it seems to me you lived your life like a shopping bag in the wind

merry christmas, consuming suckers!

like most teenagers

i am constantly paranoid that people are not taking me seriously. and, like most teenagers, i am usually correct. but there is one thing that i really, really hate. i really hate it when adults dismiss requests i have made on behalf of the environment (ie: refusing to buy used books and movies because of the quality while chuckling at me). something about them is too slow. they have been exposed to so many situations that they think nothing is really definite. they think oh, global warming isn't that big of a deal, we've been through things like this before. but a teenager who sees such a disastrous situation is horrified and amazed. it's really frustrating. it's like... it's like standing on a wooden bridge which is burning behind you and a person is standing in front of you strolling leisurely along and admiring the view. it's really icky.

The good Lord never gives you more than you can handle. Unless you die of something.

see, i never believed in fate. when i was younger i always thought that the problem with the judeo-christian concept of the afterlife was that you didn't get to go back and fix your mistakes. bad things often happen to us as a result of one stupid mistake that we made, and we always say "i wish i could just go back and change that." so i had this idea that the afterlife could be a big desk with a book on it. you sit at the desk and go through the book (which is your life) fixing what didn't go well. because of this theological theory of mine, i spent most of my life withe the idea that everything i did was being recorded and could be edited later. that's the funny thing about religion. you invent a theory that you like the sound of and all of a sudden it feels true.
anyway, it occurred to me recently that if you were to go back and change certain experiences in a person's life, you would end up tweaking that person's character. everything that happens to you informs you in some way. missing the subway means that you are a person who has recently missed the subway. this is particularly true when one is at such a young age as myself, and everything that happens greatly affects one's experience. so, i decided that everything that happens, happens. not that i believe in fate. i just believe that, well...
we are living in a certain universe where things are going to happen. every fork in the road, every series of events, affects the universe. that is not to say that every chain of events has been previously planned out by the fates or the norns or whatever, but that every chain of events happens. this is harder to explain than i thought.
let me put it this way: god did not write The Book of What Will Happen. The Book of What Will Happen is being written as things happen, and events are random and unavoidable, even though they are not planned. there are an infinite number of possible fates that all depend on things like whether someone in australia gets up five minutes later or whether you eat pretzels or popcorn. things will happen. do not try to manipulate them.

dude, why are you being so serious?

he looked into the sky. it was a lightish but intense blue, the color that turns everything in front of it to black silhouettes and makes the world feel like a slow piece of classical piano music. a crowd of silent rock doves hovered onto the top of an old-time ornate bank. "beautiful." he said.
teenagers never say beautiful, especially boys. the only time they do is right before they start carefully sliding the arm they have around your shoulder further down. they never say beautiful about the sky. and they *never* say it to other boys.
he flicked his eyes over to the boy standing next to him. "um, okay," he said. they had just been talking in the way fourteen year old boys talk--the subject matter of less concern than the mutual agreement of macho-ness. 'beautiful' stuck out like a sore thumb.
teenagers don't want to be so serious. to pronounce something as beautiful seems to require authority, maturity, and a certain romantic sensibility that we are afraid to dive into. that's why we use stupid adjectives like "cool" so much. there is a certain feeling that our emotions are so deep, so intense, so scary that we must only ever speak in gossipy small-talk and snap our bubble gum. well, boys don't snap their bubble gum.
he snapped his bubble gum as his small dark eyes slid decadently over the blue and black world. he soaked it up with relish, drew in his breath slowly, and closed his eyes.

doesn't anyone hate being though of as nice?

i am reading a not-yet-published book by eve ensler that i will not disclose the name of at present. there is a really beautiful idea in it that is as follows:
barbie is not really what we think she is. barbie is actually really smart and angry and passionate. she hates shopping and hight heels. she wants to be let go. and what if we freed all of the barbies in the world? what if we freed all of them and let them just

i don't know. i don't know what they'd do. maybe they'd study calculus. maybe they'd eat chocolate souffle. maybe they'd wear torn secondhand AC/DC t-shirts and patched jeans. maybe they'd look sad. but they'd do something, you know?

there is no reason to hate barbie. there is no reason to hate evelyn nesbit or marilyn monroe or paris hilton or the kano sisters. the people we should hate are the ones who created them. the ones who realized that they were profitable. because they are just as much the victims as they are the perpetrators. maybe dick and jane would really rather trade outfits. maybe the heterogenous group of women who appear on the covers of cosmopolitan are deeply opposed to plastic surgery.

the way they trick you is they convince you that they are on your side. they make you think that they know how it feels to diet your way to looking like an airbrushed seventeen year old. they say i know, honey, i know. you just gotta deal with it. i'll try to help you, but in the end you're gonna have to make the commitment. you're gonna have to try your damnedest to be perfect on the outside. why? what do you MEAN, why? girl, it's your responsibility. that's why. it is your responsibility as a chick [never say woman, it makes you sound old] to look like an anorexic seventeen year old who just went through five hours of hair and make-up and was then airbrushed within an inch of her life. but its okay, buy our magazine and we'll give you the ultimate tips to cover up that pesky nose, or that awful frizzy hair, or that last five pounds.

jesus, i wish i could swear on this blog.

final proof that i am delusional. (this is NOT a poem)

sitting.
knitting.
sipping hot spiced cider from a "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" mug.
all of a sudden-i heard it. a loud shouting outside my window. chanting and screaming, asking and repeating. it sounded like a

revolution.

i couldn't see it. the scaffolding in the window blocked my eyes from witnessing the passion. i ran to my room and grabbed a coat, hat, and keys. left a note on the table:
have gone out for a breif moment. will be back shortly.
dashed out the door.

silence.
silence.
silence.

only soft, upper-middle-class new york ambience greeted my hungry ears.
oh well.

"everything that lives is holy but most of us are trying to escape our beautiful world." william blake

the world is so absolutely amazing. i bet you that for every square mile of land there are at least fifty spectacular things that you could find. i bet. the fact that anyone's life is boring is just ridiculous. if your life is boring, go somewhere else. no, i'm dead serious. quit your job, buy a cheap plane ticket, and go as far away on the globe as you can get before you start coming back around. figi. to go figi. people are worried about doing things like that, because they are worried about things like savings and career longevity and social stability, but if you're not happy, what's the point of those things? you have two objectives in life: to be happy and to make the world better. if you are not doing either of those things, or if you barely are, your life is pointless. i know how harsh that sounds, but it's really what i think. honestly-go to figi.

i've told you ten times already, dad.

do you know what the problem with grups* is? they've been alive too long. i know that that seems really obvious, but it's true. when a person goes through life, they mold and adapt to their environment. if the environment changes drastically, which it always does, they can't really change. they're stuck-in a rut, as flower said. as liberal as they may be, they just can't really understand things like, for example, that rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher is useless and wastes tons of water. they can't comprehend this because they grew up with faulty, old-fashioned dishwashers. even if they believe you, they find themselves rinsing out dishes and bowls out of habit. habit. it's what's destroying our world.

*a slang term for grown-ups stolen from an episode of star trek.

small white stones and daises forming a spiral pattern on the dirt

i have decided that there are two kind of interesting people: the ones with interesting personalities, and the ones with interesting professions/accomplishments. this is an important distinction. there could be that little old mexican lady you always run into at the deli who is the kindest, sweetest person and the entire world and whose brain is full of birds and flowers, and there could also be your idol whom you watch on tv every night and wish you could meet and dream about talking to for hours on end-and then you meet him and he's boring and professional and grown-up-y in real life. these two kinds of excellence are not necessarily linked in any way. but at least 25% of the population exceeds in one of them, i think. i hope.