you know that i try / try to tell you the truth

01. what is more difficult for you, looking into someones eyes when you are telling them how you feel, or looking into someone’s eyes when they are telling you how they feel?
i always look people in the eye when they're telling me how they feel. presumably as a sign of strength. plus, when i am talking i get all nervous sometimes about being looked into.

02. think of the last time you were really angry. why were you angry? do you still feel the same way?
i am always angry.

03. you are on a flight from honolulu to chicago, nonstop. there is a fire in the back of the plane. you have enough time to make one phone call. who do you call? what do you tell them?
there are so many things i would want to say, to so many people
...but they probably wouldn't pick up anyway.
so i would just text those i love who aren't local or known by a lot of people and tell them i love them and i will be dead soon. and then text Brandi and tell her to find my computer and how to find the passwords to everything that i own and to give them to Jamey. to whom i will give Megan's phone number and the things those passwords unlock, because he'll know what i mean by 'Speaker For The Dead.'
this is a really well-thought out scenario.

04. you are at the doctor’s office and he has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? what do you do with your remaining days?
i would only ever tell anyone if i needed to pull that card out in order to get something i couldn't just obtain another way.
i would get to crossing items off of my Cosmic To Do List. also i would make a will. then, on my last day, above scenario.

05. you can have one of the following two things: love or trust. which do you choose? why?
i would cheat and choose love, because with love, one trusts. not necessarily that everything is peachy, or one might 'trust' that one will be cheated on with a blond(e) or something, but to love is to do, and to know, and therefore is to trust, in self and in other.

06. you are walking down the street on your way to work. there is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. your boss has told you if you are late even once more, you are fired. do you take the time to save the dog’s life?
i would take a picture of the drowning dog, save it, and then get press coverage, wherein i reference my place of work and my lack of worry about my job stability over this deed i have done. then i would quirk an eyebrow and head off to my next shift.

07. you are unfaithful to your spouse/significant other. do you tell him/her? why or why not?
supposing i were ever actually to cheat, i would closely examine the circumstances and what i learned about myself and the relationship against which i acted. if i went further than a kiss/one instance or didn't stop because of my concern for my lover (or if it's a significant emotional affair), i would end the relationship, because i would clearly not be getting out of it what i needed. if the singular instance solidified my need for the person, i would perhaps inform them, but probably not. after all, that would typically cause the relationship to end/change, which i have in the scenario discovered i do not want.

08. are you the kind of friend that you would want to have as a friend?
absolutely. and no, i am not just saying that, because i would even take the crazy bits.

09. does love = sex?
hahahahaha no.
however, to be 'in love', as we colloquially coin it, one must have that layer of sexual attraction/intent, or the feelings stirred are simply of (committed) fondness for/attachment to the person.

10. when was the last time you told someone honestly how you felt regardless of how difficult it was for you to say? who was it? what did you have to tell the person?
i tend to be honest when confronting. it's when i have curled inward, because i feel confrontation would be pointless or my desires unachievable, that i speak in riddled truths.

11. what would be harder, for you to tell a friend you love them or that you do not love them back?
the former. one gives me power, and the other places it in the hands of whomever i am hypothetically confessing to.

12. excluding romantic love, when was the last time you told someone you loved them? who were they to you?
Brandi, earlier today.

13. imagine: it is a dark night, you are alone, it is raining outside, and you hear someone walking around outside your window. who do you wish was there with you?
someone wielding a crowbar. or maybe a Spartan warrior.

would you give a homeless person CPR if they were dying? why or why not?
of course. uh, the dude's homeless, not Hitler. presumably.

you are holding onto your grandmother’s hand and the hand of a newborn that you do not know as they hang over the edge of a cliff. you have to let one go to save the other. who do you let fall to their death?
both. i don't care enough for either to wrench my arm out of its socket.

are you old fashioned?
in what way?
i don't know what that means, contextually: be more specific.

when was the last time you were nice to someone and did NOT expect anything in return for it?
i don't really believe in altruism, so technically no one does, ever, but i regularly act kindly toward people with no other conscious motive then to help them (and therefore feel like a good person, which raises my self-esteem, which makes me happy, which is for my own benefit)

which would you choose: true love with the guarantee of a broken heart, or never loved at all? why?
if your heart gets broken, is it really 'true' love?
and i would always choose to never love anyone at all, because then anything could happen and it would slide off of my merry sociopathic shoulders.

are you scared of spiders?
not usually.

would you go back in time if you were given the chance?
i would want to know how that affected the timeline(s) as i know it/them now, beforehand, but probably yes.

what are your plans for this weekend?
working.

ever been swimming in a lake or a river?
yes.

last person you drove with in a car?
uh...Manduh? Brandi?

what did you last buy?
gasoline.

what radio station(s) do you listen to?
ipod.

are you afraid of the dark?
not really, other than the random bouts of paranoia.

do you like Chinese food?
if it tastes good, yes. =]

is there anyone you wish was still in your life?
yeah

was this the best year of your life?
not finished yet, come back later.

who are your best friends?
Brandi, Sam, Jamey, Erika.

is it easier to forgive or forget?
isn't it 'forgive AND forget', as in 'one who does not forgive dwells on it and eventually snaps and mutilates the offender, who by now has no recollection of the offendee or the offense itself'?

are you jealous of someone?
in an abstract way.

what last made you laugh the hardest?
i don't remember

would you live with someone without marrying them?
i have roommates.

have you ever had a dream about people you love dying?
no

who was the last person you cried in front of?
i don't do that.

have you ever changed clothes in a vehicle?
yes.

who was the last person that made you feel safe, why?
that's a loaded question i shall pointedly not answer.

have you ever broken someone’s heart?
all the time.

have you ever dated someone older than you?
yeah.

do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?
no

my fair lady

once, i laid down the bill for some customers, discretely as any dutiful waitress, and by some chance glanced down at my fingers, still gripping the corner of the bill holder. one of the men already had a hovering hand awaiting my self-removal from the tableside, and i recall thinking about the image in my mind of a thick hand on a bill vs. a smaller, softer one with chipped polish on the fingers instead of hairy knuckles. the juxtaposition seemed strange to me, like my hand shouldn't have been on it. it took me a while to realize why, but in all my time as a waitress, i have only rarely seen a woman pay for the food when her company also included at least one grown man.

my own father fits the same profile, so i suppose my socialization is to blame for why the reversal of roles would stand out to me. i don't assume something so daft  as that a female breadwinner (or bread-payer-for, at any rate) would destabilize society, but it would certainly break a mold i still have yet to see reshaped.

****

as a child, rarely ever did i dream of marriage. 

actually, that's not true. i never imagined my wedding, which is what one hears about little girls, isn't it? a mother walking in on her daughter, all overdolled in makeup until she resembles more a clown than a lady, stumbling around in too-big heels and a trailing dress, and she doesn't frown at the hurricane that's blown through the room, but coos because her little girl has been properly socialized, and in the end that's the only job of a parent. 

but such a comment is for another post.

i wonder how many girls thought about marriage, as opposed to the ornate quality of their wedding decorations. how many pondered who would raise the children; whose job would be the force behind any migration of familial location; who would do the driving and the paying and the speaking to members of society outside the family unit. because that's as much a matrix of choices in marriage as is picking apart one another's guest list when planning a wedding.

all this post-postmodern world has bequeathed to its generations is the cliquifying of individuality, the recognition of even the most obviously androgynous traits (and those who insist on viewing them as such) to the LGBT community's claims department, and the polarization of all behavior any woman exhibits (or inhibits) in light of the 'type' of woman it makes her. to someone with only two decades marked on the bingo scoresheet of life experiences, even the willingness to wear an engagement ring, as opposed to the demand that her fiance wear one as well, is some Epic Revelation Regarding Her Opinions Of Her Ancestors' Fight For Her Right To Be Masculine. 

not-so-secretly, all i want to be is me, and to hell with gender roles and societal expectations, but even i can squint through my cloud of idealism well enough to recognize reality right before it boxes my ears. history is a tale spun by the victors, and if we aren't always fighting then the story isn't deemed interesting enough to tell, so sometimes we just make it up. 

it's because we cannot let anything exist without letting everyone dig a fingernail into it that my marriage - assuming i ever actually meet someone i could imagining myself willing to spend a lifetime With Me as opposed to just around me, like my dearest and most prized friends - would be niggled at and prodded with and stipulated upon before i even agreed to undertaking it. 

which, ok: writing the fine print before signing to the contract is always a wise idea, but i wonder just how many more conditions are set nowadays than in ye oldedayes, because so many women are under the assumption that if they list a quota on how many hours a week their husbands must allow them outside working and shopping, that they will be doing the foremothers of feminism proud. in the end, though, they're still defining themselves by their relation to men; drinking vodka martinis instead of beers on a raucous night out because they hold themselves at a higher class than men; wearing high heels and a slinky dress to work because they happen to have bodies that are less aesthetically awkward than men; hiring someone else to raise/watch/interact with the children because they refuse to be held down by domestic responsibilities any more than their masculine counterparts.

perhaps i am putting more thought into this than required (wouldn't be the first time i stuck philosophy in where it wasn't recommended), but i imagine the utmost a woman can do for marriage, or feminism, or for anti-discrimination movements anywhere, is to refine her self-concept (and her intentions, and certainly her values) internally. 

****

if i marry, it won't be because that's 'what you do' or because i intend to listen to any biological clock, or because i am secretly waiting for the one person in all of creation who, by his battered lonesome, can finish my puzzle better than the jagged pieces i collect from everyone else who has ever influenced me. 

if i marry, i won't change my name, and i won't ask my fiance to change his - not as some vehement feminist message about how i am tied but not bound, but simply because i've actively struggled against letting other people drape names on me like mantling.

unless it was a clearly superior last name, that is. then i would change it just to introduce myself and hear the syllables roll around in my mouth.

if i marry, i won't quit my job to raise children, and i won't pawn them off on a daycare center. mostly because i don't really want children (i rather expect to be an atrociously-tempered, inconsistent, impertinent mother, and why, if i could avoid it, would i burden anyone with whatever psychological scarring that would cause, thereby creating a vicious serial killer?). 

if i do end up reproducing, my husband can take off time or work from home and rear them, because he would be the one who'd begged for them in the first place.

if i marry, i won't keep an immaculate house. i wouldn't even have a house, since i much prefer more cramped dwellings like inner-city apartments (i can sacrifice living in a tenement, though). i would wash dishes if what i needed at the moment was unclean. i would sweep/vaccuum if i couldn't walk barefoot across a floor without wincing at the sensation of dirt squishing itself between my toes. i usually don't ever really clean until i get disgusted or i find myself in an obsessive-compulsive fit of tidiness. instead of worrying about what a 'bad' wife that might make me, i just chalk it up to artistic nature and move on.

if i marry, i won't have dinner waiting on the table precisely at mealtimes. mostly because i don't have a set meal time, i just eat when i am hungry, but also because if anyone's going to be enforcing a family dinner, it's whomever happens to be the better cook.

if i marry, i will continue to have friends my husband doesn't share, and probably a few he hates. as i imagine he will. i never understood couples whose lives suddenly revolve around one another, who think love is spending nearly every waking second together. nor can i understand why they are so shocked that the spark dies after being throttled for twenty years.

...and so many other stipulations, but after a while that just becomes another random list, and not something that matters to this post.

i'm a penny in a diamond mine

i have come to realize that people don't like me.

they like how i treat them, sure. they like that i look into their eyes and cock my head to catch the nuances of their words. they like the sensation of intensity slathered all over them, of seeing their reflection in my irises so clearly that they could use it to preen. and they do, naturally.

but me, myself, this person who makes them feel like they might suddenly understand what it means to be larger than life, to be the epicenter? i don't think anyone really knows who that is. including me.

but my lack of a well-refined, uncontradictory ego is not the concept i aim to explore. it is that realization of mine on which i plan to pontificate today.

people don't like me. they like how i treat them. they like that i don't see their bank accounts or their clothes or significant others. or, more accurately, that i see all these things but choose to put them aside, and focus instead on Who these people Are. i don't care about their socio-economic status or the grades they had in school. i find the experiences of the inhabitants of their family tree pointless and irrelevant. and i really couldn't care less about designer handbags or armani tuxedos. in a sense i am Tyler Durden, though i don't devalue individuals and slopping them all into the same vat of stanky mystery meat. i don't even liken each person to a favorite stuffed animal or some other much-beloved object. i don't see them as extensions of anything at all. just themselves.

it's a part of my ethics, you see. treat human beings like human beings, with intrinsic value. not as symbols of something else, or in light of connections to things entirely outside themselves. apparently that's a novelty to most people. why it should be so rare to find oneself treated as a human being, with inherent value, is beyond me, but it is considered such. in truth, i have found few others who view other people as i do, tragically enough.

i provide people with a sense of validation when i talk with them, about their problems and their wants; their hopes, dreams, aspirations. when i am genuninely interested, facinated, even, in what we're talking about. and people hope it means something more, that it means i care for them, specifically, and more seriously than for anyone else. because than they can lock that validation up in a box and carry it around in their pockets. which, really, speaks volumes more about them than it does me.

what's love got to do with it?

love is a burden. love is a curse. love is lying, crumpled, plastered, on a dusty floor.

i will not have it [no mas, señor]

why yes, this is what passes for an introduction post 'round here

the soundtrack to my life (unless i don't know myself at all, which has been known to happen)

one: "(I'd Start A) Revolution" - Aimee Allen
"Up all night, I waste my time / I am fine, but a day behind / Up all night feelin' stupid 'n' happy / But the days are overlapping"
i am convinced that i could rule the world. i am just...too lazy. and like the speaker of the song, my schedule is never in synch with the rest of the world.

two: "The City Is At War" - Cobra Starship
"Oh, pretty please, it breaks my heart to see another tragedy / She finally got her picture on TV / Come on, live it up while you can / But always in the end, no you don't get another shot"
this sort of sums up how i see most other people. attention whores in the sell-your-soul-for-any-scraps kind of way. all so desperate for that momentary fame.

three : "Paralyzer" - Finger Eleven
"And I feel awkward, as I should / This club has got to be / The most pretentious thing / Since I thought you and me"
the lyrics are slightly sarcastic, and fit my boredom with everything. i also tend to read good/bad/neutral qualities of people immediately, and when meeting new types, i know that, even if my interest has been caught, it takes quite a bit for me to find anyone fascinating, so i walk into situations with my paranoid eyes wide open and well aware. which was possibly the most confused statement ever. hmm.

four: "Tuesday Afternoon" - The Moody Blues
"The trees are drawing me near, / I've got to find out why. / Those gentle voices I hear, / Explain it all with a sigh."
this perfectly captures both my penchant for daydreaming and my love of simplicity.

five: "Mary Jane's Last Dance" - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
"You never slow down, you never grow old / I'm tired of screwing up, I'm tired of goin down / I'm tired of myself, I'm tired of this town"
simultaneously meloncholy and energized, this is totally the type of dichotomy (feel-good music with lyrics about dissatisfaction, for example) that features prominently in my life.

six: "New Slang (When You Notice The Stripes)" - The Shins
"I'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find. / Without a trust or flaming fields am i too dumb to refine?"
i can't seem to stay away from these lonely indie songs. this is kind of where my life is at, however. dissatisfied with how things have gone. the perfect song about my struggle between the idealistic worldview in my heart and the cynical pragmatism with which i must act.

seven: "Big Lie, Small World" - Sting
"I hit the postman, hit your lover / Grabbed the letter, ran for cover"
it just fits my neuroticism. i would have instead included "Fool In The Rain" by Led Zeppelin, but i find it more than probable that i would get arrested for antics similar to this.

eight: "Heaven Beside You" - Alice In Chains
"Do what you wanna do / Go out and seek your truth / When I'm down and blue / Rather be me than you"
this fits my cynicism. i am bitter and i snidely sneer enough to prevent me from ever being a proper hippie; i am a bitch. regardless, i will not change myself on other peoples' whims, often to the detriment of my relationships.

nine: "Creep" - Radiohead
"I don't care if it hurts, I wanna have control / I want a perfect body / I want a perfect soul // I want you to notice / When I'm not around / You're so fucking special / I wish I was special"
sums up my goals and self-image quite succinctly [don't respond by telling me i am pretty. i will shank you].

ten: "Nightblindness" - David Gray
"Where we going to find the eyes to see / The bright of day // I'm sick of all the same romances / Lost chances / Cold storms"
this song is full of understated desperation. this is how i worry, when i do, about my future and my life. when i look around and realize i missed several opportunities, or when my finances are tighter than usual, and i can feel myself slowly edging toward panic, i feel nightblind.

eleven: "Just Like The Movies" - Regina Spektor
"Don't say goodbye like you're burying him / 'Cause the world is round and he might return // But if he loves me then why does he leave?"
as with most songs about relationships of mine, this one describes the disconnect between my perception of interactions i have, and how those people see me in return. i am used to caring far more for my friends and the like than they for me. i am always abandoned in the end. >sigh<>

twelve: "Falling From Grace" - The Gentle Waves
"If I could tear my heart / And keep it miles apart / From love of beast or man / And never give a damn"
this was originally "Hide And Seek" by Imogen Heap, because i, like everyone else who makes pretensions on this song, am moved and spoken for by her electronified voice. however, this fit better. i would like to approach life with this kind of contented detachment.

thirteen: "Transatlanticism" - Death Cab For Cutie
"The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row / It seems farther than ever before / Oh no. // I need you so much closer"
it could work for my estrangement from society itself, but this is my God song. i never worry that God isn't there, only that i am far from Him, or that i, with my corporeal body, am trapped on the other side, where i cannot be properly abstract and entangled with the Universe. this is that sorrow that comes from being unable to hug the person that matters more to me than anything and everything, not because there is a rift, but because there are simply 'too many miles to go before i sleep,' to borrow a phrase.

fourteen: "Tyrant" - The Bravery
"I'll believe anything that you want / You gotta teach me how to live / Cause you make me wanna die / You took it all, now you're all I've got"
i hate how quick i am to assume people are good-hearted, well-intentioned, etc. how willing i am to believe lies. i think my interpersonal intelligence must be abhorrently low.

fifteen: "Keeping It Together" - Katy Rose
"Because you stabbed me with your lies / You're not the only one that's broken...// And I'm never ok / Cause I'm pretending like I'm keeping it together / Cause I'm pretending like I'm keeping it together / And they'll never know "
this reflects how erratic my moods are, and yet, how disdainful i am of addiction, losing control, etc. it's hard to explain quite how well this fits me in my confused, psychotropic moods.

sixteen: "With A Little Help From My Friends" - The Beatles (as performed by Joe Anderson, Jim Sturgess & Dormmates)
"(Does it worry you to be alone) / How do I feel by the end of the day / (Are you sad because you're on your own) / No, I get by with a little help from my friends"
my friends are my life. they are amazing people and i love them more than they will ever know.

seventeen: "Ocean City Girl" - Ivy
"Ocean city girl / Is fading / Ocean city girl / Is saying goodbye"
i would die like this. other than that, this is just really a beautiful song.