often I am

sure this whole dirty, messy process is worth it, if only for the color green

ye gods i am a shit

some movie is on tv

meg ryan has taken her daughter for ice cream

the little girl is glumly stirring her ice cream

as mommy tells her about mommy's cancer

"does it hurt you?" the little girl asks

there is a sense of betrayal in her eyes

she won't understand the pain for years

but nothing will ever be the same again

and how can she trust god, now?

i think, damn, now i want some ice cream

god bless the internet

and god bless youtoob.

I just watched an octopus eat a shark.

often I am

abrasive when frightened or confused

End the ultimatums!

No more ultimatums!  Ever!  Or else!

very sad, but calm day today

I'm taking this class called The Execptional Person.  It's so awful.  "The Exceptional Person" is the new euphemism for weirdos and j.d.'s and gimps and simps and 'tards.  Of course, we can't use any of those words, anymore, because we're so fucking thoughtful and sensitive.  We wouldn't want to use any words that would make the troublesome little fuckers feel bad about themselves.  

Please understand, this animosity is directed towards the smug, sanctimonious people who decide who is the exception and what we're all going to do about it, not the victims.  I'm having a really hard time with the last few chapters, because we're discussing the kinds of processing problems that I had as a kid, that made my life torture.  Things that it was adamantly denied I had.  There was nothing wrong with me, nosirree-Bob, that a little trying harder wouldn't help.  Even now my parents deny that I'm anything but exceptionally bright.  And a little, "awkward."

They think they're helping me.  Don't want me to get a label that would make people treat me differently.  No, it's just my personality/most intimate self that makes people run screaming for the hills.  

And then my teacher says, "Let me describe to you how a kid like this would look to a teacher or schoolmate..." and describes me at age 5 or age ten or age 15.  She sounds like she's quoting from letters my teachers sent home.  I cry and cry when I'm reading the chapter, and then I sit through the lecture and pretend I'm fine.  Wouldn't want to do anything exceptional.

Today was a really hard lecture.  I felt totally vulnerable and exposed, and the whole discussion was like, "Why are these people so weird?  Why don't they just do what everybody else does?  That sounds crazy and dangerous.  I wouldn't want to be around that person."  I really wanted to tell them, but I was so emotional I knew I was going to seem crazy and dangerous if I tried to explain.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I didn't feel understood and supported, and I didn't want to be there.  Maybe I just have a persecution complex, but I didn't feel that today's topic was being discussed with the same kind of sympathy that the discussions on other exeptionalities included.  It's probable that I'm just much too sensitive, and overtired, but I felt that a class which had heretofore been painfully aware of everyone's viewpoint turned into a mildly malicious gossip session about someone absent.  

The best I can do is to say this.  I seem to make a lot of people uncomfortable.  If you are one of these people, I am sorry, and I think I can explain why it is.  I perceive life a lot differently than you do.  Nobody knows why.  There are hundreds of reasons, from genetics to environment to brain lesions, and almost everyone has an opninion.  But perceive it differently I do, and part of that makes me into a really intense mirror.  Another part of it lets me see a lot more of the silly arbitrariness of life than most people usually do, or maybe it just makes it bother me more. 

People are basically just perceiving machines, pattern recognizing machines.  My machine just works a little different.  Like, I bought mine in Europe.  It pretty much does what yours does, but it's geared a little differently, and you have to work on it with a different kind of screwdriver.  It's missing a couple of functions yours has, but it can do these other things.  Maybe the other things are more important to me than whatever yours can do that is really important to you but that I just don't care about.

I really want to explain this lucidly and the part of my brain that knows how to do that feels like it's packed with broken glass and barbed wire.  I just can't do it.  

I'll stop trying for a moment and leave you with this final thought:

Jesus, why can't you just be like everybody else?  Would it kill you to go along to get along?

What, if everybody jumped off a cliff you would too?  Be your own person!

-took a nap, other side of brain had this for me when I woke up:

(There's a reason I'm fucked up, and it's called Human Culture.  It causes people to do crazy things and then rationalize them much more virulently than I ever thought about.  In its highly concentrated form it is poisonous, and if I make you very uncomfortable, I can be reasonably sure you are so contaminated with it as to be a danger to me, and cause you to avoid me by being rude and unkind to you.)

Thank you, other side of brain.  Sometimes you scare me, but I like your confidence!

 

wonderful words by someone else but me

I've been having a wonderful/terrible time lately with motivation and creativity.  I mean, up until about 6 months ago it was just a terrible time, so that's better.  It's just now I kind of still feel that icky feeling a lot of the time, but I find it hopelessly funny.  What?  I'll never amount to anything?  I'm a terrible artist/writer/person/friend/daughter/pet owner?  Everyone has these feelings and they never go away, no matter how hard you try to do better or ignore them?  Then I roll out of my chair in genuine, life-affirming laughter.  Which usually pisses me off.

Why?  Because I'm special.  Special as a stomach pump.  Just like everybody else.  The wonderful blogger Finslippy is special as a mysterious foreign postcard in the mail, and she has these feelings, too.  Except her can talken more betterer then mine.  Seems like everyone I know is having a hard time with the creative product coming out of their head, not just me, lately.  Read it up, and if you don't believe me or her, listen to Ira Glass.  That guy really fucken knows what he's talking about.

hey, kids! it's the usage nazi!

Dear The Internet,

Discreet and discrete are two different words. They mean two different things. Please stop using them interchangeably, especially in personal ads. "Seeking clean, discrete kinky person, no fatties." Doesn't make any sense. Discrete means, "constituting a separate entity : individually distinct."  

Maybe it's your really deep way of saying you want to be with somebody who can be their own person, who doesn't need to be with someone to feel like themselves. But I don't think so. I think the word you want is discreet, which means, "having or showing discernment or good judgment in conduct and especially in speech : prudent ; especially : capable of preserving prudent silence." "You told my wife we're fucking?! Are you insane? You agreed to be discreet." "No, I agreed to be discrete. And I wanted to tell her. That's just how I roll."

Considering how many other rules of grammar and usage (and spelling, and punctuation) I just ignore, this post might seem a little silly. Especially seeing that I (surprisingly) came down on the side of the them/they solution to the he-or-she/his-or-hers controversy. (That's right, there's trouble over it in the grammar world, and I'm playing fast and loose on the wrong side of town.) But if you're thinking that, you're probably the kind of person who misuses their and they're or hear and here. And jerks off to pictures of Ryan Seacrest holding a puppy. With your mom in the room.

why I love cell phones

I decide to go to the grocery store, right?  And it's, like, 9:30 at night on a Thursday.  I so have this, right?  It's gonna be dead, walk in and right out with the milk and butter and shit.  Then I get there and all my dreams are dead, because every single person that goes to UT is in the goddam H.E.B.  Swerving all over the aisles and being bitches.  And then there's the girls.

I keep running into this Larry the Cable Guy clone, except skinny.  You know, like "How did you know I do meth?" skinny.  He's not got a basket, he seems to just be talking on his cellphone while "I don't just live in a trailer, I manage the park!" Lady next to him is steadily packing WIC-approved items in a buggy.  I'm getting annoyed with seeing them everywhere in the store.  Larry is really clueless, and keeps standing between me and whatever I need to grab, endlessly explaining some random story on the phone.

Then it happens, the magic.  I'm leaning around the dude (again) to get the milk, when he says (clear as day), "Well, I don't know, Mama.  I guess they thought I was all cuffed up and couldn't reach it."

God Bless America, people.  Fuck you if you don't like cell phones.  When I ran into him again in the meat market, he was saying, "Well, hell, I used it to beat the shit out of the back of his car, whadda you think I did?!"   

back from a long stay in the igloo

When I was taking my year of training classes for initiation into  the Ol' Funky Order of the Sibylline Wicca they gave us all a guided meditation meant for the purpose of giving us access to the Akashic Records and some kind of wisdom shaman vision stuff.  Yeah, I was pretty painfully sincere about it back then, but that was around the time I started to realize I'm allergic to religion.  I'm also allergic to polyester and nickel.  My brain wants it to make a pattern, but I'm afraid of what it might mean if it did.

Anyway.  We go into the wonderful, transcendent world of the Akashic Records and can access any information we want about anything we need to know, and the more we practice the more wise and transformed we can become, then we come out of our meditation and have to tell everybody what our vision was.  And everybody goes around and tells and they saw beautiful guides and strong animal totems and flowing rivers and all that happy leprechaun shit, and it was so meaningful and wise and wonderful.  And here's my vision:

I'm walking in this place that isn't a place, it's all black everywhere like it's dark, but it's not dark, there's just no color anywhere.  And these two people come up to me, but (you guessed it) they're not people.  I mean...you know...they look like people but they're kind of squirmy around the edges and you know  that they are something else when they're not here, that it's just convenient for them to look like people right now.   They tell me something, whatever, I couldn't remember it as soon as I left the meditation.  One of those, "It was clear as day, it told me to..." and you never remember.  And we all go in this big room, and it looks like some kid's science fair project of what the inside of the International Space Station looks like, all made out of old plumbing parts from his dad's business.  Except, you know, it looks really, really real, and instead of looking out on space, it looks out into this huge library in a gigantic underground cavern,  and there's thousands of people in there looking at books, and this mean little girl in the control room/space station won't let me go in there.  

you know how people look at you when they all suddenly realize you're a lot weirder than they thought you were?  Like, I think a lot of people get the wrong end of the stick when they first meet me, and think I'm a harmlessly eccentric lovable nutjob, and that couldn't be farther from the truth.  I've come to the conclusion that I'm a sort of half-feral throwback to the days before anyone ever thought about manners or protocol.  Sometimes I think I just fell through the cracks of culture.  Somehow I got this weird swerve in me where I just don't understand some of ya'lls weird customs, like eating in groups, and your strange tribal dancing.  Eye contact, and letting people touch you just because they want to.  You know. 

The thing is, I am pretty much harmless (I think) but I generally prefer my way to whatever crazy shit you people come up with and put on MTV or whatever is cool now, educatin' the sheep.  YouTube.  I'm terribly curious about it, but in most cases, I do not want to play.  I'm not even sure I want a ticket.  I'll just watch through the fence for a minute.  Oh, gosh, I forgot an appointment, but the Slushee was very good, and I think I learned a lot.  Thank you.

It's not that I'm necessarily hostile to anything I don't understand, but I get so goddamned tired of being attacked for not wanting the same exact thing as the rest of the pods.  Like, if I don't want it, how can I understand how weird you feel it is that I don't want it?  If I thought and reacted and felt as you feel, and could comprehend how fuckin' weird it all is, we wouldn't be having this conversation, dude.  We'd just wander around the mall together, not saying a word and just, you know, groovin'.   I actually feel pretty normal.  I feel like me.  I want what I want, and think how I think, and a lot of the stuff that you do everyday seems pretty crazy and scary and weird and creepy to me, sometimes too.  That part, I understand how you feel.  

Stop telling me to be myself.  I'm being myself.  If you don't like it, there's nothing I can do about it.  These people, and the, "You'd be so pretty if you'd just" people.  Wear makeup.  Smile more often.  Shave.  I like to make sure I see all these people again right after I shave my head.  Oh, you meant my legs and pits?  Sorry, these things happen.  Once I shave the noggin, I tend to stop feeling I have to shave my legs and feel more free to wear my pretty dresses.  

Jesus, I'm such a child.  Why not just be goth?  Because goths are just a bunch of monkey-see, monkey-do posers.  I just randomly do the exact opposite of what anyone (including me sometimes) expects me to do, so nobody but me gets to possess me  by being able to know or appreciate me very well.  This is MY precious.  Mine!  And you can't have it, and if you want it I'm going to make you not want it, because it's mine.  All, all mine.

And all of it leads to my special unique specialness being as totally generic as everyone elses'.  Like, I guess the bald-headed chick in odd footgear and bag-sale clothes and weird jewelry and attitude on a vintage bike isn't as widespread a type as the frat dude or the rainbow person, but I'm not the only one in my zip code.  Shit, I'm not even the only one named Kelly(e) in my zip code.  And even if anyone ever was going to find a way to rebel and be unique in some way that wasn't old and busted when Plato wrote The Cave, a bunch of loser airheads would just copy it, and then you'd have to see it at Target and in the Dollar store and shit.  Nine-year-olds sportin' it.  All cheap and knock-off.  In outlet malls and chain eateries.  Wearin' it with those Ugg boots.  And then you'd have to kill yourself.

Hey kids, don't try to be special!  You're just fooling yourself.  What a wonderful sentiment.  I should put that on a greeting card.  With a little pop-up.  Of a noose.  (I'm totally going to do this.  Maybe it could be a graduation card.  It would go perfectly with the valentine's card with the popup of the handgun.)   

Anyway, despite all appearances this is actually a happy post.  Hence the morbid humour, only one of the handy and simple things you can note to give you absolutely not any idea at all what is going on in my head, ever.  

I'm a very calm lady today.  I dug a hole this week, for our new flower garden by the fence.  I'm very happy when I have holes to dig.  I think I shall dig some more!  I have a feeling our house will be surrounded by plants by the spring.  People who know where I live should come by and look at my dug-up flower bed.  It is very impressive (especially when you remember that my center of gravity is 8 inches above the ground and I have the upper body strength of a T-Rex), and my entire body hurts, so admire and compliment it, please.

My bike got stolen, but I think I was burning off some bad karma, and I can't wish evil on somebody having such a bad night they have to sink to stealing bicycles.  I mean, my personal moral compass of terrible things to do, from worst to least worst, is kind of like, Murder/Torture, Rape, Stealing Bicycles, Arson, General Greediness, Theivery, Gossip, Looking at Me Funny.  So how much does your life have to suck before you do like the third worst thing ever?  Pretty fucking bad.  Way worse than whatever bad day I had.  Go with God, ride it in good health.  I hope it's the thing that changes your life and you never have to steal again, or want for anything you need.  My new bike is neat, neat, neat.  It's fast as a rocket, and wonderful to look at, and I'm totally in love.  

Is that weird? Being in love with a bike?  Oh, well, like I give a fuck.  Have a great day!

Words I love

I've been working on this list for a long time now, maybe 6 months.  I know I'm the only one who cares about it, but these are some fucking awesome words.  All the entries are glossed from the dictionary, maybe paraphrased but any errors are mine.  I know I already use too many big words, but you can kind of understand why when you see how many great words there are.

It makes kind of a weird list, because my brain likes words for weird reasons.  I should write a little story that has all of them in it.  There are a couple for each letter of the alphabet (even x and z!) and sometimes the list of synonyms is better than the actual word.  I also really like word origins, so pretend you're interested.  

ab.ne.ga.tion, n,: the act of renouncing or rejecting something : self-denial, abjuration, surrender, relinquishment, abstemiousness, continence, asceticism, temperance, austerity

a.lac.ri.ty, n.:  brisk and cheerful readiness, from Latin "brisk"  "My major attraction to the local peep-show is the good-natured alacrity exhibited by the performers."

back.hand.ed, adj.: gesture made with the back of the hand facing the direction of movement; figurative use as of something indirect, ambiguous or insincere; a backhanded compliment delivered as teasing.

be.at.i.tude, n.:  supreme blessedness; benediction, grace, bliss, rapture, saintliness;  also a proper noun indicating the blessings listed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, or a title given to patriarchs in the Orthodox Church

ca.tarrh, n.:  excessive discharge or buildup of mucus in the nose or throat, associated with inflammation of the mucous membranes;  from Greek "down-flow"

cre.pus.cu.lar, adj.:  of, resembling, or relating to twilight, an animal appearing or active in twilight;  from Latin crepusculum, "twilight"

de.fen.es.tra.tion, n.:  the action of throwing someone or something out of a window;  early 17th cent., from modern Latin de="down from" fenestra="window"

du.ra ma.ter, n.:  the tough outermost membrane enveloping the brain and spinal cord, from medieval Latin "hard mother" or Arabic "coarse mother"

e.bul.li.ent, adj.:  cheerful and full of energy, buoyant, merry, jaunty, elated, animated, sparkly, vivacious, perky, chirpy, bouncy, peppy;  from Latin "boiling up" or out, to boil, as a boiling pot or a boiling sea

e.pis.te.mol.o.gy, n.:  the theory of knowlege, esp. with regard to its methods, validity, and scope.  Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.  from Greek, "know, know how to do"

fra.cas, n.:  a noisy disturbance or quarrel, from Italian fracassare, "make an uproar"; brawl, melee, rumpus, skirmish, struggle, scuffle, scrum, clash, fisticuffs, scrap, dust-up, set-to, donnybrook

fa.ce.tious, adj.: treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; flippant, glib, sardonic, jocular, sportive

gib.bous, adj.:  having the observable illuminated part greater than a semicircle and less than a circle, as of the moon; convex or protuberant, as of an eye.  from latin gibbus, "hump"

gad.a.bout, n.: a habitual wandering pleasure-seeker

hie, v.: go quickly, with haste, from Middle English for "strive or pant"

hack.neyed, adj.: of a phrase or idea, lacking significance through having been overused; unoriginal and trite, vapid, stale, tired, banal, hoary, boilerplate, old hat, cheesy, played out

in.fin.i.tesi.mal, adv.:  an indefinitely small quantity; a value approaching zero.  minute, imperceptible, teeny

i.sin.glass, n.: a kind of gelatin obtained from fish, esp. sturgeon, and used in making jellies, glue, etc., and for clarifying ale; from obsolete Dutch "sturgeon's bladder"; or mica or a similar mineral in thin transparent sheets, often used as fireproof windows in lanterns and stoves

je.june, adj.: naive, simplistic and superficial; (of ideas or writings) dry and uninteresting;  from Latin "fasting, barren" denoting "not (intellectually) nourishing"

join.er.y, n.: the wooden components of a building, such as stairs, door and door and window frames, viewed collectively

ken, n.: one's range of knowledge or sight; v.: to know, recognize, identify or be acquainted with

ki.bosh, n.: put an end to, dispose of decisively, halt, quash, block, cancel, scotch, thwart, prevent, supress, stymie, scuttle

lach.ry.mal, adj.: poetic/literary, connected with weeping or tears; Physiology/Anatomy (lacrimal) concerned with the secretion of tears;  n.: Anatomy, a small bone forming part of the eye socket, or n. archaic, a vial to hold the tears of mourners at a funeral

las.civ.i.ous, adj.: (of a person, manner or gesture) feeling or revealing an overt, confident sexual desire; lustful, wonton, salacious, lewd, smutty, naughty, licentious, concupiscent, ribald, blue, indecent, lubricious, purient, dirty

Ma.cas.sar, n.:  a kind of oil formerly used, esp. by men, to make one's hair shine and lie flat.  Also spelled Makassar, the oil was originally marketed as consisting of ingredients from Makassar; consider the "anti-macassar" doilies popular at same time to protect the backs of chairs and sofas from staining with this ubiquitous hair dressing

mus.te.lid, n.:  Zoology, a mammal of the weasel family (Mustelidae), distinguished by having a long body, short legs, and musky scent glands under the tail, from Latin "weasel"

nai.ad, n.:  a water nymph said to inhabit a river, spring or waterfall; the aquatic larva or nymph of a dragonfly, mayfly or stonefly; a submerged aquatic plant with narrow leaves and minute flowers, from Greek naein, "to flow"

nar.whal, n.: a small Arctic whale, all males and some females of which have one or two long forward-pointing spirally twisted tusks developed from one or two teeth; from the Old Norse word for "corpse" referencing the mottled grey skin color. 

oar.lock, n.: a fitting on the gunwale of a boat that serves as a fulcrum for an oar and keeps it in place

ou.bli.ette, n.: a secret dungeon with access only through a trapdoor in its ceiling, from the French word for "forget," 'oublier.'  With the diminuitive 'ette', literally a "little forgetter"

pa.ho.e.ho.e, n.: Geology, basaltic lava forming smooth undulating or ropy masses; contrasted with 'aa,' basaltic lava forming very rough jagged masses with a light frothy texture; both from contemporary Hawaiian

per.e.gri.nate, v.: travel or wander around from place to place; globe-trot, voyage, journey, treck, adventure

quin.cunx, n.:  an arrangement of five objects with four at the corners of a square or rectangle and the fifth at its center, as on the five of a die or playing cards, or in planting trees; in Astrology, an aspect of 150 degrees, equivalent to five zodiacal signs; from the Latin words for "five twelfths"

quo.tid.i.an, adj.:  occurring daily, ordinary, diurnal, average, standard, common,mainstream, unremarkable, workaday, daily, run-of-the-mill, mundane, nothing to write home about, conventional, a dime a dozen, middle of the road, unexeceptional; medical usage denoting the malignant form of malaria. 

ran.cour, n.:  bitterness or resentfulness, esp. when long-standing.  origin middle english : via Old French from the Latin words for "rank or bitter, stinking grudge."

ru.fous, adj.:reddish brown in color, used esp. in Ornithology i.e. 'rufous tit'

sa.lu.bri.ous, adj.:producing good effects, beneficial, health-giving, advantageous, productive, worthwile, timely, profitable, cushy, wholesome

syz.y.gy, n.: in Astronomy, a conjunction or opposition, esp. of the moon and sun; a pair of connected or corresponding things; via Latin from the Greek words for "paired or yoked together"

ta.lus, n: in Anatomy, the large bone in the ankle that articulates with the tibia of the leg and the calcaneum and navicular bone of the foot, also called astragalus, from the Latin words for "ankle-heel"; or a sloping mass of rock fragments at the foot of a cliff or the slopingside of an earthwork or wall that tapers to the top

ty.ro, n.:  a beginner or novice, from the Latin word for, "recruit"; neophyte, initiate, fledgling, apprentice, greenhorn, tenderfoot, rookie

u.ki.yo-e, n.: a school of Japanese art depicting subjects from everyday life, dominiant in the 17-19th centuries, from Japanese words for "fleeting world-picture"

u.vu.la, n.: a fleshy extension at the back of the soft palate that hangs above the throat, or a similar hanging structure in any organ of the body, particularly at the opening of the bladder; from the Latin word for "grape"

vac.il.late, v.:  alternate or waver between different opinions or actions; be indecisive.  from the latin word for "swayed."  dither, hesitate, blow hot and cold, fluctuate, hem and haw, shilly-shally, flip-flop

vul.pine, adj.:  of or relating to a fox or foxes; crafty and cunning, from the Latin word for "fox" or "fox-like"

wale, n.:  a ridge on a textured woven fabric such as corduroy; a plank running along the side of a wooden ship, thicker than the usual planking, and strengthening and protecting the hull; or a horizontal band around a woven basket

whore.son, n.:  archaic, an unpleasant or greatly disliked person, construction suggested by Anglo-norman French "fiz a putain," literally "son of a whore"

xan.tho.phyll, n.: a yellow or brown carotenoid plant pigment that is revealed in autumn colors of leaves when the green of chlorophyll ceases to mask it; from the Greek words for "yellow" and "leaf"

xiph.oid process, n.:  the cartilaginous section at the lower end of the sternum, which is not attached to any ribs and gradually ossifies during adult life, from the Greek word for "sword"

yawp, n.: a harsh or hoarse cry or yelp; foolish or noisy talk; v.: to make such a cry or talk

yoke, n.:  a wooden crosspiece fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to a plow or cart they are to pull in tandem, a pair of animals coupled in such a way, or achaically, the amount of land a pair so yoked could plow in a day;  a similar frame fitting over the neck and shoulders of a person to carry pails; part of a garment that fits over the shoulders, to which the main fabric of the garment is attached (the yoke of a western shirt); a crossbar at the head of a rudder, a control lever in an aircraft, a bar of soft iron between the poles of an electromagnet; in ancient Rome an arch of three spears under which a defeated army was made to march.  

zeug.ma, n.: a figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses ("She checked the date on the milk, unaware that she would tragically expire before it did.") or to two others of which it semantically suits only one ("With weeping wounds and hearts they retreated.")

zo.e.trope, n.:  a 19th century optical toy consisting of a cylinder with a series of pictures on the inner surface that, when viewed from outside through slits with the cylinder rotating, give an impression of continuous motion, from the Greek words for "turning life"