I think of you in colors that don't exist.

"All I need are my typing fingers and a minimal amount of pain." 

-- Charles Bukowski

I can read, Trebek. That says Anal Bum Cover. I've spent five years of my life trying to invent an anal bum cover; failing to do so is my greatest regret.

More often than not, there's more truth in my captions and titles than in my actual blog; have you noticed that? What I’m actually getting at is clearer in those additions. Is that obvious? But even I don’t see it until after I choose them, really – like my mind is operating on some other level unbeknownst to me. I see them later and my own mind is blown by my past self. You go, past self. Self-five! Unless, you know, I just make up a connection after it's written because minds like to make sense out of chaos. And chaos, it is.

So glad that stage of my life is over with.

This part:

Whatever you think you are feeling right now, you think you are feeling it. Whatever you are feeling right now, you're not. This isn't real. Nothing about this is 'real'. There is no 'real'. There is only what you make of it. Is that true? Is that 'real'? Is there truth in emotion? Or is there truth solely because we choose to see it?

At least, probably. How sure can one be?

That part:

You know, I really have no idea how I come off. The other day I found myself wishing I had more girl friends so I could borrow a pair of shoes. Who am I? On one hand, I wanted a pair of shoes that didn't make my legs look so short, so clearly I'm vain, shallow, and insecure; but on the other hand, I don't have any girl friends to borrow said shoes from because I find most girls either boring or judgey, but most definitely vain, shallow, and insecure. Especially most girls with lots of shoes.

I never got shoe borrowers. Or shoe borrowing. I couldn't stomach a relationship just to borrow someone's shoes, even if the shoes did make me feel pretty. I'd be too conscious of the fact that eventually the shoes will either get dirty or get dirty in my mind and I won't feel pretty in them anymore and then I'd start thinking about how I was shoe borrowing and all would be ruined. Too many people are shoe borrowers. But I'd probably dabble if I could.

I just spent 15 minutes trying to get my internet to work to do a solid 5 minutes of internet surfing. I don't want to live this way.

That part over yonder:

Wouldn't want to live this way either.

There's so much shit that I know I should do. I should've taken that hour and a half I had of free time and picked up a book or finished that lecture. I should reward future Jackie by cutting her losses now, when they have less of a chance of ruining her.  I should tell her to get up off her ass and find the next step. I should be planning for her. I should want to protect her. I should stop eating this jar of peanut butter because it won't take away her pain of being judged by a woman with 3-inch long, bright green fingernails which, by the way, clash with her kelly green hooker shoes. Most of the time I feel like I'm pretty good at it. Doing things I should, I mean. Not as of late, though. As of late, I'm dragging my heels. As of late, I don't want to have anything figured out. Spontaneity has always freaked the crap outta me. I'm getting better, yeah, but there's still this residual hesitation. This residual needing-to-have-a-plan-that-cannot-be-deviated-from. I always blamed it on the really pathetic story of my parents springing their divorce on me, but I can prove nothing. But now, I'm taking my precious time. It makes the logical parts of me uneasy. However, I've always maintained, in giving advice, that you're never going to do something you don't want to do -- so until you want to do it, there's no use stringing out about it. There's no use sitting on the pot when you know you're not going to poop. I don't know if this feels different because a lot of it falls on a grander scale. I'm dragging my heels when it comes to life, and that's not a way to live. One has to recognize when one's environment is no longer supplying one with what one desires. Or, you know, there's the option that I'm not dragging my heels at all and all this is necessary and good and being in America for however long would be boring as shit, anyWAYS. I'm doing this, so there must be some reward in it. Some greater reward than doing something else. I'd be lying if I said I didn't know what that was. There's nothing certain in the unknown. No safe bets. Either way, I didn't walk to the market to buy a pumpkin for dinner because I wasn't going to eat and instead I cleaned out this jar of peanut butter whilst sitting on my bed. Fuck you, Jackie! You lose! Rise above these obstacles, I dare you! I've yet to regret it. Completely, at least.

This peanut butter-induced coma begs to differ.

That thar part over that-a-ways:

The spelling bee is coming up again. Time sure flies when you're having fun. Time flies so fast you forget what your interests are. When someone comes up to you and asks you to be in a fashion show, your remarkably homely twelve-year-old self gets first dibs and screams out, "YES YES A MILLION TIMES YES THIS THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR" and slowly but surely your present self comes to the stage and, while it's nice that the growth you've made is shoved in your face, you can't seem to get over the fact that you hate everything about what your pre-pubescent self got you into. You hate women who wear stilettos during the day, you hate people who don't understand that this beauty they're seeking resides where they're being told someone thinks it resides, and you hate how there's this giant system-creature based on expensive plastic, plant fibers and self-loathing that you just can't understand and you really hate how the world plays along and abhor that a part of you necessarily plays along, too. You play along to get assured that you're pretty. Lasts about three seconds, if it happens at all. Has anyone who fit in with the system ever expressed their disdain for it? If I were prettier, would I have less issues with this? I mean, I sort of enjoy getting manicures and pedicures. I'll let my nails deteriorate to farm-girl status, but I always bring 'em back eventually. I like getting fancy on occasion, sure. But goddammit, I'm only going to do it because I feel like it. Or because a hot dude said he'd spoon-feed me pineapple-flavored chocolates whilst reenacting the opening scene from Jaws if I so complied. Moving hyphens is awesome. Not so much here, but in other places. No, no, no, regular ones won't do; my child's a bit slow. I need some thick-baby wipes! Girllllll, you got yo'self some sweet ass-titties! Whatchu got in that trunk? Young black men, when someone steps on your foot, let it slide. There's no use spending the next 10 years in jail because someone smudged your brown-men's slippers.

I would give him a roller coaster and dangle pennies from it
and we would both be happy.

The final part :

If I told you I wanted to start a society where there was no money, but instead, people exchanged hugs and if people got caught exchanging hugs fo' free they'd be executed, would you be on board? You can either be lonely and have things or not lonely and a child of the earth. Or you could own one of these and your life would be satisfactory FOREVER.





I rest my case.

I turn deadly pale at the sight of watercress.

The thing I don't like about iPads is that when you look at yourself messing with yours, you know you're too well-off. I don't like that technology is just furthering the gap between the rich and the poor -- unless you use your iPad solely for Angry Birds or something -- in that learning is so fucking accessible. However, iTunesU is still awesome. Like, seriously awesome. I downloaded a bunch of lectures that I intend on getting to, but I keep on downloading all the lectures from this one UCBerkeley modern world history course (because it's super captivating), so I'm not really getting around to the others. I actually just emailed the professor to tell him how much I dig his lectures. I considered that being creepy but then I realized that if I'm a creeper, I'm a creeper. Might as well start with strangers when it comes to practicing how to initiate unrequited displays of affection (he hasn't emailed me back). I wish I had the balls to email Carl, but I feel like my window of opportunity closed a long, long time ago. Anyway. I'm almost entirely caught up and I would be if I didn't keep rewinding. The cold war is FASCINATING, people! But back to my main point: I get to lounge around in my bedroom, painting ("destroying" would be a better term as of late) and learning about the finer points of the Breton Woods Project and poor kids are at home playing with rocks or making babies. Which brings me to this sweet interactive map:

 



It's shit like this that makes me find America boring. Like, I love America and all, sure, and it will always be home and I totally want to live in California for a bit, but I need more bloodshed or something. More statues. More dysentery on the Oregon Trail. I'll go on the record saying this, sure: Oregon Trail 3 was bomb.com. 4 was good, too, but I always died super prematurely and my cows always mysteriously vanished, which is way more frustrating than them just wandering off. God, there was nothing wrong about the 90s.

She wants to sell me a chicken. And I don't even have any clothes on!

Một: Then I had a drink to Fletcher.

I lent a friend of mine a book to read. In doing so, she highlighted all the passages that she found interesting. Normally, people defacing my property would piss me off. There are some things being an only child does to you and this, this is one of them. But it would not be an exaggeration to say that I was touched. I was touched by a fucking yellow marker put to a page. I would never think to do that, nor think that it was okay. I wouldn't dare impose my opinion without it being asked for. I would set a finished, borrowed book under a pile of heavier books to bend the cover back into an unread, unborrowed shape. I wouldn't dare leave a reminder of my eyes on those pages. But this book. When I pick up this book, I see her thoughts along with the author's. I see what interested her and that she was interested. I have something concrete that tells me that this book that I told her to read, not only did she read it, no -- she gave it thought. I have something tangible and shared. Something tangible, shared, and enjoyed. Rips my fucking heart to shreds. I had no idea that this whole time I was doing it wrong. And here I thought I was being polite. Do you think people handle others the same way they handle books? Would it take you days to clean up after yourself and would you make a racket as you leave or are your bags half-packed, nearly ready, and you'll be real quiet when you close the door?

Like the leaves on the trees or my clothes all over the floor.

That same friend, the one who might only now be grasping the notion of just how intriguing I find her, wrote the following. At first I thought putting someone else's blog content in my own blog wasn't the right thing to do, but like granddaddy used to always say: my fucking blog. And I think it's getting me to a grander point.

it was a beautiful house. its strong brick walls were covered with creepers. its white doors and windows stood tall and brought into its rooms not only light but also gorgeous views of the garden. its rooms were spacious and well-furnished. there were always flowers blooming in the garden.
the other three who shared the house with her were perfectly decent people. in fact, they were so nice that their decency constantly put her oddity and eccentricity in the limelight. even though they were too kind to mention it, there was always a misty sense of misunderstanding and endurance lingering in the air.
“sometimes i wish they were mean to me. physically. verbally.” — she told me one time when i visited her at the madhouse many years later — “so that i don’t regret having let them vanish into the thick brick wall. i could have let myself vanish but there would have been traces left behind. people would've discovered my methods. i don’t want that to happen.”
“the police still haven’t found out how they disappeared.” — i said.
“they never will.” — she said and returned to her piles of drawings and formulas that nobody but she understood.
i took my leave.
i rode back to my house.
her old house.

She's Vietnamese. She's fucking Vietnamese. I wish that didn't mean something, but it does. On so many levels -- I don't just mean the quality of her writing. I have friends who can write as if eloquence were a fountain, but I expect it of them (GET A BLOG. You know who you are). Am I racist? A little, sure. But I hope to Allah that it's clear that's not what I'm getting at. What I more mean is 'the box' she's trampling over with her red shoes and squashing with her bare hands. Westerners don't have that same steel trap. I have one of her books now, a book I bought her, incidentally, and I'm highlighting the shit out of it.

Hai: And then I had a drink to that old bitch.

There will always be something

to ruin our lives,

William,

it all depends upon

what or which

finds us

first,

we are always,

ripe and ready

to be

taken.

 -- Charles Bukowski, Ruin

What or who is your preferred method of destruction? Now there's an interesting photo gallery. This is ignoring the fact that it's you who is destroying you, ultimately. But you get where I'm going.



Ba: And then I had a drink to the old man.

 I wish there were words for levels of want.

Zeroeth level: I should want this, therefore I _______ this. 
First level:  I ______ this like I want a hole in the head.
Second level: I ______ this, but only if someone hands it to me.
Third level: I _______ this and I'm willing to walk across the street for it, but no farther.
Fourth level: I _______ this like I want Bradley Cooper's stubble rubbing across my cheek to wake me up in the morning, but I'm far too complacent with my life to really put any effort forth.
Fifth level: I _______ this like I want my dreams to come true, which is seemingly a lot, but surprisingly little. Mainly because I'm gutless and afraid.
Sixth level: I _______ this and goddammit, not even you are going to stop me because you're just a Chili's waitress, aren't you?!
Seventh level: I _______ this so badly I'm fabricating that I have it in my mind, not sleeping at night and barely showering.
Ninth level: I ________ this so badly that I don't _________ it anymore.

Wouldn't that be useful?! Think of all the stupid words English has and the words that it could have. Like 'pena ajena', or that one cool Portuguese word that Joao told me about that means when you see someone on a bus or something and you share a moment (probably a sexy moment). Like that. Bastard of a tongue, you have failed me.


Bốn: And then I had a drink to me.

Because somehow I manage to straddle the line between extreme self-hatred and pseudo-maniacal narcissism while remaining well-balanced, reasonable, and reasonably content. And I need a conclusion:



You are very, very welcome.

Come forth, Bulimia, and deliver me from my foodcrimes!

Part One: I walked into HKG and greeted 'er with a warm, "Ching chong; ching chong!"

Woah, blog. It's been a while.  Mainly because I've been sans un ordinateur for a bit -- my last one begged me to light it on fire, so I did. Generally people don't understand when I say this, but I don't feel like it's something you kid about. Speaking of computers, does anyone know how I can make Papyrus my default font?

So, let's catch up. Here are all the completely unrelated points that must be addressed and pondered, at least fugaciously and superficially:

1) People don't talk often enough about __________. I did that because I want you to take a second and fill that in. What should it be? Moldova - US relations? United's subpar overseas flying options? The monstrosity that is the food pyramid? NO. It's NONE of those. The correct answer, idiots, is PLATE TECTONICS.

That's right. I'm being serious here. If I could be a plate, I would be so happy! Think of the things I'd see! And cause! The funny thing is...all my atoms, at one time or another, probably were. Digest on that for a hot minute. Or digest on this, if you'd rather:

The connections between modern land masses and those of the past were found to be infinitely more complex than anyone had imagined. Kazakhstan, it turns out, was once attached to Norway and New Zealand. One corner of Staten Island, but only a corner, is European. So is part of Newfoundland. Pick up a pebble from a Massachusetts beach and its nearest kin will now be in Africa. The Scottish Highlands and much of Scandinavia are substantially American. Some of the Shackleton Range of Antarctica, it it thought, may once have belonged to the Appalachians of the eastern US. Rocks, in short, get around. 

[...] The constant turmoil keeps the plates from fusing into a single immobile plate. Assuming things continue much as at present, the Atlantic Ocean will expand until eventually it is much bigger than the Pacific. Much of California will float off and become a kind of Madagascar of the Pacific. Africa will push northward into Europe, squeezing the Mediterranean out of existence and thrusting up a chain of mountains of Himalayan majesty running from Paris to Calcutta. Australia will colonize the islands to its north and connect by some isthmian umbilicus to Asia. These are future outcomes, but not future events. The events are happening now. As we sit here, continents are adrift, like leaves on a pond. Thanks to Global Positioning Systems we can see that Europe and North America are parting at about the speed a fingernail grows --  roughly two metres in a human lifetime. If you were prepared to wait long enough, you could ride from Los Angeles all the way up to San Francisco. It is only the brevity of lifetimes that keeps us from appreciating the changes. Look at a globe and what you are seeing really is a snapshot of the continents as they have been for just one-tenth of 1 per cent of the Earth's history.

See what I mean?! Man.

Trouvez la verite avec NPH.

2) I've recently become a bit more atheist than I used to and/or would like to be. I'll get into it more later, but for right now, here's a reason: pandas. Again with the seriousness. In the Hong Kong airport, there's this sign that says, 'Chengdu - hometown of pandas!' Well, for starters, no wonder they all look the same! Huh. And I thought it was due to some widespread genetic coding. But b), and rest assured this killed my spirit for a bit, instead of the reaction I should've had, or would've had a year ago -- which is, "AWWWW, PANDAS!" -- I immediately thought, "What a stupid fucking animal." To the point. If God existed, there surely wouldn't be pandas. Or, rather, if God were sane and/or not looking for a little sadistic fun, pandas wouldn't exist. Who in their right minds would dump an animal on this earth that can't see for months after it's born, can only eat one food, AND that one food just so happens to grow selectively in one rather shitty climate and doesn't provide enough nutrients to enable long-term hibernation to protect from the wintery climes it requires. It's a fucking wonder pandas are still here, especially with us wandering the same planet. And we think we're evolution's crowning achievement?

(While I am entirely capable of providing you with a caption that links this picture to the content, I am choosing to say this:)
I wish there were more WNBA on television.

 3) We are vessels for our genes. We are vessels for bacteria. I am an ant on this ant hill (human beings are smart by comparison to other species. See later notes on vegetarianism). This is only slightly related; however, in terms of this blog, slightly related is pretty damn good: check out this article by Mark Pagel: Infinite Stupidity. He talks about how the ratio of innovators to copiers used to be, say, 25:1 in the tribes humans lived in (on good ol' Gondwanaland) and now, with technology and whatnot, that ratio can be 2,500,000:1. In other words, in order to succeed, in this day and age, we never have to think. We have to copy. For some reason, this really bothers me. Legitimately makes me uncomfortable. Bothers me so much that I blogged about it a while ago, if you remember. I'm a copier and a result of everything and everyone around me. "I" am simply a distorted reflection of everything that "me" has seen. I know everyone's life is somewhat determined by the people around them. Easy. But like my good friend Malcolm Gladwell explains, while everyone is subjected to this, am I one of those people who gets their life determined and doesn't do other people's determining? Is my life more determined by other people than your average schmuck's is? If I give you an example, will you have to agree with me because you don't have anything to counter it? Why do I find solace in thinking I have that control/influence over others?

You are a power-hungry maneater.

4) I cannot commit to anything (and you know that I know that you know that I know that defecting is a dominant strategy). That's obviously not true. I can commit to wanting the wrong men, procrastinating, and, in general, things lightly detrimental to my well-being. But I can't seem to commit to anything of any substance. I'm pretty sure there's no god, but I'm uncomfy calling myself an atheist. I probably should be vegetarian, but I just can't seem to make the leap. I thought about eating meat like I drink alcohol (if it's free, we're game (it's nothing I've actually given thought to, it's just turned out that way)), but that's conviction-less and I would feel sort of ashamed about that.

I am so glad I ate 6 chalupas.

JSF's 'Eating Animals' promised not to be a moral compass rudely nudging me in the direction of vegetarianism, but I call bullshit. Check it out:

 According to the UN, the livestock sector is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, around 40 percent more than the entire transport sector -- cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships -- combined. Animal agriculture is responsible for 37 percent of anthropogenic methane, which offers twenty-three times the global warming potential (GWP) of CO2. Omnivores contribute seven times the volume of greenhouse gases that vegans do.

What's more:

Not a single turkey you can buy in a supermarket could walk normally, much less jump or fly. Did you know that? They can't even have sex. Not the antibiotic-free, or organic, or free-range, or anything. They all have the same foolish genetics. Every turkey sold in every store is the product of artificial insemination. If it were only for efficiency, that would be one thing, but these animals literally can't reproduce naturally. Tell me what could be sustainable about that?

Technically, TECHNICALLY, eating babies solves the eating animals quandary AND prevents overpopulation. What is sustainable about that? EVERYTHING.

 
 These things being apart from the sadistic slaughtering practices 99% of factory farms partake in, the question of human sentience, and the fact that there will be a day we have to accept that antibiotics will no longer be a tool to prevent human suffering because of what we've been feeding our food. Yet even after all this, it's still not enough. It's still not enough for me to turn down my aunt's chicken bacon mac n' cheese. At least, not right now. Why? WHY AM I A CREATURE OF HABIT? WHY AM I SPINELESS?



Part 2: How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

Suppose the universe is in a state with the Planck density r ~ 10⁹⁴ g/cm³. Quantum fluctuations of space-time in this regime are so large that all rulers are rapidly bending and shrinking in an unpredictable way. This happens faster than one could measure distance. All clocks are destroyed faster than one could measure time. All records about the previous events become erased, so one cannot remember anything and predict the future. The universe is incomprehensible for anybody living there, and the laws of mathematics cannot be efficiently used.

 Just food for thought. Mainly because I lack the cognitive capacity to expand in any humorous or sagacious fashion.


Part 3: If there is applause, let it stagnate.

OH SHIT LATER ADDENDUM: Alec Baldwin is a vegetarian? Who has two thumbs and is sold? THIS GIRL. That's all one needs. A good role model.

Part 4:  AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AR AS AW AX AY

That's a blog.



xoxo.

Shabby as a Harlot's Painted Face at Noon

Part Un: Panegyrics

I'm in a very strange, yet positive, mood. I'm fairly certain it's because I'm wearing pants.

I had forgotten how pleasant wearing pants can be. Also: pockets! My hands have their own personal blankets! Pockets are a very useful invention. That being said, I don't think I want to wear pants more now; it's possible that the pants were (I took them off) pleasant to wear because I don't wear them very often, or, really, at all.

Or, and check this out: maybe it was the specific pair of pants. Maybe this pair of pants puts me in this strange mood. Maybe a different pair of pants will put me in a bad mood. I wonder if, someday, when I am displeased with the mood of that time, I could slip on those pants and everything would be okay. I wonder if, after today, I could condition myself so that that could actually be possible and not fucking ridiculous, like it sounds. I wonder if, eventually, I could just think about wearing that pair of pants and my mood would be automatically ameliorated. That would be useful. More useful than pockets, really. If pants can change your mood, then what the fuck? Really. I should be able to look at my goddamn curtains and think about how life is wonderful. Maybe now I will. I think the Pants Effect (...actually has a ring to it...) is wearing off. Or I could just be on my period.

I bet you're wondering how this fits in: cats don't wear pants either.

Part Deux: Calumnies

I realized yesterday that, in a nutshell, food courts inspire me to reflect on my life. That's really not true. But what is true is that it is in food courts (and food courts alone, it seems) that I really get just where the hell I am. I am the most cognizant of the fact that I am in Vietnam when I am in one. Most of the time, it strikes as a dawning, slightly upsetting revelation. What the fuck have I done? How have I knocked my life off-kilter? When did I wind up in Asia? Better yet, how did I forget? Can you imagine if I (you) had to spend all my (your) life in a food court? (Stu: I was with Hien. I had Wrap 'n' Roll; it wasn't good. She had Lotteria. We had an incredibly depressing conversation, not at all inspired by the roll of beef fat in my cold bun thit nuong.)

That same day (not a good Vietnam day), I ventured to the 4th floor to buy a Christmas card. It was like being in a film. As I recall, it was a horror film:

Bam! Hit 'dem little crackas with a freeze-pop!

Shop attendants (of varying degrees of same-ness) are standing in the empty aisles in front of their empty stores not talking to each other. IMAGINE IT. Every 5 feet is another Asian person, facing forward, staring off into oblivion, ignoring the person 5 feet away from them, not twiddling their thumbs, humming, or even attempting to entertain themselves. Either there's a cult leader in the back sitting in a swivel chair, smoking cigars, and watching them on a giant security camera, or they've all just lost the will to live because of their propinquity to the food court. Someone put them there in the morning and someone will dismiss them at night. Living, breathing mannequins daring you to spark them to life with your dong. I got my Christmas card and I got the fuck out.

Part Trois: Threnodies

I take a break from my conveniently-removed, pseudo-cognoscitive anecdotes to give you this timely excursus into topics with hopefully more pertinence and lesser fugacity:

And yet with jaundiced eye I gaze upon all the beauty and wonder about me, and with jaundiced brain consider the pitiful figure I cut in this world that endured so long without me and that will again endure without me.

-- Jack London, John Barleycorn

I've sat here for the past five minutes attempting to put into words what it was I really came here to say. I've fiddled around with loose metaphors, vague aphorisms, blasé attempts at honesty -- all of which fail to encapsulate the way I promised myself (and maybe certain bald-headed friends of mine) I would write. I figured this recent string of events would be convenient for this purpose and this purpose alone; alas, I seem to be wrong. With the arrival of one thousand emotions comes the perspicacity of none. 

Yesterday, this little boy I had never met before stared at me for a long, long time. He stared at me unfettered and unabashedly, content with saying nothing. Unlike all the other children who divert their gaze when they don't know an answer, he stared at me happily and I more than happily stared at him back. It brought tears to my eyes that awkwardly rested in my eyelids, like so many have been wont to do lately. When's the last time you bathed in someone else's naïveté? When's the last time you stared at someone else without pretense, without shame, without worry? When's the last time you sat across from someone and simply thought about how they were alive? Why does this strike me as so beautiful? Is it my lack of intimacy with others that makes these small moments so quietly powerful?

Maybe Stu was wrong and there should be no conclusion. We never really conclude our days; we simply go to sleep. We never really conclude our thoughts; we simply partake in and get distracted by new ones. We never really conclude friendships, we never really conclude ideas or philosophies, or even selves, though those, too, often come to an end. 

Maybe my conclusions are questions. Charlie and Stu are always quick to tell me that I'm still in that phase of my life where I do that a lot; I sort of resent that. I don't know if it's because I yearn to stop questioning and to start knowing or if I think they're feigning wisdom (eat it, suckers) and I believe that one should never stop asking questions. I'm not sure if 'knowing' even really exists. There're a lot of questions in that paragraph that I didn't pose as questions, I know. That's either meta or just plain ol' irritating. I'd stop if I could/wanted to.

So, I guess I'll leave you with this: when's the last time you allowed yourself to feel what you wanted to feel? (Why didn't I phrase that as, "when's the last time you allowed yourself to feel how you felt?" Those are two very different questions.) When's the last time you wanted something and didn't want to want something? When's the last time what you thought would make you happy made you happy and what you thought would make you sad made you sad? 


Huh?
 

Such a beautiful word for such a disastrous thing.

xoxo.


J

How do you stay faithful in a room full of hoes?

It's question day, sponsored by Kanye. That rhymes.

From this point forward, your measured approval of this blog post will only decline.

It took me being in this curiously strange mood to look at this large mug I stole from the Hofbräuhaus in München to think, "I should drink outta that." How is that possible? Most of the time I think, "Oh, that's right," or, "Oh, that's right, I'm awesome," when I see it. Never anything in regards to its utility. Maybe I just wasn't thirsty enough. ...Now there's an apt metaphor for you. Full circle I just went and I bet you didn't even catch it! That's a fucking conclusion, Stu! Maybe you just don't know it! When I go three exclamations in a row, I like to make it four!

A) Moods are so stupid! (Or five.) I put myself in this mood! If I want to be like this forever, I could be! Right now, I want to be able to look at every glass ever and realize that I can and, more importantly, should drink out of it. I could've drunk out of it this whole time. Also: am I going to drink out of it? I'm not sure. It's quite large. If she said that, she was probably lying to you.

B) Are we capable of watching ourselves? Are we capable of both knowing what's about to happen next, it still happening, and thwarting it?

Do I like Phil Collins? I have two ears and a heart, don't I?

'My friend Stu' was talking to me the other day about this blog. I really like it when he does that; he generally has nice things to say about it and getting him to stroke my ego is harder than pulling teeth. He's also quite a good writer. Now that I think of it, I feel similarly about his writing (what little I've seen of it) as he does about mine: it's a bit removed. He remarked on how I never use names and how I blatantly cannot conclude things; he suggested that it was because I never fully commit in the first place. My retort was that my blog is my thoughts -- generally not a concrete replay of events -- and therefore no real conclusion can be written, as my thoughts on most issues don't have any real resolution in sight. He made some convincing arguments about how that's not entirely true -- if thoughts don't come to a resolution in your head, you'll be bothered by them until you sort your shit out. In addition, he inadvertently challenged me to end my next post with a legitimate conclusion. Hopefully you'll find a satisfactory one at the end of this page. Though, as of this juncture, I know not. I hope future me doesn't let present me down.

This seems like a useful segue into the 'why I don't mention people' topic. For the record, addressing this seems unnatural and against the grain. But, alas, the reasons are fourfold:

a) If I mentioned people by name, talked about the shit they said and did, it'd be like telling stories. It'd be like listening to myself talk, which I do all the time and have no desire to do any more of. I do not, however, get to listen to myself think (insomuch as you can't really hear yourself speak) -- and that's how I feel it doesn't quite fit into this blog. What's more, I'm pretty sure that if I did quote-unquote tell stories, I would bore the shit outta myself. I have this dreaded fear of being boring; or, at least, people finding out that I am. Maybe you already knew? If so, thanks for not telling me. You're welcome for returning the favor, probably. Burn!

b) If I mentioned people by name, I would feel obligated to explain what they are like. Not doable. There are people I am around all the time that I couldn't answer the simplest of questions about. With anything resembling confidence, at least. I have a hard time fitting people into boxes, giving them adjectives. Giving them adjectives with any sticking power. I could talk about what they say and do, sure, but that's not really writing about them. Not writing about them in the respect they deserve.

c) If I mentioned people by name, I would feel obligated to explain how I feel about them or how I feel around them. Not doable. Though I suppose doing 'b' would greatly allude to doing 'c'--therefore letting 'c' off the hook--I still feel like it would be the cyber-elephant in the cyber-room. In order for things to make it into my blog, they have to be truthful and I have to find them interesting. Any of my thoughts regarding other people that meet those two requirements are generally not blog-acceptable. A story Charlie told me about 'feeling shame for your words' has been on my mind a bit lately. I don't think it's shame in this circumstance. It's a little fear, maybe some cowardice, sure, but it's more general practicality. I think you get it.

d) I don't explain people in my thoughts to myself. Doing so in my blog would be out of character, if my blog could possess that.

The only reason I dislike Lori Singer is because of that one scene in 'Footloose' where she needs band-aids over her nipples.

I didn't drink out of the mug. Yet.

I'm gonna go drink outta the fucking mug.

It's so big it's burdensome. But I regret not my decision. It would've been an enjoyable experience had my maid not thrown out my only goddamn straw. As it stands, it's merely moderately remarkable, solely due to its size and nothing else. That's right.

It's about that time. If I address the conclusion in my conclusion, does that negate the necessary conclusion-ness of said conclusion?

I'm gonna try to give people names. I'm gonna try to put myself in strange moods more often. I'm gonna try to look at things and drink out of them, straw or no straw. I'm gonna try not to talk in crappy New Year's Eve resolution-al metaphors. At least, until the next Kanye lyric that strikes me or the next picture that makes me sad I'm too young to know anything about hotter, younger Alec Baldwin. I'm gonna try to get those dudes that never told me they had the hots for me to tell the next guy to balls up. I'm gonna try to not walk out of parties without saying goodbye. I'm gonna try to not split infinitives. I'm gonna try to do small things until they don't feel big anymore. And I'm gonna try to cook pumpkin sometime, I think. I'll at least let you know how that one goes. I might even give the pumpkin a name.

xoxo,

J

Salvation à la mode and a cup of tea.

I'll admit it. It doesn't bother me. Oftentimes when I get bored, I read my own blog. Most of the time (I swear) it's in looking for typos or ways I could've been clever-er or more sensical with my transitions. I found a typo the other day on a post I must've read twenty times, which will only spur on this narcissistic habit (it's too late to go back and fix it). And then I realized I really like reading my blog because I always agree wholeheartedly with everything it has to say and I always get all the references.

What's that? Self-five? Nice! We out!

I've been thinking a lot about synthetic happiness lately. Like how this one dude who is a paraplegic, this one dude who almost bought McDonald's, Pete Best, and this one dude who committed a big political scandal a while ago all believe they're happier now than they would have been had things worked out "in their favor". Then there's all these studies about ugly cat posters that you're stuck with that I get but not enough to spout back to you and make it cohesive and entertaining, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I use 'there's' regardless of the number of the following noun and I have a velleity to change it, but if I use it in speech consistently, I suppose I shouldn't be bothered. Did you know 'linguipotence' is a word? If two roots can combine, are they technically already a word even if no one uses it? Either way: barring any factor of chemical imbalance, etc., you're going to make yourself a certain level of 'happy'. I wonder if it's just situational and not comprehensive. Or like, I really like this ugly cat poster now that you made me buy it with my father's organ money and I'm happy with my decision and oh, by the way I'm dating Bradley Cooper and I'd say my happiness on a scale of 1-10 is about a 9.7 or I really like this ugly cat poster now that you made me buy it with my father's organ money and I'm happy with my decision and oh, by the way my boyfriend beats me three times a week and I'd say my happiness on a scale of 1-10 is about a 9.7. The basis of this argument is just a component of the cognitive dissonance theory, but that's not the part I think I'm questioning. Is there really such a thing as non-synthetic happiness anyway? An emotion is a fucking emotion and none of them isn't subject to being created in my brain. We manufacture every commodity we strive to feel. If I get super hot, win the lottery, and hire men with broad shoulders to fan me with palm leaves every afternoon, am I gonna be just about as happy as I am now, being normal looking, lottery-less, and using the air conditioner like a normal Westerner? If I were cleaning the bar at Longhorn Steakhouse right now, would I be as happy as I am sitting in my room with a balcony that got cleaned yesterday by my maid? Is this only about situations that are irreversible? What situation really is irreversible? If I think something is going to make me happy, does it therefore, when achieved, make me happy? Why is that deemed 'natural happiness'? Especially if other people are better than us at predicting what will make us happy. Maybe I'm overthinking this; what's more, I definitely don't know enough about this topic to have given it the amount of attention I just did, especially 'publicly'.  I suppose I'm hoping you don't either.

Hens eject more sperm from socially subordinate males. You heard me. Explains my attraction to alphas. It also explains why chicken is so delicious. Also: did you know chickens got it on like this?

So, I realized something yesterday that about knocked me off my rocker. Here it comes: I live within a hop, skip, and a jump of three KFCs. THREE. If I go to a KFC down the street from my house and they are out of that mashed-potato-chicken-cheese-corn bucket, I have TWO more chances before I have to either break a sweat or hop in/on a vehicle and gallivant further away from my abode. By the by, since I have yet to eat at a KFC in HCM, I cannot start. Like using the library at Iowa -- once I went three years, my senior year it just wasn't an option.

CRAZY BUFFALO DARES YOU NOT TO MOOOOOOVE AWAY!

In a surprising turn of events, lately I've been contemplating staying here (future Jackie (or present, editing Jackie) is contemplating getting the fuck out). Don't tell my mom. Unfortunately, it's not out of any real desire -- it's out of sheer laziness. It wouldn't surprise me if the place I end up is just the place where I run outta gas. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that and I more than suppose that that's not unique to me. I just never thought I'd say that. Yet.

Seguing from that paragraph, I just started a list of things I miss about America. Then I stopped because it posed too many self-threatening questions. Here's the list of things of things I wish I missed the most:

1. a "democratic" government
2. clean sidewalks
3. my mom

Here's the real list:

1. The Big Ten Network, or the equivalent thereof
2. Wal-Mart
3. an easily accessible array of granola varieties and breakfast cereals to choose from

Do you ever wonder just what the hell happened? When did I start finding Wal-Mart cathartic? Did I not ever analyze this sector of my brain so I could continue on maintaining the delusion that I'm super-pro Mom & Pop? And I don't feel my missing The Big Ten Network is indicative of my actual personality, but the thing is, it is. There's no way around it. Sometimes after I drink a lot of soy milk or get false eyelashes or yell at a taxi driver, I give myself the heebie jeebies. Not the bad heebie jeebies, just the normal, weird kind.

I was hiding under your porch because I love you.

I was tutoring this young, nice, super-rich girl in the Pearl today. Looking out her window, I could see SKYSCRAPERS. I couldn't fucking believe it. I'm living in a town with SKYSCRAPERS. Not just one, but a whole line of them. A whole line of them whose beauty is simultaneously astounding and forgettable. I've been here for 9 months and I'm still walking out the door expecting to see a skyline comprised of 4 Kwik Stars, a Denny's, a Mickey D's, and a Super 8. I live in the 43rd biggest city on the planet and I keep on forgetting. It made me really happy; it was strange. For a number of reasons. The most prevalent of which is that lately I've been feeling I need to live in a smaller town to appreciate Vietnam. Those aren't mutually exclusive at all, you're right. I also don't see myself ever wanting to live in a big city. Or even just living in one. BUT GUESS WHAT?

Oh, I don't know. There are plenty of things I can think of to do. Maybe go downtown and try to find a Vietnamese man named "Phil".

Man, sometimes I look at my life and I think, "My God, what have I done?" Other times I do the same and think, "My God! What I have done!" I was having a few days of the former kind this week. And then my maid bought me canvas WITHOUT MY ASKING. AND NOT JUST ONE BUT FIVE. This woman brings us English muffins, does our laundry, cooks us dinner, notices my interests and aids me in my creativity. Who needs a boyfriend? It's so cool when people notice shit and then do. So often people don't. I don't a lot. If people just knew the shit we liked and what we wanted, maybe people would buy each other canvas more often. Maybe I would have a room full of canvas. Maybe I would buy canvas for other people so much that the canvas girl from the art shop down the street would learn my name and give me a hefty giảm giá.

I hate conclusions in the same way that I hate goodbyes. I would much rather exit a party unannounced.


xoxo,


J

Das Ist Sehr Laser!

Preface: [takes a deep breath] 23. Why is it all the songs about being 23 are existentially depressing?

Amazing still it seems / I'll be twenty three / I won't always love / What I'll never have / I won't always live / In my regrets

- Jimmy Eat World

Certain songs remind me of the better days -- when TRL was good and Carson Daly wasn't on coke:

And that's about the time she walked away from me / Nobody likes you when you're 23 / And you still act like you're in freshman year / What the hell is wrong with me?

- Blink 182

You might say if I listened to better music, this pattern wouldn't be nearly as evident. You might be right. The great thing is, though, that neither of us will ever know. However, I do know that if you're reading this blog and you're 23, ten bucks says you're selling insurance a few miles away from your childhood home. That sounds judgmental from where you're standing (sitting), sure, but you're not privy to this ode of lugies I'm being forced to indulge in via my bedroom's eastern wall (southern?). Rectified?

Chapter 1: Wo Bist Du, Carl?!

I spent the day of my 23rd birthday alone, often not cognizant of just what day it was--without a cell phone, camera, or any device with a clock. The camera wouldn't be so remarkable except for the fact that I spent my birthday in a small Bavarian town nestled in the Alps. On my way out the door to read me some Bill Bryson, I turned around to grab my iPod, thinking I should keep an eye on the time. It took me 1.3 seconds to realize it didn't matter. Technically, does it ever?

GaPa is almost too quaint. I half expected Rod Serling to step out from behind a tree and say, "Jackie Kehoe doesn't know it, but she's just dropped into a community that doesn't exist in time or space. She's just embarked on a one-way trip into...the Twilight Zone."

I went to a bridge on the bottom of a mountain with a book, some bread, and yogurt and actually had a remarkably good time. Everyone should spend some significant day alone. It was much different than any of my other birthdays and I would argue that it was preferable. Quite a feat, ye fellow extroverts. At least, I think I fall into that category still. I don't hate other people's birthday parties, I just hate my own. There's always this...pressure. This birthday monkey on your back that's fiddling menacingly with your earlobes and just daring you to have a sub-par time. Maybe that's why people drink so much on their birthdays; they just can't soberly handle it. However, the introversion of that day was remedied in the night by hundreds of men in lederhosen (one man in lederhosen looks like an idiot, but hundreds? Sexy.) at Garmisch's annual Festwoche and specifically two German men able to linguistically keep up with me and lingual-ly blow me out of the water. I used to think Amy Winehouse nailed the definition of the man I want:

In one experiment, a chimp was trained to hit a bar in his cage to be administered with a dose of cocaine. At regular intervals, the number of times the chimp had to hit the bar to get the coke was increased. The experiment was finally abandoned when the chimp hit the bar over 12,000 times to get a single dose of coke.

"You don't like ballers / they don't do nothin' for ya / but you'd love a rich man / six foot two or taller."

But now I know I want a man that also tells me to stop using phrases like 'palatal-alveolar affricates' because it turns him on -- or some other similar sentiment muddled by translation and wishful thinking.


Chapter Deux: "I laid there and pushed candy bars into my face, like logs into a sawmill."

I never did find Carl. I'm pretty sure he's somewhere in Wisconsin or something.  


Chapter Ba:  d --> b: #__VC : I love you, doner. Especially when you're in my mouth. Doner, why must you taste so good and juicy? To rile up my emotions? To make my former existence seem painfully shallow and dead?

Check me out: I climbed one of the Alps. NOT ONLY did I climb one of the Alps, but I climbed one of the Alps ALONE. NOT ONLY did I climb one of the Alps ALONE, but I climbed one of the Alps ALONE and IN THE WIND AND RAIN. NOT ONLY did I climb one of the Alps ALONE and IN THE WIND AND RAIN but I climbed one of the Alps ALONE, IN THE WIND AND RAIN, and SAW NO ONE ON MY ENTIRE JOURNEY UP THE MOUNTAIN. Seriously, guys. I'm no Scott Sanborn, but if I were a meteorologist, I'm sure I would call it somewhere in the realm of a 'mild pouring'. No wonder I never ran into a soul; Germans know better now (they learned the hard way). When I hit a clearing about halfway up the mountain, I almost started crying. Might as well have nicknamed my umbrella (ella ella, ay ay ay) Rihanna because I didn't know if it was going to survive that beating or not. God, that reference works on so many levels! Well...almost so many. If you live in one of those tribes where the counting system is, "one, two...oh gosh, a whole bunch!", it does. Wikipedia the things I tell you if you haven't already started. I wish my name were a verb. This is me, having a run at an honest display at emotion:

Surely it was merely the apocalypse and giant Jesus-serving dinosaurs were shitting on the mountain over and over again to enforce the futility of our supposed purpose.

Chapter Quatre: “The ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.”

I could live in Munich. Especially at night. One of my favorite moments was standing on the Odeonsplatz, where Hitler gave one of his famous speeches, and taking the road around it that Deutschers took to avoid saluting. You know, this one?

Achtung! Ich habe braune augen! Schwarzkopf! Das ist alles der words ich remembere zu meinen Deutschen classen!

Sorry, Iowa, but this does not compare to the clock museums and Indian burial grounds you tried to educate me with. 

Chapter Funf: Jews

We also took a tour of Dachau--our tour guide was very charismatic and, actually, doing her PhD on the topic. Unfortunately, what I remember most about it was that I kept thinking I was tired of standing and how disgusted I was with myself. I'm standing in a mother-of-God gas chamber and complaining?


Chapter Seis: Somewhere out there is a lady who I think will never be a nun.

I also could live in Salzburg. Especially when it's sunny outside. While there, on our way up to the Hohensalzburg, Ash and I went around back and stopped in the church. While she decided to sit back in the pew, I thought I might give kneeling a go. For maybe twenty seconds, I attempted to reconnect with my Catholic past. And then the lights went out. ...Well, I tried. 


Chapter VI: Eskimos don't believe in bridges?

Why do we change the names of some cities and not others? Is it because Munchen sounds stupid? Why do I keep fiddling with my false eyelashes?

Chapter Siete: Ron Steele

I'm shitty at conclusions.

xoxo