Religion.

I was thinking to myself today that it would be nice if I was religious. This is a weird thought for me, because usually, I hate religion. But I was thinking today it would be nice if I was religious if only because a large amount of African-Americans are religious. And I wondered to myself exactly why that matters to me. And I realized that it was because I want to treat African-Americans primarily. Primarily? Yes, perhaps. I don't think I would be happy under-treating African-Americans. I think I would be quite pissed off at myself for feeding the system.

To be able to make a difference is exhilarating.
Happiness is sharing what you have with people who don't have as much as you have.

So I was thinking to myself how difficult it would be to have a conversation about health with someone who is religious, regardless of race. And then I realized I could easily do it. I am a religious person. I hate religion, but I believe in morals. I don't necessarily believe anyone is watching over me, making sure I'm doing alright. I certainly don't believe in an afterlife. But I could easily say that I do things for the greater good. My moral compass isn't set to benefit my selfish nature. Striking up a conversation with a stranger, turning in applications on time--these things I find difficult and unappealing, but I do them because I want to do right. I want to do good. So maybe I could be religious. I can fake believing in an arbitrary figure.

I hate religion. But I hate religion only because I feel it is weak, a weak excuse. Born again Christians are the worst. They jumped to Christianity only because they could not rely on themselves to get themselves out. Out of what? Out of whatever--depression, abuse, helplessness, hopelessness. I think I am only bitter because I didn't have a way out of depression, abuse, etcetera except for myself. But I got out. If I change my understanding of religion, maybe I can appreciate a lot more people.

Here's to praying.

Furby. Microwave.

Burnt Furby has a very distinct smell. I was playing with my light switches--I do not know Morse Code, but the people walking outside my building don't know that.

As I kept the switch on just enough to keep the lights flickering, my hand began to smell. Like burnt flesh, a smell I now know thanks to Anatomy lab and bone saws. But it was not my hand that smelled like breaking into the thoracic cavity with a power tool. It was the switch. It smelled exactly like burnt Furby. I haven't smelled burnt Furby in seventeen years.

How long do memories last?

Mismatched Arguments

I hate it when arguments are mismatched because then you can never get to a correct answer.

So I was naturally pretty angry when I was stuck behind a van in traffic today that had a bumper sticker that read:

"It's not a choice, It's a life."

I don't think that's a fair statement to make, because it assumes your opponents don't think of fetuses as being alive. I know, statistically, some people must think that fetuses aren't alive, but the fact is, they are. They are alive in that they exist with the potential for life. Until they reach age six months, however, it would be physically impossible if not incredibly difficult for them to be kept alive outside of the womb. I think the majority of pro-choice people, like me, would not ever try to argue that fetuses aren't alive, and therefore, this van's bumper sticker made me very upset.

But they had another bumper sticker, a much more mundane and funny one about golfing, so I began to cool down and think about what I would say to this person, viewing them as a human being instead of one part of a whole, a whole group of people who see everything as black and white and stick to their morals even when their morals are impractical.

It may well be impossible to change the driver's mind about how she felt about abortions. But I wondered, if perhaps, I could change the way she chose to think about the issue. A lot of politics, a lot of social commentary, a lot of communication, is damned by illogical statements, illogical frameworks of discussion, and illogical ideas. I don't think we will ever reach a point in time where all humans can agree with one another, but I wonder if perhaps it would be easier for many of us to understand the other sides of arguments and to compromise on our positions, if we were freed from logical fallacies.

So I decided I should get a bumper sticker that reads:

"I know It's a Life, but It's still my choice."

NaNoWriMo Blues 2011_1

My novel is so bad. So bad. I am constantly telling, not showing. And I am constantly using adverbs, my arch nemeses. It got so bad that last night I basically started yelling at myself: "ADVERBS ARE WORDS, TOO!" I am a hot literary mess.

But I am still crossing several things off of my life's literary to-do list:
1) Stop using the thesaurus.
            The use of thesauri are what facilitates people to step away from adverbs. Silly, silly adverbs. But I kind of wanted to see how well developed my vocabulary is. I am always really sad that my vocabulary doesn't loudly (ADVERB!!!) announce itself whenever I write. It makes me think that my vocabulary really is not that impressive. And it probably isn't. But still... I have only used the thesaurus twice. For writing 34,000+ words, I think that is pretty splendid.
2) Write a novel during medical school.
            Self explanatory. It's hard. It's a challenge. But I managed to do exceedingly well on one portion of an exam in the heart of November. So perhaps it's not impossible.
3) Write a love scene.
            I have been trying to do this since I first started writing stories about adults. So basically, for the last six or seven years. Which is really kind of amusing when I think about it. Why would I try to write about something I've never done? It's been an exceedingly (you're right, adverbs are words... horrible, horrible words that should be shot) difficult journey. How did I manage to finally bed a love scene? Well, to be fair, I used some real life cheat codes to get an Elora Apantaku love story down on paper. First, I was really, really tired. Second, I had had two glasses of red wine. Three, it was a lesbian sex scene. Maybe? (Maybe referring to sex, not lesbian). I still don't actually remember what I wrote down, and I have a feeling I won't remember it at all until I finally allow myself to read it. I've glanced at it four times, and at least twice I was pleased. Twice I was wincing in pain. So I don't know. It may end up being well done. Or medium rare. I have no idea. But I did it. Maybe.
4) Write a torture scene.
            This really surprised me because I hate torture scenes. I hate them more than love scenes. I never watch them in movies. I can't watch Ultimate Fighting whatever on ESPN or whatever channel they let adult men beat each other bloody. The scene where they torture Han Solo in Episode V still haunts me. Interestingly, I had my heroine use her memory of Princess Leia getting tortured in Episode IV (by the IT-O Interrogator droid) as a source of strength. I do not know if it was a convincing torture scene, but it will probably end up being more convincing than my love story. But it was really exciting. And I guess that's really what NaNoWriMo should be about. Excitement. And I got to use the word hemoptysis, so I win.

Overall I love my story. And I think it's important for me to get three novels done, so at the very least I  can statistically analyze them. Statistics! It's weird. My first novel and my third will end up being science fiction, but I think they may be way more realistic than my second, a novel that demands to be taken seriously because it exists in a potentially real world. So I'm a science fiction writer? Whole heartedly I suppose. I can't write crazy science fiction that is more like fantasy, devoid of reality right in this moment in human history. But it seems like I love writing science fiction that is a mosaic between our real world and whatever the hell I'm dreaming of in my head.

So I love my crappy story. I won't deny it! I may have used the phrase and variations of the phrase: "I felt like..." over seventy times, but I refuse to give a damn. My story has a plot! It has science! It has love! It has pain! It has science! Really need to stress how much science I shove into my stories! It has telling and no showing, but by god it has a plot!

NaNoWriMo Blues 2011

What's in between a chuckle and a giggle? Is it a chiggle? That does not sound right. I have literally poured my entire vocabulary into my NaNoWriMo-spurred novel, and it still sounds like it could have been written by a fifth grader.

Identification

I lost my driver's license. And now everyday, when I work in my kitchen, cooking and selecting small snacks to snack on, I worry about my supply of alcohol drying up. One box of Merlot. Five beers. Now it's down to three beers. And the box is dwindling. Curse me for speeding. I wasn't even drunk when it happened. Now I may never be drunk again. I don't understand the law. And I cannot find my passport.

Can a birth certificate buy you booze?

Never mind. I should not drink when I am sad and I am sad that I cannot drink freely. This is America damnit. Oh but only if this was some other country where alcohol restrictions were not so fierce. Then I could lolly-gag with the weight of my whiskey and make merry with my Midori.

Oh wait, Midori?

That strikes in me a remembrance of the stocking times when I was two months younger and much more legal. When I wanted everything and still dreamed of fancy drinks and fancy parties. There was once Midori, and whiskey, and merlot in cubes. And sure enough, behind frozen vegetables and besides frozen pizzas, there they are: Handles. Vodka, Vodka, SoCo, and Gin. Brilliant discovery! My freezer's a win! Martini's every night, I can't wait to begin!

Tips for Writing in Medical School

Poetry is too easy. I know this because five minutes ago I turned on my brain* and I wrote a poem. It was quick. It was too easy. People always seem to think "poetry" is a mysterious art form. It's not. It just allows less analysis than other forms of expression (read: actual writing). Less analysis is bad, because it inhibits us from seeing how poor poetry is.

Why am I all of a sudden angry about poetry? Because apparently there is poetry in medical school. And it is atrocious.

*Let me explain. I spent my entire day (more than that because I walked out thirteen hours later) in the anatomy lab, looking at dead bodies and absorbing formaldehyde. We are a visual species, humans, so now, when I close my eyes, I see dry fascia being peeled away from faint pink, striated skeletal muscle. If I fixate long enough, I hear the sound of my hemostat and probe, hacking away at accessory connective tissue, like vultures ripping into a Saharan carcass. It is haunting, and yet, because of the time spent and formaldehyde, strangely calming. My brain, right now, is all about anatomy. When I am not thinking about anatomy, I am hating myself for not thinking about anatomy. I will periodically glance down at my hands and re-affirm that the giant line that extends from your thumb into your forearm when you arch your hand into a thumbs up, is really just your english premier league--mnemonic--your extensor pollicis longus. Below that, or slightly more medial and anterior to that, is your ... wait, wait... what the hell is that again? Your... your... the other component of your snuff box... is it an extensor pollicis or a abductor pollicis? It is the extensor pollicis brevis--thanks Wikipedia--and the abductor pollicis is on the border of your palmar surface.

But back to poetry. So we the first year medical students are enrolled in communities. I think this is a wonderful opportunity. We are afforded a real, practicing doctor contact. We get to see patients. We get to talk about some big issues. I am actually really glad that the communities exist, despite the fact that they, unfortunately, use up time I do not want to give up. Anyway, it's coordinated by a new dean who either attended Northwestern University or Northwestern Medical School, but either way, manages to exude a liberal arts vibe. So are assignments for this course, is to write.

And sometimes people write poetry.
Sometimes people write crappy poetry.
Other times we have to read poetry.
Not as crappy, but not critically acclaimed stuff.

So let me explain how I think poetry should be written. At its best, poetry is really just like normal writing, except it's shorter and thus easier to sustain.

1. Avoid cliches
This is what you have to do whenever you write. Unfortunately, most people who didn't align themselves with more than a few english courses won't know this. I swear to god (cliche) that if I have to pour through (cliche) one more poem that incorporates a line as melodramatic as "the bright light of day" I will shoot myself in the foot (cliche).

2. Don't be melodramatic
Medical school is heavy stuff. You don't realize the emotional baggage (cliche) you're holding onto while you're going through it, because you have so many more cerebral things to worry about. But if you just stand in the anatomy lab long enough, surrounded by sixty or more unwilling dead people, it will occur to you just how serious medical school can be. You are never allowed to get to that point, however. So I don't recommend you go delving into the deep, emotional end (adapted cliche) and pour out your feelings. You must be desensitizing yourself to absolute dread, otherwise, you'd never get past your first term. Don't pretend you're not.

3. Use pretty words
This step is an important confluence of both a big vocabulary and rhyming schemes. Modern day poetry doesn't require sonnet-esque rhymes. But it is important to make sure you have a rhythm in your prose. Sadly, even writers must do this, so I don't know why poetry gets all the praise for "sounding cool." Using big words is helpful, but only if it helps the flow and only if its a word that your audience will understand. Iliopsoas is a beautiful sounding muscle, but it's not that attractive in the human body. Thus, Iliopsoas is a poetical term, but it is not a pretty picture.

4. Say something new
I had this drilled into my head (cliche) by an English teacher in seventh or eighth grade: New or novel. Otherwise, no, don't say it. I guess that's my biggest problem with poetry. How do you make something new or novel in twenty lines that hasn't been done before? Hell, most poems probably could be found paraphrased in Facebook status updates. I'm not impressed, but my theory still remains: get a crazy angle on your story, and you and your listeners will benefit. Yes, anatomy lab is creepy, yes, you feel guilty for saying that anatomy lab is creepy. Now, take it to the next level. Or else, all other medical students will be bored with your thoughts. And when people are bored with your thoughts... well, not good.

5. Consider your audience
Your potential audience is different once you enter medical school. Your knowledge and your fears, they change tremendously**. If I am writing to an average American, I have to take several steps back in order to be able to communicate effectively. If I am talking to a physician, I need to fact check my affirmatives, make sure I haven't said anything that would be embarrassing if proved false.

6. **Don't use adverbs
Adverbs like, totally, ruin a good story. Absolutely avoid adverbs whenever possible. They are not verbs and they are not nouns. They ruin good story lines by instituting a framework in which subjects and verbs are separated unnecessarily, or without necessity. Which of the previous clauses do your ears enjoy more (tip 3).

So that is it, but I will throw in one last hint. The reason why I hate poetry is because people naturally think that things they don't understand are profound, like the profundus flexor digitorum... apologies. But this isn't always the case. You can say several pleasant sounding words together, and they'd make no sense. This theory can be proven by talking with someone afflicted with Wernicke's aphasia or by listening to Jack Johnson. In order to be a good poet, you have to be aloof and yet somehow understandable. Think about it. Finally (adverb), the best writing always comes from pleasantly (cliche) thorough thinking and re-editing. Or should I say: superb, ecstasy-filled writing arises from cerebral endeavors made spectacular by the mundane process of editing.

when passing means more than you think

So there's NO WAY I'm going to pass all four of my exams tomorrow. There's just no way I'm going to memorize all the ligaments at your subtalar joint. There's just no way I'm going to fucking memorize that threonine, serine, glycine, cysteine, tryptophan, and alanine all go to pyruvate (I apologize for the expletive, but I've been trying to memorize Biochemistry, really memorize it all today and I have nothing to show for it). There's just no way I'm going to care about the little proteins that move around bacterial ribosomes. And there's just no way I'm going to care about embryonic development of male genitalia. And I guess I'm okay with all of that. What I'm not okay about is Debbie. Debbie is the dead woman I have been dissecting for the last two months.

Debbie's actually great to work on because she died when she was forty-six.

The above fact is exactly why I want to go into medicine. Unless she died in a car accident, there is no reason Debbie should have died at age forty-six. Currently, my team thinks Debbie died from breast cancer. But there were no obvious signs of a mastectomy or lumpectomy, which led us to believe that she was probably alerted to the fact that she had breast cancer when it was far too late to save her life.

And so while I'm in lab, working on Debbie, identifying muscles and nerves and tendons and veins, I think about Debbie finding out she had only about a year left to live. It's a long time, a year. It's too long. Think about the six stages of grief, and instead of condensing them into three or five months, having them spread out for an entire year. Can you imagine being stuck for two months in denial? Or bargaining? Two months of arguing with God to let you live. The thought makes me sad and sick, uncomfortable and angry.

Why didn't Debbie know she had breast cancer earlier? Is it because she's black? Is it because she lived in an under-served area because of the idiotic socioeconomic devices politics has placed on America? Tell me why Chicago is so segregated by race. Tell me why white women are more genetically predisposed to getting breast cancer and yet in Chicago, black women die from it twice as much. Did Debbie die because she was black? Shouldn't that be considered racially motivated murder?

So I guess my biggest problem isn't that I'm doing poorly in my classes. I honestly don't care. I've never been motivated by grades because I've always been wary of whatever it is teachers say they're "testing." Effort? Intelligence? Thought? Time? Energy? Make up your mind. No, I don't care about my grades at all. I care about people. I care about patients. I care about Debbie.

Maybe she didn't die because of where she lived. Maybe she did have access to health care and doctors. Maybe her doctors just weren't on top of the ball. I want to be better than that. I want to be able to tell Debbie, at age thirty-five, how to do a self-breast examination. We'd probably laugh awkwardly about it, but I'd throw in some funny remark and I'd explain why it's so important to check yourself at different times of the month. I don't know why ribosomes would have helped me help Debbie. Maybe at age forty-two she would have come in, not on schedule, but just because, and asked me about an irregularity. I would have said "mammogram." The results come back mixed. I say "biopsy." I tell Debbie, don't worry, we'll know soon enough.

It's cancer.

I tell Debbie that I know of a great oncologist, and I refer her. Four years later, Debbie is in remission. She lost all her hair but gained respect for herself after getting through chemotherapy. Debbie tells all her family and friends about the importance of regular mammograms and self-exams.  She isn't lying on a metal board, twenty-four hours of every day for almost a year, eyes stitched shut. Debbie's still alive. I never met Debbie. My cadaver was a ninety-one year old man who fought in World War II.

Or maybe Debbie died in a car crash.

Either way, if I don't pass, it's not just that I've failed myself and my classes. Literally. My biggest fear is that I will fail Debbie. She let me open her up, examine her most personal details. We will never meet, but I feel like she is already telling me I should have tried harder. I could save lives. I could save Debbie.

But I can't if I don't get through this.

Deja Vu Homecoming

This song. Plus the exact taste and feel of this cranberry juice. And then throw in the exact blood sugar in milligrams per deciliter and I am right back where I was--walking across Whitnall Field listening to another completely random song that no one I have ever met has ever heard of but that I've listened to over a hundred times and at least eleven times crossing that field. In snow. In rain. In darkness. Under fireworks.

Almost always alone.

Why can't he text me? Why won't she notice me? Why couldn't I have been another person? Or just a better me? Why do I always hate myself? Why do I never realize that I've been through a lot? And by a lot, I mean hardly nothing because all my experiences seem worthless with anything more critical than passive reflection.

It's not easy to not cry when I think of all the sadness I felt in such a small space for all of the world. For all of the world... and my most human moments happened when I was stuck in the middle of a man-maintained field with short, non-exotic grass. In sprinted desperation it took thirty seconds. Under four feet of snow it took seven minutes and muscle strain I'd feel for days. In past-midnight-melancholy, it took fifteen minutes, dragging my feet, spinning in slow, unreasonable circles, before falling down to cry the best way I knew how--without knowing. In anger, in confusion, it was a staging ground for my mind to work itself into jealousy or break into sadness, both ultimately melting into self-hatred that would stain me for weeks. On that field were my feelings without my idiotic reasoning. On that field my consciousness muted itself to give my body room to breathe. On that field, with headphones pressed into my ears, I was asked and told, over and over, the only question that mattered with the only acceptable answer, "Is my heart beating? Yea."

I have no field now. When I want to cry, I have no place to go. And when I want to look up at the sky and remind myself that I am insignificant and so are my tribulations, I see no stars. I have memories I can't change but they won't leave. So somewhere in central New York, I am laying down in a field and watching clouds move slowly past the milky way, asking myself life's only question, and falling asleep.

BRCA1 or 2, either way, this is new

Sometimes it's hard to study. Like late at night. I hopped into bed after taking 3 different types of sleeping pills with a good book (by good I mean it has a serif font). Started reading. Somehow I ended up sitting in front of my laptop looking up how commonly nipple discharge is a sign of breast cancer.

Yes. That's right. Somehow I went from studying, which is important, to discovering that my right nipple is capable of discharging fluid. I DON'T EVEN LIKE MY BREASTS. FINDING SOMETHING WRONG WITH THEM SHOULD SHOW YOU HOW MUCH I HATE READING TEXT BOOKS.

Turns out that there are a lot of illnesses that can cause nipple discharge, and very rarely does it mean you have a malignant breast tumor. Just wasted 20 minutes googling that information and then posting the good news to my facebook.

Such is life, I suppose.

Anyway, I'm at a heightened risk for getting breast cancer at an early age, but twenty-two seems a little too young (though it does happen and it is always tragic). But I guess I could always blame organic chemistry for this... Shouldn't have stayed in lab while they were refluxing chlorobromic acid or whatever that liquid was that evaporated quickly from its bottle with three skulls on it.

I just have to hope that if my immune system could ruthlessly kill my pancreas, it could kill a tumor growing anywhere in my body. 

fall

happened really quick this year. maybe it's because i spent most of my time indoors, reading, studying, watching television. cause yesterday i just hopped into my car to drive down to the best buy and all the trees were glossed over with rain water that had been pouring down all afternoon and the leaves of the trees were just so... not perfectly green. so in front of the unsettling, homogenous backdrop of a light gray and diminishing afternoon--but behind the cars and the slicked down roads and the fog building up on the inside of my windshield--there were oranges and reds and mauve-tinged, dying greens catching my rambling thoughts and forcing me to come to the realization that another summer was over and that the next one would be the last i'd ever have. i didn't like the feeling because it felt like i was suffocating under the outstretched, choking hands of bad news. the only good memories i could correlate with autumn only reinforced how long ago it had been since i was consistently optimistic during the months of october through april. i was growing up. fall used to be swimming longer hours, of getting back to school, flirting with my boyfriend, descending into winter depressions. i could smell the bleach of the natatorium i woke up in every morning at five-thirty; i could smell homeroom with its mix of anxious sweat and freshly baked, commercial bagels; i could smell the detergent that had to have been tide but i could never find it anywhere else besides his cheap polo shirts; i could smell my room and the cinnamon candles i burned in there for no reason except i was a bored pyromaniac. where had the time gone? it had been eight years. so long. and yet, here i was. only twenty-two.

you know what's really unfortunate?

how turned off i am by certain people. i kinda wish i was a hermit.

you're a failure

good. now it's been written down.

Winning the Game

I have this saying that's simply, "I'm gonna win the game."

The problem is, I have no idea what that would even begin to look like. And the biggest problem about the phrase, is that it makes me focus on wants that are heavily socialized. Winning the game wouldn't let me be a single mom or married to a woman. Winning the game would be much more boring than that.

Don't get me wrong--even heavily socialized, my day dreams are still exciting and clearly ridiculous and highly implausible. But if I didn't think about winning the game all the time, I wonder where I'd be.

Okay, so winning the game. I'm married. To a man. Based on his attributes, my children will either play Water Polo, Football, or Swim. I've had two sets of twins, and they have awesome names. I'm a pretty successful doctor. I'm probably married to a politician. I work my way up the ranks of Chicago bureaucracy, and I become the director of health, making Chicagoans the healthiest urban dwellers in America--or at least happier. Chicago is a sad city. A proud city, but a sad one. I've written a couple books. I've appeared on the news a few times. Maybe I'm on one of the national morning news shows. I'm skinnier than I am now. I wear nice jewelry.

Okay, so not winning the game. I'm a pilot. I don't know how this would even happen, or what routes I'd fly, but I fly planes and it's amazing. I am technically a doctor, but I spend all my time in the tropics or Seattle, doing things that aren't medically related. I write. I write novels. They are exciting. They are not bestsellers, but I have a small group of fans who love my work. My wife is the most gorgeous woman I've ever met who was also interesting to talk to. We have two kids. We tell them that they're twins, but they're clearly not. I made them beaded crowns when they were adopted, and I tell them fictionalized accounts of my family history every night before they go to sleep. I make a mean basil bisque.

So which one is more exciting? I always tell myself when I fail that one day I'm going to win the game. I'm going to ask more people out. People are going to respect me. I'm going to be famous or loved or both. But I'm getting older and I just don't think any of this is plausible anymore. I hope my life ends up being stranger than fiction, but if not, well I guess I won the game. It's not exciting, to win. But it makes you feel better.

is everything teleological if you're reasoning in a circle?

There's something weird with the people here. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it's something. I'm scared and alone. Oh wait, I know what it is. It's my blood sugar. And it is very low. This explains every little thing right now in my head that isn't making perfect sense. Because usually everything is sensible or understandably close to making perfect sense. And when it doesn't, well... then you end up like me right now, not making any sense and scared out of her mind unable to move.

Or, you end up like I did, on a mattress on a bunk bed in the middle of the Central American rain forest, scrawling words on a page while your tongue felt faint and thinly spread over your mouth and under your molars, and when you finally read the words when your blood sugar, somehow, who knows, made it up to around 60 mg/dL, you were shocked to see that in your heightened fear from low glucose, epinephrine, and phosphorylation, you were able to write your last will and testament and it wasn't pretty. Some bullshit like, "God, please forgive me. If you're there. Just know, that I would do anything to make me seem more pure in your eyes. I am sorry. Don't let me die." And on those soggy, moleskin pages then, I discovered the answer to religion and humanity quickly and with mild psychosis. Nobody wants to die. This fear makes you say and believe things that you'd never say and believe. It motivates you to kill others and to lose yourself.

But eventually, you'll wake up to consciousness and feel sucrose on your tingling tongue and you'll know that you're life has been a lie--if you find the evidence. What is the evidence? It has to be words. Anything else and it's misinterpreted. It has to be full sentences, too, otherwise you're left with whatever the hell someone stronger than you thinks whatever the hell evidence you've found is. We're not all writers. I leave myself behind as often as possible so that when I'm judged or when I'm judging myself, I'll know what's going on.

poets anonymous, or -- alcohol dehydrogenase oxidizes ethanol into acetaldehyde and requires Zn2+ as a cofactor

make my blood, alcohol
that is all.

water to wine?
lame.

parlour trick.

this classic miscegenation,
this mixology of hard and non-fermented,
this hedonistic chimerism,
this is dedication.

to an art,
a passion:
humanity's first commercialism;

humanity's first love.

humanity's only love if love is just chemicals,
which it is.
as a scientist i deduce this because when i stop--
and i revert--
there is no longer love,
because there is
no
longer
toxicity.

which is when i realize:
i hate my tissues
because i hate histology.
this existence is made worse
because i am conscious of it.

all the filaments and all the flesh,
unfortunately fertilized,
now compete with the other nine ova
that would have been prettier
smarter, nicer,
heavier, healthier, happier,
kinder, lovelier.

betterer?

bliss, which is just ignorance,
is justly achieved.
i throw a wrench into the metaphor
when i pour
out the liquor.



libations are statements and this one is all that i need.

cutsies

So this morning, at around 8:50, I walked up to the front of Rhoade's Auditorium to ask our lecturer a question. A lot of people want to do this, but today there were only two other people in front of me. Well, only two people in front of me until two short yet somehow really attractive South Asian girls cut between me and the question askers. I was mildly put off. This "mild" put off-ense increased as their question proceeded to take some five minutes (we only have a ten minute break). Finally, they went back to their seats and I asked my question, which was spectacularly dumb and answered with little effort on the part of the professor.

I was further vexed when the next lecture hour began with the professor saying something like, "During the interim I was asked a good question that I would like to clarify..." I don't know exactly what he clarified. I was blacked out from bitterness.


So tonight, around 8:50 pm, I've collected my required groceries from Dominick's and proceed to make my way into a check out. I'm wearing my "drug rug" which cost all of $10 somewhere south of the mason-dixon line and I will later discover that my hair is very astray. But the contents of my shopping cart are excellent signifiers of my current status. Yes. A tub of coffee, three frozen personal pizzas, pasta, canned tuna, more pasta. Graduate Student. Anyway, I am probably two meters from jumping into the only check out line when a young girl whose acne smacks of foundation hops in front of me. True. She only has four or five contents, but I have to act awkward as I stand behind her and she wastes time by not putting her five contents on the conveyor belt while she idly looks at candy items. And the smell of her cheap perfume or expensive deodorant gets me thinking, How young is this person? That quickly leads to, How old does she think I am? 

Because it occurs to me then that barging your way in front of people seems fine when your younger. It's still rude, but it seems more... appropriate. Young people are full of life. That life expresses itself by not following appropriate social customs and being "rude." When you age, hopefully you start learning what you can and cannot do, which is why law enforcement rarely gets involved when seniors get into a scuffle. By knowing what's appropriate vs. inappropriate, one would hope that situations won't as surely devolve into fist fights. Older people learn how to use their words. I'm sure if I was twenty years older I would have garnered either respect from appearance alone or respect by voicing my opinions that "I was in line first."

But that seems so weak. So instead I just waited, feeling powerless as some awful smelling girl mis-communicated with the cashier a couple of times. Then I tried my best to be overly nice to the cashier, who was quite easy to understand.

Is it my time to give up my rights as a youth? Have I finally gotten so old that my life is no longer as "precious" as that of a child's? Is this the kind of treatment I should expect for the rest of my life? What's wrong with children these days that they no longer care for the lives of their elders?

And then I realized something: I still look and feel and act like I'm twenty-two. I'll have plenty of time to harp on teenagers when I'm eighty-six. For now, I'll just continue to hate being cut. Because one day, when I'm older, I won't accept it anymore. Then, with my hopefully non-arthritic, non-osteoporosis invaded limbs, I will smack bitches upside the head if they dare place themselves spatially in front of me.

elora is...

as forward as a rapper, but not nearly as misogynistic.

as open as a stripper, but not nearly as masochistic.

as knowledgeable as a dealer, but not nearly as greedy.

as ostracized as a leper, but not nearly as infectious.

my dad once said the most important thing to learn in your twenties...

is how to deal with being alone.

someone looks exactly like me?

So I was in a swanky Walgreens today in Lake Bluff. It didn't feel like a Walgreens, rather, it felt like what a giant sign on one of its walls said it was: "Your Neighborhood Health Corner." No joke. If I was to build my own private clinic, it would probably look like this Walgreens... though with less cheap alcohol. Only the good stuff for my imbibing patients.

Anyway, after I got what I wanted, namely scrunchies (my hair is long enough to be put into a ponytail once again), dental floss, and DEXTROSE tablets (yum), I waited in line to check out. You know when you can tell that the cashier is talkative because you find yourself waiting in line twice as long as you think appropriate? The dude in front of me started chatting her up and I smiled but inwardly shook my head. What a jerk. Can't he see I'm holding five awkward tubs of dextrose tablets? Jerk.

But then I get to the front of the line, and even though I don't want to say anything, she manages to ask me: "Do you have a brother?"

I'm intrigued. For one, I don't have any brothers.

Secondly, I'm black. She's white. I wonder if this could have been caused by the "all [insert name of other race here] look the same to me." But even I know that although I have dark skin, I don't look anything like most black people. I don't even look like my sisters, and they're related to me.

I asked the cashier if the man who may have been my brother was wearing a "New Trier Swim Club" hat, as I pointed to the turtle-fur lined hat on my head. She said no. "But he was wearing a hat," she told me. As I left, I thought about the extreme idiocy of her comment. A lot of people wear hats. A lot of people only sometimes wear hats. I can almost guarantee that he wasn't wearing a winter hat during his pharmacy visit. "Everyone has a twin I always say," she told my back as I breached the Walgreens' front door.

Fine. Let's say I'm stumbling around the Lake Bluff area and run into someone who looks exactly like me who is also wearing a hat. Would it be love at first sight? It would have to be, right? I've never met someone like me before. It's actually odd how not like anyone else I look. Yes. I know I'm black. But I don't look overtly African and I don't look African-American. You could say I look biracial, but that's not helpful at all because there's a lot of variance in physical appearance among biracial individuals. At least two people have told me I look Asian Indian, which I know I'm not. So what am I?

Why would this be love at first sight? Let me tell you something. I spend a lot of time reading scientific articles about attraction and how that all works. I find it amusing that you can guess how likely people are to be attracted to one another before they ever even meet. It brings third party match making to a whole new level of fascinating. It also introduces science!

Now I know you have to take most of these findings with a grain of salt, because it's technically "pop science," but a recent study found that people are attracted to people who look like them. It's creepy! But it also kind of explains why this is a website: http://siblingsordating.com/

It also explains why I rarely connect with people on a deep level. Though, that could just be explained by my severe social anxiety. Or my apathy. Or my playful awkwardness.

Anyway, if I ever found someone who looked like me, I'd probably jump them. Hey. It's what happened with Luke and Leia, and I know I'm not any better than the twin power couple that ended tyranny in an entire galaxy. The only thing I can do now is spend an inordinate amount of time at that Walgreens and flash my face at anyone who even closely resembles me. If that fails, then I'll know that the cashier thinks all black people look alike and I will be alone for the rest of my life. Sometimes being discernibly attractive isn't what's important. It's looking like other people. That's right. As if you didn't know: standing out won't get you laid.

8-bit

I've known about 8-bit music for a while. I've read a couple articles about it. I thought it was interesting. Then today, after watching Tron: Legacy for the 9th time, I decided to search Derezzed Dubstep. HEY! Dubstep, done right, is like... I can't even begin to describe it to a layman.

Anyway, they didn't have a ton of acceptable Derezzed Dubsteps... but Youtube had a large amount of Tron: Legacy and Daft Punk 8-bit songs. So I hopped into the world of 8-bit. My mind was blown. When I found Duel of Fates - NES (which stands for Nintendo Entertainment System), I knew that my life had just changed.

But eventually I exhausted the interesting 8-bit links and went back to listening to electronic remixes of songs... and the richness of sound was ecstatic. So 8-bit does two things really well:

1) By listening to 8-bit music you can more easily imagine the world as an imaginative video game (a la Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe).

2) When you finally decide to listen to "real" music, it will feel more real than usual.

This is just the latest example of me cheating the system by finding an unhealthy amount of pleasure in something that isn't illegal or habit forming... I think. I did download a ton of free 8-bit songs... so I may be "gone" for the next couple of days.

Sex in the Air

I was sitting in a salon reading a black magazine. When I hit the op-ed section, I read some good articles about politics, but eventually I read one that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. It simultaneously protested Chris Brown's bout with domestic violence and criticized Rihanna's lyrics. Then, to summarize and end, the writer said that they didn't want to be one of those people that "blames the victim," but basically Rihanna was taking it too far.

I can't remember which of Rihanna's lyrics they were using to denounce the singer, but almost all of them that have appeared near the top of the charts in the last two years contain a smacking of dirtiness to them. Most explicitly, S&M, which stands for sadomasochism, a title under which a lot of depraved sex acts fall under, did quite well but has a chorus that I never thought people would be okay playing on the radio.

I guess I'm getting old.

But the thing is, I like the fact that Rihanna "went" there. As the large minority of Americans still openly attack gay marriage, it's nice to know that S&M hit the top spot this summer, a song with content worse or equivalent to the moral-ills of gay marriage in the eyes of this segment of the population.

But even more important than that, I've noticed something happening that I'm not okay with. Young girls are dressing provocatively. Now true, this always happens, and I hate myself for bringing this up, but let's just assume that American morality is constantly cycling through itself, meaning twenty five and thirty five years ago, American youth had hit all time lows in their morality, and we're approaching a same kind of low again. I was particularly struck when my twelve years old cousin, raised in a very Christian household, appeared with thick eyeliner at our house during a family to family visit. I think she looked great, and her family members didn't seem to mind it much, but it seemed… wrong.

And then I caught myself. At any age, and no matter who you are, you should have a right to beautify yourself. People do this in a whole lot of different ways: tattoos to mild anorexia. But just like with other aspects of life, this is America and people should be able to do almost anything they want as long as they don't hurt other people or become a drain on society.

The number one reason why I don't like young girls beautifying themselves, is really for their own safety. Which is unfair and is the basis for the events titled "Slut Walks." Women should be able to dress any way they want and it should in no way compromise their own safety. This is totally a liberty thing and as humans move forward, I think liberty is the only way to protect our freedoms. Staying as libertarian as possible, if a woman dresses like a slut, men should be able to tell her she looks delish, but in no way should she feel like things will get out of control and that her physical safety will be compromised.

This is my view on female sexuality: No always means no. Disinterest means no. Anything less than yes should mean no. But if a woman wants to have sex, she should be able to use whatever type of language she wants. She should be able to tell you in disturbing detail the ways she wants to have sex with you. And if she ends up sounding like Rihanna, good. All the better. But until she gives you the go ahead, she should be able to dress like she's in the music video of S&M and no ill should befall her.

I've seen quite a few grade school aged girls wearing clothes more fashionable than me, texting on their iPhones and looking exactly like young women who stopped growing after hitting five feet. I in no way want to hear some guy around my age reference them as "jail bait." But I in no way want to stop young girls from dressing the way they want to.

In effect, Chris Brown is disgusting and Rihanna should be able to do whatever the hell she wants to do. There is no argument here. Never blame the victim. Never even consider it. When we tell women to dress modestly if they want to be safe, we are constricting their freedoms. And for the love of God, this is America.

An Interesting Aside: I'm Diabetic

Today one of the fucking lecturers for my medical school classes decided to tell everyone an exciting "diabetes-related" finding. I no longer remember how it related to embryology, but it was something like this: EVEN DIABETICS WITH GOOD CONTROL OF THEIR SUGARS END UP SUFFERING THE COMPLICATIONS OF DIABETES IN THE LONG RUN. WHY? OH, WELL, BECAUSE THE INITIAL SPIKE IN BLOOD GLUCOSE CAUSES METHYLATION OF THE DNA WHICH LEADS TO COMPLICATIONS SUCH AS BLINDNESS, AMPUTATIONS, LOSS OF HEARING, LOWER QUALITY OF LIFE, ETCETERA. Why the hell did this professor feel like this was a necessary sidetone? IDK. Maybe because he talks like someone raised firmly on the Mason-Dixon line and cutting to the point doesn't really make a whole lot of FUCKING SENSE to those people. So yes. Elora Apantaku, the beautiful, kind of hilarious, kind of lovely ELORA APANTAKU, will be losing her long legs and her perceptive …

I started crying. No sense in continuing. Fuck.

I'd Fuck Fela Kuti

I think I'm in love with Fela Kuti. I'm listening to a song right now, called Pansa Pansa, and it's definitely over 15 minutes long... maybe even 20 minutes of ecstasy. It started off with some abstract keyboard notes and then eventually fell into the easily recognizable horn and percussion and vocals of Afro-pop (a genre Fela Kuti created). Also, he has some insightful lyrics. True. I may be falling prey to the "people who speak with accents sound so... profound" (which does not apply to southerners for me... or people from New Jersey... sorry). But, even though I think African and British accents are endearing, it probably has more to do with his choice in saying bloody brilliant profound things. Gosh darn. Anyway, if the opportunity arose, I would "have sex" with Fela Kuti. But I guess that's why he had over ten wives (nice) and died of AIDS (not nice no matter how many wives you have).

I guess I'll just have to appreciate a musician without trying to have sex with them. Damn. This is going to be difficult. In another time I definitely would have been a single-minded groupie. Now... I'm just a boring person plugged into Pandora.

Ugly and Angry Models

Okay, so I like the fact that companies will use models who aren't commercially "attractive." Dove did it first, well, first on a large scale, and I really liked what they did. Bloody brilliant. I mean, I know I'm not attractive or terribly thin, but it made me feel like I could have a career in modeling. I have this weird bone thing where I weigh a lot but look of average weight, so I don't know how successful I'd be in a modeling career so yea, glad I'm going to medical school.

BUT... I strongly dislike it when companies publish ads with non-commercially successful models (or "normals") modeling with serious faces. It just looks like normal people are staring at me, but aggressively. This in no way makes me want to buy their product, because now I associate it with peers hating me…. for no apparent--but surely deep seated--emotional reasons.

Spotted Fish

Something weird happened. In my head! It happened because my blood sugar was low… but it also happened because I was a little drunk.

This combination of intoxication and hypoglycemia rarely happens, thankfully, but it has happened multiple times, once even leading to the refinement of a brilliant but ultimately doomed seduction strategy on a single individual. I cannot apologize enough for what happened that night and I'm truly sorry.

Anyway, today it happened because I went to Wendy's on my drive home, and in my haste I couldn't check my blood sugar but knew how much sugar was in my meal, and just took a shot o' insulin anyway. Unfortunately I didn't predict that my NEED for Wendy's was a byproduct of brewing hypoglycemia… Damn.

Anyway, the weird thing that happened was I got freaked out by the spot on one of my fish's tails. And it occurred to me that I was falling prey to the reason why the spot is there in the first place. In some fish, so I will assume all fish, a dot on the tail is used to simulate an eye and therefore predators become confused about where the head of the fish really is and they lose an ability to guess where to bite. For me, it was more just a vivid confusion about the body of my fish… All fish have similar body plans, but all of a sudden it seemed as if my fish was more like an eel (also, however, a type of fish). Or perhaps it had morphed into a conjoined twin. Anyway, freaked me out and my heart rate and my palatable sweats made it apparent that I was drunk and hypoglycemic. No one to seduce. Just fish to watch and be mesmerized and confused by.

I have a serious addiction problem. It is this blog. I should probably kill it. Knock it out. Something.

bisexual

I'm pretty confused pretty much all the time. Orientation for medical school started two days ago, and I'm kind of lost all the time. Administrative stuff, identity stuff, whatever the heck a "payback" is, seriously... I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, who I'm supposed to be paying, and how in debt I will be in four years (complicating this matter is that my tuition is severely reduced--both GREAT but awkward, because I don't know any details about my money situation except that my parents are taking care of most everything for my first two years and I still have yet to have a credit card (I've accrued $5,000+ on my debit card which will take care of silly expenses but won't buy me a frickin' house) or develop an understanding of the real world in a financial sense).

But besides money, I'm also kind of confused about who I am. Which is why I'm so glad this blog exists. It clearly only exists for myself. This is not publishable material. But it helps me remember who I am, although knowing yourself is kind of impossible, especially when you change your mind all the time.

Anyway, identity issues. So, I'm really happy that there appears to be some diversity in people's motives. Even one person kind of got close to my own feelings towards becoming a doctor when she said (paraphrase): both of my parents are physicians but I never really wanted to become one because I saw the hell they went through, but eventually, and rather late to the game, I realized that becoming a doctor was the only true calling I had. And so I started applying to medical schools.

Okay, GREAT! I only decided I wanted to be a physician my junior year of college. Both of my parents are surgeons, and I definitely do NOT want to do that.

But there's more to my identity as well. I kind of want to say one of the biggest reasons I want to become a doctor is because I have such an interesting background. It appears that whenever I start at a new institution I revert to a simplified way of describing myself. As a freshmen, I used to go introducing myself as such:

I'm a biracial
bisexual individual
who likes riding bikes.

Now:

I'm still sure I'm biracial,
and I'm definitely bisexual,
I like riding bicycles,
and I'm mildly bipolar.

But furthermore, I was thinking about how weird it is for woman to be lesbians (horrible segue, just go with it). There are quite a few gay men in my class, and I know of at least one person working at my medical school who is gay. But a lesbian? IDK. I'm still really confused as to whether I'm straight or not, and I can't help but wonder what would happen if I wasn't exposed to cultural information... would I just naturally be attracted to women? I know that I usually imagine myself marrying a man... but I don't actually want to have sex with a dude, and herein lies the problem. If I'm more sexually attracted to women (and to qualify: I simply don't know for sure because I've always been a little more asexual than sexual) but want to marry a man, is there something wrong with me?

 And then I was thinking about the stories I've heard from lesbians and gay men. It seems that gay men know there gay pretty early on. I have a feeling this is because being female is a more neutral position. Being a man, you are required to act manly. In fact, men who act like women are much more accosted than women who act like men. This is why tomboy is an affectionate term, whereas janegirl is a term no one ever uses. Lesbians, though... it takes them a while. Do you really have to be over the age of 15 to know whether or not you want a man or a woman? And if so, why am I still really confused... I'm 22! I really want to figure this out, not just for myself, but maybe even for future patients. Sexual identity continues to be the most confusing of all my identities, even though every facet of my personality is incredibly nuanced.

And I guess the only reason this bothers me is because I don't think people respect bisexuals. I want to say I'm one thing of the other... but it's so impossible for me to know for sure. It's literally impossible for me to tell if I am both right now, so I guess it's possible I will always be a Q, the most disrespected and least important letter in:

LGBTQ

news feed

It's about 50/50, I'd say, the likelihood of me scrolling through facebook and reaching a satisfactory end feeling happy or feeling sad. This occurs because people tend to post the best things that happen to them. Or the saddest things about themselves. But either way, such musings don't help me feel much better about the fact that I am twenty-two years old (SO OLD) and doing nothing of import.

How was your day?
Oh, you know, I just read everyone's facebook statuses and posts from the last 30 days.

I didn't save anyone. I didn't work extra hard today. I didn't see a history making game or welcome a new family member into existence. No. For me, today was just like yesterday: completely unimportant (for me).

I wonder if my status updates have ever even excited in anyone enough emotions to feel a hint of jealousy. Likely not. I'm getting so old and yet somehow my life is still so boring. How long can you stay in a perpetuated state of adolescents? I'm not even sure "growing up" would make my life seem that much more interesting through the lens of the almighty facebook news feed. What if the rest of my life is like this? Accomplishing little and learning nothing?

This conclusion is why I frequently stop having a facebook, from time to time. Unfortunately, as of next week I will be meeting a lot of new people. Some of these new people will want to add me as their friend on facebook. A very few number of those people will read my status updates with mild interest. It is for that last group that I must keep my chin up and try to make my life sound as exciting as possible without lying flat out.

This will be a challenge.

muddling love

I was in love with you. I was gonna tell you that as an explanation for my behavior but it never did ever seem like it was appropriate. And heck, it probably wasn't even true. It certainly isn't very true now, considering how it ended and everything. I don't want to apologize, but I feel like telling you I love you which is why I got so muddled when I thought I saw you making out with some other girl--well, I feel like that explains everything I did. I know it doesn't. But I wish it could. And anyway, I don't even know what I thought I liked about you in the first place. I knew you weren't attractive. Empirical data told me that. Also, don't really think I like boys all that much, but you know, I guess if you weren't attractive for a boy you'd be attractive enough for me. I didn't really like your voice, neither. I liked your name good enough though. I don't know why exactly. I think maybe cause it sounds like a girl's name. Or maybe because it's the name of a minor Star Wars character and so is mine. But it's not like you'd ever seen a Star Wars film before and it's not like we'd get married and have a Star Wars themed reception. Shoot though, that'd be a lot of fun. But you'd never seen Star Wars so why the heck did I like you in the first place? I can't even reckon. I met a guy once who loved Star Wars and had the name of a Jedi Prince in the books they write for little kids that I read when I was nine years old because I kind of only got onto the scene when I was eight and they were re-releasing all the old ones. His name was Kyle. He was doing something with his life and he was attractive and I liked the way he talked. I could listen to him for hours. I should've. Maybe then we'd realize that this was meant to be or something. I don't know. No one in the original Star Wars history felt love at first sight, so I guess I shouldn't have expected that to happen in the real world. But Kyle? That wasn't love if only because I didn't know how to love back then with all these people yelling at me and I didn't know who to trust or why anyone would ever want to trust me and I kept dreaming about perfection but I knew that someday I'd know that that's not love and sure enough, one day I was driving home and I kept thinking to myself, I think I'm in love with you, but I've got to make sure I'm sure this time. How the heck would I even know? Hah, but I thought I could figure it out to my very own satisfaction so I gave it a try. Better safe than sorry, right? Because the last guy I said I love you to ended up thinking I really was in love with him. And yea, sure I was, and still am. But it's not that kind of love. It's the I-like-the-fact-that-you're-happy-because-I-was-always-kinda-worried-about-you-but-as-long-as-you're-with-some-girl-you-love-than-I'm-happy-for-you-and-always-will-be-and-I-don't-want-this-to-get-anymore-complicated-because-I-like-smiling-when-I-think-of-you-and-not-feeling-like-I'm-getting-too-much-in-the-way. I don't know. I don't deserve the nicest guy. Or any guy probably. Maybe I don't deserve nobody, and I should stop all this business of trying to figure out what love is. I won't know much better than I knew with you, right? The way I loved you, well shoot, it would have confused you too much I guess. So it's good I got all muddled up and it's for the best that I can go on and forget you now and you'll never know any of this. Except I probably won't forget you. I reckon I never will, but at least now I can know that it ended because you made it that way, and not because I told you I loved you and you never knew some fresh young kid could have decided so decidedly that she could look past all your antisocial behavior and come to the conclusion that it wasn't just affection or attraction or mutual mild interest. It was love. And it was pretty refined. Heck, every time this happens I'm always surprised. It would have surprised you too. But not in a good way, probably. It never does. No one ever wants to know that someone they only kind of liked was in love with them, or so I reckon. Well, I don't really know. I never asked nobody. I was always too scared. But I was almost not too scared with you. I got really close. Once I thought I said it when we were in the same room watching the TV, but you probably weren't paying attention then, just like you weren't paying attention to me when I left. Yea. I didn't ever know what I saw in you. But maybe, someday, maybe at my wedding, I'll have too much champagne or whatever fancy drink they give to get the bride and groom so gone that their wedding night leads to a wedding hangover, and I'll tell you I was in love with you once. It'll be a mistake. I'll hate myself for saying it. You'll hate yourself for hearing it. But in the end, I'll have won the love of someone else finally, probably. And we'll be having a Star Wars themed reception, big and fancy and I'll be happy wearing a dress like Padme's in the end of Episode I. I'll be happy then. And you'll be married, too, probably. I don't want to know to whom, but I'm sure she'll be almost as pretty as me and that's mature of myself for wishing you the best even after all you put me through. Yea, that's about all I wanted to say, and maybe one day you'll read this all and cringe but I hope you laugh. I don't know. We were all a little crazy that's for sure. But yea, so thanks for muddling me.

impulse behavior

the wake of the boat aligns with the extended arm of the milky way. you stare out at the sepia ink black water and wonder how people could have seen this world and its surrounding stars without the electric powered night lights, caution lights, and street lights of modern convention. but it's the south pacific, so you see a lot more than you would back home, or anywhere, probably, in the continental US. if the pattern appeared on a fish, you'd feel a need to reach out and scratch it, fearing it was a rash of some sort… a disease that looks too similar to your own psoriasis. but they are stars, not welts, and because they are shining with such intensity you breathe in the relatively non-polluted air and relax yourself. you saw a shooting star yesterday. it was beautiful. but it frustrated you that you couldn't think of what you wanted to wish for in the half second after it faded away from you. happiness. not even, you wished for contentedness in the fifth second of the realization that you'd seen something rare enough to be special but common enough for you to know what to do. don't be too frustrated. you were drunk after all, and it was your birthday. already you feel like you're making good on your promise: content that you suck at thinking of immediate wishes. you breathe in. it's not cold. it's not hot. it's perfect.

you could jump. it scares you, but you've been in this water several times today and you think: i could jump. the boat is going who knows how fast and you could just stand by the side and then flip yourself over. you stop breathing at the thought. they always tell you there's nothing poisonous in the water. the sharks, too, even though there are a lot of them, they have never killed anyone. so what would happen if you did jump? you'd see nothing, except the lights of the buildings on the islands that are half a mile away from you. and maybe, if the angle was just right, you'd see the moon, one-eyed and batting an eyelash at your misfortune. or maybe you'd toss a bit and see it smiling a smile that was too full to make you feel at all comfortable. and you wouldn't be. below you the water in the day time is the darkest of blues. hundreds of feet deep. and in the water, at night, you'd have no idea what could lurk underneath you, watching you thrash slowly, an adrenaline addicted junkie. you wouldn't breathe. it frightens you to swim in Lake Michigan at night, and the worst things there are lampreys, sophisticated hagfish. they can latch onto you, but they'd be unable to extract much flesh. so imagine swimming at night in a deep, deep ocean. you'd cry and you'd scream and it would choke you on the salt water. you'd drown. no question. you could try to swim to safety, you're a good swimmer, and you can swim half a mile, but panicking as you do, you'd lose your heels and then your bare feet would be exposed, just as they are when you're sleeping on a bed too small for you, and here, just like in your bedroom, the monsters are no less terrifying when you're almost positive they're entirely made-up. you'd end up, dead of course, near the very bottom of the ocean. what would devour you there? so many types of sharks that scavenge only. you'd be picked apart by tripod fish and other rarities. cookie cutter sharks would nibble into you, perfect circles cutting into your once near perfect flesh. and maybe, as a treat, Chthulu would pick you up, visiting as he was in this region, just as you were. your small body would be wrapped into a tentacle, and you would slowly decompose as the author of all things bobbed you up and down in the tremendous depths like some live action barbie doll.

it's an imp, an impulse, and it takes your breathe away even to think of it, landing in salty south pacific water and eaten alive or having to swim to avoid such an outcome. so you stop breathing and you sit, quietly, your thoughts unable to process the thousand different ways tonight could end and the trillions--you can't think of any set of numbers higher than that power--of interactions you could have within a two mile radius of your very position right now.

tahiti...

is like Planet Honeymoon. Do you know how people knock George Lucas and Star Wars for creating entire planets covered in one ecological climate? Hoth is covered by snow and ice; Tatooine is a huge desert; Coruscant is an entire city. Well, if Tahiti was an entire planet onto itself, it would be disproportionately populated by people on their honeymoons and renewing their vows.

And it's disconcerting. I can't quite place my finger on what bothers me the most, but I can list several things that I find unsettling.

1) PDA. The French are a disgusting people. I know that all people in "love" will display affection for their paramours, but the French seem like they've been bred for the explicit purpose of making me want to vomit whenever I am forced to cross paths with two lovers. Do Americans spend this much time... so close to one another? That can't be fun. People are disgusting. Why would you want to be near them unnecessarily?

2) How old are you? Seriously. I can't tell. Is this a European thing as well? To look younger than you actually are because, unlike us filthy Americans, you've relied on walking to get you from place to place and don't feel obliged to eat at a fast food joint every now and again to remind yourself of the mightiness which is the Whopper? Well, I won't have any of it. I'm not married. And I expect most 21 year olds to also not be married. But even if they are getting married... why are you honeymooning in Tahiti? I'm sorry, but if you're going to risk throwing your life away at this stage, I expect you to be trailer trash and honeymooning at the Wisconsin Dells. Seriously. Because if someone my age is getting married, good for them. And if someone is having their honeymoon in Tahiti, also, good for them. But if someone my age is having their honeymoon in Tahiti, something just doesn't add up. You can't be young, beautiful, rich, and married. That's like... Well, it's not fair.

3) The fact that everyone here speaks French is very unhinging. Doesn't French kind of sound like the language you'd want your love slave to speak? Have I gone too far? No, but seriously, it's good at effeminating everyone who speaks it, reducing both men and women into a further state of helplessness, or partial sentience. (Sorry, I should apologize. I really hate French and I'm just completely butchering this argument as I butcher, regularly, the French language). I find this makes matters worse when you have to listen to a young, in love couple, talking about things that you can't possibly understand. Men and women sound a lot more similar when they're speaking French. It's like they're slowly sinking into themselves, creating a singularity of sickening mutual affection.

4) It's beautiful here. And this is what really bothers me, and gets me talking to myself in a rather blunt manner. It's beautiful here, probably the most gorgeous place I've ever been--definitely top five. But if I was here on a honeymoon, I would probably be having sex almost incessantly. Which means that the view is really just wasted on people having sex. Could sex be helped by the natural beauty of Tahiti? Probably. But not by nearly enough to make the different price tag of honeymooning in Tahiti verse doing the same in Hawaii or even Florida worth it. And it is very disturbing walking around this island, this private island, thinking about all the people having sex in their above water bungalows. Erisa and I were wondering why housekeeping knocked on our doors three times a day. I suggested--monotone, mind you, for this topic brings me no satisfaction--that this was probably an indication of the mean number of times the bed would have to be remade and the towels replaced if it really did house people who had just tied the knot.

And so, yes, I will be stuck on Planet Honeymoon for the next two weeks, taking pictures of plants and fish and rainbows, and trying very hard not to imagine how wonderful it would  be to be surrounded by either 1) people my age or 2) people who have not just gotten married. Though perhaps I should  just learn to except that sometimes, people can love each other, and that the beauty of love means I should respect them who chose to commit each other to themselves and away in the tropical paradise of Tahiti. (Vomit) I will have to accept that my aversion to such things is not really my fault but the direct result of my parents' ways, who rarely engage in affectionate behavior (I was scarred the first time I saw them kiss; I was fourteen). And I will try to remind myself that this place really is beautiful, and that there is little chance I will come back here for my own honeymoon, if only because I would not be able to afford having a honeymoon here unless I were to get married at age forty-seven. Still a possibility. And the more honeymooners I see, the less and less I want to get married right this instant. I feel like I could wait another twenty-six years. Then maybe we will have done away with marriage (see what happens when you let gays marry each other?) and the only purpose of relationships will be procreation and the term honeymoon will apply to more pleasant things, like visiting tropical paradises sans-annoying couples or playing an exhaustive game of Life with a peer. It could happen. I hope it happens.

my hesitant holiday air fare

So there was this one time, in winter. Flying in coach. And they make planes so small now. When I was younger, planes were huge. But I was flying alone. Going back home maybe? Holidays. I was punishing my holiday blood sugars and gotten a little liberal with my lantus, my long acting insulin. The plane began its thirty minte plunge into O'Hare and my chest began to spasm. Increase in air pressure inversely related to decrease in blood sugar. Shaking. Sweaty. So fucking sweaty. The woman next to me is overweight. I like windows, but by choosing this seat I had condemned myself to being stuck. I dared not ask her to move. I stare at the flight attendent call button. But then the huge lady next to me might be worried. I was just one little person in a sea of travellers. What was so special about me? The thirty minutes was taking forever. I'd press the orange button. A ding would go off. What if they were already strapped in? "hello. Yes. Soda. Why? Sugar. Diabetic." They'd understand, probably. But what if they didn't? It could be a huge hassle; huger than her blocking my escape, my polite attempts to free myself into the aisle and get help myself. But I couldnt blame her at this point. The seat belt sign was on. My slowly unfocusing gaze let the lights of the signs flare into my vision. I looked back outside.  Dense life. The city now. I imagined the streets, with their .... Mmmmm .... Chicago food. Ah. Popcorn and hot dogs and hamburgers. Gyros. Ah. 7-11 Slurpees and Ah. Pizza. Ah. Thin crust cut in squares. Heaven. This plane couldn't take me there fast enough. I'd shake and sweat, cramped into the, place my head into the, usually wonderful window, until I could, probably forty-five minutes from now, content myself with McDonalds. Because hey, when your blood sugar's 45, a chicken mcnugget can taste like the best slice of pizza you've ever had. Ah. The power of adrenaline on your taste buds. And everything trembling like this plane.

between

it's cold here.

the second person

somewhere between the juxtaposition of exhaustion, being a glass or two deep on red wine, and having taken two, or maybe three, sleeping pills in the last half hour, one's protection from such things gets worn down. what things? oh, you know, all the tiny thoughts that you usually don't have now that you're on antidepressants. bless whatever the hell you're on. you don't know what it's really called, partially because you don't want to be a psychologist, and partially because you still have a speech impediment (bud..buddhapro...buddhapropeon-ion?). one by itself wouldn't be that horrific. but the problem is, it always brings its friends to the fucking party. yea, that person you don't really like that much, brought friends. and now you're entertaining an eclectic mix of strangers and people you dislike.

still the best birthday party you've ever had.

but it's still an in-attending list that would make a more popular girl wash the eyeliner off her face with effluent tears. the sad thing is, you're too kind, so you keep listening to them talk. you hate what they say. you know you can't trust them. they're... off. they exaggerate things. they make themselves more important than they actually are. they're not pretty. and what's worse, they make the world around them, and around you, disgusting. you don't want to live in a world where they exist, if only because it's not a pretty world, and you've always wanted to infuse your days with beauty.

but they're people.

so you still listen to them. and they wear you the fuck down. "did you know that him and i always use to talk about..." and of course you didn't know, and you didn't care, or at least, you didn't think you knew you cared, but all of a sudden you're fucking jealous and if you could just eliminate everyone, that would be great. or... "did you know that everyone's opinion of you is that you're boring, and yes, no one's noticed all the really cool things you do?" shoot. no. i had no idea that i was so... no, you don't want to use that word but they've used it so much... so...  boring. you want to punch them in the face and regain your audience's excitement. you want to levitate off the floor, not too much but at least a foot, and you want your eyes to glow white and your muscles, remember when you had some?, to become digitally toned. and you want to force choke them. each and every fucking one. maybe you'd have an axe to off your favorites, and a sledgehammer to wreck the ones that weren't just annoying, weren't just persistent, but were purposefully hurtful. yes. you. no. not you you. him. he wasn't just confusing. that was a cool angle he kept playing, but no. not just confusing, because in the end, while you're chatting it up with these people at the party no one attended except for you and everyone you hate, you discover his true intentions. from who's point of view? no. it's not yours anymore. it's the world's. everyone sees this now. what you thought during your "in the moment analysis" to be confusion, cute and kind confusion, was actually well known motives on his part while you had to mentally sift through conversations and gestures and drunk moments in time to get the heart of your relationship. and the worst part is that it wasn't even simple.

that's what makes it so believable.

so this party attendee can tell you everything you simultaneously want to know and don't want to know. but you can't stop it, and you can't color it's opinion. you could keep drinking, but then you run the risk of holding on to just one thing they say, out of context. and you'd replay that over, and over, and over, and over, and over ad infinitium again and again and again and again. and it will knock you. and you will want to slam your head against your steering wheel and drive off the highway bridge. or you will want to vomit, and let the diet-resultant small chunks of your pathetic breakfast collect in the three different types of sheets making it literally impossible for you to ever want to get a good night sleep, ever again. or it will force you to never listen to that song, ever, because it will force you to see and feel and smell things that remind you of it. and you will never be able to watch that one episode of that one show that used to make you laugh even though the subject matter was way too cute for you to ever like if it had been presented to you in a vacuum.

this person has caused you to sworn off so much. but you're a kind person, and you believe that all people, regardless of insanity or nonsense, or genuine disregard for pragmatism, should have the opportunity to talk to you. you, of all people, who just wants to vomit, to sleep, to forget. But you can't. Because you are you, and you may be boring, but you were raised to be a nice person. So bittersweetly, you resign yourself, thinking about old songs that make you happy but don't make you feel like the world will love you (it won't) or that you're in love with anyone (you aren't). Ergo:

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.

Yea. So when you are thinking about me, or I am thinking about you, just remember, let's keep it simple for once without throwing in the useless mind-fucks and the confusion on my end and I'm sure the self-confidence on your end: I don't want to fuck you, no, not anymore, so go fuck yourself.

343! read the LARGE... than, if you can stomach it... read the smaller crap around it

Hey y'all! It's my 343rd blog post ever! I don't think this will be that important, but hey:


It's been almost three weeks since I've left the east coast, so I've almost entirely forgotten...

ALL THE TERRIBLE THINGS THAT HAPPENED OUT THERE...
like my four years of college and my road trip. As long as when you're lying down, dying, you have at least one more good day than bad one, you're in the black--you've made it--congratulations--you win. 


I've been on the verge of vomiting all day. I can't tell if it's because 1) the weather is sweltering 2) I did not get much sleep 3) there's been a barrage of cute imagery on television and thus in my face or 4) my diet is horrific. I don't think my diet is actually horrific, but for the first time in my life, the prospect of eating meat makes me feel like losing a kidney. I know what you're thinking: Elora! You can't become a vegetarian... you're an American. And even more important, you're a Chicagoan. (Also, A German and Nigerian... basically, you've got to eat the good stuff). But I don't know. I might also just feel like not eating, and my meager (that's a Oregon Trail Reference) attempts at eating don't jive with my internal want to starve. I could starve more, I suppose. But than I'd feel ill due to starvation.

Basically, I'm pregnant or I want to become a vegetarian. I don't know which would be worse.

I'm fairly excited about medical school. I have a lot of painting, a lot of sculptures, a bookshelf, a rocking chair, and a couch. Other than that, I have absolutely nothing in the way of furniture or other important things... like silverware. I'm sure I'll just end up eating pizza everyday... or really sticky rice... things that don't require forks... unless you're fucking donald trump (he ate a pizza with a knife and fork; that, along with being an idiot, were the reasons why he dropped out of the presidential race).


Meanwhile, I've only made one outfit that I feel completely comfortable wearing. It is a dress. Unfortunately, the bra part is way too small and my boobs kind of hang out. I don't know how I would describe it. But it's a truly lovely dress when worn with a cardigan. The best part... NO PATTERN WAS USED. That's right. Patterns confuse and infuriate me.


Thanks.

repetitive

An interesting study found that time passes more quickly when you find yourself doing the same things over and over again. Excitement is what makes things seem to last forever. This is why time seems to fly when you're old, because nothing is really new to you anymore. There are fewer new experiences for you to have... because you're so experienced. I think that can explain why the last two weeks I've spent alive have seemed to go by horrifically quickly. Wake up at noon. Watch television. Sew. Play Atom Zombie Smasher. Eat a few meals. Drive around for about thirty minutes. Go to sleep at two in the morning. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Sometimes I go into the city, but even then... snooze fest. Can summer's be too relaxing?

This also explains why once I stopped swimming I noticed there was a lot more time in days. A lot more time that I can now waste playing Atom Zombie Smasher.

dumpster diving and the american dream

Tonight I was driving down Lake Cook Road because it's under a lot of construction and I've been fiending for some sort of road sign. Unfortunately, every time I see a sign I always wonder what horrific things would happen if I took it. IT'S IMPORTANT FOR PEOPLE TO KNOW THAT THERE IS NO SIDEWALK AFTER THIS POINT!

Fortunately, a few days ago I noticed a speed limit 40 sign laying on the ground, visibly waiting to be discarded. It was just waiting for me to pick it up and place it in my new apartment (decoration theme? Potbelly's.) But, tonight I couldn't find it. The only nice thing about driving down Lake Cook Road at night (because it leads to Wheeling... boondocks... gross), are all the superfluous blinking orange signs. It looked magical.

Dejected, driving back to my home, I noticed two industrial waste dumpsters. I thought, what the hell? The first one, the smaller one, only contained a ton of concrete slabs. I was thinking I might be able to paint them in an interesting way, but I decided I didn't feel like picking up giant concrete slabs.

The second dumpster was a lot more exciting. There was crazy silver ventilation tubes which I feel would be great for my Halloween 1950s robot costume. There was also a lot of pink insulation fluff. But on top of everything was a discarded bookshelf. GOLDEN. Standing on the side of my convertible, I dragged the object back into my car, and as I drove home at 45 miles per hour, I had to clutch it with my free right hand to keep it from flying away and killing people driving behind me.

So now I have a cedar chest, an orange rocking chair, and a bookshelf. All at highly reduced costs because I got them at garage sales, yard sales, and a dumpster.

My mom said that most medical student's first bookshelf is an amalgamation of milk crates. That never even occurred to me. I assume(d) that most people who are going to medical school most have come from fairly affluent backgrounds. But I guess my mom was pretty poor. And so was my dad. But now they're much better off and able to send me to medical school without me freaking the fuck out about loans and stuff. Though I am still freaking out about my credit. Eh.

But I think one of the many reasons why I want to become a doctor is because I can afford it. Because I've always grown up with money, I can't necessarily see the benefits of making any more money. I know I'm well off. I shy away from saying rich, if only because I've seen old money and I recognize that that's a lot of money. But of all the things I worry about, money is not one of them. Credit is. But fuck credit. Isn't that why America's in debt? (I know little to nothing about economics).

The interesting thing is, I don't  want to be as rich as my parents. I think a 3D television is excessive. Having a pool is nice. But re-doing your pool? Excessive. Going to Hawaii more than seven times in your life? Excessive. Going to Tahiti for your 30th wedding anniversary? Acceptable. At a certain point, all these things are just additional worries. I want to live in a nice house, but I would never want to live in a house as large as the one I grew up in. I want to own nice things. But sometimes the nicest things are the things you make yourself.

My little sister and I were talking about why all our younger male cousins seem to be driven more by money than by academic pursuit. I thought it was because they were men. My little sister seemed to think it was because they grew up not as rich as us. I questioned that, because both families we were talking about are not poor. They are firmly middle class if not higher than that. Still, that got me thinking. Why? Why would you want more things? It's not terribly fun to own a lot of things. It's a lot of hassle. Having fun is a lot more fun than owning nice things. I'd gladly spend a day playing board games with my friends than spend $5,000 buying really nice, designer clothes.

But that's my minority perspective, I guess. And if we think about what this means for America on the whole, no wonder Americans are on average, depressed. If everyone equates financial success with happiness, or, at an even more basic level, if everyone assumes that having a better job will lead to a better life, than no wonder we're more depressed than Denmark. We have high aspirations. I like that. But when it comes to money, having high aspirations is both dangerous and illogical. Sure. Everyone wants to own a nice television. But owning 5 big screens? Excessive.

The nice thing about Danes is that they have low standards. I assume that this means, if I make an average salary and can afford average things, I'm happy. In America, few are content to simply be average, even if being happy with that would make a lot more people happy. I just don't know how to clearly communicate to people: "Middle Class is Great." And I don't think I'm qualified to do such, as I've been in Upper Middle Class/Upper Class all my life.

Well, I'll probably fall into Middle Class when I work as a family practitioner. Than I can easily compare. What was better? Owning a 3D television? Or having a family that loved playing board games after dinner?

This sounds like a fun, long term experiment.

chipmunk

Wednesday it was seventy-two degrees during the afternoon. It was very cool, so I was sitting out underneath a huge oak tree in my backyard, writing the first plot twist scene in my novel, on my wonderful android phone. It's pretty captivating, to have a plot. Or, to even have a hint of something to say. I'm also glad I've given up trying to write about urban settings. I'm not cool enough.

But then I noticed something moving underneath my chair. I jumped up, screaming. The small thing, which I identified as a chipmunk as it ran away from me towards the fence, also screamed. Have you heard a chipmunk scream? It's adorable. It's like a high pitched kazoo. It actually sounds a lot like a robin's call, I discovered. I wonder if that's some sort of mimicry.

I felt bad about scaring off a chipmunk. I think they're adorable, but their interesting camouflage pattern is a little unsettling when it's really close to you. If there were poisonous things in Illinois (I mean like critical D50 poisonous), the chipmunk's coloration in comparison with all the other local organisms, would make it a deadly motherfucker.

Anyway, I walked around the little stone wall to see if it was still around. I don't think you can communicate with woodland creatures in real life, but maybe increased exposure to me without death would subtly teach the chipmunk that humans are not evil, especially me (my loan officer said so --Leela). Walking slowly, I saw its little tail as it ran into the stone wall. I said something in a sad way, like "Ooooh.... I didn't mean to scare you."

I had given up hope that I'd see the chipmunk again, but it poked its head out of the wall and its little nose moved quickly back and forth. "Oh," I purred. It squeaked again.

"Ah," I turned around, "who's so cute?"

escapism

for those times when, if you were a much weaker person, you'd kill yourself.

SUCCESS.

Today I got my hair did than went antiquing and started making a dress based off a much more expensive dress created by Nigerian designer Autumn Adeigbo. Perfect amount of escapism.

Oh, and I played a zombie apocalypse game for at least four hours. So there's that.

perspective is everything

I need something else.

As I drove my car in search of the most pleasing drive-thru food venue, I realized that not only did I hate living in the suburbs, I hated living on earth. Hate is a strong word, so I already wish to rephrase that past sentence. I feel quite uneasy about living in the suburbs. Everything is drab. I drove past our busiest intersection, and the row of SUVs and vans truly depressed me. On my way home, three blocks away from my house, a police car, flashing its lights, was pulled into someone's driveway. Does it make me a horrible person to conclude that something humdrum had happened, like domestic abuse or burglary? What's wrong with me?

The chocolate shake I got from McDonald's was to cheer me up. I sucked it down like a narcotic, my eyes watered, the lights from the street I was speeding down turning into perfect, if unfocused, asterisks. I decided to listen to almost entirely electronic music. With my top down, I looked at the moon and thought, life would be a lot better if I didn't have to live permanently on earth. Is that weird?

There are so many planes that fly into O'Hare; their differing flight plans make it seem like there is a lot of diversity in their different body plans. Perspective is everything. Some are far away, they look small, they must be unmanned or have one passenger. Some are much closer, they look large, and they are landing soon. But maybe instead of being a 757, maybe it's a luxury ship. Who knows. I care.

I could stare at the moon for hours. Right now, Mars looks like it's very close to it. Or at least, I think that's Mars. Usually it's Venus, but Venus is white, and the object looks red. I know little to nothing about astrology. Or astronomy. Whatever. But I know a lot about science fiction. And life would be a lot better if I didn't have to live mine.

I've always wanted to be a pilot of some sort. But I have crappy eyes. And I have a debilitating fear of heights... and death. It'd be beyond awesome to be the space equivalent of a jet pilot. I could have a snarky robotic co-pilot. People confined to spend most of their time planet side would talk about my heroics. I'd have a fan club. People would find me attractive. I always thought I was attractive in real life, but I'm starting to question that. My face isn't perfectly symmetrical, so there's that. I also have a pretty horrific record for making out with ugly people, or getting my heart broken by really, just not cool people. None of this makes sense. I'm much more interesting, fascinating, and I'd say attractive than the (last time I checked... seven) white and asian women who have outbid me. But hey, eighth times the charm. Meanwhile, I haven't really accomplished anything. Seriously. My life, if not a failure, is really lacking in the accomplishments department. So I've written two novels. Anyone who can string together a sentence could write two novels. I rarely volunteer. I rarely do anything exciting. Some people think I'm nice. A few people even think I'm a sweetheart. But I've alienated a lot of my closest friends and I don't understand why simple human interactions are consistently so impossible for me. Nothing makes good sense to me anymore. It's like I'm living the wrong life.

I'd rather be forever stuck in a fantasy world with abstract rules that I'd have to re-learn than continue on this path. Do I want a psychotic meltdown? I think that's what I'm saying. But I don't want to harm anyone. I just... I want to feel like there's something more to life. Like, if I had a very convincing auditory and visual hallucination of a robotic co-pilot that followed me around, and always hinted that there was something out in the universe we could be doing, but he/she/it fully acknowledged that my earth-bound life was also important, maybe that would be enough to satisfy the horrific amount of emptiness I currently feel.

Tomorrow I will put on my aviator goggles and bravely step into the unknown (except it is always too well known) and try to achieve that psychotic break. Sadly, the only drugs I feel comfortable with are alcohol (which won't do) and nicotine (but I don't approve of extended use of death sticks, a.k.a. cigarettes). If they still made Four Loko, I'd probably just stick with that to achieve mind alterations. But the FDA really likes keeping people entrenched in our mutual horrific reality.

Well, I guess I shouldn't say it's mutual. Someone somewhere is probably happy and not bored. But that person is not me. Until I'm content to being bored, alone, and unhealthy in my self-loathing, I will persist in my constant listening to this song, Information Age by Rad Omen:

We're all statistics
you're just a number


You're a statistic
You've got a number
No one is human
Life doesn't matter


In the information age

That's pretty depressing. But also, oddly, uplifting. Carry on my wayward solar traveler.

Thanks. I'll need it.

Disney Hipster Princess (subtitle: I wanna be where the PBR)

Hipster Disney Princesses were a collection of pretty funny memes. The humor derives from the fact that hipsters are obnoxious, edgy, and/or cool, whereas Disney princesses are well-behaved, predictable, and a little too fluffy to be "cool." Mixing two dissimilar things creates humor (actually, my mom said that today; she must be a hilarious woman). But let me be completely honest right now:

I fucking love the little mermaid. And not in any silly ironic way. Straight. Pure. Love.

Why? I don't know exactly why, but I'll list off some reasons:

1) The original Danish version has the Little Mermaid behaving in a manner most Echo-esque, a mythological character I have always related to.

2) Swimming?! SWIMMING! I spent too many hours swimming in my pool as a little kid, and because I was raised on the Little Mermaid (it was released the year of my birth), it made the most sense for me to relate to a swimming character (Aladdin, go fuck yourself).

Then eventually when I had been swimming too much I would sing to myself: "Sick of swimming... ready to stand!" see 7.

3) Did you know? Ariel's hair was modeled after a female Astronaut. How freakin' sweet is that?! And to this day, Ariel is the only redhead whom I feel comfortable trusting. DON'T. TRUST. GINGERS. Though, I think Ariel might be a day walker. Idk. Idc.

4) Marine Biology. Hey! Flounder doesn't look like an actual Flounder! It's these small mistakes that keep me coming back, time and time again.

5) Jamaican accent'd crab. Nuff said.

6) Evil lesbian as opposed to evil gay. Did you know most Disney villain's are homosexuals? Well, at least Ursula is a female half-octopus. I don't know what I'd do if she was a dude. Do you think any of Disney's villains are actually transexuals?!

7) Part of Your World is my favorite song Disney has ever made (not entirely true... Part of Your World is my favorite song that you hear in a Disney movie. My favorite of all time is "Once Upon A Dream" from Sleeping Beauty, but not the way they sing it in the movie... No. Only the Jazz versions will do (am i a hipster now? please?)) But back to the little mermaid, don't think that I do not sing snippets of Part of Your World as I walk around my house... because I do. All the time.

Actually, another fun fact, the last time I watched the Little Mermaid was about seven months ago. I was dismayed that Ariel's voice was so high pitched. It's displeasing, because as a kid she sounded and seemed very intelligent (more intelligent than her slut older sisters... just saying).  So anyway. I was the Little Mermaid in kindergarten. My mom let me decorate a pair of white Keds with cloth paint, and I drew a ton of little shells on them. I also had a Fro at the time, so... yes...

Later in my life, yes, I would buy a shell bra. But I mean, who wouldn't? Especially if you have a costume crate that's like... a quarter the size of your admittedly over-sized closet?

Unfortunately, the most prominent outfit Ariel wears on land is her wedding dress. Which is gross and blue and sequiny... flashy. SURPRISE! I have worn a disgusting blue sequin dress. I mean, it looked cute on me... kind of. But it was from the 80s (once again, thanks mom!) But I don't look good in blue. It's a white person color.

So what's my favorite of Ariel's land outfits? Clearly her first one! Which consists of a swaddle of clothe and what looks like flotsam and jetsam (not the evil eels... riff raff... the actual definition of flotsam and jetsam). Nothing says: "I'm fucking hot all the time," than looking adorable in a horrifically tied sail.

So I made that dress. I made it sexier, of course (I'm not 16...). But I tried to capture the complete spontaneous mess that was probably dressing yourself for the first time, and trying to look hot enough for a stranger to fall in love with you immediately. Indeed, I sewed some of this dress together while it was still on my body. I used a total of two pins. Otherwise I just eyeballed things. For not using a pattern, and not really making dresses before, I think this turned out well. I used two of my favorite elements: plunging neck line, and non-compatible skirt lengths. Throw in my favorite pair of hipster (PRESCRIPTION) glasses, and the entire outfit idea is totally FTW. I wish I was still in college so I could through a Disney Hipster Princess party... Sigh. I'm an adult now. Infinite sadness...

Just kidding. Fucking awesome:

Asymmetrical Hem for the Win

For some reason I distinctively remember the flotsam and jetsam she used as being rope or a belt. Maybe that was just wishful thinking, because I own rope... and belts... but not a ton of flotsam or jetsam.

Ursula's Brother, Lou... Lou the Beadazzled Cephalopod

 

Sometimes dreams really do come true :')