From Burden of Self, Spring 2010

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Shedding Memories

Posted by Katie

This whole idea of shedding memories (as Toni Packer has set forth) has started to really dig into my skin and bother me. While I can see (perhaps only partially) from the outside that this idea of letting the past be in the past can be a refreshing way to enter a situation or react, I can't help but feel like at the very core it negates the many things that come with this calling up of past experience. (holy run on sentence, batman!)
Even the most terrible of experiences being brought back to life in mind and memory must be followed, and are followed (at least in my case) with the memory and realization that I lived through those moments well enough to have found myself back there again. I moved past it, kept breathing, kept moving, and am set back at square one again. For the past two years more often than not I find myself back at my parents house and my home town to attend a funeral or wake. Part of the oddness of the small(ish) town that I am from is that all of these funerals and wakes have been at the same funeral home and church. Whether it was friends, or family members or close family friends I would shake my head and take a deep breath before entering the funeral home. If I were to have been fully present or aware or in the moment without knowing that I have made it through these past experiences I would have absolutely lost it. That is a form of armor that I don't think I would ever wish upon anyone to be without. It is human to lug around these card catalogs of things that we have been through before, both good and bad. There are certain situations, at least for me, in which I will never leave them behind.

From Burden of Self, Spring 2010

Friday, April 30, 2010

Enhancement

Posted by Katie

We ran out of time last night for me to throw this out there, but here is my little enhancement bit...
As I stated in my blog post I struggled with the design aspect of The Integral Vision. It seems/seemed pretty obvious to me that if you are trying to present something truly integral, the way in which you present it should be integral as well. The random photographs seemed disjointed and poorly chosen. There was no flow, and for me it took away greatly from any attention I was paying to what Ken Wilbur was trying to lay out.
With that, I realized that we have largely been looking at text, with a few movies/video clips here an there. I thought it would be interesting to throw into the mix a visual artist that I feel that deals with and wrestles with a lot of the same ideas that we have touched on.
While studying abroad in London I first saw Mark Titchner's work at the Tate Britain after he was nominated for the Turner Prize. His work was (as I can best recall) the first of the four nominees that I saw. His installation was titled 'How to Change Behaviour (Tiny Masters of the World Come Out)'. His work immediately settled in a little spot in my heart, and I still to this day have a hard time explaining exactly why. Here is my best attempt: I love big art. Where you have no choice but to interact with it because it is taking up an entire wall, an entire room. Also, I think it is very brave for visual artists to use words. It seems (perhaps just to me, and the way I was taught) that visual art and text are two separate things, not to be confused or explored together. Titchner's use of letters that were as tall if not taller than me was something I found incredibly exciting.
Anyhow, I find it interesting that it has been a few years since I have looked at or even thought of his work. Then all of the sudden while reading I thought to myself, 'This is a bad Mark Titchner rip off.... Mark Titchner!' I wanted to share this with the class and see if perhaps any one else has visual artists that they have found that seem to wrestle with these same questions? Here are a few links that might be of interest:

Summary of Titchner's work nominated for the Turner Prize 2006. (Which he did not win :( <--I was sad).

Short video of Titchner talking about his work.

A few examples of his work that I had put up on the blog yesterday.

Happy visual Friday!

From Burden of Self, Spring 2010

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Permanent?

Posted by Katie

While reading Be Here Now I very much enjoyed the crazy aesthetic ride that accompanied what was being said. The doodlings and drawings seemed to help what was trying to be communicated with words. I admittedly was very excited when I picked up The Integral Vision and having flipped through the pages a few times before starting it I thought to myself, 'ooooh pictures!' Though once I started reading the images seemed to pester whatever it is that was being said below or around, or even in the image for that matter. The charts and graphs seemed to work since, well, its kind of hard to visually muck up a graph.
Perhaps I was just in a bit of a mood when I first picked this up and it just happened to carry through, but it seemed poorly put together. For Ken Wilbur to have spent 230 pages explaining to his readers how important integrating and seeing the bigger picture is, it was pretty obvious to me that his designers didn't exactly take that notion to heart. The disjointedness that came from the design made it a difficult read for me. It seemed like his designers saw some of Mark Titchner's work and tried to poorly rip it off.
Okay, design rant aside.
My biggest resistance came to Wilbur's idea of the permanence of stages. 'And remember, because these are stages, you have attained them in a permanent fashion (39).' Permanent is a very strong word, and 'permanent' used in any relation to human beings is something that I find increasingly more hilarious and outrageous. Everything as far as I can tell in my short few years as a human being on this planet is fleeting in one way or another. The closest idea to permanence that I can really wrap my head around is tattoos. I love when people tell me that my tattoos will be there for the rest of my life. Will they? What if my arm gets cut off? It's still permanent, yes, it will probably still be on my arm. But my arm may not always be part of me, connected to me. How permanent is it then? It seems a silly notion to sell to others that attaining permanence is something within grasp of a human being.
The rest of this paragraph goes as follows,
'Before that happens, any of these capacities will be merely passing states: you will plug into some of them, if at all, in a temporary fashion--great peak experiences of expanded knowing and being, wondrous aha! experiences, profound altered glimpses into your own higher possibilities. But with practice, you will convert those states into stages, or permanent traits in the territory of you (39).'
I can't help but feel that it is cruel and unusual to put that notion into a persons head. Permanence is a nice idea... but then again a nice idea to one is not so nice to another. I'll let Wilbur keep his permanence, and I'll sit quietly and happily with the lack.

From Burden of Self, Spring 2010

Thursday, March 25, 2010

hey kids, I found Jesus!

Posted by Katie

First of all, this post is a little later than I had hoped... but after two trips to the Apple store my computer is finally behaving (now that I have typed that, I give it 24 hours before it hates me again).

My dad would always say to my brother and I, 'Hey, Kate and Joe, I found Jesus'.
'Really?'
'Yeah, he was behind the couch the whole time'
This still makes me laugh.

When it comes to this enlightenment business I am quite skeptical. It doesn't really work for me. For those it does work for, great! At least in my own experience I haven't really gotten enlightenment from things such as yoga, or being set up to be reborn as a Christian. When I was a junior (?) in high school my mom, aunt, and I signed up for a yoga class. It was once a week with a frighteningly short and flexible man. His skin has spent so much time in the sun that it looked like leather. He was an incredible nice and soft spoken person. From what I remember the class was twice a week, and we went for only 4 weeks or so. I was very athletic at the time and the class fell in the midst of my ski season. I was used to working out and training very hard. Yoga was a great break for me, and let me explore the strength in my muscles in a very different way. That was about as much as I got from it.

While I was in middle school there were a few of my friends who had joined this new church. They kept talking about how cool and laid back and fun it was. 'We get excited about Christ! We celebrate!' They would tell me how with the power of prayer with their peers they could speak in tongues and how amazing and heightened of an experience this was. Speak in tongues? What? So I decided to go with them, just to see what it was about. What an uncomfortable hour that was. I thought I would be able to go in, hang out in the background and just observe what this place was all about. That was an incredibly naive assumption on my part. I found myself to be the main focus of the greater part of this hour. Suddenly the whole goal of this hour (mass? service?) was to get me reborn, or to speak in tongues, or see god, or something along those lines. I felt violated in so many ways upon leaving there. I felt as though I was watching a show of people filling in gaps in their lives with wild antics that they could cite as proof that they are spiritually alive. If that is what spiritually alive is, then I will pass, thanks.

What I am trying to get at is that I think my dad is spot on. I don't know if enlightenment has to be some big dog and pony show or journey. Who is that journey for? You? Or is it so you can tell everyone else about this incredible journey? Why can't it just be simple? Even just a moment of realization that something was there the whole time, and you were just oblivious to it can be a very satisfying moment. Kind of like when I freak out because I can't find my car keys, and damn it, I had just had them, where did I put them, I really hope they aren't locked in my car... And they were in my hand the whole time.

From Burden of Self, Spring 2010

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Feelings... Eeeew

Posted by Katie

I keep imagining Reynolds reacting to feelings as a little kid reacts to worms. Either delighted by them and pulling them out of the ground, or upon seeing them squirm making a scrunched up face and yelling 'eeeeewwwww' while running to go squash ants instead. He makes the analogy that feelings are like bugs on a wind shield very early on, and so now I have this perpetual image of dead bugs as feelings that I can not seem to shake.
That aside, I have had a tough time trying to see how in reality, as Reynolds makes such a big deal of it, this idea could actually work. I kept putting off posting for this week because I kept trying to figure out in some way how this would be something that could really be taken and transplanted into someones daily life. This is as close as I've gotten: I know that for me personally, I operate off of knee jerk gut feelings and reactions. I have always been like this, and I feel (hah!) differently about it every day. That aside, I think that I try to make it a point to change something if I do not like it, or if it can be changed. I know that I get annoyed very easily by people who complain about situations in their life, but they do nothing to change these situations. They do nothing to change how they react or behave if the situation comes up again. An example would be captain grabby hands who I had dealt with at work. I would complain about it, and get really upset, and internalize these icky icky feelings. I would put it on everyone else to listen to me rant about how 'not okay' it was. I really wish someone would have told me (or I would have realized sooner on my own), 'if you don't like it, leave!'.
I had a few girlfriends in college who had started to gain weight. We would sit around the living room eating Dominos pizza and they would whine about how they miss their old bodies. Finally one day I lost it. 'If you don't like your body then go to the fucking gym!' Heh, not my most caring moment as a friend, but I think that people wallow not so much in their feelings, but the reactions they get from others upon expressing them.
What I am trying to say in a very round about manner with random examples is that I get what Reynolds is putting forward. But I do think however, that perhaps he could use a reality check from this reality that he paints for feeling wallowers and realize that he isn't dealing with bugs on the windsheild, he is dealing with hitting a got'damn'ten'point'buck on 94'dontcha know.

From Burden of Self, Spring 2010

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The Little Drummer Boy

Posted by Katie

Growing up my Father's parents spent their winter months in a house outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Every March my brother and I would look forward to our annual spring break trip to visit them. When I was seven years old my Grandpa Norb fell very ill during our week there, and not even a week had passed since returning home to Minnesota before he passed away. Needless to say, the following year going down to that house without my Grandfather in it was unsettling for my brother and I, even at such a young age.

I'm not sure at what point in the week it was, but it was early afternoon on a beautiful sunny day, and my Grandmother was in the kitchen. I had been outside throwing peanuts at Quails (don't ask) and for some reason had the Christmas tune 'The Little Drummer Boy' stuck in my head. So of course I start singing the 'barumpbabumbump' part because they were the only words I could remember at that point, and continued my peanut throwing. Eventually I ran out, and wandered into the kitchen to find my Grandma Doni singing 'The Little Drummer Boy'. My Grandmother had a beautiful singing voice, and stopped when she heard me singing the same tune.

She looked at me and asked, 'Love, why are you singing that song in March?'
To which my reply was, 'Grams, why are you singing that song in March?'
She smiled and said, 'It just popped in to my head'
'Me too, it just popped in to my head'.
'Kates, did you know that was Grandpa's favorite Christmas song?'

I have never had goosebumps or had all of the little hairs on my neck stand up the way that they did when she said that to me. Even still when my Mother and I talk about it the same thing happens. Mid-March, three months after Christmas, and my Grandmother and I are both suddenly compelled to start singing my late Grandfather's favorite Christmas song? I'm not sure if I believe in ghosts or spirits or any of the like. All that I do know is that if there were ever an experience in my life that would convince me, that one would be it.

From Burden of Self, Spring 2010

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Grabby Hands Gone Wrong

Posted by Katie

We are both acted upon, changed for good or ill, by other men; and we are agents who act upon others to affect them in different ways.
pg. 29 Laing

I quit one of my jobs this week. It's been a long time coming and should have happened months ago, but seeing as I am a stubborn ass sometimes (sometimes?) I stayed for much longer than I should have. It's not that I didn't like my job or where I worked, no, that was not the issue. I loved it. As a bit of a beer nerd I would get excited to serve locally brewed beer to other beer nerds and teach people who didn't know much about it a thing or two so they could show off to their friends. For the most part I would go in, and despite the random off nights (full moons or sundays, a full moon on a sunday-service industry people know that this is when the crazies crawl out of the woodwork) I would have a great time, and make some money. Can't really argue with that.

That is, until I was put in a situation that would slowly crush me for the following 10 months. One of my managers seemed to think that it was okay to put his hands on me. This manager is the most socially awkward and generally creepy person I have ever met, and I have met some socially awkward and generally creepy people in my short amount of years. His voice is that of a rejected muppet, and his overweight body and forgettable face don't help. The first few times this happened I wasn't sure how to react, as I was in a new work environment (having just traded in my khakis). When someone puts their arm around me, pokes me in the side or armpit, or tries to tickle me my general reaction is not cute. I have slapped random men at bars for even attempting such things. I may be small but I am scrappy, and I cannot handle it when men think its okay to touch whoever they want whether or not they know them. Tangent aside, I was thrown off as to how to react. Do I react as I would normally if a person were to do this to me? Knowing that this man is in charge of my schedule and the shifts I get, therefore determining the amount of money I would be making each week I started to ignore it (more like tried desperately to ignore it). This is entirely unlike myself.

After trying to avoid this mans hands over the summer months I finally grew tired of it and sat down with the general manager and owner and told them what was going on. They've had issues with him in the past doing this, and as I learned from a few of the girls who have worked there for a few years there is apparently a list of female servers who have quite soley because of the way that they were treated by this man. A list. Pardon my French here, but that is beyond fucked up. Long story short they talked to him, telling him that this treatment has to stop, and it did. For a few weeks.

A few weeks ago I finally lost it. I had started a new job bartending at a locally owned Mexican restaurant and was treated with respect. None of the managers touched me, put their arm around me or poked me in the sides or armpit. Amazing! What a concept! A respectful work enviornment?! This helped me to realize that what I was putting up with at my other job was not at all normal, which I knew all along, but being in that enviornment for so long I kept trying to convince myself that in that situation that was what the norm was. This reignited my resolve to get the owner and general manager to really truly see what this manager was doing to me and my fellow female servers. I met with them again, and told them that nothing had changed since I had last addressed these issues six months ago. We decided that the four of us should sit down and talk it out.

I went into this conversation on Sunday afternoon with a feeling in my stomach that it was not going to be good. It might have had something to do with the amount of enchiladas I had eaten that afternoon, but either way, my stomach was right. Without any hesitation I looked this manager in the face and said that I could not work with someone that doesn't respect me, because I am the type of person who reciprocates the respect I'm given. You don't show me any, and well, you're not going to get any in return. I also told him how the way that he touches and treats female servers and bartenders is disgusting, degrading, and disrespectful. His only direct response to this was 'that's how he was raised'. Really? Your parents raised you to sexually harass females? Well why didn't you just say so sooner, that makes it all okay! He didn't once acknowledge that his behavior was inappropriate in any way. I then went home from the meeting that night aghast and was told my roommate about it, then called my mom and talked to her for a bit. After getting off the phone, and having vented to two different people I looked in the mirror and wondered why I was still dealing with this. How did I let it get to this point? How did I let that situation become what I thought was normal?

The way that I was acted upon went from something that I would never put up with, to something that I not only put up with, but I feel I ended up condoning in the long run by my staying at that job for the amount of time I did. I left on good terms with the owner and general manager, they are two people that I truly adore, though I cannot understand how they can still justify employing this man. As for him, I'm not sure what will happen. All I can say is that now that I know my ability to pay my bills doesn't rest on my behavior and how I react to his, I am finally free to react in the way I normally would if he were to ever try and lay a hand on me again. It is a peculiar thing, how one can shape their behavior depending upon the factors that dictate a situation. As far as putting up with being harassed in the workplace, my expirience will now dictate that I no longer give a shit that I am in a work place, and my behavior and how I react is going to be the same as any other situation. You touch me, I slap you. I'd say this is a change for good.

From Burden of Self, Spring 2010

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Possibility of Being Seen

Posted by Katie

I'm not sure which class it was (the first one, perhaps?) when I brought up Sloane Crosley's essay The Pony Problem.

“I have something for you,” a guy will say on our first date. “Is it a pony?” No. It’s usually a movie ticket or his cell phone number or a slobbery tongue kiss. But on our second date, if I ask again, I’m pretty sure I’m getting a pony.

In her essay she goes on to talk about why she finally decided to get rid of these ponies, stating that if anything were to suddenly happen to her (sudden death, beaten severely and left in a coma in the hospital for years, what have you) there would be no explanation to her family and friends as to why there is an entire drawer in her house filled with ponies. What would her family and friends think about this pony drawer? She would no longer be around to explain how these ponies accumulated. People would come to conclusions that she would not be able to confirm or deny. This thought was enough for her to get rid of them.

While it is a really nice warm fuzzy thought that one would be able to be his/herself in their own home, it isn't possible. Even our most personal of spaces we keep groomed in certain ways to maintain a certain level of appearance to others. Originally when reading this weeks prompt I thought, 'well sure, we can be ourselves at home', but then realized that even that is not true. The possibility of being 'seen' follows us into our living spaces.

Here are a few very stereotypical examples that may or may not be true for some men or women, but illustrate a bit better what I am trying to get at.

-Guys who invite a lady friend over to their place for the first time probably do so making mental note of things that are put away: Maxim or Playboy's stashed under sink. Any stuffed animals or blankets from childhood are hidden under the bed or in the closet. Internet history is cleared in case you want to watch funny YouTube videos with said lady.

-Ladies who invite a guy over to their place for the first time probably do so making a mental note of things that are put away: any sort of girly magazines/tabloids (Cosmopolitan, People, US Weekly) are properly hidden. Anything that could be cited as evidence that women bleed once a month is properly stowed away in the bathroom. Big, comfortable cotton underwear hidden so as not to lose sex appeal. Any stuffed animals or blankets from childhood are hidden under the bed or in the closet.

Even if one had a place all to themselves where they never invited anyone, if something were to happen to them, someone would end up cleaning the house or apartment for them. A little over a year and a half ago there was a friend of mine, Big Joe, who passed away back home. He was in his early 30's, and it was a sudden, shocking, and horrifying thing for his family and all of us friends to face. I had called my friend Raul who was still living up there at the time to see how he was doing and if he needed anything. He said no, and he was doing as well as he could in such a situation. A few moments later his voice broke, I could hear him trying to fight back heaving sobs. 'I don't want to go clean that house. It'll be me and the boys cleaning his house'.

I could understand why he would be so upset that it would be the boys all together for the first time minus one of them. I then thought to myself, his family is still around, his sister and parents are still there, weren't they going to help clean out the house as well? I asked him if the family was going to help. To which he replied, 'Of course they are sweets, but the boys and I are going to start. There are some things a mother shouldn't have to see'

From Burden of Self, Spring 2010

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The 20-Something Woman's Appearance

Posted by Katie

"How is it that if you're sharp, you're generally able to estimate a person's class at a glance?" p.51
Fussel's chapter Appearance was one that really got me thinking about the way that I buy clothes and dress myself. Not only that, but how I (consciously? unconsciously?) perceive others based on their clothing and accessories. Men and women have among themselves very different ways of asserting class to other men and women that they encounter in their daily public life. For men, well, I'm not even going to attempt to go there or assume I know how it is for the 20-something male. Seeing as I was born with the lady-parts, I'll attempt to bring to life how I believe other women my age perceive and form ideas as to another womans class by the accesories they carry, and the clothing that they dress themselves in.
Since I would prefer to not play a total creep and interrogate unsuspecting women in Minneapolis with my camera in an attempt to illustrate, I will instead go through a few of the things that I have on me on a day to day basis.

1) Sunglasses--The sunglasses I bought this past summer cost me $89 dollars. After a few summers of breaking 7 or 8 $10 dollar pairs I realized how much money I was spending over the course of time. After spending that much money on the damn things I know now that I will take care of them instead of sitting on them when I get into my car. Other women see them, probably recognize the Coach 'C's and probably wonder whether or not they are real or fake. One thing that I think is absolutely frightening is that a lot of women my age have this uncanny ability to spot whether or not a purse is real Chanel or Coach, or whether or not another woman's sunglasses are real or fake Gucci or Armani. Have we really gotten to a point ladies, that we have this hardwired into our brains?

2) Purse-- I got this purse over a year ago at the Coach outlet. Normally $350 dollars I got it on clearance for $70. I've used it every day since then, and it is starting to show. It folds funny because I usually have enough change in there to pay for a block of parking meters downtown. The straps are starting to frazzle and fray. Something that I have become conscious of as of late is the fact that depending upon where I am I will make sure that the Coach front is facing me and not outwards as though I am embarrassed by the fact that I own it. It's weirding me out and the more I try not to think about it the more conscious I am about it.

3) Boots--These Rocketdog boots I've had since my Freshman year in college. They're beat up, and have seen better days. Other women my age see them and probably think that I bought them because I cannot afford a pair of Ugg boots. The fact that my last name has 'ugg' in it is enough for me not to buy them out of fear of more bad puns being made out of my last name. They probably see my Coach sunglasses and purse and think 'she spent all of her money on those two things and couldn't buy the proper boots'

4) Jeans--Most of the jeans I own are Volcom brand. They are the only brand that I've found that actually fit me well. A lot of women my age can tell exactly where a pair of jeans are from by the butt pockets of the jeans (that's right men, women look at other women's asses!) It frightens me that I have this ability as well. I can tell from across a room where the jeans are from, and take a relative guess as to how much a woman has paid for them. It creeps me out, but I can't help it.

There has been a push recently in advertising that is geared towards young women who call themselves 'fashionistas' to become 'frugalistas', as though now the 'in' thing is to be an X person of sorts. Not an X person that doesn't really care about what others think of them, but in spending less that other women did on the same things as some sort of show of superiority. The quote I added in on the pictures is a modification of a line from Fight Club, which I think applies beautifully. Also for some reason I kept thinking of another quote from the movie, 'sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken', and I'm not sure if I can explain why or how, but I feel like that fits too.

From Burden of Self, Spring of 2010

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Khakis and Corporate America

Posted by Katie

After further examination of the 'seam' I spoke of briefly last week, I have realized that it started much sooner than my khaki buying experience. My senior year as an Undergraduate student I began realizing that I would soon be released to the wolves, and was bombarded with the question any student loathes after hearing it 9000 times--'So, what's next?'. My lack of attention span in college left me at the end of my sophomore year wandering into academic advising hoping to come out with a plan. I was incapable of deciding on a major. I wanted to take classes that sounded interesting, not just whatever was next on the list for said major. My academic advisor suggested that I do Liberal Studies, that way I can take the Art and English classes I would like, and be able to integrate them into something that I wanted to do. Ah-ha! Genius! I spent the next two years creating for myself an academic environment that I could actually care about and be interested in. Up until that point it was just what I was supposed to do, what was assumed of me.
My last year of college presented me with an insecurity that I did not suspect would surface. Family members or friends would ask 'what type of job do you get with a Liberal Studies degree?' Each time I was asked this question I would laugh nervously and wasn't quite sure. Oh, jeez, job? That's right, I'm supposed to be marketable! This instilled in me such a fear that I wouldn't be able to get the same type of job as someone who had studied Communication, or Management, that I became hellbent on finding a corporate job. I've made great money working as a server, or professional painter, but suddenly as I stood on the precipice of that little piece of paper that says I've completed my Bachelors degree those jobs were suddenly less to me. I was now better than that.
Some girlfriends and I moved to Minneapolis a few months after graduation, and that August I started my great corporate job. I wore khakis every day, and had my name embroidered on my shirt. I had a great starting salary, health, vision, and dental insurance. I had a 401k plan that was matched dollar for dollar 30 days after I started. I had an employee stock purchase plan. I was placed as an Assistant Manager at a 2.3 Million dollar store, and helped open huge national and local accounts. I was damn good at my job, and for a while it consumed me. I sat at the corporate headquarters with the CEO of the company and asked what plans the company had globally. I started in August, and by late October I began realizing that everything that I had worked for and made for myself I didn't want. I looked in the mirror, examining the reflection of my embroidered name and khakis, and it looked as if someone photoshopped my face on someone elses body. I thought to myself 'this is not me'.
I no longer did crossword puzzles. I no longer read the newspaper. I was incapable of holding a conversation without it starting 'ohmygod today at work this contractor... today at work... this one account...' I had turned into work-obsessed-word-vomit-girl. I have seen and encountered these people before and they scare the shit out of me. I realized I needed out, but at this point I knew that part of my facade that I had built for myself would come tearing down.
My parents and family were incredibly proud of me. I had my Bachelors degree and was entrusted with a huge amount of corporate responsibility and had just turned 22.
I missed the challenge that classrooms gave me, and to be perfectly honest I didn't take school seriously until this past year. Up until then it was somewhere I was supposed to be, what I was expected to do. For the first time in my life I made the choice as to where I studied, and am persuing the education I am for no one but myself.
I work as a server and bartender at a locally owned and ran brewery and mexican restaurant, those jobs that were 'so beneath' my college degree.
My closet and dresser are now khaki free.
Side note: It's not that I have anything against khakis. They're nice pants and all, I just don't like them on me. When I wear them I imagine the feeling I have is similar as to what a guy would feel like wearing a skirt. It's just uncomfortable.

From Apocalypses, Spring 2009

Thursday, April 9, 2009

It Was Meant to Be

For the last 22 years of my life I thought my nerdiness was honed in and taking shape quite well, despite it's lack of comic books or graphic novels being part of the thread. I was content with being a music snob that sought out bands and would get upset when I would hear their songs years later playing when I walked into an Express or Victoria's Secret store. Though I would scoff at the stores, I also would be secretly delighted in this little sense of ownership or one-upping on them, knowing that I have had that album for three years before they figured it out. Instead of having children I have my laptop full of music that people will soon discover, my bookshelf that I am obsessive about, my camera that I will not let anyone else touch, and my iphone. I am an absolute spaz about these things, much in the same way I have found one of my friends to be about his comic books.
This past summer I was out with one of my friends and we were discussing what dominated our formative years. After admitting to my embarrassing affair with Pogs, and lamenting about losing my favorite slammer to the girl in my class that I didn't like, we began discussing his love for comic books. This was difficult for me at first, as I have always had this idea that comic book readers were nerds in the worst sense. I'm not sure why, but I always attached this stigma to anyone that connected with comic books. Seeing how his eyes lit up and the way in which he spoke about reading Watchmen I was taken aback, and a bit confused. He was talking about these stories as though they were great literature. He explained to me what Watchmen was about, and why it was important. He did a great job pitching it to me, and I asked if I could borrow it from him to read. This was when I truly started to get the idea of just how much comics can mean to a person. He looked me straight in the face and said, 'no, that one is in my safety deposit box'. I laughed, only to receive an incredibly disapproving look. This was when I realized he was serious, and I suddenly felt a bit robbed that I didn't have something which meant that much from my childhood in a safety deposit box. I spent the following five minutes trying to convince myself that if Jennifer hadn't won that slammer from me I would have it sitting in a safety deposit box.
Thus, to my delight, the Watchmen was on our reading list for class. I told Raul and he shared in my delight. If I hadn't felt robbed enough before only having heard Raul's affinity for not just the Watchmen, but many of his other comic books, I realized after reading it that I was missing out. The reason he spoke of these stories as great literature is because that's what they are. Simply presented in a different form. I then went to the Barnes and Noble and looked around in the comic/graphic novel section for a little bit. Despite Kelly's warning and note that we don't need to buy anything, I did (I can't help it, I shouldn't be allowed in bookstores unsupervised). For the past few months I have made an almost daily habit of reading the 'missed connections' on Craigslist. It's like reading the comics in the paper. My browsing eye happened to find a comic book titled I Saw You... Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections. I immediately grabbed it off of the shelf and ran to the check out. I haven't started reading it yet, but I cannot wait. I never would have thought that I would be adding comic books or graphic novels to what I once thought was my iron-clad nerdiness, but I happily am.
P.S. Screw you Jennifer. I'm over the slammer. I've got comic books now.

From Apocalypses, Spring 2009

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Place to Stand

After reading The World Without Us I had a few days of wandering though out my apartment stunned and amazed by the amount of plastic that is present in my life. Not only plastic, but anything in general really that will out last myself and my impact on the environment. Some day I will die, and I will decompose and rot. I am okay with that. What frightens me is that my plastic bottle of hair pomade will out last me. The plastic hangers I have in my closet will out last me. The plastic wrappers around the string cheese that I love to eat will out last me. I am okay with my own decomposition, but the fact that tampon packaging and applicators will be around long after I am gone just doesn’t seem right. The ‘green’ cleaners I buy for my house are still in plastic bottles. Even the play numbers that are on the fridge that entertain my roommates and I will out last the three of us. Here’s a look into some of the plastic in my life that has been staring me down since finishing The World Without Us.

Time to Start Collecting

It recently occurred to me that a decent amount of writing that I have done is floating on various class blogs from the past few years. In an effort to not lose track of these little bits and pieces, I will be transferring the pieces that I can find to End:Illusion.