If I kissed you where you're sore...

Would you feel better, better, better?

The sunlight was filtered through the windy clouds and through the waving branches of all the trees. Wind is strange in the Hill Country. It whips around all the rocks and the evergreens. The trees here look panicked when they sway with the gusts; it's not their usual experience here, unlike in North Texas where it's commonplace.

But the sun. It was cold in the sunlight, thanks to the wind, and the cold front that came through here along with thunderstorms at dawn. They blew over quickly, headed south, back toward the sea. I think they died down before they got there, but I was too busy listening to the all too rare sound of rain to really care about weather patterns, wind advisories, storm warnings...

It was blue skies and wind today.

The kind of blue skies that make me think of fall. Marching band, but later in the season. I can practically hear the toms echoing in my chest, the trumpets in their distant clumps shrilly trying to outdo each other, my heart swelling with excitement at a new season, a new show. Never again. That's something to mourn.

I also think of a carnival I went to with a neighbor girl.

(We used to be friends when we were young. Casey. I wonder what happened to her. What happened to us? It was never clear; all I remember is the hurt, feeling alone. We were just very, very different. I was cerebral, reading books all the time, watching the news. She read Seventeen, listened to country radio stations, wearing makeup. Now I remember...)

The images are seared into my memory somehow. I went with her family in their station wagon (this was before SUVs hit it big) to some Cajun carnival. We played carnival games, mostly. I shot a cork rifle into a bottle and won 3 pogs with Troy Aikman's face on them. I bought a pair of handcuffs for a dollar. They had real locks and two keys. (I kept them until my sister handcuffed herself to our bunk bed. My dad commandeered them after that. I have a strange suspicion they became a "marital aid" after that.)

The sky was so blue and there were no clouds, unlike today. It was just a big blue upside down bowl above us all the way home. It was hot in the sun, and cold in the shade if you sat still. Casey and I sat in the back of the station wagon. It was hot in the back because of all the sun.

We arrived home, lethargic from the heat. I walked down the street to my house, where Troy Aikman was on TeeVee playing football.

Now in the dark and cold I remember another friend and another friendship that fell apart. This girl and I bonded in one of our advanced classes in high school. She lived close to my house. We walked back and forth from her apartments to my house in the evening after school.

Girl and I were inseparable for months. So much unlike Casey and I... Girl and I, we were both cerebral, but still different. We butted heads. I felt cowed by her superior reasoning and gave way when she pushed back. Coward. I think I began to resent her for it.

But before it starts to sting too much here's a good memory:

Girl and I would walk. There was a park near where we lived, with well defined paths. But no, such paths were not for such as we were. We explored, we took the faint dirt paths, scorning the gravel lined ways, to new discoveries, and fancied ourselves mavericks.

We would talk, and talk on our quest for discovery. One day we followed the marked trail, until one or the other of us got bored and we branched off perpendicular, toward a ravine wall. We climbed, dodging cactus and nettles, sharp flint and slippery limestone along the way, until we reached a ledge just big enough for the two of us to sit facing each other, cross legged.

The sunlight fell through the tree branches all around us, lacy and still without any breeze. That ledge in the Balcones Escarpment was almost like it was made for the two of us, for that moment in the afternoon. She had me spread a tarot for her in the dust and we talked about life, mostly her life. I was perceptive enough to know at that point in time that she was troubled, just like me, and did try to give the best advice that someone could give. Either she didn't listen or my advice was terrible (probably a mixture of both) but she was unhappy still.

We came out of our shared reverie and realized it was dusk. The ground had begun to seep its cold back into our legs. The last few cicadas harshly called to one another, shouting their goodnights. Girl and I saw that it was already dark under the trees and that we didn't have a way to climb back down the limestone. There was only up and so we climbed. It wasn't far, and we came out close to the street. The sun had set. I walked her home in the dusk, and then walked home in the dark.

I've tried to find that ledge, many times. With her and without her, it wasn't to be found again. That time in the shadows is gone forever, but I still remember it fondly.

When Girl and I talked, we talked. We had such conversations... Philosophy, religion, tarot, literature, politics, sexuality, all those things eighteen year olds are fascinated with, don't you know. We were so very important, so very full of ourselves. She was going to rule the world. (I should have sensed trouble when she refused to "give me" Europe. I always argued that it was bullshit, I was her best friend after all. Bah, that argument somehow never got old, even at the very end.)

And too... she was older than I was. Although we lived a block or two away our lives couldn't have been any different socioeconomically, and in some ways culturally as well. She was raised Catholic and I was rediscovering my Quaker heritage. She lived in a small apartment with her mother, her brother, her older sister and her older sister's four kids. I lived in a small house with both my parents (although their marriage was just then falling apart, Girl grew up with the knowledge that her family was dysfunctional at least) and my younger sister. I was a virgin (all talk and very much still afraid of sex) and she was... not. (I envied her that...)

I honestly think she didn't understand my upbringing. I wouldn't go so far as to say she resented it, but she didn't really respect where I was coming from. In many ways she didn't take me seriously (not that I deserved to be taken seriously) and that's probably the most hurtful thing to an eighteen year old.

I remember it well. We were in a restaurant and the topic (of course) turned to sex. I tried to call her on her promiscuity. (I never called her a slut in so many words, but it was implied in the statement. Heavily.) She didn't take it too well. I'd like to say I meant it with only the best of intentions, but to be perfectly honest I wanted to cut her back, in my clumsy way. Did she mean to hurt me? Very few of the cuts she inflicted were intentional on her part, but me being me I counted all of them as hurt, and punishable, therefore.

Unlike with Casey, I can actually pinpoint where the friendship began to turn dark. It unraveled from there, that point, that conversation. Unlike with Casey I can say that it was mostly my fault.

However, I do realize that it was in a way unavoidable. While we clashed, we pushed our friendship inexorably away from us.

When I hear Regina Spektor's song "Better" I think of her.

Self Loathing

Goddamn, I am so full of self-loathing right now. I know I shouldn't allow myself to feel this way. To allow someone else to make me feel inferior. Eleanor Roosevelt would be so disappointed in me right now.

I saw this picture on Fark, expecting something funny and saw this. Shit. I look like that in jeans.

I thought of a post to leave:

"Well there aren't any jeans that look good on chubby chicks that are age appropriate. Mom jeans just aren't sexy."

Then I realized what the response would be: Chubby chicks just aren't sexy. It's not the jeans. It's not the shirt. It's your fucking gut that makes you look like a goddamn unattractive pig. Again with feeling:

Chubby chicks aren't sexy.

I am not sexy.

I guess the one good thing about having mono is that I'm going to lose weight.

I've been trying most of this semester to lose weight, but unsuccessfully. Mostly I tried to diet. Tried being the operative verb here. It's hard to diet in the dorms with Bruce food. Maple food isn't really all that much better. They just replace fat with carbs and limit your entrée (usually the protein!) to just one serving. Not so good.

I just got started going back to the gym and was going to ask for a membership at the 24 Hour Fitness center a few miles away from home for an early Christmas present, but the mono got in the way of that.

Was someone drunk or high when they wrote these directions? Jesus...

I feel lost.

You know when you have bad directions or a really poorly drawn map? When you're traveling in the wrong direction, but you don't know how to fix it, or where to turn around? Just when did these instructions go bad? When you're just so fucking lost that you crossed that point where "if you cross the railroad track you've gone too far" and you didn't even realize it?

Honestly, that's a bad metaphor. I don't even know where I'm pointed in the first place. It is a complete mystery to me where I am supposed to end up, and I have a few ideas, but all the ones I've tried thus far have failed me. I really don't have high hopes for the others, actually.

Just what am I to do with myself?

I don't want to wander around like my first day in New York and realize I did nothing, really. I'm in a new city with no real destination and no one that I actually know that would tell me where to go. A few things I did along the way are completely awesome, but I feel like I am missing out on something. The problem is I don't know what the hell it is.

All I'm left with is this empty feeling. This nervous feeling. This helpless feeling. This expectant feeling. This lonely feeling. This numb feeling. This confused feeling. This terrified feeling. This exposed feeling.

I don't even know where I am.

I feel like I'm expected elsewhere, but I'm not there and wherever it is and whoever they are they're wondering where I am. They're sitting there, because hopefully there really is a "they" and a "where," and saying "I hope Hannah didn't cross the railroad tracks, and I hope she actually knows that this is here, waiting for her," or, maybe, "Jesus! Start a search party, because she's fucking missing."

I hope they come find me, because, right now, I can't find me.

Geography Is Important...

because if you get it wrong you sound like a complete idiot.

I was walking down the hall to do my laundry (laundry rooms are on the complete other side of the building from my room, meaning that I have to drag my dirty undies through the lobby unless I want to walk upstairs with them, which is unreasonable) and I overheard a conversation.

"I have a friend from England. He's from southern England which means he's Scottish."

(The boy who said this is a sophomore in college. A sophomore in motherfucking college.)

At left is a map of the United Kingdom.

Notice the red area at the top, which is known to us as Scotland, where Scottish people are from.

The top of the map is known as "north" and the bottom of the map is known as "south."

Notice that there is no place in the south of England that is called "Scotland" but there is a place in the south and east portion known as "Wales," not to be confused with the word "whales" which is the plural form of a sea living mammal covered in fat known as "blubber." People from the country of Wales are known as "Welsh."

I have a friend that was born in Cardiff, Wales. She is neither Scottish, nor English. In fact, if you call her English she'll be pretty pissed. She is Welsh, and quite proud of it.

After I heard this exchange I felt overcome by the need to educate this US American so I put my laundry down, said,

"Scotland is north of England," picked up my laundry and walked onward. I wanted to scream.

I chose not to educate him on the finer points of Geography and international politics (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are part of the United Kingdom, Scotland will be its own country within 10 years, living on an island for thousands of years and going through two devastating world wars is bad for the gene pool, and etc.) because it would have likely gone over his head.

I really wanted to see if he could find Iraq, the US, Israel, Iran and Pakistan on a map, but I really didn't have time to mess with his head that much, also if he had failed to do so (which was likely) I would have slammed my head into a wall.

The truly sad part of this exchange is that this kid isn't an art major or anything, he's an English major.

In a related topic:
9 Words That Don't Mean What You Think

I'm a Grammar Nazi as well as a Geography Nazi.

I am thankful for the things I am thankful for and that's why I should be thankful.

I'm thankful my mother didn't notice me crying in the car on the way home.
I'm thankful that dearest boyfriend isn't silly enough to join the military and make me hurt. Or more like I'm lucky, and that I'm thankful that I'm lucky.

I'm thankful that I have a healthy fear about doing things like drugs and going to strange countries with HIV tainted blood supplies.

I am thankful that I graduated high school.

I'm a little bit thankful that no one really reads this blog yet. I don't have to explain my own words to people. To justify myself to outsiders who are actively trying to misunderstand. That, at this point, in this place, I can just be. I can just write. I can't write like that when I know people are reading. I turn too passive-aggressive or else I censor myself too much. I'm too sensitive.

I'm thankful for life. For this oxygen. For this carbon and for the sulfur that makes my DNA, however storied are the problems that lie therein, because otherwise I wouldn't be me, now would I?

Thoughts of a web explorer.

Here's my quest for the evening. I will use stumble upon to cruise the web tonight and I will record my ruminations on the sites in question. Happy hunting to me!

Site 1.
Call the Future

This website weirds me out a little. It looks like it's entirely designed for liars and preteens. Liars "trying to have a reason to get out of a meeting" are suggested to use this site. Preteens would just use it to get up to their usual Mean Girls tricks.

While it is weird, the concept is pretty cool, except that it would cost you and the person that you are calling money to do this. Especially the person you are texting, which is pretty lame, if you ask me.

It reminds me a little of the AIM prank bot that circulated while I was in my Sophmore year of high school. It would AIM the person of your choice with a single message from someone called "jen0098" or something as lame and you could basically make fun of someone for about 15 minutes that way before it messages them with the website.

Site 2.
Synonyms for words commonly used in student's writings

Lord knows I hate a crappy writer. I was forced to use a thesaurus as a 3rd grader and it did me a great deal of good. Everyone should be forced to come up with diffrent words for "red" and "said." Everyone.

Site 3.
Mr. Picasso Head

This is pretty cute. It's like Mr. Potatohead, only you can adjust the size and color of the features randomly pasted on the "canvas." It reminds me of the scene in Toy Story where Mr. Potatohead rearranges his features in a very "Picasso esque" way, shouts "Hey look! I'm Picasso!"and calls Ham "uncultured swine" when he doesn't get the joke.

At left is the result of my artistry: Self Portrait in Picasso, by myself.

Site 4.
One Sentence- True stories, told in one sentence.

Like postsecret only with more writing finesse, and probably about as false.


Site 5.
yugop.com

Experimental flash media.

It looks like they were playing with physics engines or algorithms or something. Over my head, but interesting none the less.

04:CLAYGRID is my favorite.

Site 6.
Notice

Awkward. The face, however, is cute in a kinda disturbing way. Like emo oranges in many ways.

The rest of the site has some interesting art/photography that I just don't have the patience to view right now. Whatever, moving on...

Site 7.
Do you mind?

A cartoonist's commentary on the cultural takeover of commercial Christmas of the latter part of the year.

I hate listening to Christmas music for 2 whole months. Somehow it makes it less special than before.

Incidentally: do you feel that the first version of a Christmas song (or any song, for that matter) is automatically your favorite. I really don't like any other version of "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" that isn't performed by Nat King Cole. That dude is the king of X-mas music for sure.

Site 8.
Make Your Own Snowflake

A rather clever flash oriented snowflake generator. I like Ze Frank's version for Smirnoff a little better, but that just may be my very pro Ze Frank bias.

Really, what this site showed me is I can design some ugly-ass snowflakes. Also that I am inordinately tempted to make penis flakes and asscheek flakes. God, I am horrible.

I'm stopping this at 8 because I feel like it.

For seriously...

5:12 AM as I start this post.

Why the fuck can't I sleep? I slept for a few hours and then starting tossing and turning sometime at around 3:30-4:00 (don't you hate it when you're so tired that you press SHIFT while typing numbers, shit), and I want to mother fucking sleep.

JESUS H. TAP DANCING CHRIST!

Some guy down the hall said "What the hell you want?" I think everybody knows what I want.

Whenever I lie still my legs hurt if I don't move them every few seconds.

Stupid fucking capture the flag, tiring my ass out. And I lost too. Fuck me. I hate being so damn out of shape, but now that I've moved locations into the lobby I'm sleepy all the fucking sudden.

Why the hell can't I be sleepy IN MY BED. In my fucking bed where I fucking sleep. I'm supposed to feel sleepy there, not here on the couch in the lobby listening to fucktards with pube beards play Halo 3 all fucking night.

I remember when sleeping in the lobby was pretty decent sleeping. Not as awesome as bed-sleeping, that's for damn sure, but it was good sleeping. Now all these shitkittens from other dorms come in here and play videogames on our TVs all fucking day.

Go away. It was kinda fun at first, but you're playing the same damn game, now you're just yelling into a headset at some 12 year old with negligent parents on X box Live.

I want to stretch my legs out on this here loveseat, or better yet stretch out on one of the couches you commandeered for your fucking videogame bullshit.

I'm glad I wasn't allowed to play videogames growing up, just because of your fucking bull fucking shit. I like to read books, not simulate killing people in a first-person shooter. I know video games don't cause violence, but you guys need to chill the fuck out and play some fucking Tetris, some Centipede, some Myst, or some goddamn Sims (visually, goddamn Sims looks funny to me, don't really know why). Do you really need to stay up all night killing people or animals, or God forbid pretending to me a mythical creature "raiding" or some such shit on a MMPORG? Doesn't that get fucking old? Because I don't even play the damn game and it's old for me.

And for the last time Final Fantasy music SUCKS FUCKING ASS, stop playing it on the piano and drooling. It's not that good. Mario Party, and pretty much any multi-player from Nintendo has SUCK ASS MUSIC, so stop blasting the fucking volume in the fucking lobby. You don't need to hear the DING as you get a star or whatever the fuck you do in that fucking game, and sure as the Pope takes a holy shit every morning I don't fucking need to hear it either. The Monks in Halo 3 are okay, I'll give you that, but I don't need to hear that shit blasted all over the building every evening as you commandeer the big ass TV in the Red Room so you can fucking LAN.

Don't even get me started about LAN party people... it's not a party if you do the same damn thing every day. If you want to have a real party have a NPV party. A Not Playing Videogames Party.

These assholes are just as bad as people that constantly have loud ass parties with roommates that don't participate in such activities, worse even, because unlike a drunk, they're RUINING THE INTERNET. Can you imagine? Ruining the whole fucking internet for everyone else.

All the fucktards on the network are doing the same fucking thing and slowing the whole damn thing down. People who actually want to get to the internet and read some goddamn articles can't get on because you nitwits, you shitkittens, you fucktards, you ASSHOLES want to play games with some fucking high school students and 12 year olds.

Goddamn you for making me sound like a fucking old man on my fucking old man lawn. Even I am appalled at the level of profanity in this post.

24 hours

The past 24 hours have surely been interesting.

Dearest boyfriend woke me up at 10:00 on Tuesday to get me to help him set up a table at Rock the Vote, which was lame. They played MTV approved music and there was a really low turnout. Big surprise.

I went back to Bruce and ate lunch with Sam and Jessie.

I went back to Rock the Vote (yay Democrats having to table because the Republicans AND the Young Conservatives were there) where I overheard the most ironic hipster, ever.

Brought the tabling tub back to Bruce and sat in Joseph's room and babied him while he was sick.

Looked at Web Comics and was told that a "friend couple" of many years had broken up. :(

Went to an eventful therapy session.

THEN followed that up with a heartrending Sister Night for SAI. (Lots of crying...)

Ate at Taco Cabana.

Said goodnight to Joseph.

Surfed the internet for an hour.

Went to sleep.

Woke up.

Read the internet.

Ate lunch with Joseph.

Went to Dems Officer Meeting where I saw my therapist. It's weird to see doctors and professors where they don't "belong." We try to avoid each other's eyes and it's awkward. Patient Confidentiality Rights and all...

Came back and vegged out.

Played capture the flag and lost.

Chronically Misunderstood != Hip

Really now...

You wear t-shirts underneath jackets.

Of course this is not a new t-shirt from Target or Old Navy or even from your favorite band's website. Oh no. It's a band shirt you "bought at a thrift store for seventy-five cents."

Your jacket (which you also bought at the thrift store) still smells like old man because you spent all your money on your hair gel and couldn't afford to wash the smell of decrepit old age out of it at the dry cleaners.

If a band you like gets radio airplay they've "sold out" and you don't listen to them anymore, even if you do still like them. This is to maintain your "indie cred."

Your hair is always in your eyes. Not because you need a haircut. On the contrary, you've cut your hair so that it looks like you still need a hair cut. There is so much pomade shellacked into your bangs that your pompadour is weighed down into your eyes.

You walked past the Democrats table at Rock the Vote today and proudly commented on how grown up you are because you support Ron Paul.

Let's break this down: You were at Rock the Vote, which is sponsored by MTV. How can you be a hipster and like MTV? It's like being a gay Republican. You support Ron Paul. This makes sense to your hipster sensibilities since he's an "indie politician," that hasn't sold out to his constituents or anything. But it's Ron Paul, so your support for him negates your status as an "adult."

The Man That Almost Ruined Me For Other Men

Yes, ladies and gentles. I almost became lesbian today, and not because any beautiful creature entered my life and tried to convince me to leave my darling boyfriend.

Oh no. Quite the opposite in fact.

Said darling boyfriend was watching some pundits complaining about Hillary being a woman and exclaiming "Get her pregnant!" and "Take away her shoes!" or some such nonsense on MSNBC when darling boy uttered the words that almost irrevocably changed my life:

"Oh God! Look at the back of Pat Buchanan's head."

And I looked. Oh God, I looked.

People, I have been to 4chan.org. I have seen the wonders of the internets and the /b/ board. Hentai, autopsy photos, fark.com Anon DIT threads... dead people, furry porn, pterodactyl porn... I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate... no wait, that was from Blade Runner.

Anyway, I've seen some fucked up repugnant shit... (aaaaaaaand that was from Pulp Fiction... Shit! I'm still so messed up from that sight that I can't even come up with original material)

And then I saw that...

(And no. I won't post a picture of it. Because according to Rule 34 of the Internet someone is already jerking off to that picture already. I don't want to contribute to that shit. Also, I like you and I don't want to subject you to that.)

At that very moment my mind refused to accept an attraction to any male. Darling man-thing tried making out with me and I'm usually putty in that boy's hands, but not today.

No, instead I was looking over his shoulder the whole time at a picture of Tricia Helfer on the cover of "Battlestar Galactica" and thinking about that evil, evil hottie Number Six.

At first he was bothered, then he actually thought about what it would look like and he was bothered in a diffrent way. Then he realized that I was telling the truth and kinda freaked out.

Not even Indiana Jones could turn me on. Indiana Jones with a whip and a leather fedora!

Eventually I got over it and focused instead on Questionable Content. I think I remind myself of Faye, but that's the subject of another posting.

Wouldn't it have been ironic if Pat Buchanan, big, fat, balding, jingoistic, bigoted Pat Buchanan actually had permanently ruined me for other men? And wouldn't have been an awesome story to tell in the lesbian scene?

Me: Pat Buchanan made me a lesbian.
Lesbian in Bar: I want you. Right. Now.

Awesome

I wear them every day.

Image courtesy of Natalie Dee.