Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Rabbit on the Run

Lots of thoughts swimming around in my noggin these days~ thought bubble overload looming over my head.
The sweet and the sour, the bitter and the mouthwatering, the nasty and the scrumptious...clashing and splashing and overflowing and interferring with the rationalities of the girl who wears glasses and gets things done on time.

It's the moquito buzzing in one ear and my cat purring in the other...in an over-crowded room where everyone is talking too much about their own redundant agendas and no one notices the pink elephant hanging off of the chandelier.

Shrink and curl up into a nutshell and bury yourself...wait until the sun emerges in the spring (for real this time, and none of that teaser warmth that sets my nerves on fire) before exploding into the pointless oblivion.

Music helps~ Jethro Tull helps, God love him. What's more theraputic than playing one of your favorite songs on repeat until you've cleansed the mind of all the unnecessary negativity and anxiety?

"Skating Away...On the Thin Ice of a New Day"
Jethro Tull

Mean while back in the year one...
When you belonged to no one...
You didnt stand a chance SON...
If your pants were undone

'Cause you were bred for humanity
And sold to society
One day you'll wake up
In the present day
A million generations
removed from expectations
of being who you really want to be...

Skating away
Skating away
Skating away
On the thin ice of a new day

So as you push of from the shore
Won't you turn your head once more
And make your peace with everyone

For those who choose to stay
Will live just one more day
To do the things they should have done

And as you cross the wilderness
Aspinning in your emptyness you feel you have to pray
Looking for a sign that the universal mind
Has written you into the passion play

Skating away
Skating away
Skating away
On the thin ice of a new day

And as you cross the circle line
Well the ice wall creaks behind
You're a rabbit on the run
And silver splinters fly in the corner of your eye
Shining in the setting sun

Well do you ever get the feeling
That the story's too damn real and in the...present tense

Or that everybody's on the stage
And it seems like you're the only person sitting in the audience

Skating away
Skating away
Skating away
On the thin ice of a new day

Skating away
Skating away
Skating away

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Plane Crash

Britney Spears. I can't log onto my homepage or go into a gas station without being confronted by her quickly approaching "train wreck" to crazy town (although I think of it more as a plane crash than a train wreck...plane crashes seem much scarier, and who rides a train these days anyways? Maybe it should be a subway wreck instead...).

You know, years ago at the height of her career, I predicted the craziness that we all now see plastered on magazines and buzzing on the Internet. I mean, seriously. How could she not have mental health issues?

I feel sorry for her in the same way that I feel sorry for Michael Jackson. We average Americans can't possibly fathom being literally hoisted up on to the top of the world as a global icon as mere children (teenagers, whatever). The obscene wealth, fame and attention...you have to wonder how the biggest celebrities handle it.

It was difficult to handle life as a regular teenager and come out of it without having lost your mind...and those of us who made it out and became normal, well-adjusted adults, well, we must credit those who have been there for us over the years to support us and nurture us and make us believe that everything will get better. Most of us learn from our mistakes and get better.

Many of us have to keep making more mistakes until our inner strength and common sense kicks in and we realize that we are continuing to hurt ourselves and are creating our own misery.

But in the real world, not everyone is capable of doing that. At least unfamous, average people can endure their own personal hells in the privacy of their own personal hells. The famous people who hit rock bottom though~ they don't have any privacy.
Their personal hells are splashed on the cover of magazines, and as disgusting and embarrassing as this is to admit about our country, splashed on our major news networks like CNN and MSNBC in between coverage of presidential candidates and the war in Iraq.

I always thought, "Well, they wanted to be famous and that is what they get. They want the attention."

I think of Pavlov's Dogs here. When you do something "good" you are doted over and admired and loved in the spotlight, so when you do something to act out and rebel, aren't you just seeking more attention for validation that people are paying attention to you still? Aren't you just trying to get back into the spotlight, because that's where people love you and you feel important?

Normal people act out and rebel against their parents, get in trouble at school or do other obvious stupid shit for attention~ getting caught and punished means that someone is still paying attention to you.

Celebrities act out and rebel and get in trouble for stupid shit~ and when the media is all over your ass and you are making headlines and are on TV again, that means that people are still paying attention to you.

I know I went through that stage (um, minus the headlines and TV and the media of course:). And when you are in that stage, from my experience, you are so self-absorbed and oblivious to the world around you, that you honestly do not give a shit what anyone thinks. You think you don't want the negative attention, but it's better than no attention at all, so a part of you deep inside, at the heart of where you are the most fucked up, CRAVES it. NEEDS it.

As a female, when you've been primed and groomed and cultivated to build your entire phenomenal career on the basis of your sex appeal and only mediocre talent, being surrounded by people 24:7 who are making money off of you and telling you how great you are all of the time, having access to anything and everything you want, getting to do anything you want without having to explain yourself or take responsibility for anything because you have people to do that for you, it only makes sense that you turn into an adult who feels entitled to do whatever the hell you want without having to apologize.

When you have a never ending rotation of handlers and "hanger-ons" who are supporting themselves off of you, or who are looking to gain something from being connected to you, it only makes sense that you will spend the rest of your life wondering not only if anyone is capable of seeing you for who you really are, but if anyone genuinely cares.

Who can you trust?

People may say that there are so many celebrities in Hollywood who can handle their fame and fortune without going mental and out of control...but I honestly think that Britney Spears is a celebrity in her own unique category. I don't think any other female celebrity has yet to hit her height of fame and celebrity- and who would want to?

I think she didn't just get to the top~ she went through the roof and the only way is down. And it 's sad. And cliche, the whole "falling star" thing, but it really is the best way to illustrate this pop culture fairy tale of hers.

I remember when she got married and starting popping out babies, I got this irritating vibe from the pictures and interviews and that ridiculous reality video/documentary that she put out with Kevin Federline: she was like a giddy, niave, immature 14-year old with a huge crush...getting married and getting pregnant.

She could have just about ANY guy she wanted, and she did. Most girls, when they are 14 and are crushin' hard on some guy, would do the same if she had the opportunity~ not having a clue as to what in the hell love and relationships and marriage and starting a family really meant.

Girls in junior high who have their first boyfriends and first real taste of "love" and infatuation always fantasize about marrying them and being with them forever~ and they probably would try to make that fantasy a reality if they weren't minors and didn't have parents who had the legal control to stop them.

Britney Spears was an adult 6th grade girl who had the means and legal ability to act that fantasy out~ and now we are all witnessing the fallout of that mindset when you aren't mentally and emotionally mature enough to handle being an adult. With kids no less.

And your first break up from that first "love" can really fuck a girl up in the head! It's a universal thing~ and I think that the media and public forgets those things when they see her being all crazy and depressed and miserable.

I feel sorry for her. The media splashes these bullshit headlines that there are concerns about Britney killing herself and how she is mentally sick~ but they don't actually care about her well being enough to just leave her the fuck alone for a little bit and let her burn herself out on her own.

Why would they? Those headlines and pictures of her bread trail of stupid stunts are selling magazines and making people somewhere up the top of the media food chain rich as hell.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Time Machine

Yesterday was my 28th birthday and I did something that I swore I would never do...

I lied about my age.

I did this because I thought it was funny, but when I think about it now, did I really find it funny? Did I just think I thought it was funny? Or was I secretly trying to make myself feel better about turning 28? Maybe a little of both? The good news is that I know I can still pull off early twenties...and probably have some pretty good years left to get away with it (thank you Asian genes!)...and I also recognize how fortunate I am for that.

ID me, bartender! And give me that look you do when you see how old I am. LOVE IT.

But the bad news is that I succumbed to the hype~ that a woman might start to lose "something" as they get older...what that something is, I have no idea. But whatever that something is, we are terrified of losing it and for that reason we can start to see aging to be negative. Even if we are happy with our lives! I think we are mistakenly under the presumption that a degree of our "freshness" and youth and beauty is deteriorating...and granted, our physical appearances do start to deteriorate. But we want to cling to our youths... and as it slips away, we can feel as if we are losing something that actually MATTERS on our journey through life.

I am irritated with myself for letting my guard down and feeling like, even for a moment, aging is something negative...because it's not. I know that. I know that there is so much more beauty in what we gain with every year we are still lucky enough to be alive and breathing.

But I am an American woman and I am not completely immune to the mind fucking that our media subjects us to, despite how hard I try to resist it. Moments of great reflection, as what can come on birthdays, leaves one more vulnerable and prone to blips of weakness. It's all in the mindset, and it's easy to slip.

I've always scoffed at those women who want to fight Father Time by trying to remain "girls" until they just can't pull it off anymore...

Those women who refuse to celebrate another year of their life and instead inject Botox into their faces, stuffing silicone into their chests, sucking fat out of their asses, shopping in the same department as their teenage daughters and spend more time focused on the outside while their insides fall to shit.

Maybe I scoff those women because I used to be in my late teens/early twenties, just like they once were~ with my insane metabolism, chain smoking wrinkle-free and having the energy to drink until the sun came up...when all of the best products and clothes and make-up and bikinis and everything were aimed and catered and created directly at me and my demographic.

Maybe I was just a young woman who didn't know shit about life and what it means to be a woman. Maybe I just like to scoff women whom I believe are acting like idiots. Or maybe I'm just a bitch. I have a feeling it was all of the above.

Part of me scoffs the me from last night who let Ted's believe I was 21. The me of last night who got pleasure from pretending to be someone now 8 years younger than I really am (although another part of me still thinks it is kind of funny...).

I firmly told our scrawny little waiter at Ted's last night when he took my order~ first and foremost~NO birthday singing. No sombrero, no singing, no hoopla. And the mother fucker dragged all the waiters over at the end of our meal to hoopla anyways.

He plopped that ridiculous sombrero on top of the hat I was already wearing and announced to the entire restaurant, "Attention everyone! Today is Meika's birthday!"

"And how old are you today?" he asked me.

"21," I replied dryly. "Whoo hoo! I'm ready to go out to the bar and party!" (When in all reality I was ready to go home, put on my flannel pants and become one with my couch after eating all of that food...).

"Meika is turning 21 today!" And they sang as I turned purple, silently wishing the waiter a nice bump to the funny bone the next time he was carrying a large tray of drinks, and Taylor's family laughed at me and got a big kick out of it.

It wasn't so much my AGE that made me cringe at the hoopla, but more so the public spectacle of it, even though I make no secret of my birthday every year.

I like to think of my birthday as a big deal, to be celebrated by all who know me (and I think the same for all who know me when it is their birthday!), but a whole restaurant full of strangers...what the hell do they care if it's my birthday or not?

I imagined some of the faceless patrons who witnessed my "21st birthday" imagining me going out after my family dinner to get shitfaced at multiple bars with my friends. I imagined them imagining when they crossed that milestone, finally old enough to wreck havoc on the world and drink legally for the first time and how much damn fun it was to be that age...just as I imagine when I witness a 21st birthday as a bystander.

And for the rest of my Ted's dining experience, I happily ate my soapapia in a warped dimension where I got to be 21 again...back when I could eat a ginormous Mexican dinner and still have the energy and room in my system for a night of beer drinking, all without worrying about all of the consumption adding to the junk in my trunk.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

New World Order

I was woken up by the crazy rain/thunder/lightning/hail Monday night and noticed that Taylor wasn't in bed yet.

So I went downstairs, half asleep and feeling a bit bewildered and out of sorts because of the thunderstorm, to look for him. 

When I got to the livingroom he wasn't there~ so I called, "Taylor?" 

"I'm on the toilet," he replied from behind the closed door of the downstairs bathroom. "You need to watch this!"

"What?" 

What in the hell was he talking about, 'You need to watch this' while he was on the pot? 

The bathroom door opened a crack and his opened laptop appeared. He was on the Internet in the bathroom again.

"Watch this video. It's some scary shit!"

"Babe," I said, growing annoyed. "I'm freaking tired. Why aren't you in bed? I don't want to watch anything right now!"

"No you need to watch it now before the government takes it off of YouTube! Just watch it!"

Government banable information? I was intrigued. So, frustrated and wrinkling my nose, I grabbed the laptop and promptly shut the bathroom door to see what all the scariness was all about.

Lightning flashed and the rain beat down against the glass doors of the back patio as I sat on the couch wrapped up in my blanket, watching bleary-eyed as the New World Order flashed before my eyes.

It was his newest consipracy obsession. It reminded me much of the 9/11 conspiracy video he had me watch awhile back~ with the dramatically spooky Massive Attack (a la SNATCH) music and the creepy, almost robotic narration. The storm outside only made it all more unsettling and freaky....

But I was too fucking tired to absorb everything at that moment, and I only found myself more exasperated and irritated with the entire situation...not the New World Order, but the fact that my husband was up so late watching conspiracy theory videos while on the toilet- and I was actually sitting there watching this video in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping. 

The last thing I really remember is the sound of the toilet flushing and Taylor emerging from the bathroom, ranting about the "Amero" and the American Union and microchips being implanted into everyone on the planet....

He reminded me of one of those crazy little old men who sit on their computers in the dark, wearing little homemade helmets made of foil so that the government can not read their brainwaves...and I envisioned him doing just that some day when we are super old and I was momentarily amused. But he was dead serious and I wasn't in the mood. 

I believe we argued (mildly) as I made my way back up to bed, with him following me and trying to take advantage of my sleepy state, attempting to convince me of the "truth" that we have all been shielded from- and I, tired and bitchy, continued to play devil's advocate as I climbed back into bed and passed out.

This morning I rewatched the video after I got to work and checked my email, discovering that he had sent it to me anyways. It's an interesting concept, and with our government and the nature of mankind, it doesn't surprise me. I just hope I am dead and gone before the world gets to that point.
I suppose we will have the New World Order discussion again later when I am coherent and I will let him speak his peace. I'll see if he can sell me on it.

Here is the video:


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