Month: October 2015

A book you love and one you don’t. 

Okay, so this is going to be a tough one, because there are so many books that I love. Two that really stand out are:

The Historian by Elisabeth Kostova

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

And one that I don’t : The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch

The books that I love that are listed here are quite different, but both are a fascinating look into how far a person will go out outside of themselves in the name of love. 

The Historian covers a lot of time and geography and basically tells several stories at once, but each story line flows perfectly into the others. To call it a novel about vampire lore would be grossly unjust. It’s (IMHO) more about friendship, the loss of innocence, filial love, romantic love and so much more. To describe it much more would be giving away too much. But, know that this is THE BOOK that I recommend to anyone who asks for a book recommendation. 

Night Film is also one that I recommend to most people who ask for a book recommendation. It is an incredible, multimedia experience (if you follow the prompts and seek out the online extras) that is never what it seems. Just when you think that it’s going in one direction, it veers. Over and over and over. And when it ends you will be surprised because you won’t see it coming. 

The Hangman’s Daughter is one of the few books that I really didn’t enjoy reading. It was so long and very, very ponderous. It probably would have been a better book had it had a more diligent editor. And the subject matter was just not interesting. I really can’t say much more about it because I honestly don’t remeber it that well. 

Which tattoos I have and if they have meaning. 

I currently have 25 tattoos–and by this time tomorrow, it will be 26. Here’s a list:

An anklet, a small purple rune, a fox, a Celtic drum, two Latin phrases, a hummingbird, a cartoon bird, a Snoopy and Woodstock on his house, a anatomical-heart drawing, an Oriental Kingfisher, an arm band, a Kirin, Hello Kitty, a “wait…what”, a realistic eye, a big, pink cat sitting on a NC, love, a feminist fist and mirror w/text, and apple, a nope, a happy bird, a triskele and the Virgin de Guadalupe. Tomorrow’s piece will be a dancing Snoopy and Woodstock.

Of course they all have some meaning to me, but nothing too deep for most of them. The Kirin is there because it suits my personality–I’m pretty positive and upbeat most of the time, but when I’m defending another or ranting against injustice–I become extremely fierce and aggressive. 

The small purple rune is Celtic and is for protection. Now, most of you know that I probably should have put a repeater somewhere on my body to amp that bitch up. But who knows, maybe it protected me from worse things.  This was my very first tattoo when I was 18.

The anklet is just a chain of lotus flowers from a border that I found in my copy of, The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It is in need of some serious touch up. 

The,  “Wait…What”, is an inside joke between me and my best friend, Cari. 

The NC under my cat is from the comic, Bitch Planet, and it stands for, “non compliant”. 

The “love” on my wrist is part of the semi colon project to bring awareness and compassion for those living with depression and suicidal ideation. 

The “Nope” on left ring finger is a statement about how I feel about getting married again. 

The triskele is a for my lifestyle choices. 

The Virgin de Guadalupe is for my birthday which is also her feast day. I have always felt a strong pull towards this incarnation of the Holy Mother.

The hummingbird was a friendship piece that Cari and I did. The realistic eye has pink and purple eye makeup–that one of my besties, Paul, chose b/c I love those colors and he was drawing and tattooing it for me. 

The cartoon bird was just a cute thing that I liked.

The feminist power piece with text: I am not free when any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are different from my own. It’s a quote by Bell Hooks.

The fox was a practice piece done by a friend in MI, who was apprenticing.

My Latin phrases mean: I love as I find; and love conquers all. The others ones are mainly just things that I love and find visually interesting.

I should also point out that almost all of my tattoos were done very expertly by my bestie, Paul Johnson, at his shop, 46&2 Tattoo. He’s a genius and an insanely amazing artist–plus, he is a fabulous friend and person. xo

Someone who fascinates you and why?

Let me start by saying that people, in general, fascinate me to no end–so it is really hard to choose just one. At any given time, I could be reading something, even something like a status update, and it would make me want to know more about that person–and maybe even make me want to get to know the person much better. The person could be someone who lives here or could be someone who lives a world away. 

If we are talking about well-known people, I am very fascinated by David Lynch. He is a brilliant director/artist who is downright visionary. He created (well, he is credited with it) an entire genre of film that involves using a non-linear and dream-like narrative to create some of the most interesting and puzzling films ever. 

In addition to his film making, he is also a visual artist, musician, furniture maker and a practitioner of transcendental meditation. 

So, yeah–he is probably who I am most fascinated by if we’re talking about well-know people. If not, it would be my consort who shall remain nameless in the interest of protecting his privacy. xo

Where in the world would you like to live that you haven’t been to before?

This is a no brainer for me–I would like to live in Milan, Italy, or perhaps one of its suburbs, like Renate (spell?). For those of you who know me well, you already know why I would choose that particular location–and for those who don’t, I choose there because someone very important to me lives there. I think it’s about time that we meet in person. What do you say, Chris? xo

10 Intersting Facts About Me.

1. My favorite band is a three-way tie between: The Clash, The Ramones and Blondie.

2. I love horror and suspense as genres–but will freak myself out if I watch or read them when alone.

3. I’ve become accustomed to telling the people I love that I love them. 

4. I am very, very ticklish–and hate being tickled. It makes me crazy rage-y if someone tickles me on purpose. 

5. I’m always a little nervous when I go out with friends. 

6. I have a very heightened sense of smell. It’s a gift and a curse.

7. I am way too lazy to go to most of the movies (in the theater) that I want to see. 

8. I have a genuine passion for people. 

9. I dont wear socks unless it’s cold enough to lose toes–and even then I usually don’t. 

10. My favorite flower is a Bird of Paradise.

My first kiss and my first love.

Okay, so these are, not surprisingly, two different occurances. 

My first kiss was in first grade with a boy called, Brad T. We were at St. Mary’s school, during the school day–sitting behind the puppet theater thingy (yeah, filthy, don’t go there–no pun even close to intended). It was very sweet–although not very memorable, but I guess that is all you can expect from two, very young Catholic school children. 

My first love.

This is a little more complicated than my first kiss. There is my first love, which was a very immature, puppy-love love; and then there was my first real love–mature love. Does this even make sense? 

My first puppy love-love was a guy called, Chris. That relationship lasted (mostly) on and off for 4 years–during which time it probably seemed to anyone paying attention that he and I were trying our level best to hurt and be awful to one another. We did have some good times–and I have tons of good memories. I am very happy to say that he is married with two children and very likely has a great life. 

My first real love is J–and although he is still sort of in my life, currently as an ex (we were together recently for 5 1/2 years). The first love time that I am talking about here happened when we were both 21. And scared and stupid. I was too afraid to let him know how I felt, and he was also–so much so, that he had actually convinced himself that I had a boyfriend–other than him. After a very passionate year of getting together on weekends, talking on the phone pretty much daily and cooking him hella terrible meals–he up and decided to move to Arizona. 

We kept in touch sporadically over the years–and the first time I told him that I loved him, he told me that he loved me but was marrying someone else who he didn’t love because she was pregnant. 

After his marriage ended, we were back in touch for a while, and then not. During that time I was married to Adolf. J and I got back in touch in 2009, and moved in together in the FM, in May of 2010. We kind of split up in the fall of 2014–and totally, in early 2015. We remain close to this day–and I will always love him. xo

My earliest memory.

My earlies memory is from when I was very, very young–like maybe 2 years old. I remember being in the car with my parents and another family–we were going to see Santa, and the roads were very slushy–I was looking out the window at the slop as we drove through it

We were living in Bristol, RI, at the time. The other family had a girl, a little older than me, called Rachel. She was very bratty and openly defiant to everyone, especially her parents. They were arguing in the car the whole way there. 

Once we got near to the place that Santa was (I don’t remember if it was a store or just a place set up for the kids to do the Santa thing), I remember seeing him through the big front window. I also remember that Rachel’s behavior was quickly getting worse the closer we got. 

That’s all I can remember from that day–and it is all in bits and pieces–like flashes of pictures and thoughts. I’m pretty sure that we never got to see Santa that day because I probably would have remembered that. xo

Okay, today is the first day of my 30 day writing challenge. And the topic is: 5 problems with social media. Let’s go! 

One of the biggest problems with social media is the reality of it all; meaning the reality in social media is tremendously vulnerable to manipulation by its users. We see this all of the time on FB. Remember that happy couple that was always sending little, “I love you” notes to each other–several times a day? Yeah, wouldn’t you know it? They’re divorced now. Gasp! But they were so happy?! Nope, they just played a happy couple on FB. 

Manipulating reality to make one’s life just a little bit shinier happens all over the place. It’s harmless, usually. But what does this do to the human interactions in real life–you know, the ones where trust is a necessary part of any friendship? How do we go from accepting a manipulated reality  online to placing our trust in the exact same person? I don’t know about you, but I prefer–when asked–friends that I can trust and who trust me enough to be themselves around me. 

A second problem with social media is that it creates an incredibly safe place for people to get their hate on harder than they’ve gotten it on before. The anonymity  of screen names acts as a shield for anyone who wants to spout off on anything they’d like and then let’s them off the hook for dealing with the fallout. You can pretty much say whatever vile, hateful thing you want, make the worst kind of threats imaginable to most anyone you’d like and disseminate any information you want regardless of its truth and regardless of who it hurts. It’s very easy to stay anonymous online if you work at it. 

Why is this a problem? Much like undermining the authenticity of interpersonal relationships (as mentioned in problem one), this cheapens interpersonal interactions terribly by making rudeness, vulgarity and nastiness the norm. In other words, it’s kind of turning us all into dicks. We can do better. It’s time to start bringing elegance back into our daily interactions. Every time someone gives a sincere compliment to someone else, a little of the rudeness goes away–and we start raising our standards for what is acceptable when talking to another person, especially when the topics of discussion are controversial. 

A third problem with social media dovetails perfectly with the preceding two problems–is that it creates an exceedingly unrealistic view of sexuality–and  it makes it easier than ever to slut shame and conversely, to approach others in a sexually inappropriate way. Dick pix anyone? I still have more of these than I know what to do with. I wonder if women are jumping on the genital-calling-card bandwagon also?

Why this is a problem? Really? I need to spell it out? Okay. It is the ultimate inappropriate method of communication. For real, when did this become okay to do? Like someone sees your picture or whatever on another person’s page and then decides to contact you–with a dick pic. Aside from being grossly presumptuous, it’s also not the most attractive picture you could send to someone. Sorry. But you should probably know that by now. 

A fourth problem with social media is that is the most incredible database for advertisers to exploit–and although targeted ads can be helpful–it’s a little creepy. No one needs to know that much about anyone. 

Why is this a problem? The way that many of these data are collected is, in my opinion, seem shady and unethical. Although I don’t know the exact process by which they collect their data–I can say that I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that one minute, you’re talking about where to have dinner and not too much  time later, you’re hit with restaurant ads. I’m guessing that conversations are scanned/searched for keywords, depending on who the advertiser is. I can’t be the only one who is creeped out by this. 

A fifth problem with social media is that it makes it very easy to invade someone’s privacy–and we set ourselves up for it. I know that I say more than I should about my own life on social media on a pretty regular basis. A lot of us do. And for the most part, it’s pretty harmless–we’re telling the people we’d probably tell anyway–plus a few more. But ultimately, people are too busy worrying about their own selves to worry about me or you. 

Why is this a problem? Well, sometimes people know enough about you to cause harm or at the very least, inconvenient. 

Okay, so–I have been operating under the assumption that you guys all know who Adolf is in relation to me. And I was wrong to do that. Adolf is my ex–and Adolf is not his real name–please tell me you knew that?! I have more than a few friends who thought that it was. And that makes me feel bad on a couple of different levels. 

Anyhow, as you may have discerned, Adolf and I had a very fuct up, abusive relationship–so, the things that I talk about that involve him are overwhelmingly, not happy memories. I’m glad to be far away from him and hope to stay that way. 

It is also not my intention to bad mouth him. Had he wanted me to remember him fondly, he should have been a completely different person. And while all of this is a matter of my opinion–I think that I am being as fair as possible. 

But, what if he was right about me? What if I really am that ridiculous? That destructive? That terrible? That unlovable? I know that the knee jerk reaction is to say that of course he’s wrong, but, what if he isn’t? And I know that it is pointless to dwell on it because it goes nowhere good. Intellectually, I know that I’m not, that this is just the stuff that I internalized during the course of that relationship, but I have to struggle, every day, to not fall into that pit. And some days I fail. Today had elements of a fail day, but it is ending nicely, so not an altogether fail. I’ll take that. xo

So, those of you who know me well know that I can be really, really REALLY politically incorrect and blunt. I use a lot of words that make people uncomfortable–and that is fine with me because we need to be constantly challenging ourselves and our viewpoints–especially  because our language is evolving and changing every day. And to do something just for the sake of language is a perfectly fine reason in my book. So, if you really need something to motivate you to challenge yourself, if for no other reason, do it for the love of our evolving language or some other equally valid reason. Whatever gets you through the night, right?!

Anyhow, one of the views that I’ve come up against lately is the idea that we should always be polite, as our default setting, even in the face of casual rudeness. And I have, mostly–to a fault. And while it has certainly helped me get through life smoothly–I wonder if I would have been happier had I put aside the polite and just got entirely, nakedly real? 

I get it, you DO catch more flies with honey than vinegar–but maybe we should reevaluate catching flies altogether. Maybe those flies are better off free, flying far, far away? And maybe our efforts are better applied to the delicate art of improving ourselves and putting aside the opinions of others? 

It’s hard, being female and from ND. People up here are hella polite–so polite that when they throw shade, no one but the thrower really notices. Oh, and the people that they brag to later–you know what I mean–that whole post-mortem that “confrontations” go through, where the speaker tells the tale of speaking up for him/herself, portraying him/herself as a little tougher than s/he really is and was. Yeah, like that. Like breaking out of that “pleasing” shell occasionally is a little naughty, just a little verboten. And a lot empowering, which is probably why it’s been trained out of us (ladies mostly). So, where does that leave us? Hopefully, a little stronger and a little more self aware. Oh, and a little more confrontational when necessary. And maybe a little pushy too–but just a little, on occasion. This is ND after all.