Yes we can! Yes we c-wait what the fuck?

"No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other. That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed, confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice, government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people, the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas. They are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere."

 BARACK OBAMA, speech, Jun. 4, 2009 

I can't fucking wait to read the NDAA signing statement!!

Emo Time

You know when you spend weeks and weeks trying to get it together just to do one scary thing and no matter how afraid you are, you reassure yourself that nothing in reality could possibly feel as awful as the things you make up in your head? And then after days and weeks of stalling you do this one thing and then it all goes horribly wrong, worse than you imagined and then you remember why you can never trust humans ever and you want all your therapy money back because you need to buy cats- so many cats- and long horrible sweaters and hair clips and cable and enough frozen dinners to never ever leave your shitty apartment again? And you hate cats. You never wanted cats. But this thing, this gesture, was the lynchpin of moving forward and speaking truth and getting better and this is a dumb game anyway. It is better to disappear into Faulkner and his strange currents of time and memory and be a ghost and let your heart grow into marble like Judith's and wait and be quiet and let it all just run through your fingers like sand.
"If happy I can be I will, if suffer I must I can. Because she waited; she made no effort to do anything else."
And then you write a really dumb yet cathartic blog entry that you will later erase out of embarrassment when really you should be getting it together for finals at this crazy university/ when really you don't have the time nor the energy to be distracted by such stupid things as feelings/ when really you just wish you could do anything in the world right now but care.

The One Percent

This is my contribution to the stupid pile of pictures with words on them springing from the Virtual Occupy Wall Street movement. I'm pretty sure the danger of using social networking for "revolution" is that by doing so, one is still speaking in the language of myth. I don't really know if we're going Marx, Barthes, or Foucault on this, but I'm gonna side with "there is no outside of power". I do think it's important to inspire discourse, but I don't see utopia emerging out of a shitty tent and drum circle any time soon. I say keep occupying though, and learn to think critically. And stop wearing fucking leggings as pants.

The Pickler

    Once I went on a date that made me think I was being recorded for a show that likes to see how long someone will tolerate a terrible date.

     A while after I broke up with my longtime boyfriend, I decided to make a list of the people I thought I might want to go on a date with. One of them was this tattooed guy who worked in a bookstore that I frequented (since I no longer do drugs and compulsively buy books instead). My brother had been coaching me through the “strike first” strategy of breaking up with someone, which basically entails fucking someone else as soon as possible so that when you hear that your ex is seeing someone, you know that you’ve already “won”. We are an incredibly healthy family that fosters imaginary competitions with the world at large. So, motivated by my sage sibling, I decided to strike first and ask out the most accessible guy on my list, the one stuck behind a counter. I should never, ever let my brother talk me into anything. Ever.

     I went into the bookstore on a cold Bay "summer" night, where I knew he would be since he told me his schedule. My brother told me just to go up to him and ask. No dicking around the bookstore, sulking in the philosophy section. No buying books just so I could talk to him. Well, I sulked in the philosophy section and picked up a couple of titles and went to the counter like a creep. They were working on a crossword puzzle and needed help. Dessert: chocolate ____. “Éclair.” Come on. Of course it was a fucking éclair. I looked like a total genius and left. Then I realized I would have to call my brother back and tell him I pussed out, and years of him shooting hockey pucks at me meant that I couldn’t allow myself to do that. So I took a really cheesy deep breath and turned around and marched back in and asked him if he wanted to go out with me sometime. He wrote down his number and his stupid name (it might as well have been “Feather”).

     The texting session that evening initially indicated that he was probably clever and a good speller. The first red flag was that for our first date, he asked me out for tea. At noon. While there’s nothing actually wrong with a guy that likes tea, there is something incredibly off-putting about a grown man asking a girl to tea. Unless you are a dapper Englishman that is going to later bind me with high quality leather restraints and whip me with a $350 swarovski crystal-studded riding crop, you should not ask me to tea for our first date. No amount of open-mindedness will let my brain think of you as a complete man. I am from Texas. It’s just how it is.

     So I wait outside of the café until he gets there, late, and I realize just how much the context of the bookstore has distorted my view of this character. The fantasy of having a sweet “I’m fucking an employee” discount has significantly altered this guy’s actual attractiveness level. I realize with a cool irritation that I am way out of his league.

     “Hey! Gotta get my tea on!” This is the part of the movie where there’s the sound of the needle scratching across the record player, everyone stops dancing in horror, and a huge bouncer says, “Motherfucker now what did you just say?” Gotta get my tea on. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. So we stand in line for tea. I get coffee, because I am a normal human being, and he decides that the tea selection is not up to his standards. So he sighs and says “Ugh I’ll just get coffee I guess.” He pays for my coffee (what a champ) and then indicates with a weird pointing gesture that I should put money in the tip jar. I don’t, because I don’t think someone deserves $120 an hour to push a button. (One dollar for thirty seconds of work? Fuck you.) Also I particularly hate the people at this coffee shop and would never have been in there on my own. So no, Feather, I will not tip these assholes.

     We sit down and I ask him how he’s doing because even though he has already annoyed me, I am trying to be less of a bitch and be polite. I wish I could imitate the absolute snotty whininess in his voice, but I’m just going to have to ask, dear reader, that you imagine the whiniest, bougiest white kid NorCal voice you can muster. How’s he doing? “Ugggghhhhh.” He actually starts with that sound. “Ugggghhh. Not good. My ex-girlfriend called me this morning, and that’s always hard. We were together a long time and it’s hard talking to her.” (Yes this is actually happening, I think.) I nod. “She called because our cat that we raised together died of a stroke this morning. So I’m really sad about that.”

     It takes every piece of my evil being not to explode into laughter at this point. I don’t think you could deliberately craft a more pathetic arrangement of words to introduce yourself with. Mind you, other than the éclair moment, and a comment about some music on the stereo at the bookstore, I have never had an actual conversation with this bozo. So to learn that the cat he “raised” with his ex died of a stroke…it’s too much for me to deal with. So then he asks me what my major is, since I buy a lot of books. It will be important to note this question. Asking someone what their major is indicates that you most likely assume that they go to college. He continues, “I never went to college. I think that four year institutions are bullshit, and people that go there are idiots. It’s just totally bullshit.”

     So, I’m in college. In fact, that’s the only reason I moved to this stupid hippie town. But at this point I already hate him so much I decided to just let him keep talking and I don’t bother filling him in. He whines about where he’s from and where he lives now. He whines about some girl he went on a few dates with who went out with a different guy. I am starting to think he hates me, and that he is doing this on purpose. He suggests that we walk to a cemetery which seems like a neat idea to me, so even if he is totally terrible at least I get to see a cool old cemetery. Before we go to the cemetery, however, we have to stop at a different café so he can “Get his tea on.” Yes, he said this again. Out loud.

     So at the cemetery, which was like a bajillion miles away, he continued to bitch about every single aspect of his life without asking me anything. Then his phone rang. He answered it. It was a creditor. After getting off the phone with the creditor he proceeded to tell me about how much debt he was in, why he was in debt, and why it was so hard to get out of debt. I get it, I’m an American girl, but in case anyone is unclear, this is not first date material. When he answered his phone the second time, I told him I needed to go to class, to which he responded, “Oh, where do you go to school? The community college?” (He had indicated that junior colleges were okay for some reason, just not four years.) I said no, I go to the university. That’s what I do. That’s why I live here.On the way back, he filled me in on his hobby, which was pickling. Pickling. Like, taking food and preserving it in a jar. Pickling. 

     The last I heard from him was one night when I walked by the bookstore on a date with an actual man that is hot and has been in a fight before and doesn’t say things like, “Well he was blocking my driveway but I didn’t want to get into conflict so I just waited instead of asking him to move.” I walked by with this hot man that I find very entertaining who has hobbies like “fucking” and “eating” instead of “pickling” and the bookstore idiot texts me, “Hey! How’s it going?!” The last time he had texted me I just responded “Cool.” to everything he said, whether it was fitting or not. If someone did that to me, I would die of shame and never text them again. So he texts me as soon as I walk past the bookstore, clearly on a date with an awesomely good looking dude… “Hey!” I never responded because, honestly, it’s better for all of us. I hope his pickling is going well. I’m going to get my degree and get laid and get money. BAM!

     And that’s my dumbest date ever story. The only other awkward date that might rival it is when I went out with a guy in high school who had a locker next to mine and I was really excited because it was my first date-date, and he and some friends picked me up and we were going to play pool and then it turned out they were all Mormon and they were trying to get me to be Mormon too. That was disappointing. I would have been a real whore in high school had I the opportunity. For some reason the jesus kids were really after my soul.

Number Four with a Sprite

“Two nights in a row, huh?”

      This was the number one thing I did not want to hear from the guy at the drive-through at McDonalds, where exactly 24 hours earlier I had pulled through with mascara streaked down my face after having a complete meltdown while driving. It was the cry of all cries, the kind of cry that you can’t have in an apartment building because people will call the police and give you worse looks in the parking garage than that time you saw your neighbors after screaming “Fuck my ass!” over and over the night before. It was the kind of cry that compelled you to punch the shit out of your steering wheel repeatedly while power-screaming through the pain, the kind of cry that means that even though you are a very blonde, very skinny white girl in a white Volvo pulled over in the wrong part of town, you seem too hysterically crazy to fuck with. It was the kind of cry that compels you to see yourself from outside of the car when you think back on it, like you are a part of a very rainy and tragic and pivotal moment in a movie. It was a serious fucking cry. And after a half hour of some really emo weeping, punching, and screaming, I put on my turn signal and steered the Swedish Tank to McDonalds, because god dammit, I wanted fucking McDonalds. 

     There was no hiding the fact that I was a puffy crybaby mess about to shove my face full of French fries. I am very blonde. If I cry, it is apparent that I have been crying for hours afterwards. I get puffy, splotchy, and red. My nose actually swells. It's pathetic and I avoid it at all costs. In addition to being blonde I am also vain and don't like being puffy and red. I’m not sure if you know how much therapy it’s taken to get me relatively comfortable with driving through McDonalds (15 years, give or take), but the event is pretty monumental. I’ve been getting better at it, but I can’t say that’s really something to celebrate. Not many people really want to hear about how you have trouble eating fast food. So I got my meal and drove home and realized I’d probably broken my hand, so that was a cool night.

     The next day I got x-rays and a splint and a referral to stress management counseling and all this shit and then I went to ballet class, because broken hand or no, I’d had plans to do that. So I went to ballet, and I hadn’t really eaten anything all day and I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and my stupid emo broken hand (even though I’d done it to myself, being emo) and I decided that the only thing I wanted to eat was McDonalds. Now let me get this straight: it horrifies me that I ever “want” McDonalds. It’s shameful enough, in my opinion, to have a human need to eat, so to want to eat, much less-- to want to eat McDonalds, is a very difficult thing for me to process. But hey, years of therapy and here we are, wanting McDonalds. Fucking great. So I decide I want french fries again, but the only thing I can think is “Oh my god you pathetic loser. A) you can’t eat McDonalds two nights in a row. B) they are going to remember you and think you are a pathetic loser”. So I use my therapy voice and say, “Hey, you know, it’s been a rough 24 hours. You had an emo meltdown in your car and broke your own hand. The world won’t end if you eat french fries two nights in a row. Also, there is no way you are that important that anyone will remember you. Hundreds of people go through there every day. Are you really that self-centered that you think someone will notice, much less care that you are eating shitty fast food?” So I go. I feel terror that the guy I really like who lives over there will see me going to McDonalds. (The actual fear is that he both saw me go there last night and tonight and will judge me. But that’s crazy. Right? I should probably more concerned that I am someone who breaks her own hand not someone who eats a feeling once in a while.) I feel terror that everyone at McDonalds will judge me. I feel terror that I have become the kind of person who lives on fast food. I. Feel. Terror.

     Normally the distanciation that occurs between the ordering process and the actual food-delivery process helps me feel okay about getting fast food. Like, I talk to a box, then I give money to someone else, and then I get my food from someone else. It’s like I’m a passive participant in the exchange. The alienation that occurs with this division of labor suits me (sorry, school stuff). But last night? The fucking box is broken. I have to order from a person. The same person as last night. “Maybe he won’t remember me,” I think.

“Two nights in a row, huh?” He smirks at me. He fucking smirks.

 “Shut up!” I hand him my credit card, because that’s how cool my life is right now, fucking charging McDonalds. I hand him my credit card with my broken hand, because that’s the one by the window, and he asks, “Did that happen between now and last night?”

 “Yeah. It’s been a bad day okay?” like there is a formula for being allowed to get McDonalds two nights in a row: Cry-of-all-Cries plus Broken Hand plus Ballet Class plus Loneliness equals two cheeseburgers. He laughed at my broken hand, gave me my bag full of shame and said, “You deserve it.” I deserve it. I deserve it. Oh, if only god could have killed me then. If he didn’t have my credit card I would have floored it into traffic, but I just tried to pretend I was just one of those quirky girls in a sitcom about awkward single quirky girls who eat ice cream in sweatpants who get their shame covered with laugh tracks. In the show, it would turn into a little routine, like, “Oh hey, Luis! Me again! The usual! Hahahahaha no he still hasn’t texted me! What? No, I don’t care. No, I’m busy and important and loving life!” 

     I just let the laugh track drown out the sounds of my soul screaming in absolute mortification, took my credit card, and drove home. But I’m not a girl in a sitcom. The girl in the sitcom doesn’t have to call her sponsor and tell her that she maybe broke her hand while repeatedly punching her steering wheel on a dark dead street in Berkeley because she can’t stop that voice that tells her she’s a worthless, unlovable piece of shit and it seems like no amount of fucking or nail polish or scholarships or any other external validation can ever make that voice go away. It just sucks sometimes. And it feels lonely and sometimes really hopeless. But fortunately it’s funny. So at least there’s that.