Mental Meanderings

Guestlisted

2011-09-24T20:38:00.004-04:00

I have returned! A girl can lose her sense of time when she's been caught up in micro land. It's far too easy for me to get caught up in subjects. I can be hard to catch, and harder to hold on to but when something grabs a hold of me I am a child fixated on a glimmer. My mind spins at an amazing rate. It weaves questions and conjures up ideas. Sometimes I feel like I'm nerding out too much, then sometimes I don't care because TO ME microbiology is too cool and I don't care what you or your fashion-whore friends have to say about it.

There's this quiet part of me that has always reminded my other self that one day I might just calm down a little and be what I envision a "grown-up" to be. One day I won't get all antsy when I know a good dance party is happening without me there. One day I won't shamelessly promote my ass popping a locking ability on any stage I can climb atop. One day... which seems impossibly far away at the rate I'm going because there is this energy. I have an endless pool of energy to find the music that rattles paint chips off the ceiling. So it happens that I drink too much, dance like I'm trying to throw my back out, and wear clothes that suggest I'm here for a good time. I'm young and I'm still tight, why should I stop now?

It's that voice. The invisible voice wagging it's invisible finger at my antics. Warning me like an old matron, suggesting that my behavior may be inhibiting my future. But...I'm not sure. Is going out and being a pretty young thing really going to put a dent in my most extravagant of dreams? Hard to say. I work as hard as I party. Well, now that I think about it again I think I've tipped the scale since I've aged. I definitely have been having my ass worked by the system. I work hard and play naughty. I guess I'll allow it.

If, then, and now

2011-07-06T03:02:00.006-04:00

Sometimes I know where I'm going, only to find myself suddenly wondering where I'm wandering. Just circles, the pattern my foot steps make. Circles and figure eights. A big wobbly oval that perpetuates. I'm just all over the place. Sometimes it amazes me when I just stop to wonder how I ended up here. This funny place I've found myself. These filthily places I've landed. The trouble I've gotten out of as well as the trouble I've gotten into. There's little to extrapolate on but many seconds to just chuckle about and think how wonderful life is, how saddening it's been, how much more there is to live.

Sometimes it's hard to stay in one place, for the most part mentally. It's like having on again off again ADHD. My mind is always racing in directions that cause a loud tear. I can be in all three places of the past, present, and future. Always on the go, that's just me, an A type personality. Sometimes it's a lonely place to be, always trying to be somewhere in "later" but never in the "now". I guess I'm lucky one fine man grabbed a hold of my hand and made me sit the fuck down. It just took a little rough housing to wrestle me into a stillness I've only glimpse at through the corners of my eyes. Submission is the last line.

Want it, get it, have it.

2011-06-06T16:12:00.005-04:00

It's been 26 hours since I've gotten any sleep yet I feel amazing. When life is golden, nothing could break that stride. The forward momentum is reliable enough to get you to where your sights are determined to go. And my feet are moving. They're pushing. They're stomping out a path for any willing enough to follow me in my march towards the girlish dreams I dared to think.

It's crazy, bewildering, breathlessly fucking consuming the way it feels to realize those impossible visions I dreamed up as a little girl in a sad place are not just pipe dreams. I grew up long before I was grown in the grayest of two bedroom homes that didn't allow dreams to be drawn up in color. Dad's utilitarian PVC pipe was enough to purge me of most my fantastical ideas. In secret, I dreamed of being a scientist in a white lab coat gazing beyond the known world through my telescope or a marine biologist sinking into the watery deep to discover beast unseen. I wanted to be a writer, creator of minds and circumstance. I wanted train as a teacher, who's guiding hands molded the minds of the succeeding generations. I wanted to be so many things I never thought possible.

But it is possible. I've grown above myself to see that I have the drive, the ambition to do all these things. Before it felt like what I wanted lay at the far reaches of every corner of this galaxy. Working towards one meant getting further and further from another. A horrible case of not being able able to eat some of that fucking cake clutched in bloody fist. I feel amazing because everything in my life right now is pulling all those distant aims closer so they are surrounding me. Just within sight if not reach. It's the feeling of knowing you're on the right track.

I got the job in the microbio lab! This will be a gold star on my resume for both grad school and MSF. From here all I have to do, minimally, is get my masters and I'll be able to teach at a community college. Advancing to a PhD and it's publish or parish. I could write papers or non-fiction like my hero Carl Sagan (Dragons of Edan, one of my favorite suggested reads). I'm already a clinical laboratory scientist; instead of using a telescope to see the macro universe my microscope is instrumental in viewing the microcosm. Finally, with a more extensive knowledge base in microbiology I could join the team of medical professionals and bring relief to a plagued world. Now, that last one is a dream for sure.

Still, I'm not there yet. I still have a ways to go but I can see it on the horizon. As long as I keep my strides long and my pace steady I'll make it there before sundown.

Ready or not, here I come, you can't hide.

2011-05-20T08:35:00.005-04:00

A sigh. A swallow. Then, gulp! A cringe followed by a smile.

The sun may rise and set, but that means very little to me. For it's the moon who reigns sovereign over my activities. Awake all night toiling away, working with blood and body fluids. I will miss sitting at the microscope in front of the window facing east. It has the most perfect view of the Fisher building, truly. The bench is set up so that when you lift your eyes from a task complete, you get a glimpse of the world beneath. Then I ask myself "where am I?" and the breadth of my grown years is consolidated into one long sigh. Although I will miss working in hematology the universe has opened a door. Tentatively curious, I inch closer until I'm pawing at the light.

Accepting this job in microbiology has it's draw backs, but those are only superficial and monetary. I will have to work five days a week instead of four and the opportunity to get that overtime pay is not as likely. However, the opportunity to sharpen my expertise in infections disease is not just a step, but a ladder on my way up towards my ambitions. Having this on a resume is like a shining gold star, both for my grad school application and any humanitarian work I wish to be apart of.

I'm convinced the best way to do something is to do it with your whole being. All your thoughts, all your actions become preparation and supports the ideology. If you can't channel every ounce of your character to one pivotal point then I doubt the sincerity of your intentions. Chapters accumulate to tell a story. I've only had a few chapters written in my book. So many empty pages to feather through, I have to resist the urge to write the last page. It's impossible to know if my 5-year plan, 10-year plan, 20-year outline will actually become the table of content for my life. No harm in dreaming, right? Fantasies are fertilizer but sitting around in La-La-Land never got anybody anywhere. I have places to go, I have visited them in my dreams so often my steps have left a pathway.

I'm milk, you're honey

2011-03-25T07:46:00.006-04:00

I feel like a silly cat sometimes, the way I maneuver my emotions. I have to admit I have them, bitter as they use to be. They've suddenly acquired a sweetness I swore was artificial. Love is sugar from the cane. Honey off the comb. And I'll lick it all up. Lick it off my fingers, lick it off any place his honey has dripped. Like a kitten, with little laps, I drink up all the milk. A good feline, not a stray. I'm a house cat now, I've decided to stay.

I don't mind being one confined by a house, perched by the window peering out. Outside these walls are plenty of mice and colorful birds. Undoubtedly all things kittens like to chase, to taste even. But one mouthful later and you'll realize, these coveted morsels were covered in lice. Not so tasty as they once appeared. They bite the tongue and itch the ears. I'm convinced it's more comfortable in here with my dish.

His lap is warm, his hands are soft as he runs them down my back. His hands all in my hair. I purr and roll my head in pleasure as my master pets me there. He gets me roaring like an little engine till I roll over for more. Wanting more of those long strokes that get my claws out and my tail swishing.

He makes me feel like a silly cat who only wants to play. For as long as he dangles that toy, I'll be a good kitten who obeys.

Working overtime on a slow day

2011-03-12T10:04:00.007-05:00

First step is first. Redundant? Maybe, but plans gotta start somewhere. I registered for a Spanish class offered to hospital employees from U of D Mercy at a discounted price; HFH will pay for my tuition and books. I really couldn't pass up a deal like that. 3 credits for one time non-refundable payment of $185, no need to haggle even. To work with primeros pasos they wish that we have a good grasp if Spanish so this offer came most serendipitously.

Since the wedding + DEMF will eat up most of my vacation time, this medical trip won't happen until sometime next year. I need to work and save so that I can have a month or more to give. This unavoidable wait period is in many ways necessary, for this time will not be wasted. Besides learning the language and culture the organization could use donations. This gives me an opportunity to collect donations to bring with me to the clinic. The next step is writing my letter of intent.

I think it's time I get back on living life via a planner. At one point it drove me crazy, but these obligations don't come with the same doomed pressure that my academic commitments came with. Besides this little mission I'm on, I have also made time for a small tissue culture lab at a local hydroponic grow shop. I get my book on growing plants in test tubes Thursday and will begin training!

I've come to terms with traits in my personality I use to not understand. It didnt make any sense to me why I was always putting myself under such immense pressures. contradicting as it was to sign on then complain about the work I brought upon myself, I realize now I did this to myself in a you'll-thank-me-later kind of way. When it comes down to it, I preform better under (moderately) stressful conditions. I push myself harder when it feels like do-or-die. In that way my successes are much sweeter when it's just me against the odds. It's just the speed I operate. I'm a deep sea creature accustomed to the weight of water, I don't know if I could survive without it.

Blessings in a bottle

2011-03-06T15:30:00.007-05:00

“Be water my friend."

Bruce Lee

Be like water, because water has a way of finding where it wants to be. Drop by drop; water collects where it's needed, replenishing the parched landscape. Water finds a way or it carves it's way through obstacles. In the end water is the element that sustains us, provides for us, and imparts life upon us. I must be like water this year, to have my thoughts and actions become fluid enough to squeeze through the barriers that divide me from my ideals. So that when I have found my way, I'll be right where I am most necessary.

One thing after another has always taken up my attention and the sudden accomplishment of these goals has left me in restless place with a lighter load to carry on my shoulders. Although I work full time (while trying to acquire as much over time as possible) I still feel like I could be doing more with abilities. My “adjustment period” excuse is running low and soon I know that won’t pardon me for long. Now that personal satisfaction is wearing, thin its time to move forward again since staying stationary will put you behind.

All the lessons I have taken from this life speaks of one great human obligation: to altruistically give yourself to others. I've translated this sentiment into my own moral constitution. I believe true happiness is found when one can practices selflessness. Good deeds done with the expectation of praise or fame are in jeopardy of falling victim to discontent, bringing one further away from bliss. Find fulfillment in the contentment of others and you will know what unadulterated love is.

In gratitude to the giants before me, I have a responsibility to actualize the potential I inherited, so that I leave this place better then when I arrived. We are so fortunate to know first world luxuries but seldom we consider the lives of those less charmed. I know what it takes to be of service to the community I live in. I know what it means to be the pillar of support for my family. Still, I have yet to know the global scope of volunteerism and it is that which I strive to comprehend.

I have been researching various medical volunteer abroad opportunities for some time and now it’s just a matter of planning. Saving up vacation days from work and the proper funding while I am overseas is the easy part. I should appreciate this lull in activity for what it’s worth, since the time is now to cultivate my spirit for this endeavor. Personal growth is in order so for the next few months the only traveling I will be doing will be within the corridors of my mind.

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock,
the stream always wins--not through strength but by perseverance."
Buddha

Flip a God Damned Coin

2011-02-16T10:17:00.005-05:00

I'm a bad friend

Or

I hate being in the wedding party

Or

Really don't want to miss a moment of DEMF

Whatever it is, it's the knife cutting my heart in half. I'm their daughters godmother for fuck-sake. I also was just in her twin sisters wedding, so this is pretty much (a better version admitting) of the same wedding. At the root of it all, is the simple and maybe selfish fact that I DO NOT want to be away from Detroit for a fraction of a second when that bass drops on the first day of DEMF. The music is my medicine, the sound is my siren.

DEMF, the Detroit electronic music festival, is one acronym that pretty much sums up everything that makes me happy. Booming speakers, masses of half-naked-wet-colorful-party-hardy-animals, substances, energy, beautiful girls, sexy men, and parties that don't stop. Old friends, new friends, single serving friends. Ohh and the booty bouncing. The pop, lock, and drop. The dancing yourself into a frenzy until you're dancing in a puddle of your sweat. Dancing until the sun burns your eyes as you emerge from whatever dark after party cave you crawled into.

When I get depressed, I day dream about DEMF. When my heart is breaking, I think about DEMF. When work makes me want to walk into traffic, I tell myself DEMF is only a few months away. I will work on Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Years just to get that weekend off. DEMF helped me realize I didn't need that abusive relationship I was in. It was there that I cut and cauterized that malignant growth I call my ex. DEMF was the last time I got to see Amber before she passed away. Hart plaza during that weekend is my sanctuary.

So now I'm torn. Her wedding is the first day of the festival. I'll make it home in time to catch the after parties if I dip out immediately after the reception. It all gets so complicated because my heart is not in it for her. I'll be there, but I'll be so sad. So sad I'm missing the festivities of the first day of the festivals 10 yr anniversary. That guarantees party kid enthusiasm all across the board. Oh God help me, it pains my heart to think I'll be 5 brutal hours from my city.

If I could go back in time, I'd kick Tiffany and Luke in the ass. Kick 'em hard. Some how move their wedding date to the 26th, 27th even! That way I wouldn't have to rush to pack the car after a weeks worth of camping and race back to make it to the after parties. This means I have to pack the night before the wedding. I'm going to be so distracted the whole day. I'm not going to have an appetite or the spirit. Dear god help me if I have to listen to rock 'n roll for a millisecond longer that I have to.

Glacial melting of an ice qeen

2011-02-12T13:09:00.005-05:00

Living between days, no longer within days. Floating. Without boundaries my organs fall out of place, a body without skin, without bones. Thoughts bubble out, pushing everything aside. And pop. Gone again. Catching thoughts like butterflies. Chasing the ever evasive insect of idea, only to watch it escape the net.

Where is my mind? Not here. Lost in the summer time. I can remember where and when - without making sense. Images in my consciousness, the front seat, long hair, and cold beers. Did that happen here or from some invasive dream? No, it was shaggy hair and bright moon nights. It was dark streets. It was your hand in mine. It was the prologue to our reverie.

It was a crowded field. It was helping a cute drunk girl piss. It was your kisses, your hands, on me. It was the heat, it was exhaustion. It was poor impulse control. It was your lips, telling me where we go from here. It was just you and me, among a million other bodies. The dots, the lines, the colors, the blurred images of three days four nights rolled into one memory. It became us, not them, not her, nor him.

It was road trips, it was artists, it was after parties. It was one huge stain on the passenger side. It was that hot, hot tent, no cover, and PB&J crackers. It was that freezing knuckle numbing shower. It was the fireworks on the water we missed. It was taking a 25 dollar cab ride in one big circle. It was a straight marriage in a gay part of town. It was hallucinogenic, it was raining, it was my doe eyes and please. Asking please, could we just do what I felt like.

and it was you sighing, but saying yes. Its you sighing enough of the time, but still saying yes to me. It's my heart, just a puddle at your feet.

Birds of a feather

2011-01-04T08:49:00.003-05:00

I guess we never know what anyone is thinking. Nor do we know where they've been. I tried to peer into your thoughts. Thinking that maybe if I knew better, then it could have be better. If I could read your mind then maybe I could have be those things you need. But no one knows our true desires, sometimes not even ourselves. We might be convinced it's the best route and make those decisions blindly. Doesn't make it what we really are after.

So then maybe I think I've been going about my inquiry all wrong. Was I too soft when I should have been stern? Too hard up for answers when I should have left it alone? The would have, could have, should haves, that keep you up at night. Questions finding their way into your delicate mind, prick you with their thorny vines. That painful sensation will dull to a throb, until it syncs with your broken heartbeat. I'm sorry it had to be like this, but I didn't know what you were thinking.

Two Kittens Reflect

2010-12-31T08:00:00.007-05:00

Oh look at that, another year has come to pass. What does this rabbit year hail? Will it be anything like a soft gentle fuzzy thing or something similar to the bunny from Monty Python? Technically the lunar calendar still calls it year of the Tiger for another month. Oh the blessings of leeway, in regards to resolution no doubt. But in all seriousness and retrospect, 2010's year of the tiger was real sweet to me.

All this crap had my head hanging heavy in the late parts of 2009. Anxious. Taxing. Pressure. A whole year of that shit. Just fucking lovely, I'll have seconds, thanks. Taking too many credits, working too many jobs, volunteering for anything, trying to be the boss of everything, and not trying to slow my roll. I knew I could do it all and fit it all on a resume if I could just make some more room in my resolve, i.e., give self-possession the boot.

Still, when I think back and wave away that fog of progression I can't completely despise that year since it served as good contrast for what 2010 was to usher in. The tiger welcomed me to a promise land of sorts ... or at least a check point on the way there. Sincerely I can say I'm where I aimed to be academically, professionally, financially, romantically, as well as mentally. Moral of the story: Hard work pays, and it tips fat!

Here approaches the second half of my 10 year outline and it's time to start on this part of the rough draft. If I know the nature of the hare, then this year will at least be fair to me. However the forecast has yet to be received so honestly it's nothing but a Schrödinger's box of chocolates. I could do a whole bunch of this or that, per usual, without any real resolution. Was never good at those anyways.

Just because I like to tease, I'll let the cat peek outside the bag. So facts first. Picked up GRE and MCAT study materials. Will take one or the other within the year to save future-self from having to do it. Time to learn mandarin as well as other misc. topics in physical science. Lose 10 pounds, regain my abs, and tone my ass. With my free time I'll probably dote on a new pet, decorate this cute little spot I've posted up in (whatever, call me Suzy), and be a stronger support network for the friends 'n fam. I made it to a good place and I'll pull everyone I love with me.

Poster Girl

2010-12-22T08:54:00.006-05:00

It's been a rough few days from my perspective. From any other nothing is amiss, but the porcelain mask I wear is heavily flawed. Only within the four walls of my privacy you can see the hairline fractures the feed into rivers that stream down my face. From the chipped scars I wear on my bruised and broken skin, you could tell from a distance parts of me have gone missing.

Somebody help me collect the scattered pieces of my composure, before the wind carries them afar to places unseen. Somebody help me pull my mind back together so I can think in a logical order. Instead, I'm stuck in a memory I tried to snuff out. In the end it suffocates me with years of compounded questioning. And this part lets me know I'm going crazy: that in the fraught mania of lunacy I almost wish I had a God to cry to.

Brain chemistry is a great thing when it works right, BPD has made me appreciate any given normalcy. My fascination with gray matter (or white for that matter) preceded my post in the cell bio lab where many experiments were conducted on that wonderful organ tissue. Still, it's an conflicting idea to think of my brain as the subject - the specimen. To sit and probe my own thoughts, cut through the bullshit defense mechanisms throw up, and really examine through a critical eye what the monsters beneath my skull are up to.

My doctor tells me to get some rest, but realizes it's near impossible in this state. He prescribes two benydryl and bed rest. He'll see me in the morning. Did you know benydryl can be used as a lite sedative? Well it is and I need it if I want to reach even a illusion of emotional baseline. So, I put water on for tea while I try to regain poise. Pulling the tea bag from the packet, the message on the paper label starts to dry my eyes. They say: Those who live in the past limit their future. And nobody, especially my self, has the permission to restrict my potential.

The vortex into the universe

2010-11-29T13:37:00.003-05:00

If I was ever separated from someone at birth from some other being, it might be this girl. So she might be white and whose to say we're even the same age, but seriously, we might have known each other on some other astral plane. She brings up some very good points about vaginae (however I disagree with her stance on pornography). A good start for the vagina who, what, when, where, and how profile.

I love my vag, my box, my clam, my kitty, my pussy, my snatch, my slit, my muff, my twat, my beaver, my cunny. My womanhood! It's a power-box of hormone producing, life giving, pleasure inducing, energy. We should all get excited about them, think about them, talk about them, and respect them. If there's not a Vagina awareness day, let's make it everyday, now. (even you gay men, appreciate it!)

My vagina is my temple, worship it (and in it, meooow!). And if the vagina is not your religion, you should still respect it when you pass by. In the course of history, woman have gotten the dirty end of the stick when it comes to gender rights. Witch burnings, foot binding, honor killings, genital mutilation, sex trade, etc. those may be the extreme, but that does not dilute the disrespect in daily life. So it's not so bad here, but I won't be the one excusing wolf whistles and grabby hand syndrome.

It's tough on a girls mentality when she's raised as second rate. When a boy child is held higher then an infant girl, it's sad because what happens is this build up of pressure creates walls around people. When women are trapped into thinking their fate is to be caught in the domestic Bermuda Triangle of kitchen, bedroom, nursery. That's no way to live if we are to self-actualize and that should be the goal of both chicks and dicks.

The world moves forward when we all move forward. You can't get that far if one leg is chained to a fix point in your jail cell, now can you? Our mentality is that jail cell and the length of that ball and chain is something we can determine. Free yourself and spread the word, others can free themselves too! Cure cancer? Sure, why not? Colonize the moons around Jupiter? Let's do it. We can do impossible things if we just stop holding each other down. We'd free up a lot more working hands if we did that.

Kiss me into consciousness

2010-11-15T12:17:00.000-05:00

I'm laying in bed, naked under the sheets. Behind the heavy black curtains the sun pours in around the boarder and the room begins to glow. I notice it only faintly at first. The way you notice someone watching from across the room. This vague sense of attention directed towards you when you're caught off guard. Steadily it gets brighter until the room seems to fill like a basin of water. Radiant yellow-white light splashing all over, painting a picture of the world outside these four brick walls. Then suddenly I'm no longer in this room, I'm everywhere but this room. I'm outside and inside my mind. I've fallen asleep and found the sun in dreams.

One 12hr midnight dreary

2010-11-10T05:26:00.000-05:00

It's 4am, then it's 5. The test tubes tink and chime against the metal rack, in time with my steps. These halls are empty, quiet if you're not used to the calm. The hospital in the day is a different creature than what you would expect to encounter in the middle of the night. From here in this far corner, I can hear everything.

The city is lovely from up here. Most laboratories are in the basement, so I feel lucky to have a view from the 6th floor. There's a glass bridge that connects the newer part of the hospital to the older structure and each time I cross it on my way to deliver specimens to micro I feel like I know the city a little more personally. A secret place where Detroit reveals itself to me in a way most others are not as privileged to see. The nature of my job affords me the simple pleasure of watching the sunrise behind the Fischer building, my favorite structure.

With 6am comes the slow trickle of fresh specimens. All around me patients are stirred to rise, prodded by their nurses to expose their blue veins to the needle or to void the contents of their bladder. In another hour I'll be heading out of here, leaving the hustle bustle of the day for the comforts of a pre-warmed bed and a sleepy lover.

Moments like these are small blessings. A slow night that affords me just a little time for reflection. For once in my short life I can honestly say I'm really proud of myself. I did all that the 18 year old set out to do and I even got a title out of it. I never in my wildest, most tripped out hallucinations did I imagine I would get to do all these awesome things before my quarter life.

I passed my exam now it's onto the next. I've decided to take it relatively easy on myself and just get really good at my job for the time being. In a few more grand in the bank and I'll start taking a classes that will gear me up for grad school. But before I devote myself to my studies once again, I'm goin to get really good at what I'm currently doing, because everything I do now is a lesson, preparation for working out in the field. Since the laboratories the the most dire countries won't have the luxuries I'm use to. I'll have to rely on my collection of knowledge if I mean to be of service.

Le sigh

2010-11-08T11:41:00.000-05:00

Human lives are funny to me when I think of all the connections. When introductions become reunions, I feel like the world gets a tad smaller. As if my perspective of the human population inflates and deflates, depending on the degrees of separation between the people that pop in, out, or just pass by.

Which is why I love reading the missed connections part of the paper. It makes me feel a little like I'm catching a secret glimpse into the lives of two strangers whose fates have not been forecast. My imagination gets swept up in a Hollywoodesque fashion as I weave a silly story about someone getting what they were searching for. So of course she's slim and beautiful, he's tall and rugged. She's got the glamor and he's got the suave. Cue the music. Act 1.

Unfortunately, not everyone gets what they're looking for. No matter how much gusto they put into their manhunt. Which gets me thinking, how much have I invested in all my quest/conquest? Since I run around like a woman on a mission sometimes, how much of that effort actually came to fruit? It's a good question to ask, but my imagination neglect to hear it. It's busy writing away at some script that will never get read, because if anything it likes to explore possibilities.

Reincarnated Lab Rat

2010-10-10T10:24:00.001-04:00

It should be noted from now on, the definition for morning has changed in my book. Working midnights has made me flip and body slam my schedule. The new parameters for "good morning" are highly variable and poorly defined. I sleep when I can find sleep and I'm alert when ever it's convenient. I feel like a little nocturnal critter, scurrying around under the cloak of night who nibbles to identify :3 my mousy whiskers tickling your face while you sleep. Eep eep!

My poor social life has taken a hard hit. I missed seeing my girls last night because I couldn't wake up (slept a solid 15 hours). Just the thought of it makes my lip quiver. The homos and home girls in my life add that necessary color and spice. They are the external part of my brain, since they always have something wise to say among all the stupid, silly, funny, and vulgar shit that flies outta their mouths. When the shit in my head swirls around so fast I get nauseous, they're the ones who help me pick apart what's in the vomit and say "hey, maybe it was that undigested piece that did it."

The hardest part about working the third shift is salvaging a routine. For being someone who has lived the last half decade with weeks, even months, outlined ahead of time this lack of a program is a little liberating while simultaneously unnerving. This much freedom to do as I please certainly leaves me flopping around on the shore. I kept my pace by the crack of the whip and without it my steps are too close to make any distance. Still, I am glad for it for it's time to develop and nurture my other side.

By this point, I am still acronym-less. I made the executive decision to postpone my test. Old girl had a moment of Holy-fuck-how-am-I-going-to-make-this-work. I guess the weight of what I had to reacquaint myself with kinda freaked me out and I had to take a few steps back. The biggest chunks of the exam are chemistry, hematology, and microbiology. Then there's a few misc topics like immunohematology (better known as blood bank), immunology, molecular diagnostic, urinalysis, coagulation, and body fluids. I've knocked out most of these with the exception of micro. Son of a bitch. Two weeks will be enough time for me to digest what I've regurgitated.

Eventually, this little lab rat is going to outgrow this little lab cage and it'll be inevitable to search the rest of the Earth's landscape. Detroit was a perfect place for me, it compliments while giving me ample opportunity. It's here I've sat and let my ideals ferment. So one day I'm goin to BUST outta here! But Mother Theresa did say: we can do no great things, only small things with great love. I take that to heart, internalize it, and will try to live with it always present. I am but a stepping stone.

Fortune cookie wisdom

2010-09-25T08:03:00.002-04:00

Oh boyfriend troubles. Happens to most of us and the best of us don't it? That's excluding the strict hetero-males out there. I don't know how it got into my skull that I was special enough to be exempt from it. I suppose it's that sense of self-entitlement I've nurtured in the sunny patch of my secret garden. Funny the way we savor the fruits of self-imposed delusions.

"Oh, that will never happen to me ...

BECAUSE I WILL DIP AND SPLIT AT THE SLIGHTEST SIGN OF TROUBLE"

That's right folks. When the going (or the loving) gets tough, I get gone. Unless it's the right kind of "tough" loving I like. We know what I'm getting at. See, I've never been dumped before. Except for that one time, which gets diluted by the string of break-up-make-up that summed up a juvenile relationship I ended permanently (two years later). A large part of that has to do with the fact that I will see myself out the door long before I can establish emotional bonds. Without a moments notice nor hesitation. Ok, that's the whole reason I've never been dumped before. Or it could be that I'm just a secret siren who captivates the integrity of men and they just can't leave. right.

To the unaided eye, you could say most girls have a beating heart. Me? I've traded mine in for a canary in a cage. Got it off a coal miner who quit the trade. Figured it'd save my life one day. Because oh, the way it hurts! To be cheated out of sincerity. Right when you thought to yourself "I've finally found some security". But it just ain't the truth. It seems some of us just don't hold the same values. They're just a sweetheart dealer in it for the fame. They've been doing it since they were knee high to a grasshopper, addicted to the game. So, don't blame me for taking out a full coverage insurance policy. With all the dogs roaming these empty streets, you'd be a fool not to take some drastic measures to ensure the protection of your private property. i.e. your heart.

Still, I'm not quite convinced I've auctioned the whole organ away. Call me a sentimental creature but I've saved a piece to peek at on rainy days. Just the ragged corner end to remind me that one day I'll meet someone who'll work with what's left. Since the scraps are all I've got to bargain with. I've looked for the missing pieces long enough from the ones who took them, ate them raw and shit them out. All the wishing won't get those pieces back, they're as good as fertilizer anyways. Sure, this heart might be broken and torn from use, but I'll cut you a honest deal I hope won't get refused.

They day you think no one can touch you will be the moment they wreck your sorry ass. I learned that being a tough cookie means never crumbling, but who really wants to eat that cookie? The one that's been left out longer than the rest of the package to dry up by it's lonesome. It's not a tasty morsel. Rather, it's more savory to be that soft 'n chewy and in this case a little nutty

Hustle and Flow

2010-09-07T20:48:00.000-04:00

Slowly. Ever so slowly I'm turning these cranky, rusted, mental gears back into motion. So, it's apparent I've taken a hiatus from any sort of academic work. Actually, I've been pretty lazy. Period. If you could track my productivity, it flat lined completely. Mail strewn about mostly unread, some unopened. All my papers, printouts, textbooks, etc have just been piled on the floor, under my desk, on top of my dresser, leaving just enough room to get from door to bed, bed to closet. It's more like I use my room as storage while finding more comfortable spots to lay my head, e.g., next to his.

So my medical laboratory scientist, MLS (ASCP) examination is scheduled for October 6th. That's just one day short of a month to prepare for the biggest, baddest, exam I've taken thus far. Alright, I'm being dramatic - but it is of utmost importance. Everything I learned (or neglected to learn) is going to determine if I get to tack an acronym onto the back of my already lengthy name. My first acronym! I am so very close, I can almost taste the alphabet soup.

Summer is quietly retreating into to the year and early signs of fall have been at the edges of my vision. Fall is my favorite season, I feel like it's more lively than spring. You can hear the wind and feel the air. The explosion of color on every tree forces me to slow my steps in order to capture the entire spectrum of the season. I have more associations with the autumn than I can count. Maybe it's the persistence of bon fires and free flowing beer around them. Maybe it's the chill at dusk that makes you cuddle a little closer to your babe. Maybe it's that budding feeling of something new, something happening right on horizon.

The Earth blinks once and it'll be a new year soon. It's time to wrap it up and say you did something this year. If you haven't then you better hustle! The silly little dreams I glued together as a little girl are fitting into the frame wood of early adulthood! Now, to start building a foundation for the next generation of hopes and dreams which I will soon reveal after this first milestone.

Long way home

2010-08-18T12:44:00.000-04:00

Just like that I find myself in the "working" world. I've arrived at this distant location, hours away from my usual perspective. It seems like nothing has actually changed, since I've always been working. The minute I turned thirteen I found myself trapped in my uncle's dingy kitchen, working phones and counter at a little restaurant in a shitty neighborhood. I experienced my first armed robbery there at the age of three. So fitting I return at thirteen, this time risking my social life. Alas, I've always known steady work and made it habit to hold down at least one if not multiple jobs at once. By now, I get this strange sensation when I don't have imminent work pressing down on me.

I'm still trying to discern the pivotal modification that occurred when I became a citizen of the "working" world, since people keep welcoming me to it like I've never been. Their reactions make me feel like a tourist, a foreigner to this place. Like I should be walking around with that absent starstruck glaze in my eyes while in this region of employer paid health and dental. A fertile place for your 401k to grow strong and healthy. The land of plenty, plenty of retirement benefit options. Just a few details in the smoke, really. These seemingly minor alterations in the fine print of my life make the biggest difference. Man, I finally get that coveted 401k and does it make me feel any different?

In fantasy it always feels different to finally get what you've wanted. In fantasy, the picture pivots around you, the only anchor in fantasy. Building dreams through grains of sand, alterations easily made and without trouble. Suppose that's where the trouble lies, a foundation laid in loose sand holds no ground. So that any direction our will takes, keeps us relatively in one place. The true cornerstone is manufactured in reality, and it's got a decent warranty.

Reluctantly, I must look for better real estate in real life, since the commute from fantasy land to the working world is brutal during rush hour. I have a really cozy little place in fantasy land. It's fully furnished with hard wood floors and an open kitchen. It's perfect for little ole me and it's got those huge floor to ceiling windows I'm absolutely in love with. Still, I think I'm overdue for a change in scenery. This naturalization in the great union of "the working world" has me thinking assimilation is unavoidable.

Old As The Sun But Ageless

2010-08-03T08:52:00.000-04:00

Good things come to those who wait. To those who seldom need to ask of others. Good things come in the nick of time and often in disguise. So don't fret my friend, your good thing is in transit and will arrive just when you think it's too late. The idea that something can be too late is a little absurd to me. Perhaps because my concept of time is that of an awesome lemniscate and it is only your false need that make the situation finite. The universe does not set a deadline, does not give you an ultimatum. Time is giving and time is patient. Time will survive your petty desires long enough to make you feel foolish.

It's not often that I will readily think of humans as absolute individuals. You could argue this point and I might even entertain the idea. Still, the more dominate side of me wants to maintain the image of a collective consciousness. Like time, bodies climb the corporeal peak before decay settles and the dissolution of our chemical cogs into availability provide necessary components to allow the rise of new molecules. We'd like to think we are unique but in truth we are composed of nothing but second-hand-gently-used-periodic-elements.

This infinite loop plays like a tape: you are but a speck of debris on a grain of sand, but those things you feel, the thoughts you think - are ever so deep and endless. You'd think no one else in existence could fathom this instance, this personal investment. No one could understand it and this loneliness in the depth of your own emotion makes you feel singular. It becomes another reality. Within myself I can find an eternity to occupy me, which I suppose is complimentary to this insignificant reality.

It's a daily practice to remind myself that I am nothing special, which is just my mechanism to free myself of inherent selfishness. I catch far too many people using their conscious or subconscious feelings as excuses and I will not be among them. My dreams, my love, my sadness, my pain will one day dissolve into the pattern and nothing I have done with this life will survive longer than a few cycles. Inventions in idol minds serves only to extend the links in this ball and chain we all share. How can we reach the surface of true understanding if we're anchored to a sinking ship? So for the transient good of all Earthlings, I suffer for your sake. For there will come a time when I am able to relieve some of that weight from your shoulders so that you may enjoy the remainder of what's in that hour glass.

Little fly,

Thy summer's play

My thoughtless hand

Has brushed away.

Am not I

A fly like thee?

Or art not thou

A man like me?

For I dance

And drink and sing,

Till some blind hand

Shall brush my wing.

- William Blake

Songs of experience

"The Fly," Stanzas 1-3

(1795)

Prescribed Lunacy

2010-06-13T20:50:00.000-04:00

My mind is reeling. I see the end of the funnel. Things that couldn't have happened faster are happening too fast! Maybe not too fast, maybe at the perfect pace and I've just got some catching up to do. Since DEMF, my time line has been a little off kilter. I guess 72 hours of partying without a hot meal will do that to a girl, but it's going to take more than that to throw off this bad broad.

About two weeks ago, my world got blown up. Little pieces of my security rained down and scattered the projected picture of my near future. How. Fucked. Up. Henry Ford had been teasing us with jobs since we got there. Dangled this plump carrot in front of our little pink noses while we sweat it out. They had us in a frenzy, all hot and bothered, we wanted it so bad. God dammit if they don't tell us there was a hiring freeze...

My weakened resolve at this point was susceptible to the smallest of external influences. Naturally, I came down with a case of the fuckitalls. It had been floating around, a few of my friends had it, but I got it worse than most. Luckily, I have a tried and true homeopathic remedy I take for this kind of illness: a healthy dose of my own homemade tincture of mayhem. Usually does the trick but I topped it off with a few milligrams of recklessness just to be on the safe side of mental health.

Thank my lucky stars the universe watches over me. Count me among the fortunate to be so blessed. I made it out of DEMF, not a casualty of the festival weekend (God bless those who did not) or a victim of my own device. Instead, I gained much more than I could have anticipated. And ya know what? It happened under the guidance of a full moon.

One week later, I got a job interview. Now we're up to speed. There's one week left of my internship. This Friday I'll be able to check off one more thing of my to-accomplish list. I'm a little nervous about my micro and immunology exams, but I'm sure I'll do fine. I'm pretty sure I feed off this sink or swim pressure, otherwise why would I consistently set myself up? It's true, I'm a masochist to the core. I've acquired a taste for it by now.

Tomorrow, I interview for a full time position (full benefits and a 403k, son!). Come Friday, I'll knock out those exams. By Friday night, I'll be in Chicago with a bucket of red paint and a head full of fun. I can't wait!

Tunnels have no light

2010-06-06T02:17:00.000-04:00

Wishing. Wishing upon a star. Wishing results in scars. Wishing behind these bars
in a four chambered cell I lay. Moving in circles day to day. Wishing that I had just stayed away.
Cycles round the way cycles go. Most times truth never shows. My heavy heart is beating cold.
Wishing is a worthless thing. Actions blending all the same. Curse the day I spoke your name.

It's not the time nor the place. These seething steps won't be retraced. This time I won't hesitate

to take vile intentions. Stuffing them inside meager dimensions. So I can suffocate our deceptions.

Nuh Cry

2010-05-26T22:15:00.000-04:00

Here it goes again

Heels hitting hard on pavement

This backwards direction I'm headed in

These bricks walls controlling

every movement

Can't be lost without direction

Here I go again
Places once seen before
Bumming change to make a call
Sewer steam provides the heat
rolling down the empty street
The avenue of broken dreams

Here we go again
The same story gets rewritten
the script is ripped and dog eared
A decade ago we could have cared
but that sentiment expired sometime last year

Here I go again
backseat driver of my own mind
Here we go again
Lessons unlearned, progress hits rewind
Here it goes again
Just like every other time

The dusk settles discretely

with free ignorance
Discovered every way

to become indifferent
Just by making masters

out of petty experience
standing on the precipice

of a life away from this

History repeats perpetually

crunch of earth beneath the wheel

Gagged and bound

The spokes go round

Until I've been right side down

Right and wrong start blending in

with every revolutions spin

the end result is always one

the knots that tie

they come undone.

A gramme is better than a damn

2010-05-24T08:31:00.000-04:00

Periodically, reading a work of fiction is a way in which to reset the buzz of frenzied thoughts. Few things better than an escape into the land of literature; a time to be alone in the quiet of the mind. Sometimes I feel as if I'm drowning in a sea of dry text. Reference books the size of cinder blocks anchoring me in the deep, leaving it up to the imagination to speculate what the surface might be like. I can only guess how the weather is up there, through the scattered transmission of light to the bottom. Like shadows on the cave wall, the world outside is just impressions on the ocean floor. So I read to pass the time, since I'll be stuck here for some time.

Finished Brave New World by Aldous Huxley early this morning, around 8 am. I realized while I was writing this that I subconsciously select books that reflect the environment I'm in. While I was working in the neuro lab with paraplegic rats, I read Misery by Stephan King. I didn't even make the connection in Brave New Word until 4 chapters worth of oh-my-Ford's. Maybe it's a magic trick and if I read more books about where I want to be, I'll end up there.

Mid way into Brave New Word, there was almost a complete agreement with their new world thought. It sounds like a perfect place to exist. No parents, no children, no family. Isn't that where most our problems stem from? The nuclear family is breeding ground for mental monsters, a place where defense mechanisms are built - assembly line style. In a world where "everyone belongs to everyone" there would be no lonely nights suffering the betrayal of a trusted lover. Pain in any form is terminated with a soma. How splendid.

Take in account the control over population growth. The end of poverty, starvation, war. A world in which we not only accept but have pride in our station, wherever it might be in the caste system. All that has to happen is an exchange of free thought for social security. On a good day, I might not agree with the forfeit of my individual. However, today is not that day. On days, weeks, months, like today. I'd gladly give it all away.

Huzzah!

2010-05-08T10:04:00.001-04:00

Commencement was yesterday and the expected feelings that accompany this kind of accomplishment kind of came and went all too quickly. If my graduation was a transcendental wind then my sentiment for it was just a discarded paper bag (that once held a 40 oz) blowing down Woodward. I played the part decently. When my name was called I stepped forward, paused for a picture with the dean and my diploma, and shook hands with the president all the while smiling bright. While in my head I reminded myself to mind those steps to avoid tripping and breaking my nose in front of everyone.

On this day of accomplishment and celebration, I was not at all mentally present. It had nothing to do with being hung over. Although being a little hung over would explain the way I dressed myself. For the whole prelude before we actually walked, I was doing voice overs in my head. Making my own captions for the faculty sitting on stage, pretending this was Hogwarts graduation, and trying to chronologically remember the events of the night previous. Oh God, I was losing myself to boredom and I had to make my escape. But the college of social work and nursing still had to walk and if I waited for them to have their moment, I'd never get my lunch!

Call me selfish, call me rude, I won't mind it. Not for a second longer could I sit through any more and I knew my parents wouldn't want to either. I had to make my escape. The only part of that day I will hold any semblance of reverence towards is when I saw my dad. He came at me with open arms and gave me an affectionate hug. He said he had been waiting for this day. I'm going to take that moment and put it in my lock box of feelings. My family is not particularly a touchy family, unless you're getting hit. So anything more than a pat on the back is as rare as finding a deep sea angler on the shore.

Do you ever feel like life is a funnel and time is some kind of liquid being poured into it? I'm just riding the currents that become swifter as the diameter narrows and who knows what waits for me upon my exit. I have tentative measurements for how my time will be allocated to finally get where I've been wanting to go. Excitement time! I'm moving along at a steady pace, getting things done day by day. I'm going to mark this milestone with some ink!

Help me, I'm hit.

2010-05-01T15:55:00.000-04:00

I almost died yesterday. Internal, visceral, combustion of the heart, it almost happened. It suddenly dropped in my chest and almost ripped from it's aortic support. The grim reaper came in the form of an e-mail that informed me of a final grade posted; a final grade of incomplete.

I read this e-mail on my break before I was due to take my final practical in blood bank. Lord, I almost died. Getting an incomplete means I don't graduate and commencement is in one week. My grandmother flew in from California to watch her oldest walk. The shame and guilt of having to confess I tripped one step from the finish line would have done me in. It also means I would have to wait until this time next year to redo my rotation in chemistry, my most dreaded subject.

Be like water my friends, but sometimes you only achieve rock status. When something like this comes around and knocks the wind out of me the only way to keep forward momentum is to put it away. Push it all the way down and vacuum seal the bitch to reduce it's volume in your mind. Because my life is busy and I have no time for emotions that hinder my industry.

But to be honest, I had trouble doing that this time. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes as I wrote down my results and gave my interpretation of the data. I wanted to find a quiet place where I could just cry into my knees - but there was no time for that. After my practical I had to go straight into work and be there for the next six hours. There was no time to cry, thus there was no time to feel. Be a stone cold slab of rock my friend.

Even after I got an email back from my professor saying not to worry, I was still left in this state of shell shock. The grade was only a technicality, since our semester runs differently because of the program, a grade had to be submitted to the university before actual completion. Although I knew I was alright, I no longer felt alright because with chemistry I only aimed to pass. It made me question the strength of my foundation. In the subjects I hate, I lower the bar for myself. As if getting pass it was good enough. With that kind of mentality, what degree of confidence could I claim when declaring my ability to complete the task I set for myself?

My father didn't raise me that way, to only do a job just good enough. So because I know better than to make excuses for myself, I've let myself down. I go through these cycles of being a socialite only to recede into the hermits shell when I feel I'm not working up to par. I think it's time to find some balance, some harmony. It'd do a world of good for my sanity.

Despite whatever gets in my way I will achieve what I say I will. Even If I have to drag myself bloody and broken, I will get myself there. Nothing in the world is easy and if it were I wouldn't want something so cheap. An easy conquest is nothing to write home about and I've been away for so long that when I come home, I will have so many words to live up to.

Keepin It Real

2010-04-24T13:37:00.000-04:00

One thing that annoys me more then a dog sniffing at my ass is a dog with an Asian fetish. Men can be such disgusting creatures. Seriously? Should I serve you tea in bed too? Accessorize only with chopsticks? Learn never to lift my gaze past your chin and be more than obedient? I'm sick of the way men think they can talk to me, as if I were an object. I was made in China, but I'm not cheap.

It's more then insulting when men expect ethic women to act a certain way. They classify you long before the first encounter and by then you've lost the ability to dispel the mythology. What stings more than the stereotype container they try to fit you in is the fact that you might have even wanted to like them. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice and you can go fuck yourself because this "freaky little subservient" Asian won't be.

Do I smell a boycott? Yes sir, it's true. I'm done with not only relationships but dating too. Oh god, I think I'm nauseous now.

My Dear:

2010-04-18T14:57:00.000-04:00

Chalking up all the times we lost ourselves in youth, so divine. The reckless hours that get devoured by a conscious gone sour. I can breath you in my hair. Each turn of my features, angled in disguise. You are mine. Together, so fine. my sweet lullaby, curled around your succulent thighs. I sigh, just to inhale in your feminine essence, a convalescence to your hungry cries. It's the way I've been transfixed by the witch that speaks with your honey lips. Cloaked in your gaze, to make this mortal woman but a slave. On raw crimson knees, I plead. Please, my eyes read.

Caged were creature

2010-04-08T22:09:00.000-04:00

I'm a crazy girl. In my skull it's a chaotic mess of fantasy and apprehension. Is it so bad that I've rewired the pleasure center of my brain to only be satisfied by the things I know I shouldn't have? Le sigh... What's a girl like me to do? They tell me no. Tell me to come out now. Tell me to act proper when there is no fun in that. There's no security outside my cozy little hole. I dug a ditch for one, dammit.

Sometimes I get angry at the whole world and feel like only a fist fight could fix it. Come on! With all your fancy speech and fake smile, I'll bust you in the mouth. That sick slimy grin of a sycophant. It makes me want to spit. I'm not inherently this way, just some nights I get this energy I carried home from the day. Can't shake it or break it, clings to me like used fly paper on the train of the most charming gown.

I have it in me to be an atrocious mademoiselle. Don't think for a second these chains could contain. I'm a reforming tyrant, and the last thing I need is for someone to tempt me. But for the greater good, I lock away the beast in me until it's safe to be around people again. Somedays it's too much for me to speak to them, to hear them, to look upon the ugly faces they wear. Mankind is one ugly collection of creatures. I've seen them in their truest form and it causes bile to rise up my throat, gurgling my words. I have no words for them. I will retreat to the comforts of my own mind and forget as best I can the selfishly sinful ways we treat each other.

I am not part of this, I'm an outsider looking in. I refuse to be part of your world.

Sun is shining

2010-03-26T08:10:00.000-04:00

Hello downtime. Automation in the lab has it's perks, like short turn around time and plenty-o-breaks! As annoying as it is to run quality control, I'm not going to complain about a 20 min break while assays are being run. I'm going to blog about it :)

Life has been busy (which is nothing new) but instead of the raging river my workload once was it's more of a steady stream now. I don't even need to use a planner anymore - it's gotten that good. For the past 3ish years my life was plotted points on a calendar. Days lived out before I got to live them. It was a sad state of affairs. It took much of the impulsiveness out of daily life and when I would try to take spontaneity back it was often destructive to my obligations. Bastard.

However much I hate sounding like a "planner", I don't think I have a choice in the matter. There is so much stuff I want to do this year and still more that I'm expected to do. I don't think I could manage everything without much paid deliberation. I picked up my cap and gown yesterday (Oh yeah, it's real!) and time suddenly sped up. By the later part of the summer I should be running free across the country if not the globe. It fills me with exuberance to know I'll be with my nearest and dearest, enjoying life without the weight of pending chores.

Graduation to me is analogous to birth. I've been stewing for a while in this academic womb and when I'm finally free of it's chamber, I will be my own individual. Finally, there will be time to think about myself; cater to my needs. Since I was a wee thing I've been faithfully conditioned to be subservient to everyone else. Maybe it's a part of eastern culture or maybe it's just pure BULLSHIT. Getting a degree is my last "duty" to my family. It's been the umbilical cord that's chained me to the floor my whole life. With my parents, the emphasis on education is not an Asian stereotype, but a radical militant belief.

This kind of upbringing makes me so unbearably ambivalent at times, I'm not sure wtf I should do about it. Is there anything that can be done to remedy this? If there is, give it to me doctor, stick it in my vein and pump it to my heart STAT. Life sucks, yeah - whatever. No one cares. Things are about to change anyways so I'm not sure why I'm being such a bitch. As soon as my wings dry, I'm booking. Gotta live life, break rules, and maybe even feel things. I guess I'll just sit in the sun until take off.

It's a good day

2010-03-23T07:59:00.000-04:00

I'm on break and watching the helicopter landing pad through the floor to ceiling windows in the cafeteria. The days have been peaceful as of lately. Can almost sense this blanket of calm, making me more complaisant than I could have ever imagined.

... I just heard a lady at the next table say "no one cares about New Zealand", I need not hear more. She was referencing places to drop/test bombs. A little perplexed I am at the backwards way of people. Then I wonder, are they backwards or am I just progressive? Use to consider humanity's inherent goodness but my postion is being challenaged. The harder I look the more I see the shit of human souls and this makes me reject my faith in Buddhist thought: to be human is to be high up in the reincarnation pecking order.

Dispite the ugly face my human siblings sometimes wear, I still find beauty their distorted ways.

In a bookworm's cocoon

2010-03-13T14:39:00.000-05:00

A woman on the bus walks on with a smutty novel under arm, depicting a shirtless man with a dame clutching at his leg. I notice it's a well worn book, many women have enjoyed it I'm sure. There was a library stamp on the top, so many women or just one really enthusiastic reader must have gotten off on that piece of work. It made me want to shine a black light over it - how much girl cum does a dirty library book contain? Enough to power a Betty Crocker crock pot I'm sure. Hungry for supper anyone?

Is a graphic sex novel a woman's equivalent to penthouse or playboy? Both are tools of satisfaction that trees where felled for. One just comes in pink and the other in blue. I smirk a little at this comparison, and find it black and white true. That a woman's brain takes at least 100 more pages to get off than a man's - who is satisfied with (and all over) a few glossy photos.

Reading a book takes time, since there is no point in furiously flipping through pages. It's also a very private encounter, one in which no one outside of you and your book knows exactly what's going on. Unlike a magazine, it's not on full frontal display and is completely acceptable in public. Not only that, it's very involving. The full picture is more of a puzzle, that takes it tantalizingly slow to finally come together.

Women's brains are needy due partially to it's invested involvement with emotions. Females are so fucking greedy for it; wanting the whole cake and wanting to eat it draped in metaphorical (but often times not) silk and jewels. In addition to physically having, most women expect emotional commitment. Blinded are they by this sickness they will supersede anyone viewed as a third party. So I guess you could use this breathy explanation as reasons why you had to burn that bridge, smash that windshield, or on any other occasion acted like a lunatic.

Romance novels are what I call a cheap and easy read. The plot is fairly simple and all the stories have been homogenized. Although intellectually void, it has it's niche in that part of the my female brain that is equivalent to the clitoris. Herein lies the distinction of our mentality as well as our human commonalities. Next time you call him a dog, there's a good chance you're a bitch.

Oi is Om

2010-03-10T16:30:00.000-05:00

I haven't seen my body in some time. It's been a minute since I've really had any one-on-one time with it. Sure, I see it. I notice it in mirrors as I am running from one obligation to the next. While getting ready for the day, I see glimpse of skin that appear when my clothes fall away. I register my image yet I neglect to give it any attention. I have not seen my body, not for all that it truly is. Over the duration of this hiatus I feel like I've become a stranger to my physical self.

In the middle of uttanasana (one of my most favorite poses) I suddenly became aware of my legs. The skin was dry, creating this reptilian pattern up to my thighs. They had become hairy since the last time I shaved them, which had to have been some time in early February. These knees of mine, did they use to be so ashy? The dawn of all these new realizations began to spread over the rest of my body.

How is my back? I haven't seen that in a while either.

Are my arms lean and tight or have they inched into flabby?

Christ, don't tell me my ass has turned to collagen!

It's a shame I've neglected the tangible part of my person for as long as I have. Pay respects where respect is due; this body has seen me through as many trials as triumphs. Who would I be without my dear body? Surely I am not just a mind, don't my neurons hold my memories? My thought patterns happen physically, so the two must be intertwined. Shame on me, for being so mean all this time.

Innocent when you dream

2010-03-01T10:04:00.000-05:00

From the perspective of natural selection it’s a reasonable expectation for us all to either die or adapt, as a collective. Pan out for the bigger picture and you see that personal suffering means nothing on the grand scale. The current of changing times sweeps us in which ever direction and our demise (or survival depending on a few things) will serve to support something bigger than us, bigger than all 6.8 billion of us (1). Suffering, then, is a perpetual circumstance that is inescapable to all living beings.

Life is married to suffering; it is the yin to being mortal. What came first - the egg or suffering? It begins in our mothers, who are the most vulnerable for the 9 months between conception and birth. Ask any woman who’s passed a person like a stool, it fucking hurts. The whole ordeal is only described as magical by the masochist or the anestatized. From there on, it’s a downhill slope - a constant struggle to find material to sustain our bodies by resisting homeostasis.*

For what? I must ask. Why do we do it? Do we really believe we are the chosen creatures on Earth, whose survival will somehow benefit our planet on a massive scale? Quite the contrary, but I guess that’s not yet been proven. Although it has been proven all the ways we’ve taken advantage of it in the course of selfish aims. I maintain that we can’t be more or less than equal to our animal peers. The qualities that make us unique don’t make us more privileged. Who the fuck is judging us? God? Puh!

I suppose the conflict I have with this topic has to do with the transference of pain and how much attention do we pay to it. Is personal suffering something that should be highlighted and actively resisted or should we accept it to a degree? Since our pilgrimage from pain ultimately amplifies afflictions, it is a selfish act to resist.

Many of the reagents used in the biological laboratory are extracted from animals(2). Anti-sera is collected from a large variety of animals and used widely in a number of laboratories. Producing anti-sera involves injecting substances into an animal before bleeding them out to collect only what you wanted to form. Since we know now that there are a multitude of factors to consider, there are animals specific to aims. We use rats, rabbits, mice, horses, pigs, cows, chickens, cats, dogs, monkeys, guinea pigs, fish, frogs, birds, etc. And that’s only a short list exclusive to biomedical research.

Our need for anti-sera can’t be replaced, it practically flows in the blood bank, thus our need for animals to suffer on our behalf won’t be replaced. To take the "moral" stance on this argument would mean no more surgeries. No more RH factor delivered to expecting mothers, meaning more dead babies. No more transfusions. You can’t check for a tumor without anti-sera to tag the malignant cells with. Without the rising cost of lives, many of the people in your life (if not you too) would simply not be there.

What are we to do? Are they not just like us too? Don’t dolphins fuck for fun just like us (3)? Don’t elephants average one per birth and have burial practices just like us? Monkeys even look like us and have thumbs like us. Birds can mimic us and speak like us. Dogs know shame, cats have autonomy. Pigs can even play the piano. Who are we to say what’s better; are two legs better than four or can I have two legs with wings?

I’m not making an argument for either side, because I’m still undecided. I’ve analyzed the situations from both perspectives. I was born into this world in a limited hospital in Southern China’s countryside. In these areas, most medical practices are contained to homeopathic remedies. Upon arrival into the states, I underwent heart surgery. Even as a three year old, I used at least 3.5 bags of blood to maintain my blood pressure during the operation. The first pump that set the standard for coronary operations was first tested on a number of dogs with no names, only numbers.

I think for the rest of my life, golden retrievers will always remind me about my functional heart. How I feel about this is a mixture of reverence and sadness. I’m thankful that I have a life to experience, without being a sickly child confined by her own body. If my heart became my cage, I think I’d lose healthy mental faculty and in lieu of natural selection, would quickly be weeded out. Can you blame a mother for desperately wanting to protect her children from circumstance? Is this not a quality ingrained in all animals across the board?

In the laboratory my interaction with people are limited to a name, DOB, and a barcode. The malfunction in their body starts a cascade and I see the end product. What I see is sometimes so objective, it takes you out of the realm of feelings. When you work in a hospital, the individual’s story is paled in comparison to the patient population. Your pity must only be momentary, you can’t save everyone and if you try it will take its toll. But if you get to know even one person’s story, their life, you want to save them. You want to be able to deliver them from their condition, but that in itself would mean fueling the other side of the equation.

It’s a daunting task to remedy this conflict. I wonder myself if I could and the answer looks unpromising. I will continue to work on the side of suffering in an effort to relieve suffering. It’s not because I think we are better than animals and so we can do this to them. Maybe I’m starting to accept this arrangement that suffering can never dissipate. Like energy it’s not created or destroyed, but flows around our world along the same waves as chi. Maybe there is no good fight to be fought, but an understanding to grasp. I guess when your expiration date draws near it’s your decision to make. A sole decision whose effects are expounded by events only the living will endure.

*Contrary to what you heard, true homeostasis would kill our bodies – why do you think we have ATPases? It’s not to keep the balance but to resist the balance. True balance rights itself and is incompatible with life. Osmosis is natural balance and that is exactly what we are resisting! Active transport, yo.

What the cat dragged in

2010-02-24T21:23:00.001-05:00

Wish I wasn't so good at making bad choices, would save me a whole lot of trouble. Making bad choices is like eating a gallon of ice cream. You know you'll regret it before, during, and even after consumption. Still, you find yourself reaching for it, can't stop your self from thinking about it. Scolding yourself while you're enjoying it. Maybe even moaning in the satisfaction of finally getting it. In that moment you wonder why you ever thought it was a good decision to go cold turkey. That is until realization bitches slaps you in the face upon it's departure. That, ladies and gents, is what makes my choices so damn poor. I know better but I never can get myself to act any better! What is it with pleasures of the guiltiest kind that are so irresistible? There must be some kind of fun I'm getting out of breaking rules I've made for myself. Must be. I can't be that illogical.

Fuck, I'm doomed.

A thing About Something.

2010-02-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

Just real quick, I'm going to bring us all up to pace. Started my first week in chemistry. It's been brutal. I've been quarantined in this corner of the lab where they do all the special chemistry test. The focus has been on SPEs (serum protein electrophoresis) and I must admit, my focus has been elsewhere. I need a coach. Someone to throw water in my face, hand me a towel, and bark at me to get back in there. Ding ding.
So about SPE, here is what I've gathered while operating on three hours of sleep. The principle of electrophoresis is just running a electrical current through this gel and setting up this perfectly charged environment for your specimen. Proteins in your blood, piss, and other leaky fluids (that carry a negative charge) are dragged across a gel they're placed on. The amount and kind of proteins found are of a diagnostic value, they can tell you how sick you are, how sick you might get, and why you're sick.

Step two: stain it with dye to visualize it. The type of proteins are broken down into 5 parts: albumin, alpha1, alpha2, beta, and gamma. The quantity of proteins are reflected in the width of the band (those areas that have stained darker). Final step, run it on a fancy densitometer and do some data crunching. Looking at this hot mess, you can see normal proteins present, characteristic abnormal proteins, and the quantity.

Take a look at each blip, each bump. By looking at the waviness of each peak you can determine wtf is wrong with the person. Is their gamma region out of wack? It could be multiple myeloma. A decreased albumin shows inflammation, look at the alpha1/alpha2 areas to distinguish between acute or chronic inflammatory states. Or maybe it could be an autoimmune disease... mhhmmmmm, this requires further investigation!

I am done with SPE today, tomorrow I start immunofixation! It's one step further than SPE. This is when you know your bands got a major malfunction and it's time to dig deeper. What kinda antibody could it be? IgA, IgG, even 'effin IgM?! haha, I'm so dramatic.

Tea for Two

2010-02-12T20:59:00.000-05:00

I shit this out the other side of my brain

My Sanctuary

2010-02-12T00:03:00.001-05:00

Microns

(Cryostat: slices and dices)

Sections of rat brains and spinal cord I sectioned

Electrophoresis. Electric current drags, in this case Candida prolepsis, DNA across the gel.

Lobby of the Lande building

Places where my days are spent, saturated in science. I've been settling into Henry Ford Hospital quite nicely, getting the hang of things quickly, and making friends while doing it. I'm going to credit my superior people skills, they've saved me hundreds already. I see possibilities around every corner and in every encounter. I feed off the energy in that place. It's my launching pad and I'm counting down.

Akins's lab is a cozy place for me. For reasons I fail to understand, I find refuge in research labs. Maybe it has to do with the fact I am unreachable when I retreat into those places. I emerge at my own free will or whenever the task at hand is complete. Often, the projected time of completion gets delayed which keeps me against my wishes, but it brings out something else in me. It makes me work harder, stay longer, be stronger. Constantly challenging my mental and physical limits. Fueling me to make bridges where synapses were once absent (and fucking crossing them!)

Although in ways this fluffs my peacock feathers in full display, some part of me wonders (quietly) if I'm just fooling myself. One hand pulls away the curtain while the other is putting on the charade and I ... well, I just sit there astonished. Suppose it's right, even wise, to chart the territory of your personal limitations.

Battle Ready

2010-01-31T18:49:00.001-05:00

Howling at the moon brings trouble. This recent wolf moon pulled the tides in the wrong direction, energies were whipping out of control. It was like watching dominos fall. By the end of the night, I was a bloody bitchy mess. Curious how things happen in consecutive coincidence. Curious indeed. Still, I've said it once and I think it still, I get everything I need even if I might not want it then. I guess I have an acute sense of where the silver lining is drawn. So here's my battle plan: RETREAT! I am no coward, don't you dare think it. I just know right now I need to keep this mortal body in anticipation for the next good fight. I think it best to just fall back and let my love ones rejuvenate me.
These next few months will be long and grueling. I decided I will not give up the job at the lab. I'll just cut out of my social life to make room for it. I have committed myself, so I can't back out now. I just have to learn how to build stamina and hold resolve. 40hrs of interning and 20 hours of working two different jobs. Sounds not so bad, but I get physically exhausted by the end of the day. Maybe it's because I try to pull 12 hour days 4 days out of the week. Oh well, what am I goin to do about it? Cry? Only if I can work through the tears. No time I say, no time! No time for lollygaging. Phase two of my battle plan is to start cutting people off. Sorry and so long! ;)

But this one, this one is tied to me:

Leashs, inches, and cookies

2010-01-25T21:43:00.001-05:00

Good then bad. Bad then better. Can't stay down forever. Money is on it's way and even though it's not in my pocket yet, the 3rd degree burns are. This past birthday weekend I took it easy in comparison to all my previous birthday bashes - there was no bashing my face on anything this time. A little sweat never hurt nobody, but someone gets hurt anyways. What am I suppose to do about it? Care? Highly unlikely.

Today sucked hard and I wish I could pinpoint why. My practical was graded. I got an 88% which is not bad by any standards (except Asian) but still served to irk me. Really pissed me off. I had a hard time containing my thoughts from going to the deep end and beyond. Today was my first day hating something that normally thrills me and for an instant it struck fear into me. Oh shit. Oh fuck. Wanted to curse the Gods, but fear of offending the savior made me mutter about a dozen different ways to fuck your mother.

I guess I have my dinner date with Melissa to look forward to. I can never be mad around her. She's one of the few people who can make my anger deflate, strip it away to reveal what I'm trying to hide behind that wall. Thank the Gods for it.

P.S. I also want to go see the crystal method but damn if they're not trying to rape us with those ticket prices. I think the shittier the week, the more likely I'll blow the money.

Forty Winks

2010-01-19T23:03:00.000-05:00

That song plays in my head. A sweet voice that says: closer to my dreams. It plays like a mantra for me, to remember that I too am going places, doing things. I won't be a fish in stagnant water. I'll be the moon that sways the oceans. The force that guides the wind. When the leaves emerge in spring, I'll be on my way. When the floras in full bloom, I'll be arriving at my destination. On those nights a clear sky illuminates our shadow, know that I did all these things for you. So we could be here, laying in the softness of all our hours like children in long grass. Sharing the symphony of the trees, that gently pluck notes from the strings for us, the conductors.

I have big dreams and a little head,
my mother said wrapping her arms
around my even littler torso.
I'll just have to carry my dreams
in my love handles
was my reply, sliding from her hands.

Anchors

2010-01-17T01:16:00.000-05:00

A few of my favorite things.

Credit: Kelly Karnesky

Kelly's been a friend who's stuck it through with me. Even when I was being the alpha bitchasaurs rex. He's made me cry and I've made him bleed. Despite the blood and tears, he's still ranks in the top three on my emergency speed dial list. He asked for criticism once and I said to him I didn't want to model for him anymore if I was going to be one in a million head shots. I felt like I was a little harsh with it but I've since taken that back, he's amazing.

http://www.kellykarnesky.com

Code Blue

2010-01-13T21:18:00.001-05:00

I think that heart surgery I had as a child was a flop. They sutured up the hole in the largest chamber, but they neglected to tighten the laces. Consequently emotions don't stick around long. Troubling symptoms arise. As fresh emotions enter my ventricles, they slip through the leak and mix with the used. Thus diluting everything I feel with a touch of the old. My heart sustains me, but serves only to suspended me in this comatose place. I don't have the mechanics to rise into consciousness. Still, this does not distress me. I lack the capabilities to feel even that.

Gung Hay Fat Choi

2010-01-09T18:11:00.000-05:00

Each year, I get two beginnings. If I made a resolution I fucked up I at least get another chance to redeem myself. And 2010, I need to cash in that second chance already. This year, the lunar calendar begins February 14th. It will be the year of the tiger, the third animal to finish the race. Would have been second after the ox if the rat had not been so tricky!

Here in the west, astrology is looked upon sceptically. Whereas in the east, these "superstitions" are taken much more seriously. The 12 signs have a significant cultural impact. For instance, my family excuses my behavior because they understand and have come to terms with my "tiger qualities". I am amused to no ends by this sheer acceptance of my (often poor) behavior, while my sister (the snake) is judged on a completely separate set of standards.

Honestly though, my sign is pretty on point with my personality. I am a little savage thing, I come with a lot of intensity, but I'm really sugar sweet if I let you get to know me. While I can be warm and loving, I've got a sharp eye and an even sharper tongue. It's not advisable to be on my bad side, that's where I keep my temper. However, If I love you then I will love you forever. I will move the sun for you if you needed warmth. I'd even give you my vital organs if we are HLA compatible. If we are not, I'd go-a-organ-hunting to sustain you. ;)

In our family, we all get an annual reading at the end of the year for the coming year. It's become ritual - just to check up on fortunes forecast. I listen intently when it comes to my work predictions and have her skip over romance. Even without a yearly report, I can expect this year to be a transformative one. Babies being born, people getting married, graduation, but I'd be a fool to fantasize about romance.

There is a lot for me to think about after graduation. There is even more that I want to do. I'm itching to go places, both physically and professionally. A heavy dread lays itself over me when I think of the possibility my dreams won't come true. Never, I say! By the Gods, I will not let that happen! Didn't I say I was going to wreck that glass ceiling with my forehead? Don't be surprised when broken glass rains down on you.

Death or Glory! Gung hay fat choi (Happy New Year!)

Counting Chickens

2010-01-07T18:26:00.000-05:00

I asked quietly. In fear the manifestation of thoughts to words would unravel my wishes. That if I had the nerve the utter it, the will of the world would crush it. So I asked quietly, so softly that the breeze scattered my question in all directions. Collapsing my straw house of desire in one singular puff. And I watched as it all falls down in a puddle at my feet, so quickly that it must have all been a dream.
Because I was out of wishes last night.
I have no more pennies and all the shooting stars have already fallen. There's a mess of broken wishbones around me. It's been ages since that well dried up.
No. I must not have asked out loud. Cabin fever drives us mad here. Delirium looks for shelter, finding cover in my long black hair. I can feel it's breath on my ear. Breathing in the delusion of fantasy, breathing out nothing but raw reality.

Girl Games

2010-01-05T21:08:00.000-05:00

I must proclaim, I am a silly thing. The majority of this weekend was spent personally torturing myself with paradox. I was a bundle of distress, both dreading and desiring the same thing: clinical rotations. Silly I am, to want to resist the very ambition I worked my sorry ass off for. Not only did I work myself to tears, I locked myself up to learn these things for it. I dumped boyfriends and girlfriends to make time for it. I spent a solid two days in bed, bawling my eyes out over one math class that almost kept me from this. Nevertheless, I was still a little apprehensive of beginning the next six months. I am quite the nonsensical creature.
I don't think I'll ever get it, but most the time I just need to be thrown into situations. Given ample time to rationalize does me no good. I do not prefer it. I would rather react then reason. I felt myself calm once I got into the cafeteria. It was swimming with white lab coats, scrubs, and stethoscopes. In scrubs myself, I felt like the ratio of faking to making-it was beginning to favor my legitimacy as a professional. Whoa...still feels strange to say that. Part of me will always feel like a student, always learning.
I start my rotation in hematology, which I am happy about. It's still fresh in my mind. Followed by coaguation, urines, chemistry, HLA (human leukocyte antigen), blood bank, microbiology, and serology. THEN, I graduate! To see the light at the end of the tunnel, nicely mapped out on a schedule for me...really drives it home.
Said to my dad today "I'm not a kid no more" and he almost spit on me in his retort. He said of course I'm not a kid, if we were in China I'd be married off. Guess what he neglects to understand is that I will always reserve part of myself for my inner child, the way I will always make room for myself the student. Without these two component of my personality I don't think I could live a happy and successful life. Why does everyone want me to "grow up" and be so serious? They can forsake that idea. I'll be a professional all day, but the night is mine to do as I please and if acting foolish is what amuses me, so be it!

Scholastic Rapture!

2009-12-16T23:49:00.000-05:00

It's coming so soon. SO SOON. Last set of finals for my undergraduate career coming to a bittersweet close. I feel like I'm breaking it off with an long time lover. It is a breakup, for sure. Sadness? None. Just a little nostalgia around the rim. Makes the picture fuzzy as I recall all that time spent feeding my head. All the blood, sweat, and tears. Long hours into the night, toiling, toiling, toiling, and nothing more. Sometimes avoiding the text. Most times spending those nights wrapped up in my orgy of books. Nothing in my non substantial life has fulfilled me so, driven me to tears, and encouragingly pushed me forward. Nothing.
My college days were typical in some ways, but not really what I expected. To be honest, I never expected to make it this far. Held my expectations low to the ground thinking that I'd just get an excusal piece of paper and get the fuck out. To do what again? Who knows what my 18 year old heart was thinking then...just that I had to run away to some place. That somewhere far away would be what I needed to find. I'd chance it.
It's by the grace of the Gods and no other that I have been delivered here. Saw the source of the shadows and tracing the walls of the tunnel I've found a way out. Honestly, I think it was more then serendipity that opened doors for me. Intervention of some ethereal kind that directed my eyes towards the audacity to believe in myself. I remember the exact moment, the way my eyes popped and my heart flared, when I saw what would be my guide during troubled times.
Einstein said something that's been sticking close to my heart/brain hybrid organ. He said that if he had gone to graduate school immediately following his undergraduate, he would not have had his sense of creativity that aided in discovery. That if he had gone the typical course 1.2.3 he would have learned what others learned. Did what others did. That he would either have to publish or parish. I take these words to heart. No sense boldly rushing into things, boldly going no where. If my heart is not in it, I will not go! If it take me several years of searching to find that subject that tugs at my heart strings and I never happen to find it, I will abandon my idea of graduate school. There. I said it.

Oh college days, so soon I'll be going away. Leaving you to your younger lovers as I go on the chase. Growing up and going on to the next place. What will be in store for me? The world? The sea? The rest of eternity? This time I'll be more prepared, to see the chances where I choose to care. Tee Hee <3

Final's Nuclear Reactor

2009-12-12T23:22:00.001-05:00

This has been a horrible week. The one that starts a day away, will be even worse. Maybe I'm just telling myself it's going to be one day worse then the next, when in reality it is not...and I'm just trying to deceive myself into a pleasant surprise by the end of all this. Lord, I'm not sure. All I know is that this whole process is taking chunks out of my composure - physical and mental.
I don't think I've ever had so many finals in one week. Coagulation lecture and Lab on Monday. Those case studies are going to FUCK UP my shit...I'm scared. She's going to give us test results and we're going to have to figure out diseases from that. Normally I like problem solving like that. It's actually easy in theory - you look at each test, figure out what is abnormal, based on that you match it up with what the malfunction in the correlating disease. Easy right? ONLY if you know the theory behind the test and REMEMBER the underlying cause of the disease. I, however, closed out the bar two weeks in a row and neglected to study these important aspects of the class. Oops.
Tuesday is a little better, I only have biohazardous training to go to for work. It's a hour long lecture and just eats up my time. Chances are I will sleep through half of it, if not more. That'll give me ONE day to study for molecular and virology, because I have to spend more time on biochem. Wednesday molecular, Thursday virology, Friday The Dreaded Biochem. Then I'll be free.
Friday. My last day of undergraduate finals. I won't have finals for a long time to think about. I can't wait to graduate and be a legitimate professional. I've been all sorts of worried about what I'm going to do after graduation, academic wise, and I've decided I should probably do nothing for a while. I need time to chill the fuck out and get my panties out of the bunch that's been there for 5 goddamn years. Christ, that's a life-threatening wedgie. Since I'll have a job, thus the income to run away, I'm goin to live it up. Invest in the important things, like music, shoes, leather, just to name a few. I'm done cultivating my brain. I think I'm going to focus my energy on ME and do what the fuck I feel like. Fuck everybody and their opinions, they can eat it!

If it wasn't for you

2009-12-11T00:04:00.001-05:00

I was hurtin today. Real bad. The kind of hurt that grabs at your breath. Pulls composure right up out from under you. I was in a world of hurt today, no amount of boo-hooing shed an ounce of resolution. None of my tears could wash away the decades, neither could they fill the void. My tears could replace the Pacific, but that's all they could do. Well...I guess they did do something else.
As my tears dripped off my face, they spelled out in morse code a cry for help and cast it off into the universe. Hearing my SOS, it replied in an overwhelming demonstration of love. It's amazing how even in some of my lowest points, I always get what I need. If even when through the muddled vision of sorrow I can't see, there will be a dozen hands to lead.
It's amazing how my dearest know. Like they coordinated amongst themselves what order to call me. I got 5 calls in a row. Had to say goodbye to answer the next. Now I have plenty to look forward to after this finals shit is over. I get to spend some quality time, instead of using my usual line "Can't, I have to study".
Love. It's the word of the day. Tiffany delivered good news. The baby will be born sometime around my birthday. My little goddaughter! She'll be born the year of the tiger, like me! I can't wait to see what hour she will arrive into this world. I can't wait to welcome this little critter to the vastness of possibilities.

Good girls doing bad things

2009-12-08T19:56:00.001-05:00

I need to regurgitate thought and make some room for coagulation. Not sure where to begin. I am strangely calm for such a hectic time in the semester. Could be because this feeling is shared with some of my nearest and it's always soothing to know others are with you: when you want to cry, when you're not sure where to go, when you feel so alone. I will probably not be this put together come tomorrow.
Good talks are hard to come by. People who you can vent to are even scarcer. My endurance come from the friends and people I surround myself with. They feed the good juju that my little body engine runs on. They don't know how much it means to me that they've made room for me in their hearts and their families. To make me their sister, their child's godmother, their bridesmaid this summer.
Lately I've been pondering what is more important? Obligations to family and community or the pursuit of personal happiness. One is more selfish then the other, but I can't decipher this from that. I suffer from an excess of love, like I should be sorry that I do things for my own sense of peace. Peace. Maybe that trumps everything else? You can almost pinpoint where I'm tearing in half with indecision.

So in lieu of this personal conflict I've constructed a (very personal and secret) project. It won't be easy for me to do, since it's so easy for me just to do as I please. Indulging every carnal pleasure has been my track record. Still, I think if I can achieve this I will be more at peace. If everything works out as I hypothesis, we will all be happy in the end!**

**When I say we I chiefly mean you and me
Shit, can't make the whole world happy.

Beep Beep

2009-11-30T19:14:00.001-05:00

Semester coming to a close...it feels like pending doom. doom. doom. doom.

After this, I only have to suffer a little longer. Just a few more months of agonizing torture, then my summers will be mine once more! They haven't been for quite some time, leased out to natural sciences. Curse my love for natural sciences!

I have a 4 page paper to write. I'm ignoring this pending feeling. I think I like the pressure. This reinforces my masochistic tendencies. However, I did get to spend some in-between-time with the United Nations Trio (Brandy, Levon, and I). Needed that, sorely too. They anchor me, especially when I'm confused (which be often). It's funny the things I don't have to say, because they finish my sentences. <3

Anyways, procrastinate no more. Pending doom. doom. doom. must be attended too. That and hematology.

P.S. - I am going to assist in a neurosurgery experiment on a pig tomorrow. It's getting an MRI. In other news, I extracted genomic DNA from yeast. It smelled like bread and was soft like toothpaste. I screwed up 2 times, getting it on the 3rd try. (rawr) Made some dilutions and called it a day. After tomorrows pig experiment I'm going to run the PCR. Will report back shortly. I'm super excited about this piggy event.

Flies in a web

2009-11-23T14:18:00.000-05:00

Exploring dangerous territory, I am. Don't go there, they said. But I'm going to go there and I'm coming back with all limbs intact! So what's a few broken hearts? Nothing new, I say. I'll just play this game until I'm bored or until I lose - but be warned, there is no winning. The coffee shops and local bars of this metro area will be my stage. We'll say our lines and make our exits. Tomorrow there will be another play.

Fools - we are all just fools in life's masterpiece and I, the foolish juggernaut. I have no qualms with that. Although the fool is an imprudent character who shows no concern with proper judgment, don't let my colorful outfit deceive you. These bells are made to distract you. And this smile is made to persuade you. I am only as innocent as you think it. As free of guilt as I can maneuver.

Still, you can't blame the fool for fooling you. It'd be improper and rude to turn folly's double edge against a friend like that. I mean only to play and play to have fun. To make laugher in the lives of me and mine. Don't deny yourself that, if you ever shared a moment of it. Have the sense to know that if you're not up for the games, don't make a wager with the jester.

When I see the prize I want, I barrel through any obstacles to obtain it. To hold it in my hands and shelter it with my smile. And when I see another trophy, the change in my trajectory might trample some things underfoot. Chances are that I wouldn't even notice what I leveled in my wake. Even if that was something I previously cherished (Well it aint no more!). My fancy is fickle and my attention span minimal, but I'll always remember my affections ... for my blood meals. ;)

Testing. Testing. 6 6 6

2009-11-19T11:12:00.001-05:00

I think it's time for a moral reality check. As much as I'd like to ignore all my ethical trespasses, I can't bring myself to do so for much longer. It only takes until the night, when I'm alone, long enough for me to stew on my actions to know what I did was wrong. Lord, I'd like to ignore so many things. The path to atonement starts with owning your sins. I must admit, I've done somethings -many things, wrong. I'm not just guilty for my actions, but it's my intentions will be what condemn me.

I know better but seldom do I act better. If I can put space between whats right and wrong, chances are I will justify the shit out of them until they some how seem less bad - arguably better. I use to live by a moral code of conduct. I've always kept the three fold law close to my heart. So when I know I did something to another that would break my heart to pieces if done to me, I begin to feed this fear within. Setting myself up for severe pain, so much that I cause my own to avoid another imposing it on me. Funny the way karma works. I've consistently been on the lookout for other people hurting me, but I've been punishing myself for years.
Still, even with all this guilt, paranoia, and remorse - there is a big part of me that tells me I will most likely go on sinning the way I enjoy. What is so wrong with me that I don't have to will to quit hurting people? Am I really that selfish? When it comes down to it, do I have a container for my soul? If I didn't know, that would be one thing. But I know better, I know I'm hurting people and myself in the process. I know it's not worth it. Still, I continue to do it. I continue to feed the monster bits of my flesh. It's never enough, its hunger consuming. In the end will I be skin and bones, or will it want those as well?

You and me and me in you

2009-11-17T13:31:00.001-05:00

Ready? Steady, Go!

You're pace is much too slow!

If you got into this race

Don't you forget to replace

That old shoe for the other

Maybe one from your mother

it'd break her heart

to watch you fall

From the dreams

that made you tall

And made you strong

To make you whole

Around the world we'll steadily go

Searching for the finish line

Will you try to be here by dinner time?

I could be blind

I could be deaf

still I'd know you if you left

the smallest remainder of your self

I'd still recognize it in one guess

It's because I love you best

My dear friend, my old foe

in foolish competitions

as in rowdy digressions

For who else could there be

For me to waste most all of eternity?

Old man methodologies

Meteors govern astrology

Spinning a thick narrative

Did he ever forgive her for

her audacious perspective

she'd never back down

he'll never stand up

The stars aligned in a stand still

While planets collide at will

Surrounded in an apocalyptic convocation

of these two spirits volatile delegation

Can you guess your number?

A timeline in a coffee stain

2009-11-11T21:27:00.000-05:00

My face is warm. My hands are cold. I'm at the coffee bean, where random musicians come and go. Sometimes strangers, sometimes weirdos. Sometimes ex-boyfriends, sometimes new friends. Most times just the barista and the smell of freshly baked goods. Endless cups of coffee and my pen for company. I come here to be alone sometimes, but alone amongst people. Alone but for my thoughts. I like to come here and just observe, I'd like to avoid speech if possible. I like to make up stories of the stranger sitting adjacent from me. What's his story, where's he from. Where is he going and can I follow him? I've followed many strangers out of this place. Sometimes into alleys. Sometimes to their cars. Sometimes to the bar.

I still think of Bob once in a while. I met him my first year in college. He told me stories, clearly lies. I went a long with them, asked questions in fascination about his travels to the Arctic. I knew he was a homeless bum. He took his baths in the fountain, always kept the mugs for coffee later, and only purchased chips for 50 cents. I could always count on him to be here when I just wanted some company. Once he showed me into the back garden of a church where we smoked a joint. I haven't seen Bob in quite a few years. I wonder where he lays his head now. I once made the mistake of sitting behind him when we gave him a ride and he smelled like month old rotting socks...if socks could rot.

I met one stranger, who's name I can't recall. I think it was Jeremy. He introduced me to Lisa when I followed him out to the barn. The first night I met her, we got naked under the light of a full moon and jumped in to the warm water. I met a bipolar crazy here, we talked about nothing important to me and vital information to him. After two hours, he swore his love and asked for my hand in marriage. I later met John, in a loose association. Should have known.

Now, I bring strangers here and if I like them enough, I might lead them into a dark alley. My exams - all taken. Not another set for at least a month. Derek appears from the doorway and brings with him a hoard of new strangers. With nothing better to do, no class tomorrow, I think I'll just follow them to whatever bar stool they land on. Coffee is magic and I won't remember their names twenty minutes from now.

RIP David Simmermon

2009-11-10T19:12:00.000-05:00

Our revels are now ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-cappd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded in a sleep.

Let it be

2009-11-05T21:37:00.000-05:00

I have simple needs. My wants may seem a little complicated, but they're on par with my needs. I don't want anything I don't need. My needs consist of food. My want is that I have someone to cook and dine with. I like to cook in knee socks and gym shorts. I need shelter and a dry place to lay my head. I want to be kept warm, in a fort I constructed with someone I love. Out of an equal ratio of my blankets and his. I need hot water for my tea. I need live music for my feet. I need constant stimulation. I need a fuzzy thing to cuddle with. I need my family with me always. Besides that, what more could I ever want?

If something with the magic of ways could grant me a few things I'd want, they'd be simple. Firstly, I'd like it to be Friday already and for that shitty little biochem midterm to be aced. I'd wish to be in the company of my crazy ladies on a Saturday night, leading me by the arm into the source of the booming sounds and writhing bodies. Lastly, I'd wish more then anything I could keep Shelly healthy and beside me, always and forever. Until we both grow old and grey, surrounded by the things we spawned, with the loves of our lives, and each other. I'm coming as soon as I can, my sister.

Leave it alone

2009-11-05T12:39:00.000-05:00

The rapist is the hero and the lady is the tramp.
That's how the story goes.
But let me tell you something, sir. Heaven knows.
Your tall tales won't reach the gates
The slow descend to hell is what waits
for the man with no soul to account
A human shell, moral discount
Born dead before conception
The devil will wait for you
at your reception.

Who Knew?

2009-10-28T17:02:00.000-04:00

She Rides - D:fuse & Joy

She like open scene

She like vision dreams

She like giving into pleasure when the sprit fiends

She like overdrive

She like it when I ride

She like break in to something when the movements right

She like setting the pace

She like it in her face

She like it warm when it’s cold running through her veins

She like pleasure steals

She like when I feel

She like changing up the energy

When I wanna drill

She like open scenes

She like vision dreams

She like giving into pleasure when the sprit fiends

She like over drive

She like it when I ride

She like breaking into something when the movements right

she like over come

she like when youth feels wrong

she like breaking up monotony and climbing the walls

she likes getting excited

she want it all the time

So, if it’s alright with you brother,

she wanna ride.

I have all this energy and nothing to do with it except to sit and study. It's burning me up! I want to leave so fast I leave a trail of flames behind me. Let those flames lap up the pages of my books. Please let me go!

The way of my will

2009-10-24T23:54:00.000-04:00

I want to run away. I'd like to land in open arms. It's going to happen one day, but it seems today makes it hard to visualize tomorrow. Don't mind me, it's just the mental exhaustion speaking. I guess I realized today I'll never be happy with just one thing. I've got to have everything and to some degree of abundance. My ego will have nothing less.

I'll do it all one day. Everything that I set out for and all the things my heart dreams. Some day far away I'll sit back in my rocker. A cup of tea and a gentle breeze, all I need for a good day dream. Stories of my youth, etched in wrinkles that mark my skin. Essays of my accomplishments. I'll write a book as soon as I am able. I'm going to do it all by the end of my days.

While I was writing a cover letter, I realized that I sound like a crazy dreamer. Some could take that as a scatter brain, which is not something I'd like a possible employer to think. So I had to limit parts of myself for the sake of job security. To be honest, it killed me a little bit. Why do people doubt the possibilities? Carl Sagan said it right. We've been discouraged as children to ask the right questions. Conditioned to avoid the chase of our ideal visions. I will have none of that.

I don't care what the world has to say. By the end of all this, you'll see what I'm made of (and that's very tough stuff). I'm very familiar with both physical and mental labor and fatigue is a friendly foe of mine. Regardless of your doubts and what you see as a shameful waste of my time, I'm going to do it anyways. The only thing I see is that I am willing to give up simple first world luxuries where you can't seem to find it in you to care about another human being.

This is where I'm being a dreamer: I feel it in my bone (marrow). I'm going to find what I need, but it won't be here. I'm going to run away, but I'm not running away. That's just how I move - fast. I'll be back in due time for I have people to take care of. It's my duty, but I still have a duty to myself. Forgive me when I make you unhappy. Find it in your heart to love me when I leave you.

Serene Dream

2009-10-22T00:30:00.000-04:00

My blessings don't disguise

Rather they imitate the fool on parade

Hand in hand for the masquerade

until the sun falls to meets the horizon

I went and I stood beside them

In a harlequin gown made from old names

Stitched together by Folly's maids

Dance until the time strikes twelve

Take a step back and give a bow

Cast a spell just long enough to allow

One last ballad for an inviting soul.

Stump Side

2009-10-18T16:29:00.001-04:00

Be mine, I've been yours
You asked me once
but I ignored
In fear of senseless trickery
to be the jokes epitome
I turned my face so you won't see
The blush envelop on my cheek
It's hard to hid this foolish glee
When you spoke ever so softly
of promises so treacherous
A fickle heart forced to contest
Between the space of here and later
Hangs a heart by twice used strings

Shared Stories

2009-10-18T02:29:00.000-04:00

Postsecret

10-18-09

Voodoo Magick

2009-10-13T19:22:00.001-04:00

I woke up this morning in the middle of a zombie dream. It was a semi-serious one, as opposed to other zombie dreams I've had that are sometimes silly. In this one I was running, as it was. We had finally found refuge an second story of a house. To our fortune, we found packages of mac & cheese. Oh, we were delighted. While we enjoyed little things during the day, like TV and other privileges from our life before the outbreak we laughed and ate. For some reason, there was little danger during the day and it was the night that needed to be feared. (I notice now that the symbolism of the night in my dreams often becomes an omen.) As dusk approached I warned my companions and suggested we turn things off and retire. Soon after we did that, the new person became alarmed and said "they're coming". He began to pack his things and in my alarm I also started compiling a light travel bag. I remember thinking, "I'll need chapstick". The two people I was with in the beginning refused to leave the cheese they found and decided to stay. I heard the sounds of the advancing dead and then I woke up. 7:54 A.M. Time for me to get out of bed and get to class.

I did little else today except finish my new novel. I was in a rush to finish it so I could focus on what I should be doing: studying hematology and mycology. Although I really wanted to read the book, I dreaded each turn of the page. The antagonist of the book was consistently getting fucked over. One thing after another her life kept getting worse. I would skim ahead to make sure that my dread was not confirmed. It made me angry to read it and even left a bitter, hateful aftertaste in my mouth.

Maybe this is why I feel so strange today. Not myself I say. Certainly, not myself.

Universal street signs

2009-10-11T21:34:00.000-04:00

I'm in the middle of an updating-my-resume-break. I look pretty good on paper, I might say myself. Under my current employment history, it's a bit fuzzy what I should write for Dr. Akins lab. I haven't started the job yet...so it should be brief? This is what his profile at the med school website says:

"Antifungal drug resistance in Candida albicans. As a eukaryote, this opportunistic yeast pathogen is resourceful and diverse in finding ways to evade inhibition by antifungal agents. These include mutation in target genes, mutational or regulatory activation of target and compensatory pathways, drug efflux, and unknown mechanisms. We developed an overexpression system for identification of genes that alter antifungal susceptibility and are inventorying these genes and their effects by RT-qPCR and microarray."

I can't wait to get started. Sometimes I read these Doctors publications and just get blown away by the work they do. How inspirational! Imagine, if one day I too could contribute such important work to the world. It takes a different kind if person to be able to complete such a rigorous program of study and commit to such a narrow (but endless) area of interest. Kudos to all the PhD and doctors of the Earth.

I said before and I stand by this still, if I could only be a stepping stone in history - I'd be okay with that. I just have to keep my chin up, work hard, and keep dreaming. One day, I could inspire someone the way my mentors have inspired me. I am so grateful, so blessed, to have been lead in this direction. Thank you Dr. Peduzzi for being so kind to me these last few years!

"The main focus of the lab is to develop treatments in experimental animal models and help advance these therapies to clinical trials. The most promising treatments include adult stem cells or tissue, matrix materials as a substrate for growth, delivery of growth factors using gene therapy, methods of increasing cellular metabolism, and scar disruptors. By using one's own cells, the problems of uncontrolled growth, rejection, disease transmission, and ethical issues are avoided. Most of the lab’s current effort is directed at chronic, severe spinal cord injury. This lab is probably one of the few labs in the world that specializes in large scale investigation of combination treatments of spinal cord injury that is chronic, severe and contusive. However, the treatments under development should be equally useful in treating head injury, retinal degeneration and other disease and injury states. Techniques used in the lab include behavioral testing, immunohistochemistry, and intrathecal delivery to rats and mice." -Dr. Jean Peduzzi-Nelson

Don't hold my place

2009-10-09T19:24:00.000-04:00

It calls and I follow. For what do I have to do tomorrow?

A perpetual search for the frame of mind.

Is it right and logical to seek truth in the divine?

Dictionary of words with no definition.

I'll surrender to my mother's superstitions.

It's by the bassline I choose navigate,

the contours of this body to manipulate.

On waves of sound this conscious rides

Breaching the cerebral precipice to collide

With the beauty of an endless night.

Sheep's Wardrobe

2009-10-08T00:25:00.001-04:00

Walking out of work today, I breathed the remainders of a memory. The fall is on it's way, pulling itself over us like a comforter. Painting all the leaves in playful shades. It's getting colder and the winds are getting stronger.

I thought back to a year ago and I'm so glad it's been long gone. I'm walking out of an old place and it's time now. For all the things I only ever imagined in the secret moments before slumber. When my barriers have fallen victim to sleep and only then am I able to wonder.

The things around the corner are no longer monsters. Just strange creatures draped in a curious cloak. That were shadows before I awoke and now I've finally begun to see all the possibilities. I'm not as scared as much as I am hesitant to be so naive. As to accept gifts from a harlequin.

How they shine. How they sparkle. Glamor me into tempestuous surrender. I'll take it now! I'll can't hold out. I want this thing. I'll pay the price. Oh, only if it could really be so nice.

Ready

2009-10-07T01:04:00.000-04:00

Exceptional

2009-10-06T14:34:00.000-04:00

I got the job in Akins lab.
Parasitology exam went well. I feel bad for my professor, nothing went as planned today. Including shorting us 25 questions b/c of technical issues, getting kicked out of the room mid exam, and coming late.
Finally got the moldavite I wanted. Although a little out of my budget, I ultimately got it because it was growing warm on me. Strange emission of heat, I felt it was connecting to me.
Got to run to the med school to turn in some paper work. Going to get myself into this lab ASAP!
Telling my slimy boss: I QUIT!

Exit Stage Left

2009-10-04T15:50:00.000-04:00

It's time to let her go. Current times are of utmost importance and I can only surround myself with people who will lift me up. Like any relationship, I need friends who will grow with me. Not the lives of stagnant people, still in the little pond they can't swim out of. Like still water, it's easily polluted. Insects lay their larva, bacteria divide and proliferate. Infective footprints, that's what I'm comparing Kelly to. Her mark on my life will never be the fresh running water the thirsty will want to drink from. To keep her in my life would only leave the possibility my thirst would drive me to drink from contaminated water.

I can feel her silent hate. Don't think because you won't bring yourself to say it, that I can't read it all over your body language. Why pretend we are friends when you've vocalized your desire to see me tumble from the foundation I've made for myself? She once said to me while I was helping her hold up her passenger side window, "I hope that glass falls and breaks so it'll cut your face and you won't be prettier then me." WTF kind of person would say that?! Especially while I am in the middle of HELPING you!

For a year, maybe more, I had decided we couldn't be friends although we did still talk. She would confide in me that she was depressed and because of that I decided to help her. That if she needed a friend to be there, to pull her out of it, I would do that for her. Perhaps it is because I myself have been in deep endless melancholy that has filled up my days. It's a hard place to be and sometimes what you need to hear are the words of friends. To say they care. That they'll always be there.

However, I won't be there anymore. You have never been there for me. You try to guilt me when I tell you I have to study and you hate me when I speak about good things in my life. I tell you the progression of my education and my professional life and you say to me "Oh you think you're so smart." - Well bitch, I AM smart. Smart enough to distance myself from ill wishing.

It's not like I didn't work hard for everything I have. I've worked hard enough for both of us (have you forgotten the reason you passed bio was because I provided for you a term paper?). Don't hate me because I am doing well for myself. Don't hate me because I don't hate you. Still, I have to bid you adieu. You're not good for me and I'm just too good to you. I know who my true friends are. Regretfully, you are not among them.

Again

2009-09-30T22:57:00.000-04:00

Inhale. water. Breath.

Your vision is fuzzy and before you know it.

You're floating face down.

Don't it feel nice?

To be so free

from gravitational influences.

We'll never get that

Standing up.

I just applied for a position in Dr. Atkins molecular lab. My GPA is not what it once was, but I hear it's good enough to get into grad school. I hope it's good enough to get me this position. Really. I fucking will hold my breath until I hear from him.

...I think I'm overreacting.

I have so much on my plate this semester. I have exams, I must remember to breath. I still have an assignment to type up, due tomorrow. I still have to study. (I always feel like I'm falling behind.) John wants me to call him and I so sorely do. He must wait, there is work to do.

My Father Taught Me About Endurance

2009-09-29T19:18:00.000-04:00

There is grief in me, but I have no time for it. There are always more pressing matters at hand then the past to focus my light on. Last night was one of those nights where I shared deep conversation with my mother into the late hour. Things you seldom hear in history books became the topic of our conversation and it left a pit of sorrow in me.

I was never one to pray, but the more I know of this world the more I find myself praying for lost souls. For what else can I do when the weight of realization starts to bruise my shoulders? To hear stories about people I know and their painful histories filled with testimonies of death and sacrifice. It hurts me to know so many of my countryman are victims to an unsympathetic government. It pains me to think of my paternal grandparents starved to death, the countless babies murdered by doctors over a technicality, the provocation of our inheritance.

This makes me think all those fabrications of "what if"? What if we did not leave the country when we did with the secrecy of my mothers pregnancy. Would my sister have been murdered? Would we have made it out of the country? Would I have the luxury of human rights. Still I wonder, what does this mean for generations to come? What kind of unexpected incidents will arise in a lifetime that I can understand? How many more people must suffer at the indignities of such cruel men who call themselves "great leaders"?

I don't know and as of right now, I don't have the time to entertain these decades in history. I neither have the time nor the courage to face these episodes lost in the pages of propaganda.

They were reduced. Harassed. Tortured. Starved. To weak to bury their dead. They littered the landscape while dogs ate their carcasses. They ate paper mulch, grass roots, bark. They ate each other. Entitled During the famine, young child dying in the gutter China MAY [1946]

Be killin' em

2009-09-27T17:57:00.000-04:00

I found a partner in crime, which makes her my partner for life. We line 'em up and knock 'em down. Last night was pretty funny as well as endearing. Neither of us acted on our carnal desires, but boy is it flattering the boys who get in line. Our pearly whites and fluttering lids, quite a pair the two of us.

It's a game, really. Are we really looking for love when we already have it among each other and our circle of friends? The love I share with my friends is much deeper and much more profound. It's not the trivial kind of "love" that come and go with each new suitor. Lovers, I have no love for them. They are mice and we have fangs. However, I am fair. I give warning to those who I feel may have a soul (Remember: Dogs have no souls). Be my friend first and I will love you deeply and truly.

I pluck hearts like flowers. Take a moment in the sun to smell them, then discard them for a fresh one. Sometimes I feel like a shell of a romantic; a romantic in every sense, just unattainable by man. The ones I fall deeply for are also spirits and nymphs. I've fallen in love with the wind once before, only to leave me cold.

Oh Cupid, my sweet,

never to be seen.

Take me by your hand.

Illumiated by candle light

I'll keep the blade at my side.

And when you release,

the soft sigh of sleep.

I will betray you with a gaze.

Burning your skin until you wake.

Only to be abandoned at the summit.

All the while my love grows deeper.

For my husband, the mystical creature.

Whoa...

2009-09-21T12:33:00.000-04:00

I want to write this down before I forget the details. I might have already forgotten some of them. The dream I woke up to this morning left a feeling in my chest. Overall, I'd say the dominate emotion was love and fear.

My family and I, along with friends and strangers, were hiding from the Nazis. During the night we would have to retreat into these safe places. Sometimes in a building with windows, an attic, or a warehouse. I just remember being on this one floor that was like a loft space in one of the top floors of a building. I could see all the lights and the rest of the city. I found my family and I stayed close to them, just trying to get through the night. This went on for some time and I remember very specifically returning to one of the various hideouts when the sun started setting. I can't remember what I was doing, but I do remember we were in a rush to get to safety and asking if this was dawn or dusk. We had to hurry.

I'm not sure where this frame fits but it was day brake and they found us. They opened the warehouse door and a stream of hall light came in. The crowd of us became divided by this stream of sunlight. I was on the side that had no escape. I was separated from part of my family. I had to push a little kid out of the light, to avoid exposing all of us. With all the stealth we could muster, we would pass the light and move to the other side of the space and advance towards the other side of the warehouse towards cover in case they came in.

In the end, we were exposed. They came in and started their policy of harassment. I left at one point to use the bathroom (strange right? For the seriousness of the moment...) I could hear them outside, threatening us. Like they were playing a game with our lives. One of those if you don't do this, we could very easily kill __(fill in the blank)__. I heard them say, if no one spoke up for Tiffany's, they would kill every single one. I guess enough people did, because I lived.

We were placed into this camp, but it was a very grand camp. It was beautiful, old school decor. Like an old hotel they just made into very strict dorms. I was polite and humble when I asked the officer what to do with me. He told me I was roomed with my brother. I was lead to my room and then again asked as politely as I could if I could take a shower.

I get in the shower, only to find a German already in there. We were hiding from everyone else. He was my lover. I begged him to go, that he would get us both killed. He refused and professed his love. So I accepted it for that moment. The door opens and two German females stick their heads in. They ask if he was there and I said no. They laughed and said they think so, they saw his uniform next to my clothes. I'm afraid by then, for both of us.

There are gaps in my memory. I am sitting with my father and my love is in the bathroom. We are all drinking. Three higher ranked Nazis enter the room and I sit up as straight as possible. I'm scared for all of us. My father won't act right, he thinks we have some kind of immunity because I am involved with the enemy. My love comes out, visibly drunk...I don't remember anything else.

I woke up, feeling the strangest sense of attraction, a closeness to my nameless lover. I am ultimately confused. I had a second dream when I went back to sleep, of a drill Sargent. I felt like he was the incarnation of my Nazi lover. The attraction was overwhelming and mutual, but for societal reasons we had to avoid it.

I don't know what any of this means. I don't really have time to think about it right now, but I surely do not want to forget it. Maybe I'll come back later for an evaluation, I don't even have time to proofread. I just remember how I feel and I am really wondering why, because it feels so wrong.

Comradery

2009-09-19T13:42:00.000-04:00

I think I'm no good at this. This writing this. I'm no good. One of my secret fears: all this studying has made me lose that creative part of myself. I guess it's not so secret that I want to keep all of myself intact, although I know we all grow and change. Perhaps I've not lost who I was but during this metamorphosis I've only molted the limiting parts of my consciousness.

I still have my friends, who share everything they have with me. This is Kelly's photography. He's always including me and I was silly to be so mad at him. Blame it on the hormones. What would I do without them? It's not beneath me to admit that I need them, often times more then they know.

Someone to hold my hand and lead me when I stumble. Someone to lift my heart up when I tremble. Someone to turn me towards the sun and recognize the day. Friends to encourage me. Friends who feed me. Friends who become my family.

Tiffany is having a girl, she just found out. She called me early and woke me up. Told me the news and the baby's new name. I'm going to be the godmother! Melissa just made me the mother of Harold, since she couldn't keep him any more.

I still need coffee before I'm functional. Last night's adventure has exhausted me a little. My sister came home and we're going to just chill for a bit before getting back to those books. My sister? She's my best. She just walked out here and said:

"How many of your friends do you know who have sisters who wash their bloody underwear?"

Answer is none and that's why my sister is the best!

Hours of agonizing amusement

2009-09-18T21:00:00.000-04:00

This is why I love my professor, and that's just for parasitology. Okay, back to studying hematology

Oh what a feeling!

2009-09-14T19:44:00.000-04:00

Oh crap, there it is again.

The familiar tune,

strum from my heart strings

by the fingers of a dirty man.

What can I do but be a flutter?

Be lifted up higher?

Sailing on the warm currents of loving waters.

Oh crap. It's back in my gut again.

Burrows into my other organs

Nestles it's budding life deep in my intestinal mucosa.

I wish I could shit you out

and be done.

but maybe.

Maybe this time

I'll collect you

Between here and now

2009-09-09T13:42:00.000-04:00

Something strange about today. My b ones are restless and my mood is somewhere between grumpy and silly. Maybe I want tea. Maybe it's coffee I need. Yeah, it's one of those insufferable days. The mind can't take a side and sleep is overpowering my few senses. Shut down.
Last night we did a photo shoot. The scene had three people. A girl in a white dress, holding a (lambs) heart dripping with blood that was ripped from the chest of the man kneeling (Jordan) and then there was me. Who was the supposed girlfriend pulling him back. It was a fun shoot and I got to exercise my bitch features. I can't wait to see the finished product. More then anything, I can't wait for my turn with the raw heart. My goodness, I love my friends.
Kelly has got an idea for me and I love it when I'm the only one he wants for that shot. It's a feather fluffer, an ego booster. I'ma look fab.
I'm coming to a realization. My love life is on the fritz because I can't tell a good egg from a bad. I have no time to expand on that thought. I have class to attend.

Learning

2009-08-30T15:06:00.000-04:00

August 30th

Postsecret

It starts next week.

Don't listen to me. Listen.

2009-08-07T14:02:00.000-04:00

Hate is a mask for sadness and underneath sadness is love. Regardless of my understanding,it's hard to control. I gave myself a headache from the screaming. I broke a nail down to the bed while throwing a chair around the room. Don't ask me to stop. It'll only feed the animal.

I feel like most the time I have all my emotions caged, pretty sufficiently too. Like my own petting zoo. Mamma Fortuna's midnight carnival. I am a monkey with a twisted foot disguised as a marvelous beast. There are few who can see me through the illusion. Mirrors have no power here.

"You're name is a golden bell I've hung in my heart,

I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name."

Just have to keep forward

2009-08-04T23:52:00.000-04:00

Neglect understanding, it's the easiest avenue. What is it about my sour moods that make me want to turn into a hellion? Like one moment in time and the switch is made. I go from sweet apple pie with a slice of cheddar to a raging beast. A beast that nurtures it's aggression like it's young. I've been keeping control of my anger, but today it's been harder to hold. It's one of those moments where I stop myself from acting because I know the result will be a massacre. I lay there and imagine putting the heel of my foot into the bridge of your nose. To destroy the things you take value in with a base ball bat. I want to destroy people and the things they love, especially if that extends into family. That one saying, death is too good, is the basis of my thoughts. That's why I've included your extended love ones into my target audience.

I wish I could stop this feeling from consuming me whole. I'm not myself when I feel this way. I can't control my thoughts and the consequence of my actions leaves scar tissue. My head is so chaotic I can't speak. I can't think. I can only suppress my urges to relieve my anger by killing something. Or get stoned. I could get stoned. I could hurt myself.

That's the thing. People want me to go to them when I'm this way. It's such a sad repetitive behavior that my friends pick up on it and threaten me if I don't go to them. At such a time, how can they expect me to know the way to them? I'm lost in the forest and no one's giving me the fucking map and where the hell am I?

Academic Avenue

2009-08-01T12:41:00.000-04:00

I tried to do this yesterday but I was too stoned to commit to sentences. Things have been happening in my life in questionable consecutive coincidence. It's another one of those moments that leave me stunned in wonder. Sudden realization had left my heart racing. It's pounding beats lulling me into a euphoric calm. Just as sudden, I saw myself at a crossroads and I knew with all clarity, which path I needed to follow.

I need to take the road less trodden upon. Pack my bags for academia. My romances can wait. This takes a lot of explaining and back story which I don't have time for. Someone just promised me a blunt and sadly I must cut this encounter short. I leave you with this:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Woozy.

2009-07-26T19:37:00.001-04:00

Oh what do we know? What will I ever know? I feel like I've floated up out of my mind. Looking down into my life, but not the operator of it. Some call this progression. I can't tell which direction I'm headed. I'm at a stand still, I'm kind of quiet. Absolutely do I not want to make a move. A decision. Can't I just be confused? I'm thinking in a stop and go procession.

Watch out for whip lash.

I denied a thing I loved dearly last night. That's what I've been trying to do lately. Call it a project of impulse. Exercising the word "no." "Maybe" "Later?" I only say yes in disguise.

I need to go now, but I'd like to stay.

There's only one kind of rich and that's filthy.

2009-07-17T02:14:00.001-04:00

I will antagonize you and I'd rather not help it. Especially easy to agitate is my mother, whom I love subjecting to environmental filth. Both she and my sister are meticulously clean individuals. Neither deal with bodily fluids or secretions very well. Therefore I make it a point to be digesting. I know what's in my blood and I don't mind if it's all over the place. So , no. I don't feel guilty my crotch just bled on your seat cover. It's a cover! You're lucky I didn't piss on it... because I have and I will again.

It's not the kind of intended filth that drives roommates to each others throats. It's more like a cat and mouse kind of interaction. Straight up Tom and Jerry. I leave things under furniture to ferment and mold, which bothers me none the least, and still get a laugh when someone else freaks out about my colony. It's fine! It's not black. You won't die. Just squirm a little for me, please?

Small details like menses blood and fungus are what make my friends my friends. They don't mind that my body works optimally. Most times they appreciate my vile habits. Always there for a good hosing down when I'm sticky. Even better they accept my nudity. And my gas.

The cherry on top is that actually appreciate me for it. Well, my sister may not appreciate it but she accepts it enough to just groan (which makes me smile). It felt so good to take a piss standing up into the lake. Peeing standing up makes me feel rugged (and slightly accomplished, but don't tell anyone). I won't take a dump without toilet paper though but I'll wipe my pissy pussy with my palm...and fling it at my sister. Although she is never aware when I do that. Haha.

Thankfully, she's too hygienic to ever do that to me. I think more people should be less "hygienic". I say expose your blood to strange molecules. Ingest gross things. Make acquaintances with your HLA receptors! Do it! There's a chance it'll boost your immune system. However, if your immune system is lacking already - don't listen to me. I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just someone who enjoys the simpler things in life.

Sentimental Barometer

2009-07-05T12:06:00.001-04:00

I have feelings, as much as I'd like to swallow them. It's a curious thing to have feelings. You never know from which crevice they came from and where they will retreat to. I have a wind chime for an emotional indicator. Soft notes float away with my melancholy while the next gust brings exhilaration. Like a drop in the ocean that changes the tide and controls the gale.

My moral character can be traced on a timeline, which can be converted to a graph. Frequency of lovers plotted on the X-axis, with virtue plotted on the Y. It's not that I act with calculated manipulation, just that I act with disregard. I don't deal with my emotions, so maybe that should be policy when dealing with me. I've said before, I've got a disclaimer. I come with fine print. I won't let you know until you've signed on the dotted line all the little things that don't apply.

Somewhere deep inside my eggshell mind sits that girl I once knew. So full of ideals and maybe some innocence. Hard to distinguish if it was actually there, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt that at one time I was unadulterated. My Lord do I act jaded, but what can one do once the threshold is reached? Just sit adorned, I suppose.

Maternal Connections

2009-06-30T01:02:00.000-04:00

My grandmother called me two days ago. She had come down with a cold and is in the stage of recovery. It's strange to me that my grams is sick. In all the years she lived with us, she was sick (that's excluding car sick) only a handful of times. Seldom enough for us to make the blanket statement, "grandma never gets sick". She also told me about the bay areas economic forecast since I've been daydreaming about relocation. The real reason she called was to inquire about my love life. She had a dream I was walking along, hand in hand with a mister. My mister. I laughed and asked her if he was handsome.

Grams is a funny old woman. She raised me in many ways and it's no secret I am her golden child. She's always been my support. A singular pillar that holds up my hopes and dreams. She's everything a grandmother should be...in addition to being a fierce little thing. I've always internalized her personality and from her I've inherited quite an attitude. Like her, I am equal parts affectionate and aggressive, borderline malicious.

You can't blame the woman, she grew up during tough times (born 1941, Guangzhou province). She's always taught me to defend myself and my own. She's got this idea in her head that most people are out to get you to get theirs. Those people will eventually repay their karmic debt, especially if you can deliver the lesson to them. She's got a sharp tongue and is prone to let somebody know about themselves. She is not what you'd picture a nice old lady to be. My grandmother keeps it real.

She's also as superstitous as it gets. Makes me wear stones for protection. Hangs things in my room to ward off evil intentions. Places plants in my room to act as an energy detox. Treatens to beat my ass if I take down or rearrange the things she's left... for my own good. And when she dreams about me, she is always at attention.

When I was 12, she went across the country. My aunt had just had her first child and she had gone to care for them both. While she was there she had a reoccurring dream. In this dream she was back home in a village. After a few successive nights in this area, she realized it was my fathers village. During these dreams a man would speak to her. He had a birthmark that covered half of his face. In these nightly visits, this anonymous man would tell my grandmother she had to return to us. That we needed her. She would try to explain her situation, but his message was always the same. She said that after a few of these dreams, that this man was joined by a women and they would implore her to go.

When she heard the news that both my sister and I had been hit by a car, she immediately knew who they were. She is convinced it was my paternal grandparents who had visited her, she said it was the birthmark.

I have a bond with my grandma that's stronger then anyone else in my life. I know she loves me more than anything. She remembers things about me, moments in my life that I've suppressed. She was my memory before I had one and she knows me better than I know myself. She's never told me I could not accomplish something and has been more of a mother to me than my own. It's part of the reason I want to go to San Francisco so badly. I want to be closer to unconditional love.

All my days

2009-06-29T01:16:00.000-04:00

There are days I love you, but most days I'm indifferent to you. The days I notice you, are days I'd like back. Being in my own skin itches. Nothing fits like it use to and the tightness where it just won't fit is giving me a wedgie. I can't stand it, but mostly I just can't stand myself. I can't stand that I have dreams unfufilled. So seemingly untouchable.

I feel like I'm in a hole. I know at any point it could start raining and I'd drown, but I'm still digging. As if keeping on task would fend off troubled thoughts. So I keep digging, even as dark clouds roll in. I'm still digging. far enough down that each consecutive shovelful is going nowhere but back on top of me. When it rains, I'll be drowning in mud.

The Child

2009-06-22T12:24:00.000-04:00

Woke up this morning, without the drive to get out of bed. Woke up early this morning, took me two tries to get out of bed. Even then, the world outside my bed felt cold. Felt boring. Felt so bland.

So I had a bland breakfast. Ate mac & cheese with a cup of water. Sitting on the couch, I thought about how utterly boring mac & cheese is, but now much I crave it's comfort. I compared it to other ethnic foods. The exotic spices and variety of color in dishes that come from overseas, while I looked upon my yellow slop and took another mouthful. I went for seconds.

This entire week has been a lazy one for me. I should mention that it was without the help of medicinal herbs. My troubles have been keeping me in bed until about noon, in which time I lay around for another hour before rising. Silly, no?

I keep thinking about things I have no control over. I keep thinking about myself as the child. Keep thinking about how much I identify with that. As much as an adult I am, with adult responsibilities and an adult front, I act very much like a child. I think like a child. I'm always scared and so very confused. I'm always looking for an authoritative figure to validate my thoughts and to secure me from harm. I'm always trying to hid and often in places only children could fit.

I wonder why. I wonder what has brought me to this state of mind. Is it because I was robbed of a childhood? What else could it have been like if the situation was different? If I could have lived what some would say a normal, average, healthy up bringing - would I still feel so lost?

Do I hate that I associate all the years of my life previous to this moment with anguish? No. I only hate that I'm so confused, so scared, and so sorry. The thing is, these are issues I have to address with MY self. The things that other people did to me, I can't do anything about. They're done and if I were try to speak to them about it, no good would come from it. I'm not looking for apologies, I'm searching for closure. The people who wronged me are not the same people anymore. I was too young to speak and now they're too old to know. We've all grown out of our former shells and now I'll never find the same person who hurt me. I'd be confronting a shadow. My words would go through them and hit a stranger.

I think I know why I'm always trying to run and hide. It's the most previaling thought in my head. Run. Don't look back. Run faster. Look for a place to hide or you'll be sorry you didn't.

Recording a memory

2009-06-20T13:45:00.000-04:00

Moments in my childhood are often lost in the folds of my memory. I remember them so suddenly, the clarity of the picture steals the breath from my lips. Things I've forgotten along with things I chose to forget, invoke charged reactions from myself as the adult. I feel like the girl still. These memories push me back into all those long years ago with one sharp inhale and wide eyes. I was there once, wasn't I?
I have a collection of moments as a child of myself running out the front door, full speed ahead, only to be stopped in my tracks. It was always the sky that broke my pace. Once during the harvest moon, when it appeared so large and orange that I thought it'd surely fall into the horizon. I remember how it's presence held me. I was so utterly captivated, under the celestial spell of the most dramatic thing I'd ever seen across the sky. The second time was a moment of perfect balance. I was there at the edge of an awesome raincloud. I could breath the electricity. It moved quickly over the landscape, drowning all below it in heavy raindrops. I held out my arms as it passed above me, one hand wet and the other dry.
The sky has always held my gaze. Many nights I've spent laying next to the window, watching the moon become full and pregnant with sunlight. It's the sense of peace I feel as I trace it's course in the dark. I've been constructing an idea in my head for a while, a tattoo design. I've decided on the moon and a chrysanthemum - superimposed. I sometimes call her mother.

Miss Masochist

2009-05-31T20:14:00.000-04:00

Pain and pleasure, the line is so fine is there really a difference? I don't think so. I think evolution has built the bridges between pain and peril so strong they can not be distinguished. But what is pain? It's an indication our mortal body is in danger. If you look at an MRI, the same center of the brain are stimulated regardless of pain or pleasure. So... if we know there is no danger in the pain we feel, could we call it pleasure?

For instance, I've been stabbed before (No worries! It was by a rather large safety pin) without knowing I was injured. I only realized something was amiss when my arm had a intensely warm sensation. I only felt the pain when I looked down to notice there was a 2 inch safety pin sticking out of my wrist. Even in children. My brother was 5 when he sliced his foot open. He was fine, he was laughing, only until someone noticed. A combination of the amount of blood gushing out and the expression on my sisters face terrified him and only then did he cry.

I got my naval pierced today - the bottom. Normally, I would have like to do something more interesting but I was acting as a guinea pig for a novice piercer. They tell me I have tough skin and it's never more apparent than when someone is using some gusto to shove a needle through me. It was painful, don't get me wrong - but the euphoria I feel afterwards is ... Oh so nice!

I've spent most of today considering myself. Who I am, what makes me tick, and why I like it so much. The answers are many and they provoke further investigation - however, I'm okay with it. Today has been a beautiful day and I've been marry. Was early to rise and was industrious. Had tea with my mother, who taught me about Chinese herbs and folklore. Got pierced and studied some more with two good friends.

At this moment, I'm sitting in a coffee shop. I'm in the corner of the room reflecting on my days and in the company of musicians. A cup of coffee, a few guitars, and the company of beautiful strangers. I am blessed.

Vanilla cup no. 8

2009-05-18T00:09:00.000-04:00

We play these games just to be cruel. We could just be confused. Confused as ever. It's hard to decipher the reasons each time I make this orbit past square one. Perpetually landing on the launching pad, but I'm still circling the same person.

For reasons unknown to me, I can't let him go and so I can't let anyone in. I am more forgiving than I knew I was capable of, applicable only to him. How the hell did he get so much leverage? I've cut him out of my life multiple times but one way or another he worms his way back in. I burned the bridge between us only to build a raft. It's not easy, but somehow it works (most inefficiently).

He said yes, but I don't remember what I asked him. I was too drunk to remember things I said. There's a faint recollection, but by no means is there a time table. I wish I knew what he agreed to.

Brought to you by Superstition

2009-05-13T20:53:00.000-04:00

My rat died last night. It was time for him to go, so I took him. Stephanie had to come with me, I couldn't do it. I'm being vague because I had to sneak into the premises to use their facilities. End the chapter to Llama's life. He was a good rat: answered to calls, was a fierce cuddlier, and always made that cute face when he wanted lovings. I will miss my dear baby, but I am not sad.

Here's how I've rationalized it. I shouldn't be sad, it's selfish of myself. Instead, I should rejoice in the good life he's had and the next life he will live. This death is just a means to facilitate the growth of a soul. Maybe he's a young soul. Maybe he was an old soul that needed this experience before completion. I'll never know this truth, it's not time for me to know. I'll just keep on and he'll continue on his path to nirvana.

It was also my brothers birthday - which I forgot about entirely.

I am still concerned and have been watching my steps carefully. A dread hangs in my intuition and my eye's been twitching. A Chinese superstition, my pulsing vein in my lid speaks of something. A forewarning of ... something. What I know is the feeling that accompanies it. I'm worried, but it's based on nothing. I also fear that these worries will somehow manifest into real concerns. I got a call from my dad. Medical debt. I'll deal with it tomorrow, but not right now. I don't know if these ties can be dissolved. Oi.

I am dreadfully superstitious. For example, while mulling over how to care for sick little Llama, I noticed Dali has gotten fat and wondered if something was at work here. I once scoffed at the Devil and now he will defend himself. Messages are hidden in cracks in the sidewalk. If you read them right you could save your back.

Demons. Monsters. Ghost. They live inside us and are only seen by the expert eye. Most none of us pay attention to the things that hang around behind our vision, but they linger and color the world in shades of ruin. Mishaps, missed steps. I don't think anything is left up to accident. Coincidence is the product of a finely executed plan.

I will call my grandmother tomorrow and ask her advice. She told me months ago to hang red in the east and leave something by the window. I normally wouldn't be so skittish but my eye has persisted for a day now. One can never be too sorry.

Oi

2009-05-11T10:36:00.000-04:00

My last day of this "official" break is winding down. I feel like this is my last opportunity to indulge in guilt free personal pleasures that I've saved away for a time when academics did not rule my forebrain. There's this magic surrounding a to do list on nice parchment. It sheds light on the fact that most often, I need to be told what to do. It's quite contradicting since also, in the same place that needs direction, is the part of me that refuses authority. In the benefit of productivity, I submit.

I woke up this morning resolving to do no work. I have money lying around so I think I might just spend it. The forecast today seems lonely with light showers of human contact. I don't know if I'm up for one-on-one time today. If that does happen, it must mean that I've gone to see Kevin about some ink. The only draw back of being so indecisive so early in the morning is that time waste away. Perhaps I should make a Like-to-do list and see how accomplished I am by the end of Earthly rotation.

Things I'd like-to-do-today

Smoke a blunt.
Print immunohematology text
Go North
Go West
Stay put.

As you can see. I can't very well go in two directions will staying prone. Just won't happen. Logic says no. But maybe if I get in the shower now I could do all these things. Maybe if I get in the shower now, I'll decide which one is more important. Oh Leisure, you take the best of me.

Wearing a sunset of purple

2009-05-07T03:15:00.001-04:00

Alice is one of the dreamiest places I've ever been taken to. Play the track from one to the end and lay me face down in the sheets. When I hear this collection of songs, it takes me somewhere within the folds of my brain. It beckons with the stealth of a thief and leads me to a dark garden illuminated by the reflections of solar light. I take my seat on the cold stone, my legs grow into the soft earth, rooted here. Taken as a prisoner in this astral labyrinth of this girl's discretion.

It's my favorite collection of the strange and ugly, yet it has a polished kind of charm that renders me absolutely smitten. I hear the words and my heart starts to melt, over flowing it's chamber. With the dread comes a sense of peace. The will of time is definite. Only a fool resist. Only the lame pretend. When I need to run, I turn it around. I lay here and I remember.

It's a dark place with one distant moon and a host of characters. Each take their place beside me on the seat next to the lake. They tell me their stories. In fragmented speech I learn about their loss. Their temptation. Their lunacy. A life times of lessons imparted to me, the most ignorant of the sort. I replay their performances, an encore for the lonely and the ignored.

"And you'll die with the rose still on your lips.

And in time the heart shaped bone that was your hips.

And the worms they will climb the rugged ladder of your spine,

We're all mad here

And my eyeballs roll this terrible terrain.

And we're all inside a decomposing train.

And your eyes will die like fish and the shore of your face will turn to bone."

Faintly breathing the air.

Throw it away? I'd throw it all away. I'd roll over it's warm carcass on my way out of this place. The licking shadows to my back. I'd leave all this behind in flames. Say the word and it's to the finish line. We could make it there by dinner time. Twist your fingers around mine. Pack yours with mine.

Quite Contradicting

2009-05-03T20:59:00.000-04:00

I'd like death to take me swiftly and painlessly in the still of the night. While my resting head is unaware that something somber has taken it's place beside my bed. I'd like it to be an ignorant passing to save myself the decency of trying to fight it, because I will if I knew of it. I would resist it with whatever I had left in me, I am not an agreeable woman. I tend to be fashionably late to most occasions and my own demise would be no exception.

I made up my mind very early in childhood about my opinion on death. What is mine, I rationalized, is mine to direct. Mine to conduct. If it is truly mine, it is mine to control. It was decided that death would not happen to me. Rather, it would be the opposite, I would happen to death, I would permit death. I believe this for a very long time.

The human brain, the frontal lobe to be exact, is said to be completely mature at the age of 25. These conceptions of how things should be seem more practical to myself as a child than they are now as an adult. Although not a completely mature adult, an adult none the less. Undeniable that this immaturely contrived notion followed me well into development and still leaves it's traces. Like toilet paper stuck on my heel.

During extreme times of stress there is nothing I wish for more than an absolute solution. It's the wimp in me. I want to run into somebody's arms with tears zigzagging down my cheeks. I want to collapse into an embrace and know for that moment that I'm not falling apart as long as somebody is holding me together. In such times, I can't breath. They come in haggard bouts, enough only to keep me at the precipice of consciousness. It's no way to live, I'll tell you that.

Synapses Collapse

2009-04-30T12:00:00.001-04:00

When you know, you know. I'm in the know and it feels good. My brain is a pile of throbbing mush right now, seeing as I've spent this week beating it with my clinical chemistry text. I never use to have headaches until I jinxed myself by using a definitive. As it is, I can now increase blood pressure by depressing the vein that bulges from my temple. I'm confident about this mornings information regurgitating. I think it might have even raised my grade.

This entire week I've been boo-hooing about the excessive amounts of information I'm being forced to retain. Reference intervals are a bitch. We were pretty much tested on the inside cover of the book and other misc. tables then relate them to a disease or diagnose. Sometimes I feel like getting into my brain is a matter of popularity, some things make it. Others try and try but just won't get through the door. I just have three more things to do now. Take my hematology exam and the written part of the lab then professional practice and finish my writing intensive paper.

My relationship with my brain is comparable to an abusive marriage. I love my brain, I really do. I bring it things I know it'll like, like books (for pleasure) and other stimulus. I take it out to dinner and indulge it's cravings. I'd even massage it's feet if it had them. I love my brain deeply and these things I do, I do in it's benefit. I try to cultivate it as much as humanly possible. At times, even humanly impossible. I'm proud of my brain and I like to show it off... like a trophy wife. Then there are those nights where something else takes the reins and these compulsions override my love. I hurt my brain, knowingly, with chemicals and consensual insomnia.

Like I said, I'm equal parts altruistic and destructive. Is this something I understand? No. I don't think I'm qualified to go there. To reach some places in my cognition require exhaustive clearance. It's locked up so tight. It's been vacuum sealed. The pieces I've collected are only the impressions of shadows on the wall. I'm guessing in the dark and it's placed a sense of calm over me. At least I can accept these catch-22 I so often brand myself with.

I'm beginning to think I need to be stressed out. I'm beginning to think I'm the creator of this mental state I'm in. If not I, no one else. I'm just beginning to think.

H2S production

2009-04-22T22:32:00.000-04:00

I decided I wanted to do a series. A-Z of things that float through my head. Memories that surface and resurface, some diving in the the deep to retrieve. I think I realized something today. I think I stumbled upon the source of my hostilities. I tripped over my eight year old self and skidded across the pavement of the next decade. The healing itches. I have so little to say, so much to do. Not doing what I should be but just wanting to drag scars across my skin. I feel like all my little wants, all my little needs are just sitting in this little petri dish I call my 22nd year of life. They divide and multiply, multiply and swarm in a tide of screaming ambition. There is so much I want to do! So much I need to experience! The fermentation of my desires are filling this space. I'm going to bust!

Or I just have to pee.

I have a hematology lab and chemistry lab practical tomorrow. I'm ready...ish. One can never be too ready. I think I'll do fine. I'm not freaking out but I am procrastinating. I'm going to do it.

The Spinner

2009-04-10T15:43:00.000-04:00

Homemade sin and blood clots on a friday afternoon. I wear this mask wherever I go to conceal the intimate parts of my soul, that are so vulnerable to emotions vile depth. So I smile on, with solar emission bright while this fissure in my heart tears deep and sorrowful. I watched him from across the room, knowing what I know. Forcing myself to watch, I do not know why. I've practiced denial and I am no closer to perfect than the day I started to close my eyes. It stings like the tip of a needle borrowing into the soft interior of my tissue. I'll spell his name in collagen fillings on my skin and I'll try to forget there ever was a moment like this.

Individual Devices

2009-04-06T20:36:00.001-04:00

I can't admit to being anything else but a foolish girl. I'm still so young and so susceptible to folly's influence. A picture of my self hangs over my vision and it's me as I once was at three. In a red dress with white trim. I have white stockings. My eyes avoid the camera while my fingers keep themselves busy toying with ten fingernails. I bet they're dirty. Crisp evening air and cold night dew, I'm young and I know no better. It's in this fairy tale I've found residence.

I'm looking for love. It's not behind the door or under the rug. But I know, I know, I know it's sitting in an obvious place. Like all the times I've lost my precious belongings. I'm looking in tall grass, I'm in over my head. I'm such a silly girl.