Keeping Your Emotions at an Echo

100 days. I've been here for 100 days and now I'm officially feeling it. Not in the good way that it could be, either. A lot of that (the good way of feeling a place) resides in a sense of novelty which never does age well. Through a certain string of events, I'm feeling it. Maybe day 104 or something will be more like day 96. I hope so. I'm not actually counting. Like days in the Bible, only not.

Me, too. Me. Too.

On the upside, I had a really fulfilling TOEFL class tonight. My BK Science 70-ers decided to enlighten my life with the marvel that is KidsBeer:

I LOVE MAO TSE-TUNG!!!

We took a break from learning about SHARKS and tsunamis to discuss said marketing scheme. When the topic of the tsunami in Japan came up, Sean Park waited for a lull in the conversation, stood up lackadaisically, slowly raised his chubby fist in the air, and said, "Down with Japan!" Fuck, I love chubby Korean kids. I was all hating myself and missing having friends until that kid decided to denounce my irrationality with his awesome. I dedicate this post to you, Sean Park. I only hope it does you justice.

Right now seems like a nice paragraph to talk about something I've observed or some pseudo-insightful remark I have on my personality, but my moods have been so polar-rific lately that I'm questioning what I do and do not know. It's interesting/stupid that the post before this was about how robotic I was feeling and this one errs on the north side of PMSville. Maybe I need to change my diet. Maybe I'm just detaching again. I wish I had a personal mechanic that could disengage my 'abort' button. I wanted to type the sentence, "It makes me wonder what I'm actually feeling", but that seems silly. Doesn't make it not true, though. I'm aware that Personal Insight is just behind this door and it's either locked and the two respective sides of the key lodged in the Box of Laziness are labeled "intelligence" and "exposure therapy" or it's ajar and I'm just sitting in a moderately comfortable armchair with my left leg half asleep waiting for whatever it is to come and eat me or to summon Gozer and bring about an end to all of this.



Friends don't let friends cross the streams.

PS - I just made $20 writing that last paragraph.

Man, I love learning. I have this one job, right? I'll read you (read: make you read) some of the guidelines on 'Class Management':

Honestly, students do not like to study ... They should be scared of teachers because of the rules ... What happens when students lose attention? -- To catch a tiger, go into a tiger's den. ... You should be an eloquent lecturer. Do not sit. Students will lose attention soon enough ... When students are daydreaming, it means you have no sense of humor. Remake your class a fun and interesting [sic].

So, instead of listening to their stupid rules (the above does not do it justice; that was just the paper I have lying here) and abiding by their guidelines, I just make Powerpoints. On Wednesdays, I get paid to sit here for three hours and make Powerpoints and/or blog/facebook/grooveshark/wikipedia/stumbleupon/eat. I just learned how fireworks are created! MAN! I wonder if there are adult classes for this type of thing.

01:GI101:AAA = General Information 101: Because College Never Taught You Anything Useful

A ridiculously non-intensive course teaching you crap you might've learned when you were 8 but forgot and now you feel intellectually inferior to your peers when it comes to general knowledge and conceptual understanding. What the hell is the internet, anyway?

Prerequisite: desire to learn and non-idiocy. The final consists solely of an application of the knowledge you learned--for example, you may be required to roast vegetables, aurally determine the problem with a car engine, quote 80s movies, or answer probing questions on your own religion. Course fee: $14.95 for "What's  Wrong with my Snake?" (John Rossi, D.V.M., M.A.) The final grade for the course will be pass/fail. Consider it a thinly-veiled metaphor for your life.

This is what happens when the veil is lifted.

In the words of Jemaine Clement, "Like an abandoned school, I have no principal."


xoxo

A Nine Pound Hammer or a Woman Like You

"He cut a sliver of cheese from a wheel and held it out to me on the knife blade.

"You've given me something to think about in a sneaking kind of way."

"I thought you gave it to me.""

I'm not sure if I'm going to publish this post.

I normally try to blog about things of little...consequence. That don't risk [meaningful] judgment. That I can go back and read and think about how fucking undeniably clever I was in that moment (did you catch how my last entry's title was an 'American Psycho' reference and then I did one of those anecdotes on BSpears just like Patrick Bateman did on late 80s pop? DID YOU? I didn't until afterward and then I was like, 'this shit is made of GLORY.'). That's a good feeling, let me tell you. Not great, but good. Mais, maintenant I am choosing to exploit blogger.com and your attentions and instead this post will serve mainly cathartic means. Or it will propel me into a darker place that I will have to climb out of once again. I'm not too worried about it. Whenever I think of black abysses (abyssi?), I only think of that emo kid in his sister's pants. Puts things into perspective.

I talked to my mom for the first time in a while on Skype today. I acknowledge that this isn't suitable blog material, but I refuse to keep a diary. After we said our goodbyes I found myself wanting to call her again and to stare at her face until I felt some vestige of...emotion. Almost of simple recognition. While the topic at hand was tearing her apart, the only thoughts I was truly contemplating were the selfish ones concerning my own robotic-ness. She even commented on how I seemed so removed from the situation and I unhesitatingly agreed. I didn't know how to hide it. If I had, I'm not sure I would've bothered. I don't know if it has more to do with the fact that I am unphased about losing the house or if it alludes to my unrelenting disregard for my mother's emotion. I suppose the fact that I phrased it that way answers the question. Maybe it's both. She then elaborated with how I have changed and how I am "now so..." "--hardened?", I cut her off with. She disagreed and said 'matured' and 'realistic'. I don't know if I agree with that. I feel very nihilistic a lot, but I don't know why and I don't know when that happened. The things I was feeling (or not feeling) and the things I was saying were sort of surprising me. Not in the sense that when they came out of my mouth I didn't realize I was thinking them, but in the sense that I didn't realize how I actually believed the words I was saying. I've felt robotic before, but not to this level. I've never felt so robotic that I couldn't muster a twinge of emotion at seeing my own mother's face, unbridled with emotion. So unattached that I want to sell all my possessions in exchange for plane tickets. Maybe I did bring my French copy of Harry Potter; I'll have to go check. I hope so.

The alternate point to this post poses the question: is this indeed a construct of my dissociation or am I just awesome? Let's pretend, for just a moment (as any longer would instill fear in the masses), that the word 'awesome' does not exist. Then, I would have to rephrase my sentence to something like, "or am I just...now able to shed the trivialities that once made me so worrisome and materialistic, now able to see the nuances and subjective meaning of the word 'home'?" That was difficult and, unfortunately, not completely in the same traincar as my thoughts actually and inexplicably are. Which is why 'awesome' is so useful and so used. There's a quote floating out there about how no one can truly influence us to do something that we wouldn't've done of our own volition anyway, and I wonder how much of that is true. Is this actually a niche my personality has been waiting to settle into, is this actually a reflection of who I am--or is this simply a reflection of my circumstances and purely a coping mechanism? There's downward intonation at the end of that question. I know, I know, you can argue this for all circumstances. No one is without the effect of their environment and there is no 'you'. But there's a 'you' you can try to be--an adapted version of 'you'--and a 'you' you are effortlessly and I'm struggling with that line. If you want it, is it 'you'? Do I want it? I want parts of it. Like a cake. I really like cake, but I could pass up a corner piece. Depends on how crusty it is. I suppose I feel that way about a lot of things.

The other day a bunch of people from ILA went to this orphanage in Cu Chi and we painted their kindergarten room. Within ten minutes of my being there, my lips felt dry. I was hankering for some cherry chapstick, but, alas, I only had my Sephora lipgloss with me. Staring at these handicapped children in this 3rd world orphanage, I lined my lips with an expensive gelatinous glitter that never before made me want to vom. If I refound Jesus and wanted to give reconciliation another go, that deed would top my list. Note: I did not throw it out and have used it a couple times since, vomit-free. Maybe that's the deed I should be reconciling.

I didn't bring my French Harry Potter book. Pity.

Sometimes I see people and think, 'that's the person I could've been'. In some situations it gets as intense as 'the person I was going to be'. Maybe even 'wanted to be'. Surprisingly easily (and with an agility that even amazes me) I can pick up that hat again. I wore said hat the other night when I

(wait for it)


(wait for it)


(wait a little longer)


(I know I'm pushing it now)


(your irritation may be building)


(but you'll read on anyway)

drank Bailey's out of this Australian guy's shoe.

 In my defense, he claimed to only have worn it 4 or 5 times. Consider it a challenge for my immune system (that's what she said). I'm pretty certain it was my idea. I came straight from work and did not look good. I wonder if I would've looked better if I would've done that. Am I making up for feeling ugly by being ridiculous? More women should not straighten their hair, only put mascara on in the morning, and then analyze their behavior. I didn't feel ugly consciously; I'm simply considering that it's an option. I did feel dressed like a librarian, though. Are all these questions irritating you? They're starting to irritate me. And now I have more. Was I being ridiculous because I did not want to be there and was saying 'fuck it' in the grandest way I could muster? Was I displaying my alphaness in the most unfeminine way I could think of?

Either way, bucket list? Check.

I realized tonight that I'm not as robotic as I previously thought. I've been writing this post for a matter of weeks. While I honestly feel I've mastered the ability to shut off a few emotions, there are still several running rampant in my dendrites. The worst ones, if you ask me. I thought this knowledge would grant me a subdued form of solace; instead, it irritates me and fills me with self-doubt. It's the little things that get me. The things that I have no right to feel. By 'right', I mean a lack of logic or rationality.


I've caught myself a handful of times in the past few days being surprised as to my surroundings. Sometimes I get this flash of sight that I'm me, that this is for real, and that this reality is unrelenting. I don't know what that means.

There's a cockroach under my bed. I feel like this is a fantastic metaphor for a lot of things in life. You know it's there. When you didn't know it was there, you slept fine at night. But now you know and there's no going back until you stick your heel through those beady little eyes or until you find a big man to do it for you. 

I take a closer look around the room, but the midgets are still there.

Currently, two things.

1) So, I'm assuming Britney has a new album out. I don't know what it is called or anything about it; I only have a velleity to look it up. Even in writing this blog, I'm not going to do it. But I know a Gaysian that played me a song of hers I had never heard before (though for all intents and purposes, I have) and I'm pretty sure I might've read a headline or a song title somewhere on AOL.com or something. Anyway. He played me that song and it was a piece of crap. Like most of the music she's come out with lately. I use 'lately' loosely--I lost track somewhere around 'Circus' and that song about threesomes. Was that like a year ago or something? 6 months? 2 years? All okay songs, but nothing I know the verses to or, God forbid, would pay $1.29 for to appease the RIAA. Her music has stagnated. They all run together. But her image has not. This is my point. How fucking awesome and appropriate would it be if she released something more akin to...I don't know, Alanis Morissette...Fiona Apple...Florence Welch...or even Liz Phair circa the 90s before she got all that nasty plastic surgery and was still singing about penis. YOU KNOW? She's been through all this fucking crap (which I was able to minutely enjoy in 'Piece of Me', but that still fit the confines of the playlist at S(c)ummit), she's obviously pissed off about it, she has so much fucking material to work with and she's not doing it. If she were to release an album with some anger, with some 'fuck-you-I-won't-do-what-you-tell-me', without the autotune, with some harmony, with some rock roots, with an indie touch, with some mother-of-God violin, JESUS. Not only would it be the end of the world, but I, and I like to think many others, would wear our Britney flags proudly. Her demographic isn't the same anymore. If she stopped singing, "1-2-3, Peter, Paul and Mary, gettin' down with 3 P", and started singing, "boy, I kinda dig threesomes / Never thought I could write that / Chicks can be talented / for both sides I'll bat" or, "K-Fed wasn't that good in bed / I was drunk when I got pregnant / and my kids want him dead," or something (...I never claimed to be that one guy that writes all the pop music ever), the 12-year-olds might not like it, but the girls who were alive when Baby! One More Time came out would throw open their closets and break out their Britney keychains once again. Such potential for irony. Such potential for so many dichotomous feelings the end result would just have to be passionate. THERE IS STILL TIME, BRITNEY. You can still make your first concept album! I'm not asking you to release something solely on vinyl. I'm not asking you to get caught naked rolling joints and grilling hamburgers with Charlie Sheen. I'm not asking you to fake it till you make it. I'm asking you to stop pretending you get down in da club and to start writing songs about this one curious stretch mark of yours on your right thigh from your second, almost-terminated pregnancy. Something real! Go the JT route. Or maybe you just can't write your own music. That's fair, I suppose. I'll leave you alone, then. You'll hear from me again when you sell the rights to 'It's Britney, Bitch!: the New Musical'.

2) So, I left the sugar on the counter. There were a whole lot of ants in there in the morning. Ruined the sugar. I always think about how people are ants (and no other animal). We all want to go for the sugar. But if we do, we end up in the trash. If we wouldn't've gone for the sugar, our lives would've been longer and arguably more fulfilled. But we're fucking greedy. We want that sugar and we want that sugar now. Everyone else is doing it. What's wrong with the flour? Was the sugar worth it? Did we even think about the consequences of going for the sugar? Does it matter? Why didn't some of the ants go for the sugar? Were they too stupid? Were their noses operating on sub-par olfactory systems? Did they just not give a fuck? Do they not like sugar?

And now, another:

"Sipping a highball after dinner, hearing the rushing of water in the electric dishwasher in the kitchen, I brought up a question that had puzzled me. These were good, thoughtful, intelligent people. I said, "One of our most treasured feelings concerns roots, growing up rooted in some soil or some community." How did they feel about raising their children without roots? Was it good or bad? Would they miss it or not?

 The father, a good-looking, fair-skinned man with dark eyes, answered me. "How many people today have what you are talking about? What roots are there in an apartment twelve floors up? What roots are in a housing development of hundreds and thousands of small dwellings almost exactly alike? My father came from Italy," he said. "He grew up in Tuscany in a house where his family had lived maybe a thousand years. That's roots for you, no running water, no toilet, and they cooked with charcoal or vine clippings. They had just two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom where everybody slept, grandpa, father and all the kids, no place to read, no place to be alone, and never had had. Was that better? I bet if you gave my old man the choice he'd cut his roots and live like this." He waved his hands at the comfortable room. "Fact is, he cut his roots away and came to America. Then he lived in a tenement in New York--just one room, walk-up, cold water and no heat. That's where I was born and I lived in the streets as a kid until my old man got a job upstate in New York in the grape country. You see, he knew about vines, that's about all he knew. Now you take my wife. She's Irish descent. Her people had roots too."

 "In a peat bog," the wife said. "And lived on potatoes." She gazed fondly through the door at her fine kitchen.

 "Don't you miss some kind of permanence?"

 "Who's got permanence? Factory closes down, you move on. Good times and things opening up, you move on where it's better. You got roots you sit and starve. You take the pioneers in the history books. They were movers. Take up land, sell it, move on. I read in a book how Lincoln's family came to Illinois on a raft. They had some barrels of whisky for a bank account. How many kids in America stay in the place where they were born, if they can get out?"

 -- Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck

You'll mop the floor around me, you will.

I thought living in Vietnam would make me want to blog all the time. Make me have so much to say. Make me think that my experiences were exponentially more awesome than the experiences I was having before that I somehow managed to blog about; however, that's not true. Not true at all.

Maybe it's because I don't really feel like I have my own experiences. I'm rarely by myself--and when I am, I'm doing homework. Maybe it's because I've been keeping in contact with the people I'm super close to, so they've no need to read any blog I could possibly post. Maybe it's because I'm not on stumbleupon.com as much anymore, so I don't have any clever titles or pictures to make me seem like I'm clever myself. Maybe it's because I feel like a rambunctious toddler in this society and I don't want any of you to know. Maybe it's because I haven't had Special K in weeks. Maybe it's because the CELTA has stomped any spontaneous creativity out of me. Maybe it's because, most of the time, I don't feel like I'm here.

I haven't gotten homesick. Maybe there's an invisible 'yet' at the end of that sentence; I don't know. Is that cold? I had about three hours of culture shock, but that went away when I woke up. Thank God--that's like a bad LSD trip. I don't know if this is all "normal" or if I just don't feel things.

This post is taking on a very...I don't know, Esther Greenwood vibe. I can feel it. I'm going to resist it. It's going to be unnatural. As unnatural as:

Esther Greenwood was a dumb whore, anyway. Or, at least, the teacher that made me read that book was. She spelled 'phlegm' without a 'g'. I kept a running list of all the words she spelled incorrectly. I don't expect you to know how to spell every word in the English language; however, I do expect you to be able to spell what you're teaching me about. And therefore, if you don't teach me about phlegm, both of us will be happy, I'll bet. In her defense, I now know that the Prince and the Pauper was not written by Aesop. I'll never forget the look of pure, unadulterated loathing that homely woman gave me from up on her pedestal made out of bachelor's degrees in history. It would've made me shrivel up in shame if she weren't wearing corduroys and crocs that day. Or every day.

Stumbleupon is making me question what I think I know about myself. I mean, I'm pretty good at ignoring day-to-day living, but my internet surfing is making these things salient and unignorable. You know how it (stumbleupon, not life) works: you 'like' stuff and it gives you pages it thinks are similar to your already 'liked' activity. According to stumbleupon.com, I, Jackie Kehoe (that feels weird to say) am 3 things: a treehugger, a foodie, and a travel buff. I have a few other side interests -- weird shaped buildings, cartoon humor, and beauty/fitness (wtf?) -- but those pale in comparison to the amount of trees I should be befriending (I do not even have a velleity to hug trees; if you told me you were going to plant a tree, I'd be all, "Sweet! I'm so glad my friends care about the environment!", but if you asked me to join you, I'd probably tell you I have to wash my hair.) and to the gluttony that I take part in. Sometimes I do wonder if I'm a hippie at heart. I wish there were guidelines. I just googled it and apparently I have to roll perfect joints, worship Jerry Garcia, and live with my girlfriend to be a hippie. And I was so looking forward to a nice, sturdy label to lean upon.

Emotions are funny little things. Kind of like toes.

I was thinking about this the other day when a friend of mine was describing how she felt about a recent break-up. Then again when a friend of mine sent me a message about how much he missed me. Then again when I went to that big ol' market the other day. And finally, now that my house and/or "home" is gone (I don't mean metaphorically), again. I feel like those examples say what I am thinking. Also: I understand none of them. Now it's your turn to reflect.

I thought about blogging about the things I miss about America. But now there's Special K above the fridge.

I'm a dude with a shredder now, ladies!

If you're reading this, you're probably hankering for some juice on all the Asians my Amazonian self has already traumatized (or at least frightened). Unfortunately, turns out when I'm put in foreign situations, the only pathway my brain has enough resources to retain activity in is the one where I just smile and try to look harmless, but not vacant. It's a fine, fine line, really. Instead, I'll give you a few pleasant anecdotes, all of which will be summarized by the honorable Chuck Palahniuk.

8:00 AM - On the plane to Guangzhou, I gave Sandy the Shoemaker $9 for ¥50. I realize this is a bit much, but she was nice and insisted upon me not paying her anything at all. Turns out the Guangzhou airport is in the heart of good ol' Siberia--or so it feels--and the nice Canadian man, who also recommends safaris in Kenya, btw, recommended the hot chocolate from Blenz to stave off the cold. I figured anybody in 'Nam wouldn't be crazy about me handing them a picture of Mao Zedong, so I might as well spend my monies while I can. Now, Let me ask you one very important question:

how much would you pay for six (SIX) ounces of the best hot chocolate of your life?

How about one of the top five? WOULD YOU PAY $8? ...That's what I thought.

915 AM - Saw my first Asian penis. (Bucket list, check!) When I started visibly laughing, I realized then that I am no longer allowed to pride myself on my maturity and sophistication. There are some things you just never thought you'd see and acid-wash pseudo-denim yoga pants are definitely one of them.

930 AM - This is how cold that airport was: Britney Spears' "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" comes on my iPod and I contemplate keeping my hands in my pockets and just wrestling the earbuds from my ears with my shoulders and/or teeth. They really need an app that analyzes your listening patterns and throws certain files into a folder called "You're Better Than This".

  ~ "All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."

 Do you ever sit down and think about why you are where you are? If, left to my own devices, would I be "anywhere"? How much of my life has been merely taking suggestion instead of being intrinsically creative and resourceful?

  ~ "Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known."

This morning I realized I am just about the mental equivalent of a smart toddler in this country. While this is understandable and certainly normal, I just want to use this quote:

  ~ "Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you."

  Did you know the code name for the microwave while it was still in testing was "Speedy Weenie"? I can see the benefits of this already. Guys, I already used my Speedy Weenie 4 times today! All of which were successful! Unfortunately, my Speedy Weenie sort of smells funny now, after that unfortunate baked bean explosion. Also, my mom says that if you stare at my Speedy Weenie long enough, you'll go blind.

 ~ "If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?"
     (This one is just straight-up unrelated to my Speedy Weenie.)

 Thankfully, the world of the claymated Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is fictional.

 ~ "Find out what you're afraid of and go live there."

Scroll down. I just really want to fit this picture in and the layout isn't working right here.

































































Okay. Ready.




 ~ "Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?"


Also:


For the record.

You've Got the Swagga' of a Champion

I should fucking write for Cosmo. Here is the first article I'm submitting to them in the parallel universe where both they publish entire articles devoted to sarcasm and where I want my first publication to be hidden below an article on Taylor Swift:

THE TOP THREE BEST DIETS FOR YOUR WAISTLINE--THE WORST FOR YOUR SOUL
(None requires a gym membership!)

Note: I either will or have tried all methods described.

#3: The "My Best Friend's a Histrionic Bitch That Has to Be Skinnier Than Me" Diet



Requirements:
 -- a mean 13 year-old girl
 -- Britney Spears' 3rd album
 -- CD player

This one's a little slow to start. Combine that with the bitter hatred that will engulf your being and this one comes in at a solid #3. However, it's really not that hard to come by; histrionic bitches are always looking for friends and you can probably find Britney's self-titled album "Britney" at any CDs Plus (track 12 is my favorite--written and produced by JT).

Results: slow, but lasting.
Repercussions: Back pain, freezing shoulders, and a rough case of misogyny.
Damage done to soul: Moderate

#2: The "The Guy I'm "Dating" is Homeless and Unemployed" Diet



Obviously, I'm trying to keep the standards for companionship at a doable level for any Cosmo afficionado. I don't know what type of crowd you hang with.

Requirements:
--1 Homeless Man
--Mild Temperament

 This diet is simple and super cheap!

Steps:

1. Find homeless man.
2. Keep him under your constant supervision.
3. Do not eat in front of him; that'd just be rude.

Results: staggeringly quick; however, they deteriorate rapidly without stringent upkeep.
Repercussions: Loss of healthy metabolism, constant need to do laundry
Damage done to soul: Moderate - High

#1. The "I Went to a Third World Country and Drank the Water" Diet



Requirements:
--Plane Ticket
--Toilet
--Third World Country™ water

Results: Still pending
Damage done to soul: Mild
Repercussions: Self-hate for being a mere mortal with a properly functioning digestive system.

HONORABLE MENTION:

The "My Food Talks to Me But I'm Good Looking So It's Okay" Diet

Ohmigod, Becky, you are, like, so pulchritudinous.

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life.
Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things...
           -- Alfred Lord Tennyson,  from 'Ulysses'




Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the hold that would hold me.
           --Walt Whitman, from 'Song of the Open Road'


 I'm moving across the globe in a matter of weeks. I have too many thoughts (many ridiculous and/or contradictory) on the matter to decide which ones deserve writing; however, one of my relatives had one that could be emblazened on a plaque: "You never got knocked up in high school or college--you deserve this!"

Amen.