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 |   My 2nd blog. My spot for sharing my life, music, and writing with my friends. |
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Hello, Hello. Fancy seeing you here. I'll work on making this nice and pretty later. *  I also have a poetry blog, for those who dig poetry:
AND I have a mental health group with a monthly challenge:
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lay my hands on Heaven and the sun and the moon and the stars While the devil wants to fuck me in the back of his car ♡ * I will never make this pretty. |
Artist: Audioslave Song: Be Yourself [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: What is one of your biggest fears, and how have you conquered it (or plan on conquering it, should you be faced with it later on)? via
I love this prompt, Fivesixer  because the timing is so perf. Okay, my biggest fear is probably failure. As in, I intentionally avoid things where I could fail. You know how people say, "Well it's better to try and fail than to not try at all?" Well, that's not true for everyone. I take failure deeply personally so it is totally legit for me to weigh the benefits of succeeding with the detriment of failing. It's a mental health thing, like, if succeeding isn't going to make me feel excellent, I won't even do it because failing is that much worse to me.I want to be more specific for the benefit of the prompt though and say that SCHOOL is one of the biggest fears I have. I'm in my second year of college now and it's beyond stressful for me. Here's a simple breakdown of why school is such a fear trigger for me: I dropped out of high school. Given that I left high school during the second year, the entire concept of school became foreign to me very quickly. Even though I went for part of my sophomore year, I missed so many days that it's almost fair to say I only did one full year of high school. By the time I was the age where people go off to college, I'd been out of school for a couple years and school never crossed my mind. I mean, occasionally I might think (when in a terrible situation) that I should probably go to college, but it took years for me to take that step back into the classroom. Lots of bad experiences. My school experiences were awful as a kid. I was constantly getting in trouble at school and then getting in trouble at home for getting in trouble at school. I lived in a super small town and went to religious schools where the curriculum was less than stellar. I think I came out of school my sophomore year knowing less about science than the average 3rd grader. I didn't even realize until I got into college that other kids were taking things like Calc 2 in high school. It was shocking, to say the least. Student debts. The single thing that kept me away from college the longest is the money. Going into debt is just terribly anxiety-inducing for me and I qualify for no kind of subsidy. I got to the point where I'm in a job that has zero room for growth, but is the best I can do without a degree. It basically became a choice of continuing to work at my current job probably forever or going to college and attempting to get a better job. That ended up being my motivation to get passed the "school isn't for me" mentality and go for it. Of course, going to college means massive debt because I live in the U.S. Awesome! Soo, how's it going? Good question. I think it depends on where you look. On paper, I'm slaying. I meet up with my advisor and he says, "Oh, you've got a 4.0, you're breezing by. You'll have no problem taking all these classes next semester." Mentally, it's a fucking nightmare. My student loans are never enough to cover full tuition and textbooks, so every 4 months, I'm scrambling for cash to pay the remainder. Once I do get the cash, I spend the entire semester absolutely obsessing over my grades. It isn't enough for me to have good grades. They have to be perfect. If I get a B on assignment or exam, something went wrong. I am forever calculating what I need to get on every assignment, the lowest score I can get to keep an A in the class, etc... There are two reasons for all the stress. One is that I can't take failure like a normal person, so I have to push myself to perfection in certain areas. Unfortunately, my brain has locked in on school for the 'perfection' area. The second part is that if I get below a C in a class, I have to retake. That means literally thousands of dollars out of pocket that I don't have. You have to give it to me, that's at least a little bit stressful for anyone. Anyway, I have my last final of the semester tonight and I have a couple things to wrap up by Sunday, then I start school right back up next week because I have to take summer classes. I'm telling you, never-ending stress machine over here.  I have no idea how the people around me handle me.To be yourself is all that you can do |
Artist: Arctic Monkeys Song: Knee Socks [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: Should public figures (such as singers, actors, athletes, etc) express their political voice? via
Oh shit, we're about to get political. I'd like to phone a friend. @iKïyå§ama-House Targaryen  .  My general rule of thumb on politics is that there is a time and place for everything. I think every person should have the right to voice their political views as all of us are affected by politics. And by every person, I mean famous people too. I know that people get annoyed by celebrities pushing their personal agendas, but when you think about it, it makes sense. Celebrities are in a unique position to reach a large number of people at any given time. In the same situation, would you not promote the things that hold value to you? I know I would.With such a tense political environment in so many countries right now, it's expected that political views from all sides are going to get pushed on the fans (and the not fans). I don't get pissed when I see a celebrity pushing views that are against my own. First of all, that would be a waste of emotion. But more so than that, it would be incredibly hypocritical. People all the time push their political views on their family, friends, and co-workers. If anyone thinks they wouldn't do the same thing with a larger audience, they're delusional. No, wait, they're SILLY! Whose catchphrase was that from yesterday? A lot of these public figures could easily overlap too. For example, a lot of musicians have politically-charged music, and that's cool with me. Okay, ready to switch?  So, just because I think public figures have every right to voice their political opinions and current event concerns doesn't mean I wanna hear that shit all the time. Even if a celebrity has the exact same views as me, at some point, you gotta draw a line. That's what I mean by time and place. The time is not all the time. The place isn't every place. Now, I'm not saying those times or places are for ME to decide. I'm just saying that if every time I see a celebrity, they're spouting off about politics, I'm gonna tap out pretty quickly. I don't have the attention span or the desire to be lectured by anyone repeatedly. I'm also politically aware enough to not really need to be told about current issues. Like, I'm up to date, so having a celebrity (or anyone) tell me what's going on is unnecessary. On top of that, I don't believe anything anyone tells me. Someone will tell me something that a politician said or did and I'll say, "Hmm, that's interesting." And then I'll go fact check it on my own later. Especially in our current times, it is absolutely imperative that people take everything with a grain of salt. Someone will make something up and post it on Twitter and then all of a sudden it's on the news and getting discussed at work, at school, and on other sites as though it is a fact. Things are not facts just because they've been repeated a few thousand times. Every single political thing that is said directly to me is met with extreme skepticism and an, "Okay, bud, I'll look into that." Doesn't matter if their views are the same as mine or not. To summarize, YES, I believe that public figures have every right to speak their views. In fact, I think there are certain responsibilities we have as citizens (protecting the Constitutional rights of ALL citizens in the U.S., for example) and public figures can help unify those individual voices to make actual change. We see all the time where things aren't taken seriously until there is enough public outcry that the government has to do something. I think everyone should continue fighting the good fight (whatever that may be), including public figures. However, I don't want to hear a 40 minute long political rant at your concert. Like, shut the fuck up and play now. Time and place.  I got a feeling I might have lit the very fuse That you were trying not to light |
Artist: Blood Orange Song: You're Not Good Enough [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: Do you have a catchphrase? Something you find yourself saying often, or are known for saying? How did it come to be? via
I wouldn't say that I have a "catchphrase" per se like a cartoon character would, but I do have... Charlie-isms. Just annoying things that have slipped into my speech over time. To name a few:  "Like" I don't know when this happened, but I say 'like' all the time. How a typical person says 'um' or 'uh' during vocal pauses, I've adopted 'like'. People call me out on my Valleyspeak all the time. I just tell them to gag me with a spoon. "Dude!" The number of times I've called a woman "dude" and had her get offended is way too high. Cue me explaining that ladies can be dudes too! "Fuck" I don't care what anyone says, cussing doesn't diminish your intelligence. Sometimes you need a stronger word than heck. Sorry. Golly gee, what the heck is going on here? "Legit" Like, I legit don't give a fuck, dude.I just realized how bad all of that sounds.  I don't think the way I talk is super annoying, but it very well could be. I think it's probably less obvious when I'm not talking about it. Oh, that's another one, by the way, super as an adjective. Super cool! I think everyone has their own little speech quirks and you don't really think about it when you talk to them all the time. After someone is gone, you start remembering them by small things like speech characteristics that you never thought about before.Really though, if I had a catchphrase (and we all know this to be true), it would be: "I'M SORRY!" Easily my most frequently spoken two-word phrase. It's my first instinct when someone gets pissed off. I don't even care if I'm right or wrong, I usually just want the confrontation to end so I'll apologize first and hope that works. I used to think this was a terrible habit of mine (I still kinda do), but I've actually started rethinking it lately and I don't think it's THAT bad of a habit. I mean, like, 75% of fights can be resolved if someone just apologizes because most altercations are the result of misunderstandings. I've found that if I just apologize first, we can at least attempt to talk through the issue, and that's better than both parties just ignoring each other for something that turns out to be easily sorted. However, with people who know me well, "I'm sorry" doesn't work at all anymore. I have to actually explain WHY I'm sorry for the apology to be acceptable. Hazards of apologizing all the time- you start having to acknowledge why you're sorry so that people know that you are actually aware of what you did wrong. I never was in love You know that you were never good enough |
Artist: Wolf Parade Song: I'll Believe In Anything [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: "A lot of it starts with playing instruments and working with other people...some of the new generation is doing it on computers and they don't have a clue as to how to play anything." -Musician Ray Parker Jr.  , born on this day in 1954. How does "it" start for you, whatever "it" is?via
So, I've decided to try my hand at the official "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" this month. Blogging every day for a month feels incredibly daunting right now, nearly impossible, honestly. Which is crazy, because a couple years ago, I blogged every day for months straight without batting an eye. I've been feeling a little bit disconnected lately, mostly because my migraines have entered chronic territory again and chronic pain is incredibly isolating.As I've been working through it with my neurologist, the constant pain and medication haze has put a wall up around me, not just in my personal life, but on WDC as well. There are multiple reasons for that, the main one being that I don't want to be that "sick" person who's always bringing others down with the negativity of it. It's easier to bottle things up and just keep pushing through. I feel like the more support I have, the more vulnerable I am, if that makes sense. I'm way off topic here, but I just wanted to share that in case I've seemed distant or dickish to anyone lately. It's definitely not my intention, but just my personal way of protecting myself when I'm vulnerable. Oh, I remember the point. I want to try to reconnect with the community a bit more, and blogging has always been my way of doing that. Basically, I don't want to be here, but be in a glass box where I feel like I can't actually reach out and connect to any of you. All that being said, let's put on a happy face and move on to the prompt. Let's see, how does "It" start. It has been a while since I read that book, to be honest, but did you see the trailer for the new movie coming out this fall? I'm not usually a huge fan of remakes, but I'm so into horror movies that I'll pretty much watch any of them. Although I do wonder if they've run out of ideas sometimes. So many remakes in so little time!I'll stop being a smartass now.  Almost every "it" that begins for me starts with someone else. I rely so heavily on other people to be like, "Hey Char, this is awesome, check this out!" It happens in real life all the time. It's happened here countless times. I swear, if I didn't have people to point me in the right direction, I would spend most of my time zoned out staring at walls. Have I talked about how terrible I am at interpreting quotes? I almost always interpret them the wrong way. Like, with this one for example, is he saying that it's bad that people make music using computers now rather than playing instruments? Is the quote a complaint or a poke at the current generation of music, or is he just saying that all sorts of movements start in different ways? I think that working with a group of people who have similar interests is the best way to get into something and make an actual movement out of something. We do it here all the time with writing. We collaborate, give/get feedback, and make improvements. Communities are everything when it comes to art, in my opinion.  Give me your eyes I need sunshine |
Artist: Everclear Song: Like A California King [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: What actions/behaviours do you consider unforgiveable in a partner or friend? via
Let's say there are 5928 days between us. 16 years, 2 months, 3 weeks, 6 days. But, no, that's not right, is it? It was a Sunday. Take two. Let's say there are 5926 days between us. 16 years, 2 months, 3 weeks, 4 days. There, that's better. When I think of you, I think of snow and the way the sun reflected futilely off of it. Blinding, taunting. We all have means of overcompensating for our shallow angles. I am suffocated by its efforts to distract, the same way every child does when they learn to read a room far too early. "Did you know cockroaches can live for a week without a head?" Futile, like winter sun. I see the sun creating a halo of her edges, outlining her angelically as she slams the palms of her hands between the muntins of the sliding glass door. Her face is nondescript like an Edvard Munch painting, her words unclear, but a rather endless litany of bargaining permeates the poorly insulated spots. I can hear the constant pounding of her hands on the door and the occasional clink of her fingernails or squeak of her flesh against glass. Futile, like me. Testing God is an unacceptable sin, especially when the test is rooted in doubt. Things like, Prove yourself. Show yourself now when I need you. Staring at the glowing red digits of the microwave clock, I am hexed by them as though all things illuminated serve only to mock me. Eights were always my favorite. They can make any number. Versatile. And I use them to test God. If you are real, you'll make this stop. Prove that you exist. If you make this stop by the next 8, I'll know you're real. There. That gives Him six minutes to work with. Futile, like her. The smudge of her handprints on the glass haunted me long after. The way they blurred the world outside when I looked through them. So fitting. Even more fitting, the way that no one else seemed to notice them while they had me marked, a constant reminder. Every time I saw them, I could hear her screaming, shrill, earsplitting. The terror. I could feel my own bare feet crunching in the reflective snow as though they were her own. It must have been so cold. When no one was looking, I put my hands up to the glass in an attempt to match her prints. Mine were so small by comparison, like my shaky voice when I asked, "Can we let her back in?" As though she were a dog who had pissed on the carpet. As though she were subhuman. I could have taken Windex to them. I could have cleaned it all away; but I didn't. 5926 days. I want to travel back to you the way others want to time travel to pivotal historical moments. I want to climb inside of you and cover my ears. I want to play hide and seek with myself. I see you smile and I get angry as I watch you go colossal |
Artist: Chumbawamba Song: Tubthumping [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: "Note: 48-HOUR CHALLENGE : Media Prompt Deadl..." I had to take on this challenge because this song totally reminds me of something like "Steal My Sunshine" by Len. Like, a song that everyone hates, but I love for whatever reason. *cough* Cinn  , Fivesixer *cough*Maybe because these songs came out when I was super young and just heard them on the bus going to school or while hanging out over summer, they have a nostalgic feel to them rather than a "holy fuck, I've heard this song 400 times this month, turn it off" feel. I have a ton of songs like that from when I was a bit older and working retail. Retail places tend to play the same 6 popular songs on repeat ad nauseum, so I get why one-hit wonders like "Tubthumping" are so annoying to people. I had actually known this song forever and decided to look up some of their other stuff one day, just to see what it sounded like. It turns out that Chumbawamba is like super serious about political issues. All of their other songs are political af. "Tubthumper" is a political song too, but they intentionally made it super mainstream sounding to get recognition from a larger audience. I think they definitely achieved that, but no one knows what a 'tubthumper' is and no one cares about their political motives for the song. They actually did this a lot on that album. There was "Amnesia" which has, like, a house dance party sound to it, but is about some political issue that was going on in England at the time. I can't even remember what the issue was, so that's pretty good evidence that it didn't work. Ah, it was about New Labour. Maybe a British person knows what that is.Anyway, I actually feel kind of bad for the band because they had all these socio-political views and they specifically changed their style to get a larger audience, only to be remembered for: "I get knocked down, but I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down!" All their songs are like that, by the way. Lyrically, pretty awful. I could never get into any of their other songs. I legit only like this song because of some emotional attachment to my childhood and even then, I didn't listen to it all the way through.  Oh, and a quick update on me: I've been in and out of doctors offices and urgent care all week trying every medication known to man to get rid of a refractory migraine. This one is stubborn af, so I've just been in a total medication cocktail daze for over a week now. My brain just feels like fog and I can't really do anything except sleep. Awesome stuff to have going on 2 weeks before finals.  He drinks a Whiskey drink, he drinks a Vodka drink He drinks a Lager drink, he drinks a Cider drink... |
Artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers Song: I Could Have Lied [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: In what area of your life do you feel most unappreciated? Tell us about it. via
You were wrapped up in proving points. Like so many other people, everything hinged upon principles and revolved around this arbitrary center that held everyone at equidistant arm's length. In those moments, nothing is more apparent than the fact that the culmination of all the things that had happened in the past and all the things that would happen in the future are irrelevant. It works just like that. Freezing time and throwing out any positive qualities shown up to the point or potentially positive qualities that will be shown after. Things like charitable will, open-mindedness, compassion... Intentions are laughable. You see, the biggest disservice the bible did (and it did many) was lying to me about the nature of people. A developing mind soaks like a sponge and takes things like Psalm 145:8 [The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.] and connects them to things like Genesis 1:27 [So God created man in his own image.] The math I did was transitive. It went like this: A = C, B = A; therefore B = C, where A is God, B is mankind made in his likeness, and C is having the quality of being gracious, full of compassion, slow to anger and full of mercy. In reality, B ≠ C. Knowledge is like a pyramid. It will fall apart without a strong base. The building blocks of my knowledge are full of logic fallacies like this. Holding hands on Sunday mornings and filling cathedrals with the good word numbed the skeptical, thinking part of my brain. My interpretation of things may have been convoluted, but that doesn't matter, does it? Looking at you, Proverbs 3:5. [Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.] The formulation of these perspectives matters a lot less than their proven effect. All these years later, it's still difficult to understand that B does not equal C. That a person can be 99% lossless and still be greeted without mercy during the 1% drop. This isn't a religious thing; while it may appear that way. This is a human nature thing. It's the unrealistic expectation you have for me, and the unrealistic expectation I have for you. When do I feel unappreciated? Every time I could have lied, could have faked it, could have taken it quietly on the chin and instead made the conscious decision to opt for an approach of integrity, good faith, trust. Only to be greeted by the crosshairs of another B that did not equal C. Another person wrapped up in proving points based on personal principles that left us hostage to forever rotating some arbitrary center equidistant arm's length apart. I could have lied; I'm such a fool My eyes could never never never keep their cool |
Artist: Refused Song: New Noise [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Prompt: Tell us about a time that you judged someone and then had to reverse that judgement. via
Elle - on hiatus tried to tempt me into blogging with new "JAFBG" prompts. I guess she wins. I've actually not been all that busy with school lately. I've been here, quietly reviewing for "Give It 100!" and "Invalid Item" . I go through times where I don't really mentally click with anyone and just stick to myself. Onto the prompt though... I think I'm generally a fairly good judge of character. It's not foolproof, but from past experiences, I can usually tell if someone has bad intentions. That doesn't mean I'll run the other direction though. If I can tell someone has bad intentions, at least I have them pegged one way or the other. I can keep my eye on them and generally watch out for them. What's far worse is when I can't figure someone out. I can't wrap my head around their personality. I don't know how to navigate conversations with them. Every time I think they're going to go left, they go right. Those are the kinds of people I tend to judge too harshly. If I can't figure out what's going through their head or what makes them tick, I tend to get cagey. It makes me paranoid when someone is unpredictable or unreliable. Typically, when I have to reverse judgement, it's with those people. If I meet someone and think they seem generally trustworthy, they usually are. If I meet someone and they seem generally untrustworthy, they usually are. Those wildcards in between though, they can go either direction, and it's really really difficult for me to reverse my judgement on them. If I see someone that way, we usually aren't going to end up being friends because the fact that I can't understand them makes me paranoid. My paranoia makes me cagey; then they see me being cagey and they get paranoid. Repeat ad nauseam. I've easily reversed my judgement on someone being cool or not being cool in the past. First impressions don't mean much to me. My brother's girlfriend was worried when meeting us that we would judge her because she's so quiet. If someone's quiet, I usually remind myself that they're probably either shy or don't like talking a lot until they know someone well. That's not something that would put someone in the 'untrustworthy' category for me. Same with people who are overly loud when I meet them. I just assume that they're either extroverted and feed off of attention (not a bad thing) or they're nervous when meeting new people and their loudness is nervous energy escaping from their mouth. Professors are the worst for me though. I almost always end up having to reverse judgement on my professors because so many of them aren't how they seem in the first week of class. So many of them seem to adhere to rules so strictly and then end up being chill as fuck the whole semester. I'll have others who don't go over the syllabus or rules at all and I think they're probably going to be chill and they end up ruining my semester. The wildcards though... I really have to click with someone on some level in the first few times I meet them. I don't care if they seem like a good or a bad person. Both work. If they seem like a void space though, I just want to get away from them. Can I scream? |
| For those stumbling in, this is a blog entry for "a very Wodehouse challenge" . The prompts are: Write a blog entry of the most inspirational book you've read. Write a blog entry of the least inspirational book you've read. I had to think about this one for a while because I don't read books that are classically considered inspiring. If someone tells me a trite inspirational quote, I just want to gag. So, instead of trying to think of inspirational books I've read, I just thought of books I've read that have inspired me in one way or another, and that made it a little bit easier. First though, I want to start with the LEAST inspirational book I've ever read. A Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer --  Least inspirational book I've read.This book is a supposed memoir detailing the abuse the writer experienced as a kid at the hands of his mother. I wouldn't really be a bitch about it had it not literally said "The Extraordinary Inspirational Story" on the fucking cover of the book  . This story was anything but inspirational. It wasn't like, yeah, I went through all this shit but I overcame it by doing X, Y, Z. It was legit just a string of super detailed moments of abuse with literally no background on any of the characters.It was, like, the story of a normal family and then all of a sudden, the mom becomes a raging lunatic and starts abusing one of the five kids. Yes, I know that abusive parents can target one of their kids and not the others, but the story legit talked about how they were a perfectly normal and happy family. Then all of a sudden... None of that really matters to me though. There was a ton of controversy about the authenticity of the memoir. I don't care much either way, but it definitely was not the extraordinarily inspiring story the cover boasted about. If nothing else, it was super depressing and offered zero comfort or inspiration for others who have been abused. That's kind of what I thought going into it. Like, oh this kid was abused and he wrote this memoir 24 years after being out of the situation, so he's going to have some tidbits of wisdom for other victims. Nope. Just a bunch of super detailed abusive events and at best, "I survived all that, so you should stop bitching!"  It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini --  Most inspirational book I've read.I don't believe I have the capacity to be inspired any longer, but back when I was 14 and this book came out, it was definitely inspirational to me. It's not an inherently inspirational book. The book is based on the author's stay in a mental hospital for depression and, at the time, I was the only person I knew who had similar experiences. In the end, the main character decides that he doesn't actually want to kill himself and it ends on a really positive note. I think the book was mostly inspiring to me because I could relate to it on some level that I couldn't explain at the time, not just to other people, but to myself as well. There was just something about it that clicked with me and got some gears turning. The fact that it ends up being a 'bump' in the road and he turns out okay was especially positive to me, and it made me feel... hopeful? Some of the lines that I related to a lot back then:  "I'm smart but not enough--just smart enough to have problems." "I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare."Which seems depressing, but it was also kinda hopeful: "We look into each other’s eyes as we shake. His are still full of death and horror, but in them I see my face reflected, and inside my tiny eyes inside his, I think I see some hope."Especially at the end: "I haven’t cured anything, but something seismic is happening in me. I feel my body wrapped up and slapped on top of my spine. I feel the heart that beat early in the morning on Saturday and told me I didn’t want to die. I feel the lungs that have been doing their work quietly inside the hospital. I feel the hands that can make art and touch girls—think of all the took you have. I feel the feet that can let me run anywhere I want, into to the park and out of it and down to my bike to go all over Brooklyn and Manhattan too, once I convince my mom. I feel my stomach and liver and all that mushy stuff that’s in there handling food, happy to be back in use. But most of all I feel my brain, up there taking in blood and looking out on the world and noticing humor and light and smells and dogs and every other thing in the world—everything in my life is all in my brain, really, so it would be natural that when my brain was screwed up, everything in my life would be."So it was really upsetting when the author killed himself a few years ago. It was like, welp, that shit didn't work out. It kind of took those positive, inspirational things I took away from the book and threw them out the window. Oh well. |
Don't worry, I'm not participating in "Invalid Item" . I'm just proving that my fingertips still work. tap, tap tap. "You guys on?"The poem I'm writing about today is just another spoken word poet. I really dig spoken word, which is ironic, because I'd never actually get up in front of anyone and speak my poetry. It's just a style that I can identify with a bit more than a lot of the other poets I read. Maybe I just like free verse, I dunno. Anyway, I'll have to type it up because I can't find it anywhere else.  Musical interlude of ADD zone outs "Vague Subject Matter" by Derrick C. Brown Every morning she wakes up after me. The dawn is yawning through the windows. I think she knows I watch her sleep. I sometimes kiss her arm and she just slings it up as if a mosquito was seducing her. She sleeps like a sunken fishing vessel. I put my ear to her chest and there are wind chimes and the sound of diving boards. In the evening, after TV dinners and beer, before we lay down, there is some talking over our books. "Is everything going to be all right?" she mumbles before drifting off. I always say no and kiss her on the forehead. Her face is washed. Prettiest without the paint. Even her pajamas are in Technicolor. I bought a pair of shoes with some color in the sneakers. I ain't so dark, babe. She can't get it on unless she has tea and toast first. I sometimes sing while making her tea and toast. PG Tips, sauntering in rainbow sneakers like a groggy gay pride parade. I hum and she sleeps through the work alarm. I lay on top of her. She says, 'Ahhhh. Man weight.' It's time to get up, darlin'. 'But I don't wanna go to . . . church." She finally cracks her bones and gets up. I love how she dresses like a bowl of flowers in a dive bar. I like listening to her bare feet hurry around, clumsy scutter. She calls me a dirty word and it means she loves me. I kiss her and squeeze the avocado breast. I can see those scenes still. Now that she is gone, all poems shorten. I wonder if I can sell a bed so big, so full of so many types of mornings. You can get the book here .I like this poem because it's so sweet to me. It's sweet in a real way, not in a fantasy way. It's not in, like, a Byron way. It's more of a 21st century, "I'm fucked, but so are you and that's why we work" kind of way. I love so many of the lines. I could take out single lines throughout the poem and make my own poems out of them. It's one of those poems where any line could be the first line of something entirely different. It's hard to pick out my favorite lines, but definitely these ones: "Is everything going to be all right?" she mumbles before drifting off. I always say no and kiss her on the forehead. Those lines just kind of make my chest tight, but in a good way. Like, I think it's really fucking cute and it kinda makes me want to cry. And then I love the lines soon after: I bought a pair of shoes with some color in the sneakers. I ain't so dark, babe. Because it's obviously an inside joke between them and then later: I love how she dresses like a bowl of flowers in a dive bar. Just super simple, but a really good metaphor. If you've ever been to a dive bar, you know how a bowl of flowers would offset that. I also really liked bringing flowers into it at all because that's such an overplayed thing to bring up in a poem about a girl, but he did it in a way that brought juxtaposition. Not like, "You're my silver lining and the smell of rain" or whatever. Overall, I just think this poem is super romantic in a way that's unconventional. It's open, honest, and emotional. There are a lot of ways you could critique it. I'm not even sure if 'scutter' is a word, but it works. It serves a purpose and it does it well. |
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I'm still so confused. How did they get to senior-level finance with so little know-how. I don't get it. 
Just why. It's so gross. We need to get you some personal finance help! This is only tangentially related and not a statement on you, but one of the nonprofits I work with consists of me making budget plans for people who were recently homeless and have just gotten back on their feet. A lot of the people I work with have only been at their job for less than a month or been in an apartment for a week or two. My role is to gather all of their financial information and then consult with them on their bills, disposable income, purchases, and stuff like that. It's shocking to see the financial decisions people make after just being homeless. I'm like, dude, you were just homeless 2 weeks ago. 
I have seen so much of the disasters it has caused with some people. I have in the past been unconsciously roped into financial situations that were most unpleasant and having to make sensible plans to unravel them.
