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| | transfer from my old OK Cupid account (warning -- long!) - part IImy personal irony | June 22, 2006 9:35pm
In response to Ironic
Taste Comes Full Circle :
I was sitting in a bar last week when the song "Living
on a Prayer" came on through the speakers. People sitting in the
bar seemed to genuinely get into this song and when there were
intentional spots where the song stopped playing, these same people
gleefully (and poorly) filled in the missing lyrics. This wasn't
ironic or pretending to like Bon Jovi because it's funny in the
same way that people pretending to like Chuck Norris is (that is to
say... not). These bar patrons were completely sincere in their
love for Bon Jovi. Which is exactly when I knew that Bon Jovi had
become the new Star Wars.
There was a time when liking Bon Jovi was patently uncool. It meant
you were a) New Jersey white trash b) a dork or c) obsessed with a
bygone era to the point that you would consider ordering one of
those hair metal compilation albums that advertise on TV late at
night. Usually all three. But now here were people in a bar in
downtown Fullerton with their tattoos and cool (dumb) haircuts
openly rocking out to Bon Jovi. These are the same people who had
just paid 4.50 for a bottle of Budweiser on a Tuesday night in
Fullerton.
In the early and mid-90's, claiming to like Star Wars usually meant
that you were either a) a nerd b) 40 years old and living with your
parents c) 8 years old d) part of a growing faction of those
hip-to-be-squaresque self-stylized geeks or some combination of the
various categories. If you wanted to get your ass kicked in middle
school, you simply gave Danielle a Darth Vader valentine that said
"Join me Valentine!" Vengeance would be swift and decidedly
anti-fat kid. But with the release of the new films, somehow
society embraced loving Star Wars. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
stemmed the tide, but not for long. Now it's cool to like Star
Wars, even though these are empirically bad movies.
Bon Jovi has finally reached that transcendent state where people
somehow forgot that Bon Jovi is really not good music and that Jon
Bon Jovi actually made homoerotic reference to "riding a steel
horse" and even wrote the song "Blaze of Glory" for Young Guns 2.
Fortunately grunge music came along and rib-kicked Bon Jovi back to
the jukebox of white trash America. Until last Tuesday night.
The sad thing was, during the quiet spots in the song, I found
myself automatically filling in the words. Maybe Bon Jovi is the
new McDonald's slogan...
This is the sort of analysis that I wish I had written. The only
problem is that I really like Star Wars and Bon Jovi is one of the
many shitty guilty-pleasure artists on my piepod. Haha, I just
realized that if I played a Bon Jovi song on my piepod right now,
it would be the ultimate embodiment of this blog entry, since my
cover came in yesterday, and this what it looks like:
But... it's not my fault | June 22, 2006 8:08pm
For the past 6 years, I've had about half a dozen dreams that all
follow a similar pattern. I've boiled down certain qualities that
each of the dream has. Firstly, the dream involves a male that I
know and encounter with some level of frequency but for whom I have
no real non-platonic feelings. Secondly, the dream somehow implies
that I am married or otherwise committed long-term to the male in
question. Thirdly, I exhibit some degree of indifference to the
male as well as the expected affection and/or lust. Lastly, the
dreams involve someone outside of the male in question and myself,
and that individual or set of individuals somehow comments on the
relationship. For the sake of clarity, I will italicize all
dream-action.
My first such dream occurred when I was in middle school. A kid who
was in several of my classes (my 8th grade class consisted of just
under a hundred people, so that wasn't uncommon by any means)
appeared to me in a dream during Winter Break. In it, I was
cooking and cleaning, but he kept kissing my back; I was aroused
but wanted to focus on my chores and expressed my annoyance to him
rather unconvincingly. My last such dream involved the
editor-in-chief of the religious campus newsmagazine for which I
write.
Before I state the dream, let me describe some ground rules for
assessing his behavior in the dream. Good Muslims establish a gap
of "respect" between the genders, which includes as little verbal
contact as possible between members of the opposite gender and no
physical contact at all (this extends even to such harmless and
platonic contact as handshakes). Women are expected to dress and
conduct themselves modestly in the presence of men. If a man is
interested in a woman, he might speak to her first, but it's always
with the intention of marriage. In addition, the bulk of things are
handled between the families of the two parties.
Anyway, the dream: I was lying down on a sofa (I'll call it
a sofa for the sake of clarity; I truly am not sure if it was a
sofa or bed or pallet of some sort), talking to an all-female
group of fellow writers and editors. He walked into the room, and
my first impulse was to sit up and straighten myself, but I felt
rather lethargic and didn't want to move. In the small gap of time
between my thought and my reaction, he sat on the sofa with his
back to me, leaning against me, warm as only males are. He spoke
with the group, then left the room. After he left, the girls
started giggling and teasing me about his sister always made nice
to me.
Not very erotic, really --- the least erotic of the series of
dreams, in fact. I've discovered a correlation between level of
eroticism and the male involved in the dream: the more attraction
(in the platonic sense) I feel towards the male in question, the
less erotic the dream is; I like the editor-in-chief a lot as a
person. I have joked with my friends about "getting religious
again" though marrying a religious guy, and he is always the one
that comically pops to my mind when I imagine that
impossibility.
Here's the weird part: the dream in the series that I had before
the last one involved my section editor for the last issue of the
newsmagazine. I actually tiffed a bit with this guy concerning the
controversy with the Danish cartoons (I'm pro free speech, he's a
religious nut). I was making out with him in the dream and we
were feeling each other up, and my father caught us and got
angry. The dream occurred in November; in April, eight days
after my eighteenth birthday, I got my first viable "marriage
market" probe of interest, and it was conducted by a friend of his
mother's ... for him. Of course, he probably never knew it
occurred, but still. I mean... ah, don't think too much about it,
it was only a dream.
Ok, that didn't work. I'm clairvoyant. "Only a dream" can (and has
been) much more. *sigh*
wow, I could've ended up like her | June 19, 2006 4:25am
From Sex and Christianity
(emphasis is my own):
Teresa of Avila is certainly one of the best representatives of
this world of repressed nymphomania who throng in Christian
paradise. From her autobiography:
While Christ spoke to me I contemplated the extraordinary beauty of
his humanity... I felt such strong pleasure that is not possible to
feel in other moments of life... During ecstasy the body stops
moving, breathing becomes slower and weaker, you only sigh and
pleasure comes in waves... In ecstasy an angel appeared to me
in its bodily form and it was beautiful; I saw a long arrow in his
hand; it was gold and the tip was on fire. The angel stabbed me
with the arrow through to my bowels and when he pulled it out it
left me burning with love for God... the pain the arrow wound
left was so acute that I could only sigh faintly, but this
indescribable torment gave me such sweet delight at the same time
that it was not bodily sufferance even if the body took part
completely... Our lord, my husband, gave such excess of pleasure to
make me say no more except that all my senses were
enraptured.
Illustration, anyone?
Sexual repression helps dam back energy that can then be translated
into religious fervency. Big Brother knew this.
Thank FSM, I'm not going to end up like poor Terry, Ramen bless her
soul.
mysteriousness | June 5, 2006 9:35pm
What is it about 2 a.m.? I have had two seperate discussions with
two different people in the past few days on the topic. 2 a.m., 2
a.m. Back when I was a regular insomniac, 2 a.m. would be the time
when my mind would finally whir a bit more slowly, allowing me to
catch some (rather precious if short) snatches of rest. One time, I
fell asleep before my robotrip kicked in; the next morning, my
father informed me that I was delirious and thrashing at around 2
a.m. and he had to calm my drowsy yet frenetic panic (I have no
memory of it). A March night not too long ago, there was much
whirring in my mind as well as a rather pounding case of writer's
block; I fell asleep early but awoke at 2 a.m. to write the poem
that relieved the burden from my consciousness.
2 a.m., 2 a.m., I should write an ode to thee. Instead I will post
some panels I've found of a now-defunct one-panel comic that was a
rather cruel and satirical homage to thee: Randolph Itch 2
AM.
May as well post some comics in which a parody of me was a
character. This was the overly-religious, hyper-sensitive,
ridiculously-PC Heina of early high school, renamed Hyena. The
panels are big and I hate side-scrolling bars, so I'll post
links.
Hyena takes
offense
God's little
angel
On a rather unrelated side-note, I hit over 1000 tracks on my
piepod today. Now, to listen to all the new stuff...
Transcendence | May 15, 2006 5:07am
When I was born, he, a three and a half year old child, came to see
me, his eyes widened at the thought that this tiny red person was
once inside the lady lying, exhausted, on her hospital bed.
When I was a child, he'd mock me: my functional and necessary
illiteracy, my athletic ineptitude, my deficiency in videogaming
skill, my parents' strictness about my television habits, my
preschool's lack of a principal, and, most of all, how young I was.
So I learned to read (Bears on Wheels was my first), joined
AYSO's Blue Dolphins team, played Super Mario Brothers 3 until my
head spun, grew obsessed with the Power Rangers (original still
> all else), and moved on to elementary school with its
principal, all of which but especially the last signified my
increased age. I could never quite keep up with him; I still
persisted in trying. Although I felt fiercely competitive when
working on my own to meet and/or exceed him in all things, in his
actual presence, I felt pleased when I had any improvement of which
to speak with him, whether that meant I could match him or
not.
Our families changed, as well. All of a sudden, both of our
respective sets of parents decided that religion was to take
precedent over all else, including sanity, and so we were to move
"back home". About the time we were to leave, my father and his
sister (with whom we were supposed to stay) had a falling out, and
so those plans were scrapped. Whilst my young competitor was to
move to a tropical climate for four years, I was to end up in a
much colder one for a meager year. In that cold climate, the seven
year old that I was thought of him, missed him, was even teased
about him by the girls I knew...
Let's play jump rope.
OK! Which game?
The boys' names one first. *giggle* You first.
OK!
A... *beat* B... *beat* C... *beat* D... *beat* E... *beat* F---
Haha, you landed on effffffff, and we all know what effffff means.
It means---
STOPITSTOPITSTOOOPIIIIT! *furious*
I also experienced my first existential moment. My cousin's wife,
his childhood sweetheart and the most genuinely affectionate lady I
have ever known, was killed in a car accident. The night she died,
I bought chocolate "cigarettes" from the corner store. My mother
warned me that since the candies looked real and came in a
seedy-looking carton, if I bought them, that meant that I would buy
cigarettes when I grew up. Worse, she gravely informed me, if I
were to pretend to smoke one, I would grow up to actually smoke.
That night, the eight year old I was went into the backyard,
allowed her friends to bum some from her, and "lit up", staring at
the sky, wondering what the point was when one was possessed by
such hollowness. I tried to feed that hollowness with what I'd fed
my spiritual doubts: religious dogmatic fervor. When we travelled
to the country in which he happened to reside, my father and aunt's
quarrel held at a temporary truce, I remember sitting there,
eagerly telling him about the state of such a virtuous and pious
woman's soul in the afterlife. His eyes widened with wonder, and he
informed his father of his new knowledge. The light in his eyes
made me dance, and I tried to get to his house as often as
possible. My bliss was short-lived, as it was just a visit, and we
were back to the cold country again much too soon.
After boomeranging back to the other side of the Atlantic, time
again slipped by, and his older sister was to attend college. Their
whole family moved back. I can still feel the bidding breasts and
straight torso of my ten year old body at that airport, eagerly
awaiting to catch a sight of them, and then, seeing him emerge from
the terminal, taking my young breath away. He was bald from a
recent pilgrimage and smiling that cocky grin of his. I was
enraptured. That night, he and others ganged up on me and insulted
me, leading me to tears, not the first I had shed thanks to him
)and most certainly not the last), but this time, they were
different somehow. It wasn't his teasing that made me weep, but
that I perceived that he thought less of me.
His opinions had always mattered the most. His words had always
rung the most repeatedly in my mind. I had always wondered what
he'd thought of me. I'd missed him the most sorely.
I wrote a poem for him, now lost, but its essence was to engrave
itself into my heart, and I was to write many a poem and shed many
a tear over that boy. He was my dearest ally and then my most
ruthless foe, a trickster in every way. I was the religious naif
and he the worldly intellectual, but time spent in one another's
company seemed to lead to a role reversal, and he grew religious
enough to eschew the company of mundane young females and instead
go to study in both the tropical place of his past and the cold
country of mine.
Time again passed, and I was to visit the cold country. I eagerly
awaited the visit, but the reasons were not as clear-cut as they
would seem. I had left a part of myself in London, and I wanted to
retrieve it, to cherish the precocious chick I had been, to stand
in the backyard, no cynic's cigarette in hand, to cast off the
hollowness and to think, resoundingly, that there was a
point. I didn't quite reach that point, but I did retrieve some
fragments and work towards letting go of an affection so obviously
unreciprocated.
Time again passed, and the call that had resounded in my soul for
him was reduced to echoes --- sounds, still, but rather weakened. I
heard news that he was to wed, and my heart rejoiced even as I felt
a pang of sadness, for if he were to wed, I would have to let go of
the minuscule shred of hope that I would someday marry him. He
married; on the car ride home, I let a single tear roll down as we
passed the car dealerships and consumer orgyhouses that so
liberally dot the landscape of the California freeway, a tear for
the girl I had been and the man he could have been --- and yes, the
lovers we should have been.
Yes, for a good year afterward, whenever I caught sight of him or
heard his voice, I'd swallow hard and feel something breathe into
the hollow in me, making it more noticeable than usual. Gratefully,
he and his bride departed for his version of a honeymoon (religious
studies in various locations in the Middle East), and I was spared
the sight of him. In the few months that he was gone, I learned
that I was loveworthy, that I was not doomed to gloomy, unrequited
passions for all of eternity.
Last night was his homecoming get-together. All the older, married
women in the group always grow cruder and more shrewish when placed
together, much to the amusement of the young women present (myself,
my sister, and his wife). When they spoke of how being a widow was
a relief, I laughed and remarked that I hoped to remain unmarried,
if marriage would seem to me like nothing but someone for whom to
cook and do chores and about whom to fuss. Dinner was excellent, as
was dessert, about which I complimented his wife. I even took some
leftover dessert home. I felt my gaze about to catch sight of him
and so began to flinch, knowing what was to come and--- nothing,
nothing worth even the most cursory of winces.
This fine evening, I had a phone conversation. It got cut off and I
seized the opportunity to eat dessert. As I scraped the bottom of
the dish with my spoon, it occur ed to me that had things gone as I
had wished them to go, I wouldn't have been eating an excellent
dessert at this precise moment. It seemed hysterical and I laughed
and laughed until I was breathless.
If things had gone the way I had wished them to go, from the time I
was an easily-impressed child to a high-strung adolescent, I would
be married, trotted off to an unromantic honeymoon, impregnated,
and making painstakingly layered desserts as soon as I arrived home
exhausted. I know this for a fact because the woman that is his
wife is living so in order to please him. Instead, I get to eat the
desserts in peace and explore my identity at my ease.
I guess it all worked out for the best. I'm going to savor the
taste in my mouth and the joy in my heart now.
we are all connected | April 20, 2006 6:29am
Matter is neither created nor destroyed, it simply changes the
state in which it manifests itself. So do I believe is the
essential nature of each individual, but that's another blog entry
in and of itself.
All the matter that exists on Earth was once formed inside a star
(remember that one song by Moby, "We Are All Made of Stars"? We
are). When we die, our bodies turn into something else, which in
turn is transformed into something else. That piece of lint you
picked out of your pocket could have once been your
great-great-great grandmother's heart. Let me explain: her heart
decomposed, some of that matter became part of the soil that grew a
cotton plant, that cotton plant was harvested and processed into
cloth, a piece of lint detached from the main cloth, and then ---
you flicked it away like it was nothing.
Reductive? I find it fascinating. Water is the best example of them
all. The water I used in the tea that I just drank could have been
T.S. Eliot's piss once, hmmmm.
In this very materialistic sense, I wholly believe that
reincarnation exists and that we are all connected. Infinite
potential, that's what I glean from the whole deal. As a matter of
fact, infinite potential is what I end up believing in after
delving into all sorts of cruxes. I guess that perhaps that's my
One Truth. Who knows? The truth lies in the question, of course.
Wear Denim Day | April 19, 2006 7:10pm
Link: Wear Denim Day at my university.
The Denim Day campaign began in 1999 with CALCASA and LACAAW, the
Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women, as part of an
international protest of an Italian Supreme Court decision to
overturn a rape conviction because the victim was wearing jeans.
The Italian Supreme Court dismissed charges against a 45-year old
rape suspect because his 18-year-old victim was wearing jeans at
the time of the attack. The Court stated in its decision that
“It is common knowledge…that jeans cannot even be
partly removed without the effective help of the person wearing
them….and it is impossible if the victim is struggling with
all her might.”
Sick, sick, sick. If you really need some sex, hire a hooker, get a
lap dance at a strip club, take the town slut out on a date. Don't
rape someone. That seems like stating the obvious. I do understand
that some women send mixed messages and that we women should do our
best to avoid circumstances that would lead to men taking advantage
of us (it's sad but true), but still, doing anything to someone's
body without their express wish for it violates the right to
personal freedom of choice.
This violation of freedom to choose can apply to anything, really,
not just sexual things. I'm reminded of the path behind me, despite
my wish to simply move straight-on into my future. When I was a
kid, my dad would tickle me until I couldn't breathe and was crying
and nearly urinated (sometimes, I did). That not only was
uncomfortable, it has put me off to tickling. I mean, I don't mind
physical affection (just recently, in fact, I've been bitten badly
by the cuddle bug), and I imagine that being lightly tickled for
fun would be nice, but I don't know. When I imagine being tickled,
I can't help being reminded of what my dad used to do. It doesn't
gross me out or anything, I just feel somewhat annoyed.
I'm not all baggage-laden, by no means, I simply wanted an example
that fit certain criteria, and this one fit. I'm sure that if the
right person were to tickle me, I'd like it.
I shall blog a question | April 6, 2006 6:08a
Off The OKCupid Test:
So, if a implies b, does that mean not b implies not a?
- yes
- no
- I don't know
- I don't know, AND I'm bothered by this question
I had a revelation concerning how to reason with this question just
now. I was reading the other side of the cap of my Peach Iced Tea
Diet Snapple (or is that Diet Iced Tea Peach Snapple?), and it said
this on it (I would take a picture but I'm not at home):
"Real Fact" #149
Theodore Roosevelt was the only president who was blind in one
eye.
So I got to thinking about how some kid who was teased about being
blind in one eye might read it and say, "Well, it doesn't matter if
the other kids make fun of me, someday I might be a great president
like Teddy Roosevelt!" and wipe his/her tears and move on. It's a
nice idea, isn't it?
Not if you're me. For me, such hope is something to dissect. People
say things like this to others and to themselves all the time. They
create false causality in the name of hope (just as many religious
beliefs eschew logic in favor of comfort). To say that one could be
President one day because one is blind in one eye and so was Teddy
Roosevelt is to unwittingly create this syllogism:
President Teddy Roosevelt was blind in one eye.
I am blind in one eye.
Therefore, I could be President one day.
Obviously, this is a case of false causality. It could be applied
to any situation. Plus, statistically speaking, look at how many
people have been and are blind in one eye and were not and won't be
President. Sad, isn't it?
Back to the question. I suppose that this gives away my learning
style and a fragment of my personality, but I'd apply all sorts of
facts, both random and linked, to the variables called a and b and
see if what is purported is necessarily true in all cases.
Yes, I actually think this way on a normal basis. The only effort I
expended on this entry had to do with putting it into a sequence
that was somewhat logical and rational, or at least comprehensible
by another human being.
I heard it's cold out | April 5, 2006 7:53pm
So it's cliche, and I swore not to do it, so I won't.
Some say that cliches are cliches for a reason. What's implied by
that statement that cliches are often true. I don't deny that
cliches and trite, overused statements in general can be true, but
the truth is not the issue. My problem with sayings is that they're
reductive. Yes, it's helpful to be reductive at times and then to
assess what it all boils down to and work from there, but most
people only perform the first step and not the second. It's a
shame, really.
As to the truth of cliches? I quote Anatole France: "If fifty
million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
Yes, it remains foolish, but it often becomes true. If enough
people believe in something whole-heartedly a fervently, it is the
truth to them and therefore true, despite the fact that it's a mass
illusion.
All my philosophical thoughts lead me back to solipsism, a concept
with which I've been mentally toying for a while but for which I
didn't have a name until very recently. Maybe the whole world is
nothing but a collective illusion, or, even better, a projection of
my mind. Either way, this is the world, and I have to live in it.
From the new frontiers of physics (What the Bleep Do We Know is an
excellent way to discover the idea behind it) and from solipsism, I
simply glean this: human beings have infinite potential, so stop
whining, make no excuses, overcome pre-set patterns of thought, and
manifest existential (as in self-made) purpose.
That last sentence was a command to myself, since I always lament
the fact that I never myself take the good advice that I dispense
to others.
| | | Posted 5/22/2007 1:21 PM - 67 views - 0 comments
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