Sunday, November 25, 2012
People Don't Change
I'm not sure why, but for some reason, people always seem to think that someone will change once they start dating them. Like, they're the magical key to that person's heart, their soul, and their inner "good" personality just waiting to escape.
This is a lie.
A person is going to be a good person, regardless of who they are with. This isn't a fairy tale, it isn't Disney or the movies, where the kiss from a kind-hearted soul will free the prince from his (or her) beastly shape. The person who turns into a good person because of another is not truly being a good person at all. They're being manipulated on a sub-conscious level by their own mind and their personal wants and desires. They become what they think the other person wants them to be, so they change themselves so they can appeal to their prince/princess. They don't suddenly grow independent, or loving, or stop being a cheater. It's just not the way life works.
So many people go through life looking for "the one," that person who can fix everything and make it all better. The one that they can live happily ever after with. It's an awful, tragic belief to get trapped in, because it's never going to happen. Not if that person ends up being someone who you think will change when you get together. I know this from experience.
When I was 18, I got married and ended up getting trapped in a bad relationship. Not as bad as some, worse than was healthy. I knew that if I didn't get out, things would get worse and worse and worse until they ended (and not well), and eventually I left him. But--much to my regret--not before having an affair with a guy I had been in love with since high school. He was smart, funny, and was sympathetic and could identify with my troubles.
It was a terrible choice--I destroyed a lot of friendships and hurt a lot more people. I tried to make it work--first with my husband, then, after my divorce, with the guy I cheated with. The latter ended up not exactly being the shining star he seemed to be to me for so many years. He was angry, cruel and made a lot of bad choices while convincing himself it wasn't anything he had caused. I ended up losing both guys, causing a lot of unnecessary pain and now do not communicate with either of them.
The point is, so many people have unrealistic expectations of others, particularly those they cannot have. I've seen it, you've seen it in your friend's relationships, and yet you refuse to see it in your own life. This is not meant to be as accusatory as it sounds, I'm every bit as guilty as the next person--with a few more sins than the typical passer-by tends to carry. It's just a frustrating occurrence, one I see more and more often in people's lives, with more and more justification for their poor decisions.
I'm not sure how to end this, except to say that I hope that next time, you will take that person--that person you love so much--carefully remove them from their pedestal, and examine their personality as-is, not as you hope--believe--they could be.
This is a lie.
A person is going to be a good person, regardless of who they are with. This isn't a fairy tale, it isn't Disney or the movies, where the kiss from a kind-hearted soul will free the prince from his (or her) beastly shape. The person who turns into a good person because of another is not truly being a good person at all. They're being manipulated on a sub-conscious level by their own mind and their personal wants and desires. They become what they think the other person wants them to be, so they change themselves so they can appeal to their prince/princess. They don't suddenly grow independent, or loving, or stop being a cheater. It's just not the way life works.
So many people go through life looking for "the one," that person who can fix everything and make it all better. The one that they can live happily ever after with. It's an awful, tragic belief to get trapped in, because it's never going to happen. Not if that person ends up being someone who you think will change when you get together. I know this from experience.
When I was 18, I got married and ended up getting trapped in a bad relationship. Not as bad as some, worse than was healthy. I knew that if I didn't get out, things would get worse and worse and worse until they ended (and not well), and eventually I left him. But--much to my regret--not before having an affair with a guy I had been in love with since high school. He was smart, funny, and was sympathetic and could identify with my troubles.
It was a terrible choice--I destroyed a lot of friendships and hurt a lot more people. I tried to make it work--first with my husband, then, after my divorce, with the guy I cheated with. The latter ended up not exactly being the shining star he seemed to be to me for so many years. He was angry, cruel and made a lot of bad choices while convincing himself it wasn't anything he had caused. I ended up losing both guys, causing a lot of unnecessary pain and now do not communicate with either of them.
The point is, so many people have unrealistic expectations of others, particularly those they cannot have. I've seen it, you've seen it in your friend's relationships, and yet you refuse to see it in your own life. This is not meant to be as accusatory as it sounds, I'm every bit as guilty as the next person--with a few more sins than the typical passer-by tends to carry. It's just a frustrating occurrence, one I see more and more often in people's lives, with more and more justification for their poor decisions.
I'm not sure how to end this, except to say that I hope that next time, you will take that person--that person you love so much--carefully remove them from their pedestal, and examine their personality as-is, not as you hope--believe--they could be.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
The River Socks
Close quarters confine me. Friends, different textures and flurries of colors surround me, hugging me tightly, wrapping and twisting themselves around me before passing me on to the next party.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Bile
Her knees hugged either side of the toilet, her elbow resting on the seat as she held her forehead in her hand. Her mouth watered in that sickly, stale sort of way as she fought the urge to hold it back.
Hot, wet bile roiled it's way up her throat, pouring out of her mouth and leaking through her nostrils mercilessly. Her eyes watered at the acidic vomit that now had her body in convulsions, how was there always more?
Two, three, four more times her body clenched, flexed and released of it's own accord: her body was no longer her own. Each time that burning wet stew filled up the clean, porcelain bowl; by now the stench was wafting up each time she hurled or moved, adding insult to injury.
Shaking, she reached for the glass on top of the bathroom counter. She lifted it to her lips, lightly took a sip, and swirled it around her mouth collecting various half-digested food particles before spitting it out again, like some fine wine, she thought wryly. Still shaking, she unrolled a small amount of toilet paper, wiped her mouth, blew her nose—gingerly. She looked at her handiwork: small yellowed chunks of food, a reddish, sweet-potato-colored liquid mixed with what looked like saliva, and a bit of blood from her nose. Slowly shaking her head from side to side, half in bemusement, half in an attempt to come back down to the reality of the cold bathroom floor, she grabbed the bathroom counter, lifted herself up, flushed the toilet, and walked out the door.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Baby Cage
Today I read a few snippets in between calls of an awesome blog called Asshole Baby. This blog--while obviously about a loving father and his adventures in the hell fire that is fatherhood--is chock-full of reasons exactly why I am NOT ready to be a mother. Babies poop. They pee everywhere. They eat things. Lots of non-food things. They're a lot like my dog, actually, only they shed slightly less and you can't throw them in the kennel for several hours while you get shit faced off Long Islands and vodka Red Bulls run to the store for a few emergency items. Well...not unless you hook up a pretty sweet baby cage. Throw some blankets in there, one of those little water bottles they hang in hamster cages, only fill it with milk...*shakes self* No! Bad! No baby cage!
This is why I can't be a parent. Pity my animals.
This is why I can't be a parent. Pity my animals.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Brain Cancer
It's been so long since I've posted on here. Too long, in fact.
I promise, there are reasons behind it all.
As all two of my "followers" may know, my very dear friend Hunter was recently diagnosed with brain Glioblastoma. Only about 1 in 4 live longer than 2 years after their diagnosis, and an even more ridiculously small amount live past that. Needless to say, that and school have been taking up a lot of my spare time lately--something that I have precious few of, anyway.
It gets you thinking a lot about dark stuff--cancer. A lot of heavy, existential stuff that tends to crawl into your brain and pry it apart bit by bit, like a starfish going after a meal. Or the cancer itself. Just what is fair? Just what caused it? Just why did it happen right now? Things like that. You never really find the answers, of course. You never will. Thousands of people who were blessed with a whole lot more intelligence than I have are paid disgustingly grandiose amounts of money to just sit and think about these questions--and they're probably just as close to understanding the answer as I am.
What I do know, however, is that life's not fair. It's indiscriminate in who it takes and who it leaves, as long as it can bloat itself upon the trials and misfortunes of many unfortunate misfits. That's a rather bleak outlook on it, I know, but I guess it's hard to remain optimistic in times like these. Hard to remain objective when friends--when family--are being pulled away so rapidly. 2 years. That's not a long time, you know. Think about what you were doing 2 years ago. Now think about what you'd be doing if you knew that by this time--by tomorrow, even--you'd be drawing your last dying breath, having spent much of your time in and out of hospitals, your hair slowly wilting away from your body, along with your strength and ability to function as a normal, healthy adult. You can't run, you can't fight--not from this. It's a staggering concept to grasp. One that I don't think I'd do well to dwell on for too long.
Love you Hunter. I don't know how you manage to remain so upbeat, so optimistic, so--normal--through all of this. I hope so much to someday to be half the person you've always been.
I promise, there are reasons behind it all.
As all two of my "followers" may know, my very dear friend Hunter was recently diagnosed with brain Glioblastoma. Only about 1 in 4 live longer than 2 years after their diagnosis, and an even more ridiculously small amount live past that. Needless to say, that and school have been taking up a lot of my spare time lately--something that I have precious few of, anyway.
It gets you thinking a lot about dark stuff--cancer. A lot of heavy, existential stuff that tends to crawl into your brain and pry it apart bit by bit, like a starfish going after a meal. Or the cancer itself. Just what is fair? Just what caused it? Just why did it happen right now? Things like that. You never really find the answers, of course. You never will. Thousands of people who were blessed with a whole lot more intelligence than I have are paid disgustingly grandiose amounts of money to just sit and think about these questions--and they're probably just as close to understanding the answer as I am.
What I do know, however, is that life's not fair. It's indiscriminate in who it takes and who it leaves, as long as it can bloat itself upon the trials and misfortunes of many unfortunate misfits. That's a rather bleak outlook on it, I know, but I guess it's hard to remain optimistic in times like these. Hard to remain objective when friends--when family--are being pulled away so rapidly. 2 years. That's not a long time, you know. Think about what you were doing 2 years ago. Now think about what you'd be doing if you knew that by this time--by tomorrow, even--you'd be drawing your last dying breath, having spent much of your time in and out of hospitals, your hair slowly wilting away from your body, along with your strength and ability to function as a normal, healthy adult. You can't run, you can't fight--not from this. It's a staggering concept to grasp. One that I don't think I'd do well to dwell on for too long.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Pathos
In my vast and varied life-spanning all of these 23 years thus far-I feel that I have grown both as an individual and as a contributing member to society. Many things that I once saw in black and white are now metaphorical shades of gray--topics of interest in life that can be molded and sculpted to fit different situations and people as the circumstances change. One thing, however, has remained a deeply-rooted conviction in my mind and heart--possibly even growing stronger as time goes by.
Don't.
Fuck.
With.
My.
Animals.
Or any animals, really. There are few things with intentions so honest or typically well meaning in this life than that of an animal's mind and heart. Sure, you get your crazy asshole poodle once in a while, and it seems to me that I heard once that dolphins fuck up sharks just "for the helluvit" (actual dolphin quote), but for the most part--in my opinion--even the most brutal acts from an animal have some underlying, logical reason. Take, for instance, my dogs. Both sweet, both pretty starkly different personalities, but if they feel I'm threatened in any way? Yeah, that's 20 lbs of furry fury I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of. Like, seriously, these dogs are kind of pathetic. I was out of town for a couple of days and one of them barely ate. This dog was the runt of the litter-wouldn't even fight for his food-and he eats everything.
It's partially because of these reasons that I think most of us develop a sense of righteous anger when we see an abused animal on television, a kid kicking a cat on the street, or a dog in a sweater. It's not right, they don't know why it's happening to them, and they couldn't stop it if they tried. I had one such run-in about a year and a half ago...
It's mid-to-late summer (I don't really remember which, actually) and my roommate had just moved out with a week's notice. Desperately needing a replacement party to fill the empty room, my other roommate suggests one of his friends-a rather odd (and by "odd" I mean bat shit crazy) fellow by the name of-let's call him Thes. Everything went fine for the first day or so, and then he revealed his inner alcoholic artistic genius nutcase side. One such example was when he brought home a young woman he met on the MAX that he knew from high school...supposedly.. Anyways, I get woken up at 1:30 in the morning with her shrieking and bawling at the bottom of the stairs about the injustices of kennel training-which is, for those of you who might not know, the practice of teaching a dog to sleep/stay in a comfortably-sized kennel when you're, say, in bed or out of the house. It really helps you avoid stepping on candy-bar-sized puppies in the middle of the night and keeps them from pooping and or chewing on everything in sight. But nooooo, this was an injustice! This was "sick", "cruel" and "fucked up!" As the poor dear collapsed in a miserable heap in the entryway-weak from the sight of it all-and probably from the alcohol and whatever else she was on-I told my roommates to take her to bed, let her crash on the couch-whatever, just shut her up and let me sleep for 4 more hours until I had to go to work.
It lasted for about an hour.
2 AM, both me and the boyfriend are woken up by the most gut-wrenching, ear-piercing shriek we've ever experienced. Honestly, we thought someone must have been stabbed. Throwing open the bedroom door, we're greeted by one of the puppies-the runt-my dog-crying in pain, unable to use one leg and trying desperately to just get closer to us-to come and greet us like he does every time anyone walks in the door. Now, as I mentioned before, our dogs are crate-trained. He should be downstairs, in a closed kennel, sleeping on his brother, sister and mom. Instead, something has happened that has managed to both terrify and injure him, and the only thing he could think to do was to crawl his way painstakingly across an entire house and up two flights of stairs to us. Picture this:
with the worst case of puppy-eyes imaginable and in pain. And you don't know how to fix it, or even to what extent he's been hurt. Yeah, me too. After passing Runt to the boyfriend, I ran downstairs to see the girl-alone-with the kennel open, cradling one of the puppies and murmuring various drunken promises to it. Another puppy was wandering the living room, exploring various nooks and crannies, while their mom looked nervously back and forth between the two. She was a good mom, just not aggressive.
Now, I tend to get rather irritated with people sometimes. Heck, at my job, I even get downright pissed. But I usually tend to keep a pretty even keel, and I never yell. I yelled. I yelled at her to put the dog down. I yelled at her to go upstairs and crash. I yelled at her to get out of my sight and to sleep off whatever she was on. She slunk upstairs, I checked the puppies, took them and their mom to my room, then I, too, went upstairs. Where I yelled some more. At some point I seem to remember her rolling her eyes and trying to deny doing anything, but this did not bode well for her. I believe were my exact words were
"NO. You're going to shut up, you're going to take it, or you're going to get the fuck out of my house."
I never laid a hand on her-I don't think I had to. The puppies were fine, and aside from being shaken up, Runt was able to walk fine in an hour or two. The girl left the next day (the only reason I hadn't kicked her out that night was because we lived in a sketchy part of town), and that also ended up being the day Thes was asked to move out. All in all, everything worked out pretty well, but I stand by my statement: Don't fuck with animals. Especially mine. Because I will find you.
Don't.
Fuck.
With.
My.
Animals.
Or any animals, really. There are few things with intentions so honest or typically well meaning in this life than that of an animal's mind and heart. Sure, you get your crazy asshole poodle once in a while, and it seems to me that I heard once that dolphins fuck up sharks just "for the helluvit" (actual dolphin quote), but for the most part--in my opinion--even the most brutal acts from an animal have some underlying, logical reason. Take, for instance, my dogs. Both sweet, both pretty starkly different personalities, but if they feel I'm threatened in any way? Yeah, that's 20 lbs of furry fury I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of. Like, seriously, these dogs are kind of pathetic. I was out of town for a couple of days and one of them barely ate. This dog was the runt of the litter-wouldn't even fight for his food-and he eats everything.
It's partially because of these reasons that I think most of us develop a sense of righteous anger when we see an abused animal on television, a kid kicking a cat on the street, or a dog in a sweater. It's not right, they don't know why it's happening to them, and they couldn't stop it if they tried. I had one such run-in about a year and a half ago...
It's mid-to-late summer (I don't really remember which, actually) and my roommate had just moved out with a week's notice. Desperately needing a replacement party to fill the empty room, my other roommate suggests one of his friends-a rather odd (and by "odd" I mean bat shit crazy) fellow by the name of-let's call him Thes. Everything went fine for the first day or so, and then he revealed his inner alcoholic artistic genius nutcase side. One such example was when he brought home a young woman he met on the MAX that he knew from high school...supposedly.. Anyways, I get woken up at 1:30 in the morning with her shrieking and bawling at the bottom of the stairs about the injustices of kennel training-which is, for those of you who might not know, the practice of teaching a dog to sleep/stay in a comfortably-sized kennel when you're, say, in bed or out of the house. It really helps you avoid stepping on candy-bar-sized puppies in the middle of the night and keeps them from pooping and or chewing on everything in sight. But nooooo, this was an injustice! This was "sick", "cruel" and "fucked up!" As the poor dear collapsed in a miserable heap in the entryway-weak from the sight of it all-and probably from the alcohol and whatever else she was on-I told my roommates to take her to bed, let her crash on the couch-whatever, just shut her up and let me sleep for 4 more hours until I had to go to work.
It lasted for about an hour.
2 AM, both me and the boyfriend are woken up by the most gut-wrenching, ear-piercing shriek we've ever experienced. Honestly, we thought someone must have been stabbed. Throwing open the bedroom door, we're greeted by one of the puppies-the runt-my dog-crying in pain, unable to use one leg and trying desperately to just get closer to us-to come and greet us like he does every time anyone walks in the door. Now, as I mentioned before, our dogs are crate-trained. He should be downstairs, in a closed kennel, sleeping on his brother, sister and mom. Instead, something has happened that has managed to both terrify and injure him, and the only thing he could think to do was to crawl his way painstakingly across an entire house and up two flights of stairs to us. Picture this:
with the worst case of puppy-eyes imaginable and in pain. And you don't know how to fix it, or even to what extent he's been hurt. Yeah, me too. After passing Runt to the boyfriend, I ran downstairs to see the girl-alone-with the kennel open, cradling one of the puppies and murmuring various drunken promises to it. Another puppy was wandering the living room, exploring various nooks and crannies, while their mom looked nervously back and forth between the two. She was a good mom, just not aggressive.
Now, I tend to get rather irritated with people sometimes. Heck, at my job, I even get downright pissed. But I usually tend to keep a pretty even keel, and I never yell. I yelled. I yelled at her to put the dog down. I yelled at her to go upstairs and crash. I yelled at her to get out of my sight and to sleep off whatever she was on. She slunk upstairs, I checked the puppies, took them and their mom to my room, then I, too, went upstairs. Where I yelled some more. At some point I seem to remember her rolling her eyes and trying to deny doing anything, but this did not bode well for her. I believe were my exact words were
"NO. You're going to shut up, you're going to take it, or you're going to get the fuck out of my house."
I never laid a hand on her-I don't think I had to. The puppies were fine, and aside from being shaken up, Runt was able to walk fine in an hour or two. The girl left the next day (the only reason I hadn't kicked her out that night was because we lived in a sketchy part of town), and that also ended up being the day Thes was asked to move out. All in all, everything worked out pretty well, but I stand by my statement: Don't fuck with animals. Especially mine. Because I will find you.
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