Friday, May 06, 2011
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Lullaby
In a horribly sarcastic sense
There is a lull in my thinking
It steals over me silently in my sleep
Blooming over the veins of my face
That stand out in their Y-shape on my forehead
And draw attention to imperfection
Just the way they should
This lull is perverse because I have wanted it so
I have begged and pleaded for any refuge
From a barrage of thoughts and feelings
My insides have turned themselves outside
In a vague sense of righteousness
And a clear sense of wrong-eousness
Yet when it finally arrives, this lull I have waited for
It is simply a numbness that begins with my toes
As they sink into the ice that is packed so tightly
And spreads upwards until it bursts into song
And a dance that bleeds itself through my hands and feet
Until the carpet is red and I am white
A lullaby to my body and a lullaby to my mind
Meh, I don't know how I feel about this. It was just...there in the midst of confusion and then it was here on this blog...
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Oh, My Life.
After weeks of vague bliss there is a lull in the conversation and an uneasy silence follows while we try to figure out where to go from here.
As human beings we depend on other human beings to leech our emotions from—we can’t feel things on our own, everything comes from those around us. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why does being around a depressed person make you feel depressed? Why do we grab onto optimistic people like they are our last lifelines to happiness? Because it’s better than not feeling anything at all—better than feeling an unknown, unidentifiable ache somewhere in your body that you wish you could stopper and put into a jar and analyze.
Analysis of ache: somewhere just above my ribs and just below my breast, there is a dull throbbing that is not quite pain—it feels more like a constant restlessness, a need to do something, but without the knowledge of what I need to do, the ache will not end. Additionally, my ankle actually does feel pain, probably because I must have rolled it over the course of the last few days, sometime when I was tripping around in heels, and maybe this pain isn’t related, but it makes me limp slightly and is a constant reminder of the melodramatic opera that has taken over the last 48 waking hours.
There’s something about happiness that makes me, and probably others, uneasy. It is like we are waiting for the wheel to continue turning and we know that we are at the top now, but we’ll be at the bottom very soon. So we force ourselves to the bottom, thinking that self-inflicted anguish will probably be better than what the universe can dream up for us. And sometimes we force others to the bottom with us, and this is much worse. I have been forced to the bottom by another person, and it is, to say the least, an experience.
Somewhere in the midst of wondering whether all of this is my fault or if I should never have let my happiness depend on someone else in the first place, I hear everyone around me telling me that I am better off without him, and that nothing is my fault, but none of it seems to register. It may not be my fault, but it is most definitely my pain, and am I a horrible person for wanting him to feel more pain than me? All of those beautiful stories about romance and love (not that this was anything close to love, I’m no fool) involve somebody being hurt, and still wishing happiness and joy towards the person that hurt them because they are in love. How can this be? What an inhuman feeling—all I want is for the person that hurt me to feel far more pain than I feel.
It is a circling darkness, and there is a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, and I am dancing in a red dress and he is looking at me.
I want this.
I want him to look at me, to know what he is missing, and yet I feel like an unattractive, ugly soul.
It is a circling darkness and I am dancing in a red dress and I am yelling at him, things that he doesn't want to hear because he thought this was going to be a clean break, he thought I wasn’t the kind of person to create unnecessary drama. I wasn’t that kind of person, but I am tripping over my heels and dancing in a red dress and his head and my head will be throbbing with a hangover tomorrow and the drama is here.
It is a circling darkness and I am dancing in a red dress and he is not looking at me.
I don’t want this.
He is leaving with someone else and rage is building within me but it comes out as sadness. I can’t be here but I am not leaving. Then I am pulled upwards and an arm is wrapped around my waist and it is not his arm, but that seems okay. If this was a movie this would be the artistic club scene in which the camera moves quickly and jerkily and creates a dizzying confusion for the audience because that’s what it would feel like if you were there.
It is a circling darkness and I am not dancing in a red dress, I am stumbling outside and there is an arm around me and I feel a vague sense of comfort, but it is gone in the same flash that it came with. This is where the ache begins.
I hear the voice next to me saying that he made a mistake, that he still likes me, and in a haze I believe it because it is what I need to hear, and it is easy to pretend that the voice is him, even though the arm is not his.
It is a circling darkness and I am sprawled across my bed in a red dress, my arms tangled underneath me and I am in deep sleep. I am dreaming in flashes of confusion, and I am dreaming about ways that the night could have gone so that when I wake up I can’t remember any more what really happened and what was in my dream.
When I crawl out of bed I recognize the ache and this has never happened to me before. I can feel my face being a mask that is ready to crumble at any instant and everything around me is making me think about what has happened and I see myself in the mirror and I know what I was the night before. I wasn’t a girl dancing in a red dress, I was a train wreck in red dress who thought she could handle this but she can’t.
It is the longest day that I have ever known.
This morning I woke up and saw the sun filtering through my blinds and the ache lessened.
One step at a time.
In the shower I touched my face and felt the layers of tears I had not bothered to wash and makeup that had covered it and as I picked up the soap I had this thought.
I’m better than this.
As human beings we depend on other human beings to leech our emotions from—we can’t feel things on our own, everything comes from those around us. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why does being around a depressed person make you feel depressed? Why do we grab onto optimistic people like they are our last lifelines to happiness? Because it’s better than not feeling anything at all—better than feeling an unknown, unidentifiable ache somewhere in your body that you wish you could stopper and put into a jar and analyze.
Analysis of ache: somewhere just above my ribs and just below my breast, there is a dull throbbing that is not quite pain—it feels more like a constant restlessness, a need to do something, but without the knowledge of what I need to do, the ache will not end. Additionally, my ankle actually does feel pain, probably because I must have rolled it over the course of the last few days, sometime when I was tripping around in heels, and maybe this pain isn’t related, but it makes me limp slightly and is a constant reminder of the melodramatic opera that has taken over the last 48 waking hours.
There’s something about happiness that makes me, and probably others, uneasy. It is like we are waiting for the wheel to continue turning and we know that we are at the top now, but we’ll be at the bottom very soon. So we force ourselves to the bottom, thinking that self-inflicted anguish will probably be better than what the universe can dream up for us. And sometimes we force others to the bottom with us, and this is much worse. I have been forced to the bottom by another person, and it is, to say the least, an experience.
Somewhere in the midst of wondering whether all of this is my fault or if I should never have let my happiness depend on someone else in the first place, I hear everyone around me telling me that I am better off without him, and that nothing is my fault, but none of it seems to register. It may not be my fault, but it is most definitely my pain, and am I a horrible person for wanting him to feel more pain than me? All of those beautiful stories about romance and love (not that this was anything close to love, I’m no fool) involve somebody being hurt, and still wishing happiness and joy towards the person that hurt them because they are in love. How can this be? What an inhuman feeling—all I want is for the person that hurt me to feel far more pain than I feel.
It is a circling darkness, and there is a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, and I am dancing in a red dress and he is looking at me.
I want this.
I want him to look at me, to know what he is missing, and yet I feel like an unattractive, ugly soul.
It is a circling darkness and I am dancing in a red dress and I am yelling at him, things that he doesn't want to hear because he thought this was going to be a clean break, he thought I wasn’t the kind of person to create unnecessary drama. I wasn’t that kind of person, but I am tripping over my heels and dancing in a red dress and his head and my head will be throbbing with a hangover tomorrow and the drama is here.
It is a circling darkness and I am dancing in a red dress and he is not looking at me.
I don’t want this.
He is leaving with someone else and rage is building within me but it comes out as sadness. I can’t be here but I am not leaving. Then I am pulled upwards and an arm is wrapped around my waist and it is not his arm, but that seems okay. If this was a movie this would be the artistic club scene in which the camera moves quickly and jerkily and creates a dizzying confusion for the audience because that’s what it would feel like if you were there.
It is a circling darkness and I am not dancing in a red dress, I am stumbling outside and there is an arm around me and I feel a vague sense of comfort, but it is gone in the same flash that it came with. This is where the ache begins.
I hear the voice next to me saying that he made a mistake, that he still likes me, and in a haze I believe it because it is what I need to hear, and it is easy to pretend that the voice is him, even though the arm is not his.
It is a circling darkness and I am sprawled across my bed in a red dress, my arms tangled underneath me and I am in deep sleep. I am dreaming in flashes of confusion, and I am dreaming about ways that the night could have gone so that when I wake up I can’t remember any more what really happened and what was in my dream.
When I crawl out of bed I recognize the ache and this has never happened to me before. I can feel my face being a mask that is ready to crumble at any instant and everything around me is making me think about what has happened and I see myself in the mirror and I know what I was the night before. I wasn’t a girl dancing in a red dress, I was a train wreck in red dress who thought she could handle this but she can’t.
It is the longest day that I have ever known.
This morning I woke up and saw the sun filtering through my blinds and the ache lessened.
One step at a time.
In the shower I touched my face and felt the layers of tears I had not bothered to wash and makeup that had covered it and as I picked up the soap I had this thought.
I’m better than this.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
WARNING: This post is excessively Indian
So...I was on TV guys. Exciting, right? (Please tell me somebody is reading this)
Should you want to watch 30--or 27, to be exact--minutes of me singing, a link to the video is posted below. Before you watch it, though, there are some things about the style of music that you should know.
1) This style of music is called Hindustani, and is originally from the northern regions of India, although pretty much everyone sings it now. Original South Indian music is called Carnatic.
2) Almost everything in the video you are about to see is improvisational. That is correct, other than the words, I am making everything up on the spot. Of course, there are guidelines for what you can make up, and these guidelines for what notes you can use and when you can use them are called "Ragas". Think of it like the Indian classical version of jazz. Additionally, everything has to be in the correct cycle of beats, provided by the instrument that the boy in the video is playing, called a tabla.
3) The first part of the video is called an Alaap. This is essentially the vocal warmup where I show the audience what Raag I am singing by just basically experimenting with the notes a bit. The next section is a "Bhada Khayal", which is a very slow piece. These are more difficult, because you have much more space to fill with your improvisations, but it is also harder to understand if you do not know anything about Indian music. It will basically be like, why is she singing so slowly? The third part is a "Chota Khayal", which is a shorter, much faster piece in which I do some shorter improvisations. This will be probably be much more impressive to the viewer because it will sound fast and you will be like, wow, did she just make that up? The answer is yes, yes I did. The last piece is a "Bhajan", which is just a short devotional song that is entirely not improvised, and is in a different Raga than the rest of the performance.
4) If you do not want to watch 30 minutes of me singing, but still want to be a good friend to me, I recommend skipping towards the end, when I do the faster, more impressive improvisational stuff called "Taans", and also a Bhajan that is pretty. If you, for some reason, want to know even more about Indian music, talk to me at another time.
5) If you are wondering why I did not tell anyone/force anyone to set their TiVos for when I was going to be on TV, it is because this only aired in Northern California, so I am not a TV star or anything.
Without further ado, here you go:
http://www.swaralahari.org/site/playvideo.php?concertid=150
For a time breakdown of what I do in this video so you can watch selected parts of it:
Bhada Khayal is till about 17 minutes in.
Chota Khayal is till about 24 minutes in.
Bhajan (PRETTY SONG THAT YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO) starts at about 24:30, and goes till the end.
Hope you enjoy it...
Should you want to watch 30--or 27, to be exact--minutes of me singing, a link to the video is posted below. Before you watch it, though, there are some things about the style of music that you should know.
1) This style of music is called Hindustani, and is originally from the northern regions of India, although pretty much everyone sings it now. Original South Indian music is called Carnatic.
2) Almost everything in the video you are about to see is improvisational. That is correct, other than the words, I am making everything up on the spot. Of course, there are guidelines for what you can make up, and these guidelines for what notes you can use and when you can use them are called "Ragas". Think of it like the Indian classical version of jazz. Additionally, everything has to be in the correct cycle of beats, provided by the instrument that the boy in the video is playing, called a tabla.
3) The first part of the video is called an Alaap. This is essentially the vocal warmup where I show the audience what Raag I am singing by just basically experimenting with the notes a bit. The next section is a "Bhada Khayal", which is a very slow piece. These are more difficult, because you have much more space to fill with your improvisations, but it is also harder to understand if you do not know anything about Indian music. It will basically be like, why is she singing so slowly? The third part is a "Chota Khayal", which is a shorter, much faster piece in which I do some shorter improvisations. This will be probably be much more impressive to the viewer because it will sound fast and you will be like, wow, did she just make that up? The answer is yes, yes I did. The last piece is a "Bhajan", which is just a short devotional song that is entirely not improvised, and is in a different Raga than the rest of the performance.
4) If you do not want to watch 30 minutes of me singing, but still want to be a good friend to me, I recommend skipping towards the end, when I do the faster, more impressive improvisational stuff called "Taans", and also a Bhajan that is pretty. If you, for some reason, want to know even more about Indian music, talk to me at another time.
5) If you are wondering why I did not tell anyone/force anyone to set their TiVos for when I was going to be on TV, it is because this only aired in Northern California, so I am not a TV star or anything.
Without further ado, here you go:
http://www.swaralahari.org/site/playvideo.php?concertid=150
For a time breakdown of what I do in this video so you can watch selected parts of it:
Bhada Khayal is till about 17 minutes in.
Chota Khayal is till about 24 minutes in.
Bhajan (PRETTY SONG THAT YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO) starts at about 24:30, and goes till the end.
Hope you enjoy it...
Friday, October 01, 2010
Allegory
Some days are meant to be sat down and spoken to like children
In the dark, I will pretend that this day is one of those
Clear the fiction and fact and fiction from every hotel room
That was ever privy to any secrets that hotel rooms maintain
Be alive until the day of your death and on that day you will be
Deadly in your rotting heart and alive in your growing nails
Cry only when you have been given explicit permission
To allow the display of your excess emotion
Take a picture of every creation that you meet in your life
Except for those that you yourself have created
And then you can ask yourself
Is that how you speak to children?
In the dark, I will pretend that this day is one of those
Clear the fiction and fact and fiction from every hotel room
That was ever privy to any secrets that hotel rooms maintain
Be alive until the day of your death and on that day you will be
Deadly in your rotting heart and alive in your growing nails
Cry only when you have been given explicit permission
To allow the display of your excess emotion
Take a picture of every creation that you meet in your life
Except for those that you yourself have created
And then you can ask yourself
Is that how you speak to children?
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Adventures in Pretentious Behaviour
Recently I have been having some adventures in pretentiousness, and they are somewhat amusing as well as quite disgusting. I think the pretension level of the general population has risen in the past few years, probably because people found out that if nobody could understand what they were saying, they would be forced to think it was awesome in order to blend in. This has resulted in an explosion of the incorrect usage of words--on a sidenote, which is more pretentious, to use a sophisticated word, or to correct someone on the misuse of a sophisticated word?
Now being in college, I see more and more pretension in the forms of philosophy majors, non-philosophy majors who are taking one philosophy class, people desperate to find friends and think that being smart is a good way to go about that, etc. Note that in the title of this post I spelled behavior in the British way. This was on purpose, to prove some point that I have yet to think of.
Let me give you a glimpse into a recent day I had that will make you throw up in your mouth a little bit.
I am in the cafeteria, and I have just picked up my food. Nobody knows anyone yet, and I need somewhere to sit. Seeing somebody wearing an Arcade Fire shirt, I think "Well, at least there's a built-in topic of conversation", and I sit down next to said person and the group of people he was with. Ridiculousness follows:
ME: Hi, can I sit here?
BOY IN SHIRT: Sure, I guess.
ME: (silence as I listen to the conversation at the table)
BOY IN SHIRT: So, what about (insert old school video game here)? That was a great game...
GIRL WITH BLUE HAIR: Yeah, but (insert other video game) was so much better. Racing games don't get much better than that.
BOY IN SHIRT: Okay, so what if there was a racing game in which you were the steering wheel instead of the person behind it? And like, the controls just randomly changed?
BOY WITH GLASSES: Yeah, except you were in a dark box and you couldn't see anything and you couldn't get out...
ME: (thinking) What??
BOY IN SHIRT: It would be like, a metaphor for life...
ME: (very quietly) I think I just threw up in my mouth.
This conversation continues for some time in this manner. I am becoming desperate to change the subject or leave. In what was a huge mistake and something I hate myself for, I turned to music
ME: (turning to boy in shirt) So...did you know Arcade Fire is coming across the street from here next month?
BOY IN SHIRT: Yeah, I like Arcade Fire, but not as much as some other bands...I mean, they've totally sold out now.
ME: Um...okay. (wishing I had never brought up the subject)
BOY IN SHIRT: So what kind of music do you like?
ME: Um...I don't really know what it's called.
BOY IN SHIRT: What's your favorite band?
ME: Have you heard of Wolf Parade?
BOY IN SHIRT: Yeah, of course...(condescendingly) that's your favorite?
ME: No, actually there's this other band called Sunset Rubdown that's like...
BOY IN SHIRT: I haven't heard of that band.
ME: Okay...well...
BOY IN SHIRT: I guess I'd say the type of music you like is neo-psychedelic art rock...
At this point, I nodded, pretended to be done with my food, and left.
END SCENE
And here ends the story of how I re-learned two lessons that I had already known:
1) Never talk about music with people, especially if you don't know them.
2) Never, EVER say that you like neo-psychedelic art rock.
Now being in college, I see more and more pretension in the forms of philosophy majors, non-philosophy majors who are taking one philosophy class, people desperate to find friends and think that being smart is a good way to go about that, etc. Note that in the title of this post I spelled behavior in the British way. This was on purpose, to prove some point that I have yet to think of.
Let me give you a glimpse into a recent day I had that will make you throw up in your mouth a little bit.
I am in the cafeteria, and I have just picked up my food. Nobody knows anyone yet, and I need somewhere to sit. Seeing somebody wearing an Arcade Fire shirt, I think "Well, at least there's a built-in topic of conversation", and I sit down next to said person and the group of people he was with. Ridiculousness follows:
ME: Hi, can I sit here?
BOY IN SHIRT: Sure, I guess.
ME: (silence as I listen to the conversation at the table)
BOY IN SHIRT: So, what about (insert old school video game here)? That was a great game...
GIRL WITH BLUE HAIR: Yeah, but (insert other video game) was so much better. Racing games don't get much better than that.
BOY IN SHIRT: Okay, so what if there was a racing game in which you were the steering wheel instead of the person behind it? And like, the controls just randomly changed?
BOY WITH GLASSES: Yeah, except you were in a dark box and you couldn't see anything and you couldn't get out...
ME: (thinking) What??
BOY IN SHIRT: It would be like, a metaphor for life...
ME: (very quietly) I think I just threw up in my mouth.
This conversation continues for some time in this manner. I am becoming desperate to change the subject or leave. In what was a huge mistake and something I hate myself for, I turned to music
ME: (turning to boy in shirt) So...did you know Arcade Fire is coming across the street from here next month?
BOY IN SHIRT: Yeah, I like Arcade Fire, but not as much as some other bands...I mean, they've totally sold out now.
ME: Um...okay. (wishing I had never brought up the subject)
BOY IN SHIRT: So what kind of music do you like?
ME: Um...I don't really know what it's called.
BOY IN SHIRT: What's your favorite band?
ME: Have you heard of Wolf Parade?
BOY IN SHIRT: Yeah, of course...(condescendingly) that's your favorite?
ME: No, actually there's this other band called Sunset Rubdown that's like...
BOY IN SHIRT: I haven't heard of that band.
ME: Okay...well...
BOY IN SHIRT: I guess I'd say the type of music you like is neo-psychedelic art rock...
At this point, I nodded, pretended to be done with my food, and left.
END SCENE
And here ends the story of how I re-learned two lessons that I had already known:
1) Never talk about music with people, especially if you don't know them.
2) Never, EVER say that you like neo-psychedelic art rock.
Friday, August 20, 2010
New Things
Shall I give myself a fake name? Anyone who is anyone seems to have a fake name (this is a lie). While I'm feeling all philosophical and shit, I thought I'd post, and as soon as I had that thought, the philosophical shit feeling went away.
I'm moved into college, ready to start in on four years of torturous fun that is named "school" but everyone knows that's code for "parties". Did you know I hate exclamation points? Probably, since every time I write something like "Fun!" it comes out like "Fun."
Which is not really fun. And makes me sound sarcastic, even when I'm not being sarcastic. Despite this fact, I do sometimes get excited about things, and when I am excited (such as this moment when I am suddenly under the reign of no person other than myself and probably everyone who has any expectations of me whooops) I am very bad at showing my excitement. What usually happens is I don't do anything at all, or I fall down because I tripped on my foot and am acting really awkward. As you can see, I am well on my way to becoming socially aware and adept at making friends. Ha.
In other news, now that I am in college, I am free to begin my seductions of multiple men that are bound to fail because I have no skill in seduction, but the point is that I can at least try!
I pretty much felt obligated to write this post because this marks a very important change in my life that I have yet to feel any particular way about.
Additionally: Since I am desperate for comments, anyone who was on the mailing list before is still on the mailing list at their other email addresses. You couldn't escape that easily...
I'm moved into college, ready to start in on four years of torturous fun that is named "school" but everyone knows that's code for "parties". Did you know I hate exclamation points? Probably, since every time I write something like "Fun!" it comes out like "Fun."
Which is not really fun. And makes me sound sarcastic, even when I'm not being sarcastic. Despite this fact, I do sometimes get excited about things, and when I am excited (such as this moment when I am suddenly under the reign of no person other than myself and probably everyone who has any expectations of me whooops) I am very bad at showing my excitement. What usually happens is I don't do anything at all, or I fall down because I tripped on my foot and am acting really awkward. As you can see, I am well on my way to becoming socially aware and adept at making friends. Ha.
In other news, now that I am in college, I am free to begin my seductions of multiple men that are bound to fail because I have no skill in seduction, but the point is that I can at least try!
I pretty much felt obligated to write this post because this marks a very important change in my life that I have yet to feel any particular way about.
Additionally: Since I am desperate for comments, anyone who was on the mailing list before is still on the mailing list at their other email addresses. You couldn't escape that easily...
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