand more that are studied by smarter people than me. It’s not as if the ideas of science aren’t as powerful as the idea of a god, it’s that they aren’t even in the same competition.  It’s dangerous for us to refer to “science” as “Science.” We can’t give science God status, because it doesn’t and shouldn’t work like that. If we let people worship the idea of “Science” instead of studying the actual concepts of science, we risk the same ignorance coming out in the name of “Science” as comes out in the name of “God.”

Science is not an abstract concept; it’s complex. There’s a difference. Let’s not over-simplify science. Let’s think more, experiment more, and question everything.

A Social Commentary

            When I was young, I knew I was pretty. I knew I was pretty because all of my relatives told me I was, because I was skinny but not too skinny, because Justin Cote left a heart-shaped box of candy on my desk in 3^rd grade on Valentines day, and because no one ever said I wasn’t. I had long brown hair that grew out as quickly as I wanted it to so I could cut it into short bobs when I thought that was cool or grow it down to my butt when I thought that was more fun. I never called it mousey brown because my mom told me I was a strawberry brunette and I believed her about that being a real color because she always complimented me on my beautiful natural highlights.

She told me a hundred times to never dye my hair because I would never get those highlights back and I would end up like my sister, Stefanie, attempting to get her natural color back but never succeeding. I was born with natural beauty and I was supposed to keep it that way. I was also reminded quite a few thousand times to never grow up. Please, please, please, stay my baby forever. Don’t grow up and be mean to me like your sisters. I did what I was told on both counts: I never wore make-up, except to formal dances, I didn’t have my first kiss with a boy until I was 16, my hair stayed naturally medium brown and was only changed by the sun or a pair of professional scissors, I only ever got piercings in my ears, and I didn’t start dating until I was a senior in high school.

Slowly I noticed what had happened to me: I was a future veal cutlet. My mother had put me in a small box when I was young so I wouldn’t grow too much, move too much, or become less tender. I was stuck in the mindset that if I followed the rules that hadn’t been presented to me as rules I would stay pretty forever. College made me antsy. I looked at myself and I didn’t see myself. I saw the allowance they gave me as a way of keeping me in line rather than a gift. If they controlled the money that fed me, they controlled the rest of me too. It took me too long to grow up but I finally did it.

After I finally got a job, things changed a little bit. When I was 21 I dyed my hair pink. For the first time in my life my grandfather said something to me that wasn’t a tremendous compliment: He told me my hair made me look cheap. I have two tattoos now, one of which is a very large sunflower on my leg. When my dad saw it for the first time he told me it was hideous and you really out-stupided your sisters this time. I should stop paying for your car insurance for this one. I’ve gained about 10 pounds in the last year, not exactly noticeable or too unhealthy, just enough to fill out my cheeks a little more. My sister told me my arms are getting fat, what happened?

When I was young, I knew I was pretty. Now that I’m not young, I don’t care.

On moving back in with my parents

I am sorry to have to admit that I have moved back into my parents' house. I'm disappointed in myself. I never wanted to take a step backward. I always try to just keep moving and figure it out on the way. This time I just couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to work twice as much and get to keep half as much so I could pay Orlando rent prices. I couldn't bring myself to spend another year enjoying myself and forgetting about all of my dreams and goals.

The problem is that there was another option. I should have worked harder last year instead of rolling my eyes at the few credits I needed to graduate. I should have figured out what I wanted to work towards after college so I could start heading in that direction. I should have applied for internships, grad schools, and relevant jobs. All I could think about was finishing the lap and I forgot to pace myself for the rest of the race.

I'm disappointed but I will not be discouraged. I won't be here forever. It feels like I'm moving backward but progress isn't always obvious. I'm working and saving and planning; that doesn't mean I'm stagnant.

Make Time to Write

I need to make time to write. There is no question about it.
A writer should write, right?
Right.
Write.

As a reader I carry this burden of thousands of human trials, dilemmas, and troubles. The human condition is what I study. I read books; that's what I do. I read and then I analyze. I'm studying the human condition on a daily basis and it really is starting to conflict with my current status of being a human being. It's a harsh world out there, which I know because I've read so many accounts of it, but when's the last time something horrible happened to me? I'm not saying I wish something bad would happen to me, but is it odd that I have to spend so much of my time thinking about horrible things when I don't have to? Is that what it's like to just be an aware and intelligent person? Am I just ignoring the realities of my own life by jumping into other people's?

Here I am drawing a blank...

This is a poem I read this week for class by Leroi Jones (a beat poet of course):

"In Memory of Radio"  

Who has ever stopped to think of the divinity of Lamont Cranston?
(Only jack Kerouac, that I know of: & me.
The rest of you probably had on WCBS and Kate Smith,
Or something equally unattractive.)

What can I say?
It is better to have loved and lost
Than to put linoleum in your living rooms?

Am I a sage or something?
Mandrake's hypnotic gesture of the week?
(Remember, I do not have the healing powers of Oral Roberts...
I cannot, like F. J. Sheen, tell you how to get saved & rich!
I cannot even order you to the gaschamber satori like Hitler or Goddy Knight)

& love is an evil word.
Turn it backwards/see, see what I mean?
An evol word. & besides
who understands it?
I certainly wouldn't like to go out on that kind of limb.

Saturday mornings we listened to the Red Lantern & his undersea folk.
At 11, Let's Pretend/&we did/& I, the poet, still do. Thank God!

What was it he used to say (after the transformation when he was safe
& invisible & the unbelievers couldn't throw stones?) "Heh, heh, heh.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows."

O, yes he does
O, yes he does
An evil word it is,
This Love.


Isn't that the best poem you've ever read? Doesn't that make you just want to jump out of your skin and run around telling everyone to read it? I know that doesn't make any sense but I just like it so much. I want to write like that and I want people to like it and read it and frame it and recite it when they're sad. Is that too much to ask? Probably since I haven't written anything. If I expect to be inspired into writing I need to read things like this much, much more and I plan on it. I'm taking a class on the Beats this semester and I think if I can focus enough it will be very helpful.

On the start of my last fall semester...

      There was a time when I was hungry for knowledge, but now I just eat. I wanted to know what every word meant, but not just in context; I wanted to know the specific usage, what the word's original meaning was, and the connotation it held. I carried a dictionary around everywhere I went despite my shoulder hurting and looking silly when I looked up "metaphysical" for the umpteenth time just to make sure I really understood what it meant. I wanted to know everything.
      Sometimes I still get that feeling, like today when I spent more of my time at Sea World on my phone figuring out how closely related killer whales are to dolphins than actually watching Shamu. I want to know things and I want to explore and I don't want to JUST know things, I want to understand them in a way that just keeps leading to more questions that need to be answered because there's always more to explore! Yes! That is an exclamation point!
      In a whirlwind of indecision during the first week of school I dropped and added classes on the drop and add deadlines until the very last second and ended up with more classes than I wanted to take and more books to read than I probably am capable of. So now I have 5 English classes and a job. I know I'm in for a hell of a semester but I'm glad. I hope it ignites the kind of fire in me that I had when I was lugging that dictionary, fat from being overused and abused and stuffed with notecards, around with me everywhere.

Things I learned in College

Things I learned in College... that most people figured out in high school.

1. I love making lists:

      Shouldn't I have known this about myself a long time ago? Who knows. I read this book a few semesters ago for my Women in Lit class and one of the main characters makes lists because there's a famous Japanese woman from olden times who used to do it. I would love to have written a way more descriptive sentence than that but I am too lazy to look up or remember the details. The book was My Year of Meats and I highly recommend it especially if you're interested in corruption in the meat industry and/or feminism. Anyway I really like lists as a way of organizing thoughts and I appreciate the cheesiness factor that comes with them.

2. It's okay to fry your hair:

      When my friends and family were dyeing their hair different shades of black and blonde and red and straightening their hair until it begged for mercy right before it died slowly from the ends up, I was okay with my "natural" look. I never believed in hair dryers and to be honest I still am not their biggest fan. I never straightened my hair because I thought it would kill it and I usually had long wavy hair anyway. I never dyed it because my mom is obsessed with this idea that once you dye your hair you are basically walking the plank and can never get back to your natural color or grow it out. I really believed her for a long time, that me changing my hair was going to ruin everything and I would never forgive myself. Seriously though, who the hell cares? It's hair. It grows back and if it doesn't, that's cool, most of my friends are bald anyway. I've been bleaching parts of my hair to keep pink highlights for at least a year now and of course those parts are not very healthy but it doesn't really bother me. My hair isn't falling out and I just want to try other things with my hair anyway so why worry?

3. Alcohol is good:

      I don't know. This one kind of speaks for itself. I only drank a little in high school. I could probably count the number of parties I went to on one hand. I liked it but I still had this idea in my head that it corrupted people and changed them and would eat me alive if I let it. Then I realized that I am a perfectly capable human being and that fun doesn't kill people. I learned to enjoy myself. But...

4. Being healthy is better:

      Alcohol is really bad for your body. I live based on the notion that "I'm in college once, I'm going to do what I want,"so I don't hold back too much but I do try to respect what my body wants and not push it too far. My Year of Meats was also really great to push me into my ongoing experiment with vegetarianism. Look at that full circle ending I just pulled off. Better quit while I'm ahead...

Currently:

Currently ignoring:

- the fact that I have to leave for work in less than 9 hours.

- that I don't own a working Macbook charger

Currently obsessing over:

- how long it takes Mod Podge to dry, yet how much I love it.

- how disgusting the food most Americans consume is.

      I really ought to be asleep but instead I've been decorating my phone case and painting my nails and writing this blog and reading articles about healthy eating. I have actually been making real progress in my slow journey to becoming a vegan. I have been resisting my parents cooking, at least the meat part of it. I caved when we went out to Buffalo Wild Wings, but come on, I couldn't NOT have wings. I'm a horrible person for enabling myself but really, I have been getting better. I even bought vegan chicken nuggets to replace the just vegetarian ones I used to eat all the time (I'm going to miss them though). There are a lot of things wrong with my diet still but I am very impressed with my progress and some things that are controversial I actually don't have a problem with, such as soy. I have a higher-than-most-people intake of soy because of my weakness for imitation meat products and my love of tofu and my soy milk creamer. I am perfectly alright with that. There are some concerns about soy such as hormone problems which I have looked into and is pretty much bogus. What does concern me is that apparently it's processed differently in the United States and is less healthy because if it and I will look into that further but in the mean time I feel very healthy and have not heard anything to make me stop having my favorite tofu stir-fry every other day.

      I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but I was planning on moving to Denver after I graduated and starting an awesome hipster, health-nut, active, nature-filled, badass life there with my best friends Sarah and Olive. Unfortunately that is no longer my plan. I might reconsider, but as it stands now, I just don't think I could bring myself to go there. The city of Denver apparently thinks that my best friend in the whole world is a vicious abomination that deserves to die and that it has the right to tell me what kind of dog I can own. Olive is a Pit Bull. She is also the most awesome dog in the entire world and the biggest cuddle monster and the love of my life. She doesn't have a vicious bone in her body. Also, I don't like being told what to do. So, screw you Denver. I can bring my bookshelf full of yard-sale-bought classics, my Mod Podge craft glue and glitter, my high-waisted skirts,  my adorable face, my awesome (human) best friend and her spectacularly short hair, and my beyond-amazing dog to some other city that we are welcome in. So suck on that Denver. Also, yes I do make decisions based on my dog. That's exactly the type of stubborn person I am and I'm okay with that. I don't sacrifice my happiness when I don't need to and I don't see any reason why I shouldn't choose my living arrangements based on where my dog will be allowed if I know that I like having her around. I probably shouldn't even be writing any of this since she ate my favorite shoes today so I'm going to stop now and go to bed.

The Further to the Side I Part My Hair, the Better I Look (and Other Myths About Myself)

Every once in a while I will get bored and part my hair on the opposite side for the day to switch things up, today was one of those days and it made me think to myself, why have I been parting my hair like this for so many years? I realized that the way I part my hair has been the same way for so long because I created this myth in my head that this is the only way it looks good which led me to wonder what other myths have I had about myself in the past that I realized weren't true?

1. The further to the side I part my hair, the better I look. It's a scientific fact that my beauty is directly correlated to the more asymmetrically my hair is parted. If I was to part my hair more towards the middle I would be a hideous old hag like something out of a disney movie (or my face would just look too thin). When I parted my hair to the opposite side today it ended up being a little more centered and I realized something amazing... I didn't look any different than usual. Not to mention, who the hell cares? So I'm moving on.

2. I am short. Actually, the average height of an adult woman in the United States is just shy of 5 feet and 4 inches. Coincidentally, I, too, am just shy of 5 feet and 4 inches tall. Weird, I've been told I'm short my whole life, and I have also claimed to be short and yet, I am almost exactly average height. I just happen to have been born into an immediate family that consists of slightly above average height people and became convinced that I was short. That, and I actually was shorter than most people when I was younger, I grew slowly.

3. I am bad at sports.
    Actually that one is true. I'm going to go ahead and blame not being pushed enough as a child.

4. Intelligence matters and I am smart! I can't stress this one enough. I seriously freak out when I think I'm not smart enough. It really should not matter to me at all. Instead of claiming to choose ignorance about certain things and then going home and being mad at myself for not being able to keep up a conversation, I really should just pick up a newspaper occasionally, pick up a book more than occasionally, write constantly, and learn non-stop. Intelligence can't be measured, and when it it, it's flawed, so I need to stop worrying about sounding stupid and start remembering what really matters. I should be a culturally-aware, self-aware, caring, educated, and unique human being, not the girl in the corner, mad about not being the smartest in the room.

5. I have fat legs. I figured I'd finish this list out with a solidly superficial finale. My legs and butt area may or may not be slightly bigger proportionally than the rest of me but to be honest it doesn't look bad on me and even if it does I kind of don't care. I'm fairly healthy and don't have a lot of excess body fat so I really don't care if I have a little extra junk in the trunk. To be honest though, I really don't. It's mostly just me being nit-picky about my own body since I'm pretty satisfied with it and then there's a grain of truth to the matter.

I don't know why I make up silly myths about myself. Maybe my parents told me Santa wasn't real a little too early and I had to make up other things to replace him. It doesn't really matter how it happened; what matters is that I stop making up insecurities when I get bored of being happy with myself.

I'm realizing more than ever lately that I simply am not taking as much advantage of my blog as I should be. I just don't know how I can fix that. I'd like to write all the time and update the world on my life but who wants to read bits and pieces from a college student's life when I have no goal or theme or plan in mind for the blog or my life. Usually I just feel like a lost feather floating down a creek not really knowing what's going on but being carried away anyway. After almost 21 years of living I still somehow haven't really learned how to steer. I've said how content I am with my life so many times lately that I started to question it. Am I seriously that content to just be here? I'm not exactly accomplishing anything but I mean I'm not exactly stagnant either. I'm almost done with my degree and I'm sort of working on what life will be like after college but I feel like I'm treading water.

I keep saying that I want to be a writer and I really do but I just don't do anything about it. I barely ever write, I refuse to edit anything, and I rarely ever manage to finish a story. Even if I continue to update the world on my progress, what is the end goal? Graduation? Moving away? Getting a job? Grad school? A publishing institute? A writing job? Being published? I'm not really sure. I've always focused on the journey and forgotten where I'm going but at this time of my life I think I ought to pay a bit more attention, especially if I expect other people to want to pay attention to my life.

In other news: Everyone I know is at Bonnaroo having what I assume is an amazing time without me. I'm not completely depressed about not being able to go because I never really expected to but it does make me a little sad to know how much fun is to be had that I am missing out on. On the bright side though, Mumford & Sons didn't cancel their plans to be played on the stereo in my apartment, I went to see Say Anything at House of Blues this week, and I went to a really cool information meeting to apply to volunteer with The Zebra Coalition. As the score stands now: Jamie - 3; Music Festivals - 54364375363263. At least I fought back right?

Also I'd like to comment on when sexism makes me happy. I'd like to say "never" but the truth is that sometimes it makes me feel like a total badass. Last night I went to a little party at a friend of mine's apartment where I was surrounded by men. The few girls that were there were mostly part of the group I brought. I learned to play a new game called Survivor flip cup, as in playing flip cup with Survivor rules. When your team loses, just like the TV show (minus the tiki torches), you vote someone off but you still have as many cups as you started with so you end up doing more work. Long story short, I played awesomely and ended up being the only one left on my team against the only person left on the other team and I completely smoked him. It felt awesome because I won a game, which is rare for me, but also because there were some comments about "being beat by a girl" which made me want to go on one of my usual feminist rants but instead I just basked in the increased glory.

One More Year

      You know in movies when someone gets possessed or switches bodies or something and they freeze up for a second and then you see something come out of their mouth like a little wisp of smoke? They have something crazy wrong with them and then after a creepy version of a burp everything is fine again and they hug their family and apologize because learned their lesson about whatever it is they did wrong. Well I think I just had one of those moments. I hope nothing alive came out of my mouth but if it's possible to feel like I just got metaphorically exorcised, then that's what happened.
       Lately I have been thinking differently. I remember junior year of high school I had a similar experience. I spent the whole year thinking non-stop about college and my future. Now, here I am, a junior again, a year away from graduating from college and I can't stop thinking about applying to summer publishing institutes and hoping I can save enough money to move to New York and make something of myself. I've spent a lot of my life dreaming about a husband and kids and a cookie-cutter house on a large plot of land and a couple of dogs and a cat and... well you get the idea, but something amazing has been happening lately: I'm not worried about that. I'm focused on graduation and I think I finally figured out what I want to do with my life and I've found a sense of peace from that that I haven't felt in a while.
      I was just sitting here watching Say Yes to the Dress and I felt a little chill and some tightness in my chest like I was upset, but I wasn't. I just exhaled and it was gone. I kind of want to change the channel. I know, I know, ridiculous right? So much has changed about me in the past few months but somehow I feel more myself than I have in a long, long time. I feel like I sort of know where I want to go but at the same time I'm not sure how I'm going to get there or if I'll change my mind. I just feel at home in the uncertainty. It might sound crazy but I really think that being a little lost on this giant planet is exactly what I need right now. Whether I'm ready or not, life is going to change in a year and I can either embrace the bumps and go for a ride or I can get stuck in the mud because I stalled out.

I've always had high self-esteem but what is my self-worth like? Are they even different? I think I have an ego that is slightly larger than most (or maybe I'm just comfortable with myself) but I don't know how much I think I'm worth. What I have learned in the last month or so is that just because someone else gave up on me doesn't mean that I should give up on myself. I don't know how it happened but at some point I started caring about the price tag that other people put on me and forgot that I decide my own worth. I may have been worth losing to one person but I'm stuck with myself so I can't treat myself like I'm worth losing. Of course I didn't get depressed and start thinking I'm horrible and ugly and despicable, but I had a few moments where I lost my footing and forgot where I was standing. I think the problem is that when you're a person like me who usually cares so little about how other people view me, when you start listening to one person their vote counts so much more. It's great that I've learned to care about how people feel about me but I should never let anyone's vote count more than my own.
It's amazing how much this realization has helped me accomplish. I have decided on a career path and I've already started taking the first few steps of my journey. I think when someone else gives up on you it is a lot more obvious because you get to see them do it but when you give up on yourself sometimes it's not so obvious. I don't think until this moment that I really ever thought about being sad or unmotivated as giving up on myself but that is exactly what I did. I can't believe that I let someone else make me feel like I'm unworthy but I betrayed myself even worse when I treated myself that way too. I guess the moral of the story is "one man's trash is another man's treasure." I doubt that I am as bad as trash to anyone (fingers crossed) but at times I've felt like I just got tossed to the side like a candy wrapper. For some reason, feeling like a candy wrapper has more of a lasting effect on me than when someone thinks I'm worth my weight in gold. I just have to shrug that wrapper feeling off my shoulder and keep on walking because I have so much to offer the world. I can't wait to start a new chapter of my life where I focus on my aspirations and how to embrace my talents instead of just thinking I seem great but have little worth.
This probably isn't the most organized or poetic my thoughts have ever been but I haven't felt this calm in a while and I am happy to write it all down, as sloppy and melodramatic as it seems. I missed my blog and I missed caring about my writing. I missed seeing my future clearly and I missed working hard for it.

Why I'm a Christian and not a Conservative

I'm not sure how to start this so I'm just going to jump straight into my argument. If you are a Christian reading this: why would you want to take away your own God-given rights? Even the founding fathers made it very clear that we were endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. Of course they failed to mention hot topics of the future that they could not have predicted but that's not the point. The Constitution is vague for a reason, because it can all be narrowed down to the fact that we as people are given free will to decide our own fates and the government should not take away our rights to choose our paths. According to social contract theory the government does take away some of our rights in order to function and help us to prosper, but not our basic civil rights, and certainly not without our permission.
So you don't understand homosexuality, so you think abortion is immoral: what gives you the right to say no one should be able to have the choice to decide what they want to do with their own life and body? For the sake of argument let's say these things are sinful. Let's say Jesus himself took an elevator down from heaven to specifically tell us not to smoke marijuana for example. Okay now it's officially a sin for a Christian to partake in smoking marijuana. This changes nothing legally. If the Christian bible didn't make such a big stink about free will and salvation through faith maybe I'd understand, but it does. The entire basis of the Christian faith is free will. If we didn't have free will, none of us would do anything wrong anyway because we wouldn't be allowed to. By supporting laws that step on the toes of our free will we are in a way being anti-Christian.
Taking away someone's choice to do something is not a Christian value, it's a narrow-minded and tyrannical idea. I would never advocate supporting something that your heart does not agree with and therefore I would never dream of saying that it is wrong to have an opinion that is unlikeable or controversial. It doesn't make a person evil to be on any side of any issue. My argument is purely that attempting to control another person's life is not a Christian ideal.
We are not held to standards under the Hebrew laws as Christians because we receive salvation through faith and love. Laws do not save people, love does. I know it sounds corny but it's true. You don't listen to your parents because they make rules for you, you listen to them because you love and respect them enough to do so. Unless you have parents who give you zero freedom and therefore take away your free will, this is the case. We don't call God "the father" for nothing. We were given the freedom to make our own choices and we decide based on our consciences (as Paul would argue, this is the law inside of us) and on the teachings of our parents and the people around us.
If you believe in an issue with your heart I hope you continue to support it. All people have the right to be opinionated, and some people might say that's the best thing you can be. Go debate with people, go convince them, go be an example, go use your intelligence, go help someone, but whatever you do, don't try to take away their free will. It hurts me to see the way Christians are portrayed these days but what hurts me the most is that they bring it upon themselves. No one wants to join a group that won't accept their opinions or be open to new ways of life. Our duty as Christians is to spread the love and good news isn't it? Why are we making our jobs harder by being the fascists of the new age? The saddest part is that all of this goes against the very core of Christian ideals. Free will and love: these are our greatest gifts and our best tools; don't fight against them.

What's wrong with the world

          What’s wrong with the world is that I don’t get chills. I get chills when I read J.D. Salinger. You know what else? I want to write when I read him too. I know it’s a cliché but I swear this time I’m serious. I swear he’s my spirit animal. It’s like he knew me before I knew me, and he knew what I was going to end up wanting to say before I ever thought of it. I don’t get chills every day. I get chills when the National Anthem comes on at a football game or when I’m listening to a song that hits my core or when I think about my parents and how much they love me. One time before I was confirmed in the Catholic Church they made us go on a retreat, which basically means they took us to some camp and made us spend a weekend there. I got chills a lot then. One night we had confession and they didn’t tell us they were going to do it but they had our parents write us notes- see just thinking about it makes my throat turn into a gumball and the hairs on my arms stand up. I’m not a very sappy person and believe me, if I was ever a sappy person it definitely was not when I was in 8^th grade but when I started reading the letters from my parents I immediately stiffened up. I couldn’t help it. I’m not a sappy person and I don’t talk to my parents about how we feel about each other and maybe you think you know how your parents feel about you but I bet you if you have them write you a note to encourage you next time there’s a big moment in your life, you will bawl your eyes out when you hear what they really think. It doesn’t matter if you’re like me and my mom where you are so different but she’s your mother so you love her and she cries whenever a movie even almost gets sad or if you’re like me and my dad whose conversations mostly consist of grunts and nods in agreement but you know deep down you’re the same person, you will bawl. I guarantee it.

            I was dying. I was shaking all over and I knew I was going to cry. I hate crying but more than anything I hate when people see me cry. I almost forgot. You know why I was so torn up? I probably would have been pretty torn up anyway but it was so much worse because they sprung the letter on my right after I got done with confession, at least I think it was right after. Either way these two crazy intense things happening to me at probably my most vulnerable age really killed me. So I they make us do confession and I’m like, “shit, confession.” Then I see my priest who is really cool and always seems so wise and stuff sitting on one side of the stage and a random guy who couldn’t have been more than 30 or 35 on the other side. I wanted to get in line talk with a wise old man but I got shuffled over to the younger priest and I just accepted my fate. I think it might have been one of those chance moments that you think will be insignificant that actually ended up changing my life. For some reason I knew I was going to tell him I didn’t believe in God. At the time I believed but barely, and it was new to me I didn’t believe for a while before that. For some reason all of a sudden I feel like I’ve told this story before. I know I haven’t. Maybe I have? Either way I told him I had a hard time believing in God and I was on the incline but still, I needed to confess it.  You’d think this would be one of those moments where I got let down by a young Christian man naïve to the things he should say to a wayward pre-teen, but it wasn’t. He told me the smartest thing I think anyone has ever said to me, most people would probably disagree but then again they don’t know some of the silly things I’ve been told. He told me in training to be a priest and in the monasteries and stuff, or however that works, most of the priests go through a time where they don’t believe.  He told me if you never doubt a thing then you probably never thought about it very much and that my doubt just meant that I was thinking about it a lot. I really did though. I still do. I think about it a lot. Maybe too much.

            I recommend you have your parents write you a letter. After this I walk down from the stage and go the back and they ask for my name and pull out these letters. It was so bad. All the other girls I was friends with were crying, bawling, hysterical, I couldn’t stand it. They kept saying how they had never been away from their parents this much and how much they missed them. I went to camp as a kid, I was never overly attached to my parents, I didn’t really miss them, it had been what? A day and a night? Maybe two days? I thought they were silly. Keep in mind that I was thirteen. Do you remember your relationship with your parents when you were thirteen? Fond memories? Didn’t think so. That’s exactly the time when you become brat. I was a brat. It was normal, but I was still a brat. These letters though they killed me. The worst part was I think it was mostly my dad’s letter that killed me. My mom’s was long and about how much she loved me and how even though I’ve been rude lately she still was happy to have me and loved me dearly and etc. etc. My dad’s though was a killer. You know in those corny commercials or tv shows when the dad says, “I’m proud of you son” and that one manly tear comes to your eye? It was a lot like that. It was a short letter but he basically told me he was proud of me. Proud of me. He was proud of me. I feel like someone just turned the heater on in my head, my eyes are sweating and my ears are getting warm. I can’t even think about it. He’s proud of me. The worst part is: I never liked my dad much. He made me angry. I didn’t look up to him. At times I think I almost hated him. I was a thirteen-year-old brat and he was proud of me. I forgot all of the shitty things he ever did because in that moment he was the perfect dad in the movie I would never watch that is quiet and manly and I finally made him proud, but it was better than that because I didn’t do anything special. I was at a silly church camp that was only 2 days long and consisted mostly of card games and team building activities that really had nothing to do with the fact that we were supposed to be preparing for a ceremony that in itself doesn’t really mean a thing these days. I didn’t do anything to make him proud and even if getting confirmed into a church a.k.a. walking down the church aisle in a robe and… well… that was pretty much it, even if that was something meaningful in the world, it wouldn’t be to him, he’s an atheist.

            I never asked my dad if he was an atheist. I made that up. He hates church and makes fun of it. That was all the proof I ever needed. I highly doubt he believes in God but when I think about it I like to think he’s at least an agnostic or in my wildest dreams he has a secret shrine in his closet hidden behind his pants with one of those candles with Jesus in Technicolor on it with the sacred heart and he’s just been fooling us all this whole time. Another thing about getting confirmed: you don’t actually have to do anything to prepare. They made us take this class, it was like Sunday school only on Wednesdays and specifically to prepare for being confirmed. They made us learn all of these things that I forgot the instant I learned them so I still can’t tell you. I know one was the Ten Commandments but there were other things I think a prayer or two and something about virtues maybe. I didn’t take it seriously, like usual, and my best friend at the time who was in the class too, she was so afraid and kept studying. That’s how it was for us in regular school too. I never gave a crap and got A’s and she worked harder than anyone and got A’s too. We had to go into a back room and talk to the priest and he was going to quiz us on the stuff we learned. She was scared to death and I didn’t care. What were they going to do tell me I couldn’t be in the church? They don’t turn people away from the Catholic Church these days. They just don’t. There’s this façade that they’re secretive and really traditional; the truth is there’s a lot of rituals and traditions but they don’t care what you’re wearing or what you believe because they’ll never ask and they don’t yell at you for anything, they just greet you when you walk in and smile and tell you wise things and then you leave. It’s nice. I like it way more than most churches. I feel judged at other churches, like I have to be something I’m not. Maybe I don’t want to stop around screaming, ”JESUS! HALLELUJAH!” because maybe that just looks silly and maybe I can think about religion and mortality and immortality a lot more in depth when there isn’t someone screaming next to me, “JESUS! HALLELUJAH” or someone on stage screaming, “START SCREAMING JESUS HALLELUJAH.”  At mass it’s not like that. There are women with their arms up singing along loudly and passionately and there’s old men falling asleep and getting nudged by their wives when they start to snore and nobody judges anybody else. Nobody judges me for a god-damned thing there, and maybe it’s because they don’t care enough or because there’s so many people that you get lost in the crowd, but I still feel safer in a pew than I do most other places.

            Well anyway, my best friend Samantha, the one who was very serious about school, she was freaking out. We had to know a bunch of stuff for this quiz and the head priest himself was giving the quiz, it was scary. I wasn’t really scared for some reason, until I was walking down the hall to him thinking, “Crap, I don’t know anything about this.” Needless to say I got there and I really didn’t know anything. I think I got most of the commandments, definitely not in order, and a couple of the other things. I freeze up when I’m on the spot like that. Tests are fine, I write down what I know and I’m good, especially when it’s multiple-choice. With multiple-choice, even when I have no inkling of a clue what the answer is going into it, after I read the answers I can be positive what it is and tell you about it later. If there was a profession that required answering multiple choice questions, I’d have it made. Anyway I basically failed and then he yelled and threw me out and my grandmother cried her heart out when I didn’t get confirmed. No, but seriously though it turned out it didn’t really matter what happened. It was all a big smoke and mirrors experience. On the one hand, it was stupid, it was a waste of time and effort, and it means nothing to anyone that I’m confirmed. On the other hand, if I was at a different church and they said study for this test, you better believe that when I failed, they’d give me stern words about how I should live my life for Jesus and put effort into my relationship with God and crap like that. I’m pretty sure Jesus never said you needed to memorize things or you’re out. I guess another church might not have had the quiz to begin with but the example can still stand. Yeah, He stuff about selling everything you own to follow him but he never said you had to, and he never judged people. Well now I’m just saying things that don’t even make sense but the point is, that’s the story of a thirteen-year-old agnostic brat getting confirmed as a Catholic.

          What if people were like books, leaning against each other and other miscellaneous objects on a shelf somewhere? There would be those people with soft covers, easy enough to get inside, but with a barrier of politeness and social-normalcy. Then of course there’s those books so thick that they not only have a hard cover, but a layer of padding covering the hard cover to make it seem softer. There would be the stoic hard cover, black, minimal wording, simple, tough, unapologetic. There would be ones with no cover, maybe never had one, only bound with rings, or maybe a soft cover that over time ripped away, or worst of all: the thick hard-cover who had it’s protection viciously torn off, all of whom show their guts to the world unable to cover them up.

            There are millions of types of book covers, all with different textures, art, font, and all covering up a different set of pages, a different pile of meaning. I believe some people are poems: multiple poems, making up a person, not necessarily the same theme, but a collection nevertheless. Some people are full of stories, facts, definitions, order, or fantasies. I guess I know people are like books, and at the same time I wish people were books. I could open the cover and read all about them and hopefully the words would help me understand their story and their essence.

The reason this exists:

I'm going to attempt to keep this blog mostly dedicated to my own creative writing and less of me just rambling, since I tend to do that. I probably will just post how I feel or ideas I have a lot but I'll try not to. I also have to stop myself from posting poems and stories that I just love that I didn't write, but I will sometimes because they inspire me to keep going. Wow this is going to be a challenge. That's the point though I guess, I'm going to attempt to push myself to write more. Just to get me started though:

Our Desires

There is a wind that seeks the crevice
under my heart
the way insects file at night
beneath a doorway

Its edges are rough, it slits
the cords. It trips my steady breathing.
When it comes there is no one
I can trust.

It seems, at times, I have designed
too well this vision of you
I cannot survive your eyes
when they are scarred with a need
for some lesser form of love.

I admit to this conceit.
And though you will not accept it
You love it nonetheless

It is just like you. Our desires
will always be kept sharp
by a kind of perversity. A need
to be each forever alone...

Its color is violet, like lips
that have been smashed by nights
or robbed of blood by lack of breath,
The wind I was speaking of does this.

I can feel it now.

- Jack Kerouac