the great american slicing, dicing, chopping, mixing, churning, beating, whipping, melting pot

here is my brilliant idea:
everyone should be able to choose their culture. well, bits of their culture. for example, if you're born a french catholic and you want to celebrate mexican holidays and be adept in italian cooking and practice buddhism and live in an igloo, nothing is wrong with that. i think a lot of people's unhappiness comes from sticking with their family culture. things would be so much nicer if you could pick bits and pieces from other cultures just because you like them. there would be so much more variety that way, and everyone could pick exactly what they wanted to be. the idea of separation and race would fade away to make way for the concept of individuality and oneness. for example, if i got to pick i would eat only indian and french food and have a quinceanera instead of a bat mitzvah and wear brittish 60's clothing and join a gospel choir.

there will be a meeting at 81st street and lavender drive to discuss the rights of werewolves.

you know, weather is really something that brings people together. when its 95 degrees and humid, who cares what your skin looks like? all people want is to get cool. and if that means running through a fire hydrant spray with someone you don't know, so be it.
same thing with cold weather. if its negative 20 degrees and the guy next to you is freezing, you're going to give them your spare heat pack. and then you will end up chatting with him for a while.
extreme weather brings out not only our need to survive, but our need to help others survive. i think that's because its really the only bit of uncontrollable nature we have left, so we get a glimpse of the way we acted a thousand years ago.
at least that's my experience.

the obvious secret

i have decided that the key to happiness, or at least contentment, is to do what you want to do when you want to do it. if you're hungry, eat. don't wait until the designated eating time. if you're tired, sleep. if you're excited, dance. if you want to talk to someone, talk to them. just do what you want to do without following guidelines or rules.
not that there shouldn't be rules to what you do. if everyone got to do whatever they liked, a lot of us would end up in pretty bad shape. what i mean is that you shouldn't do something simple because you feel obligated. do not be a slave to time.
time is unreal. time is something we made to organize ourselves. organization is not what is necessary to be happy. what is necessary to be happy is simply doing what you want to do. its ridiculously simple, but it works.

the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

theres a type of graffiti that i like to call "public service graffiti". its the type of graffiti that says something clever, or is a really beautiful picture or design. i think that the world would be so much of a better place if everything was covered with art. if people were all trained in the skills of expression through imagery, and if every surface possible was covered with messages conveyed through their images. if the whole world was an art gallery. i think that that is what the real purpose of graffiti should be.
here are some amazing paintings by street artist banksy, of whom i am a huge fan.

the tao is like a stone, not a diamond.

she could see colors and light everywhere she looked-beautiful shapes and mystical symbols clouding her vision. when she looked through, she could see the world shifting and multiplying and shimmering with color and energy. and so she walked around all the time like this, seeing everything that was meant to be hidden, sensing auras and hidden energies.
and then one day she stopped looking through. and she saw only the simple stone wall in front of her, dripping with curly green vines. no light or energy or rainbows or auras at all.
and yet...
and yet it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

racial tension on the 1 train, 8 am.

im about to go through the turnstile when i notice that i'm blocking a young woman right next to me who is trying to get through, and she is glaring at me like i cut her on purpose because i'm a snob. i immediately feel guilty and step back to let her get through with her toddler.
then i walk down the platform and bump into a man who smiles at me, because he's so glad to see another outsider in the neighborhood, and i raise my eyebrows at him like "just because i'm the same color as you does not mean that i'm friendly. this is new york, buddy."
i stop two-thirds down the platform to sit on a red dumpster, because i'm especially tired this morning. a few minutes later a bunch of high school kids come over and sit on the dumpster next to me. i don't look at them, but i can tell they don't like me sitting there, because who am i to sit on their dumpster, move into their neighborhood, breathe their air? the color and texture of my hair are a symbol of gentrification.
i get into the car and it's especially crowded today, and the guy across from me is pretty old and widens his eyes in shock when i get into the train. seven other hands hold onto the same pole as me, and my skin sticks out like a sore thumb.
somebody gets off the train and i dive for the seat like i always do. the woman who was going to get the seat scowls at me, because i am stealing her space. i am a thief.
i get off the train in a much richer neighborhood, and five homeless people greet me on my way to school.
good morning. welcome to the world.

organic means dead.

the preparation and savoring of food is, as far as we know, a uniquely human characteristic. think about it. we are the only species of animal that will take a tomato, cut it into squares, add little bits of plants for "flavoring", can it, sell it, buy it, take it home, put it in intense heat, and then put it on our food. and thats considered very simple!
whats amazing is that we are so highly evolved that we can afford this amazing luxury. by the way, when i say "highly evolved", i do not mean in any way that i think humans are superior to other animals. in many ways, we are inferior. we don't hunt except for fun, we're hopeless at catching fish ourselves, we can't grow plants without throwing chemicals all over them, and we don't have the patience to cook our own food. now, this isnt true of all humans, just over 50%. at least, the ones i know.
whats silly, really, is that weve created so much, we have to create more just to keep up with ourselves. for example, we create time and the days of the week, so we have to invent alarm clocks to be able to wake up when we don't want to, so that we can get to work on time to do things we dont want to do, so that

sorry. this post was supposed to be about food, not what's wrong with our society. i apologize if i offended anyone. i dont know whats gotten into me. goodbye.

in latin, the term familia refers to anyone under your roof.

here are the numbers: in five years, my family went from 3 to 8 people.
i have 3 mothers, 1 father, and 3 little bros. i am not a polygamist, btw.
the stereotype i hate most about adolescents is that we're totally disconnected from our family. were supposed to loathe out little siblings, our parents aren't supposed to understand us, and our family in general is supposed to be bad and evil in everything. and we are supposed to only want to spend time with our friends. i think that its a time when you should spend MORE time with your family, because you develop more of and attention span than when you were little, and you can have conversations and do stuff. im not saying im the perfect daughter, but i try.
oh, another thing i really hate: i hate it when grownups say to kids "dont talk back to me." thats so stupid, because if kids didnt talk back to you, how would you know what they thought?
i dont think you should follow a model (mommy, daddy, two kids, big kid picks on little kid, big kid alienated, little kid sweet but annoying, mommy cooks, daddy works, brother plays sports, etc.) for how a family should fit. just see what you want to do. that's what i think.

cirkus de floramundi

when i grow up, i want to start a street performance troupe that performs in central park, nyc in the summer, and san francisco in the winter. we will sing, dance and create happy mayhem, i will not perform, but i will design costumes and scenery- it will all look very godspell and circus-y. we will have light shows are recite poetry, perform existing plays and parts of existing plays, and some of us will write things for us to perform. we will have a trunk with the words
SUGGESTED DONATION:
WE SUGGEST YOU DONATE
written on it in big yellow letters. we will call ourselves the Floramundi Performers. during parts of your shows, we will take out a big wooden treasure chest full of costumes and toys and we will play with them with the audience. it will be magical.


THE FLORAMUNDI PERFORMERS
An circus/cirque/cirkus/explosion/implosion of joy/wonder

bellybuttons are the keyhole to the soul.

i am a navelist. well, i am many other religions, but one of them is navelism. it is the worship of the sacred bellybutton. if you would like to know more about this religion, please go to our blog. in case anyone's counting, that means i now have THREE blogs. thats a lot.

"i am special. i am special. please god, dont let me be normal"

you know what i hate? pessimism. not pessimism in other people, but pessimism in myself. i hate the image of the grumpy teenage girl with pop rock blasting in her ears who obsesses over her boyfriend and hates all adults, who is nasty to her younger siblings and swears at everyone, who obsesses over being popular and fitting in, and who never has any kind of deep thoughts or revelations. or if she does, she hides them.
not that im saying a lot of girls like this exist. i dont really think they do. i think that most american teenage girls try to be like this (why, i couldnt say), but i dont think that there are a lot of girls who *are* really like this.
me, im not much better than the girls who try to emulate this image-i try to be the opposite. which is also an artificial manipulation of my character, but i cant really help it. anyway, back to what this post was really about:
the thing i hate most about the stage of life i am currently in is that im supposed to hate everything. im supposed to hate my parents, im supposed to hate school, im supposed to hate girls who arent my friends, im supposed to hate whats expected of me, im supposed to hate pretty much EVERYTHING that wasn't designed either by teenagers or for teenagers.
but i dont.
well, thats not exactly true. i do hate this society and whats expected of me, but im not a frikking raving *lunatic* because of it. which is not to say that im not a raving lunatic. just that thats not exactly the reason.

i hate hating things. thats all i have to say.

my theory of relativity

i am an alien on another planet
i am a foreigner
i am a dunce
i am a geinus
i am hideous
i am gorgeous
i live in the ancient world
i live in the future
i am an optimist
i am a pessimist
i am loaded
i am impoverished
i am ecstatic
i am depressed
i am nerdy
i am hip
i am nothing
because nothing is everything
and we live based on each other.

livin' in my own boat/tryin' to keep my own world afloat

i want to be a person. that's all i want. i dont want to be an artist or a businesswoman or a clerk or a baker or a painter. i just want to be a person, living the way people should live. i want something magical to happen to me each day. i want to reach out to people and touch their minds and enable them to see what should be. we should all be together-we should all flow smoothy like a bubbling, churning river of a million different colors. we are a tapestry-and we control what that tapestry portrays. we must






love.

the circus girl

she’s really too old to be a circus girl anymore, but that’s how she thinks of herself. it’s not even really a circus, just a traveling troupe, with some clowns, magicians, and animals. she’s the magician’s assistant. his name is Andrew, but he calls himself Zappo the Magnificent. he used to be a friend of her father’s, before her parents died and she ran away. she thought she could make it on her own, thought she could find a life for herself. she wanted to be an actress. what kind of a character am I? She thinks. my name is Dianna Lincoln, I’m thirty-four years old, and my life is screeching to a halt. sitting in her pretty red dress and lipstick, with polka dotted tights and a necklace of pearls. she’s backstage, whistling. because how could her luck get any worse? her hands are folded in her lap as she stares to the water. she wishes she could just run away. but she’s already away. there’s not a soul in the world that loves her, I mean, really loves her. andrew doesn’t count. she’s all-alone in this godforsaken place, where a few tourists on road trips pass by, their blinking red faces reminding her of raw meat. she’s the funny girl. what does that mean? what was she thinking? is this it?


this passage is based on a picture which i cannot get to load onto blogger. however, i will tell you that the picture was taken by david eustace, and that i found it on this site. try to guess which picture im talking about.

which of my two personalities shall i be tonight?

ok, i have re-opened my other blog. so now i have two blogs. the way i see it, they are my two sides; the superficial and the deep. this is my deep-side blog, and the other is my superficial-side blog. two pieces of me. this blog will be about my thoughts, emotions, and revelations, the other blog will be about... i kno this sounds silly... what im wearing. because, as cool as i may seem from this blog :-), i am actually a very fashion-obsessed person. go figure.
for stalkers who are interested, you can find my other half on my profile. here's a link to it.

for everything...turn...turn...turn...there is a season...turn...turn...turn...

you know what? ive been going over my old posts, and i came to an amazing realization. its april, and i started this blog in november. now, if you know me, you will know that i am EXTREMELY affected by the weather. im usually depressed in the winter, and ecstatic in the summer. so i was looking over my posts and i realized; most of them are pretty depressing. now thing is not because i am a depressed person. on the contrary, i am wearing a pink, yellow, and blue flowered dress with pigtails as i type this. it is just that i get very sad and antisocial in the winter, like a bear. it has never been warm, in the entire life of this blog. but now it is warm. now the buds are opening, and the sun is shining, and hopefully there will be some happier posts soon. heres a cool picture i found when i google-imaged "happiness".

color

i think the most beautiful thing in this world is color. i really mean that. buildings are beautiful, trees are beautiful, people are beautiful, but color is the most magnificent thing of all.

the sun will rise, and the sun will set, and you learn how to settle for what you get.

ok, so here's the thing:
my life isnt ending.
its so weird to think about now. i mean, i always thought that "growing up" was just code for "losing all coolness and ability to have fun/enjoy life." but its not. it just means that you take thing more subtly, more slowly. when you're a kid, everything is so EXACT, so RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW. its a drama-a-minute. i kno, ur probably thinking "she is so wrong-saying childhood is more dramatic than teenagerness! lol!" but i think it is. at least, it is in my case. teenagers i know are either really, really, really, messed up, or having fun. so i think maybe its not such a bad thing after all. you dont have to be tiny to love summer. youre only as old as you feel.




(the pics are from this blog.)

fools in april

the reason april fools day (one of my favorite holidays) was created was that there's this idea of people in springtime being silly and romantic and naive and gullible, thus easy to play jokes on.
so i think that for april fools day, in addition to tricking people, we should also be silly and romantic and naive. cause we need at least one day to do that, you know?