Organically Expensively GOOD FOR YOU

I'm wondering how I really feel about this whole ORGANIC EVARYTHIIIIIIING movement that's going on.

I buy organic all natural bull shit for my skin. Why? Because my skin is a delicate fucking princess and can't stand a lot of stuff. I hate doing it most of the time, because shit's expensive. A bottle of facial cleanser cost me ten dollars. TEN DOLLARS! It wasn't a big bottle! I know a dab'll do ya, but good Lord.

I can't believe some of the prices they charge for organic stuff. I don't buy say, organic dish washing liquid (Dawn for me! From the discount store because it's like, two dollars cheaper there!) or laundry detergent (because vinegar and baking soda is cheaper and better for your machine/clothes). Most of the green/organic things I don't do because I'm a snob, I do it because I'm cheap.

I know someone who buys all the organic all natural stuff she can, because it's better for her and her daughter. That's awesome. I can't afford that. Why are the organic bananas a billion dollars more the regular, chemical laden bananas?

I've heard it has to do with production. They don't make as many bananas, so they have to charge more to make the same profit as the regular banana people. (Heh, regular. Like organic is abnormal!)

You know what though? I don't feel like most of the organic stuff works that much better than the regular stuff. I don't feel like organic fruit leather tastes different than the regular kind. I don't feel like organic bananas taste different. Organic meat tastes slightly different. Maybe I'm just uncultured, though.

I Never Want To Stop Screaming

It's been about a year now.

A year since the life that was inside of me failed to blossom, and left me empty. It's been about a year since I sat with my head in Mistah Jay's lap, his fingers in my hair, feeling her slipping out of me.

It's been about a year since I failed at the one thing I was built to do.

Does it look up from here? Do I stop missing her so badly now? Now that I've crossed this line and I realized that I'm bent not broken... Do I stop feeling like I've done so very many things wrong? Do I stop thinking that my life would be better without her?

A part of me never wants to stop missing her. A part of me never wants to stop the scream I started when I realized how badly it hurt. A part of me never wants to stop the scream I started when I knew that I had lost something so precious... Something I could never even hope to replace.

I should let her rest in peace. I should let go of these things, let go of my own misery and then begin to understand that I can still carry on. I am still a human, and I am still worthy.

I'm still worth---.

It hit me like a ton of bricks today, what exactly this meant. It hit me, and left me breathless. This sense of loss has been haunting me. I can't believe how much I miss someone that I never even laid eyes on.

Mistah Jay smiled at me today. Jokes around with me. Lets me sit next to him and presses his body against mine. I don't think either of us are at a place where we can twine our fingers together and find peace.

Someday we will. I have hope. We'll be there soon.

This all has to go one step at a time. I've never been patient. I always want to take off at a run and get wherever it is I'm going. Only right now, I don't know where that is.

Mommy loves you, Vivian.

I'll never stop screaming.

An Eye For An Eye

In Sociology we watched a piece on Sister Helen Perjean, a nun who is a spiritual advisor to convicts on death row in Louisiana. The movie Dead Man Walking was based on her book of the same name, detailing her first two experiences with gentlemen on death row.

It turns out that spiritual advisor is the only person allowed to be with the inmate up through their death. There are (or were at the time of the piece, 1996) witnesses to the execution, however, they are not friends or family members of the inmate.

It led me to thinking;

Should we have the death penalty?

Yesterday, my Charliam and I were speaking about it. I said in theory I don't agree with it. We don't ever have the right to say that you can kill another person. We're not God. In practice, I'd love to light up every rapist, every child molester, every mass murderer.

Or, I did yesterday.

What really makes me sick is that the families of these victims tend to get so blood thirsty. Years ago, I was watching the news and the grown children of a murdered woman witnessed the execution of her murderer. Their reaction after the man had died of lethal injection was; "He didn't suffer enough."

Didn't suffer enough? A man died. He gave you his blood. What do you want, to rip out his arteries and sacrifice his blood to your grief? Jesus. I don't know exactly what they were expecting.

The sheriff in piece I watched in regards to the case of Robert Willie was angry that he didn't fall on his knees and beg and plead for forgiveness. Instead he said; "If you guys think murder is wrong, I'd like to know what you think you're doing to me." And then he looked at the parents of his victim and said; "I hope you've got some satisfaction."

And the thing is, they didn't. They continue to be miserable and grieve and mourn. They continue to attend every execution that takes place at Angola, sitting outside. They say they're there for the victims, so that they have a voice. I don't think that's why they go. I think they're hoping that if they see enough people die, if they see enough of the people they have deemed to be evil have their lives ended, maybe it will ease the pain of losing their child.

I don't think they quite realize that she's dead. Nothing is going to bring her back. Not an execution, not beating the shit out of the murderer, not watching and listening to the sobs of the family of the murderer as he is put to death.

There is nothing that is going to ease that pain. The sooner they come to grips with that, the happier they are going to be. The mother said she didn't like people getting life in prison because they still got to talk to their families, and she didn't get to see her daughter anymore.

So everyone should suffer the way she suffered? When the murderer is put to death, a mother lost her child, too. A family was torn apart. There are other people who feel pain, and she is not the first person to lose someone and quite sadly, she won't be the last.

I don't think there's any satisfaction to be gained from watching others go through pain. I don't think that's going to save you.

On the other hand, what do we do with these criminals? Can we rehabilitate them? There is a shamefully terrible rehabilitation rate here in America. Something like fifty to sixty percent of people return to prison.

That's frankly pretty disgusting.

And there's the cost of keeping people, even on death row, alive. It costs the taxpayers a lot of money. Maybe we wouldn't have so much debt if we could kill some more of these people. Maybe we wouldn't have them going back if we could just off the ones that seem to be too obstinate, too broken, too insane to be allowed out into the world.

Or maybe we should find better counselors, better programs, better places for those that are mentally ill and end up in prison.

Or maybe we should stop giving them A/C and television and radio. Maybe we shouldn't make it so cushy. Maybe we should cut them off from their families. Maybe we should make them do more labor.

There are a lot of people who (of course) use the Bible to support their side, no matter which it is. There are plenty of murders in the Bible! Whoever sheds human blood let humans by his blood be sheeeeed!

But Jesus said turn the other cheek! Forgive seventy times seven!

All I can think is...

If we an did an eye for an eye, the whole world would be blind.

The Church Crowd

I'm a Christian. I'm proud to be a Christian. I have a personal relationship with God, and Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.

I hate going to church.

It wasn't always that way. My parents didn't go to church. Alco-Pop was (at the time, I believe) an atheist, and She Who Must Be Kept didn't believe that church was the right place for her. To this day, I know she thinks that Jesus was a neat dude, but I don't know if she believes He was the son of God or whatever. She believes in a Higher Power, but that's about it.

I, on the other hand, from the age of eight onward have gone to church off and on. I've never found a good fit. I went tho this neat Come As You Are church for awhile with my baby sitter. It was great, and the Sunday school teacher was fabulous. I remember all the children coming to the front of the church to dance and sing. There were people with mohawks there and no one blinked.

I didn't care for the politics. The pastor's daughter was automatically the Queen of Everything. She got the lead roles in all the plays and everyone doted on her. She wasn't even especially talented, to be honest. And it was kind of unfortunate, because she had to have special lessons in the Bible because she was the pastor's daughter and I think they were grooming her to be clergy.

So then there was the Baptist church I went to with my friend in middle school. It was full of old people. I mean, you walked in there on a Sunday morning and you could SMELL the old. Like talcum powder and the faint hints of deaths fingers on all their shoulders, it was that bad. I was baptized there.

I didn't care for the way the youth was treated. Or, honestly, the fact that girls were basically told we were going to be good wives and mothers and--nothing else. That was all God wanted for us. Dude, for real? God gave me a brain and all He wants me to do is spit out babies? I think not.

Also, we had our little teen group. The pastor for that was about sixty. It's really hard to listen to a sixty year old tell me he knows all about being a teenager. We don't ride dinosaurs anymore. Also, he referred to us collectively as 'teenagers'. Gah. Shut up now, please.

We used to get promised we could do "REALLY COOL THINGS!" like go to fun places to eat--if WE could raise the money for it. Well, sorry, but I don't have a bunch of money to put in the offering every week.

Then there was the other Baptist church where they found out I like the pole and the hole and told me that I didn't belong there. That's pretty much all I want to say about that place.

Then there was my last foray into church going. The pastor THERE flat out told me that God wouldn't speak to me and I was going to Hell. Oh. Okay. First time you've ever met me and that's what you're going to tell me?

I was maybe seventeen, probably sixteen. I was sitting there, sobbing because this cunt muffin (whom I am supposed to be trusting to put my on a path closer to God, who himself is supposed to be close to God!) and he's telling me that everything I believe is WRONG. And then he goes; "Do you want a hug?"

Fuuuuck no. For all I know God is going to strike you down for being such a nasty person! I don't want your nastiness rubbing up on me.

It was then that I decided this whole organized religion thing isn't for me. I can see why other people like it. Some people like getting up early once a week, dressing up in expensive clothes, driving to church, sitting around for an hour, and walking out feeling like they're a good person and closer to Heaven, while the rest of us are on the path straight to Hell.

...For some reason. Because we didn't get up early, I guess. Because even if they spit in the face of a hobo on the street, or cheat on their wife or beat their kids or steal from work or WHATEVER, they're still in the clear. Because they go to church once a week.

Yes, I know people who legitimately feel this way.

Yes, I hate it too.

No, I don't believe that's what being a Christian is all about.

Don't get me wrong, I do think there are redeeming qualities about churches. I think it's neat to be able to sit with people and talk about Jesus and read the Bible together and do good things for the community and help one another out. I do think it's really neat to meet other people in that group and support one another and lift one another up in prayer. I have no problems doing any of these things.

I just don't see it happen enough. When I did see people being "lifted in prayer" at the churches I went to, it wasn't for a real reason, you know? It was so the people doing the praying could feel smug and holier than the people they were lifting. When those people tried to "support" other's and keep them on the straight and narrow, it wasn't because they were worried about anyone else's immortal soul. It was so THEY could feel holier than someone else. It was so THEY could think they were a better Christian.

I'm just not into that.

I do believe there are good churches out there. I just don't believe any of them work for me. I don't think that's where God wants me to be.

I think I'm better off leading by example, maybe? I don't run around and go; "I DON'T DO BAD THINGS BECAUSE I'M A CHRISTIAN!!!" I'm not doing good things and going; "SEE?!?! SEE WHAT I DID THER?!?!? GOD WILL BLESS ME NOW!"

I try to be a good person and do good things because well, I should. Because I know that's what I need to do. And I WANT to be a good person. I LIKE being a good person. God will show me what needs to be done, I will do it quietly, and I will carry on with my life. It's between the two of us.

Nothing to do with the rest of the world.

Where Do You Go?

I'm here, but I'm not always present.

This is most obvious when I'm plugged in and turned up and tuned out to the real world in ceramics class or during National Novel Writing Month. For me, I've found that I can't be creative when I'm so distracted by all the people and things around me.

This probably means that I'm not as creative as I should be.

I'm here, but I'm not always present.

Like when I'm sitting in class, staring at the wall. Or when I'm sitting on the bus, looking out the window. Or when I'm writing something disturbing, dredging up words and phrases and images that are better left buried in the basement of my psyche and not shared with the rest of the world.

Just because I can't sleep doesn't mean that no one should.

So these places that I go, and the things I hear...

I don't always keep them to myself.

They're just not as obvious as they could be.

Sober

It's two in the morning.

I don't feel like sleeping.

I can't sleep, more to the point.

I've realized how fragile sobriety is. I am the adult child of an alcoholic. I am the baby sister of another addict. While I have imbibed myself more than a time or two, I can safely say I am not an addict. I can never drink again and I won't miss it.

I won't pretend that quitting the codeine I was prescribed for my pain wasn't hard, especially after months of being pumped full of other pain killers... Especially when, to a point, I needed it. I needed help to manage my pain.

But I was never an addict.

Statistically, I am incredibly likely to become addicted at some point in my life. I've been warned by professionals. It was never a warning I needed.

I remember screaming fights. I remember my father hitting my mother. I remember breaking glass. I remember most--being afraid.

I'm twenty one years old. I haven't spoken to my father in eight years. I'm really afraid of him. He could and would lift his hand to me. He did when I was a child. I remember him being drunk and slapping me for laughing at the table.

The booze makes him a very unpleasant person.

OlderBrother is the same way. Booze makes him a not so nice person. He and I have had screaming fights. I have reduced him to tears. He has reduced me to tears. He has, more importantly, reduced She Who Must Be Kept to tears.

He's an addict. He has admitted that alcohol and marijuana are the only ways that he can feel okay. He has bought/begged/and I suspect stolen prescription drugs from my mother and myself. He is headed to a very bad place very quickly.

I get frightened when I drink, sometimes. I snap. I yell. I get angry.

It's not a place I like being.

And yet....

I still drink sometimes.

Acceptance

I really love working with clay in ceramics.

I love cutting it off the block. I hate that clay that other people have touched. That claw is always dry and broken and crumbly and completely unco-operative. I refuse to use it. I make the instructor go and get me a fresh bag.

I stretch my wire taut, pull it towards me, catch the clay in my hands. I immediately start kneading it in my hands as I carry it towards the table. I'm already shaping the clay. As I warm it while I'm kneading it to get rid of air bubbles, those imperfections that I can never rid myself of in the real world.

I'm already asking the clay. I'm already asking it if it will do the things I need it to do. I'm already shaping it.

My fingers dig into the clay, pulling and pushing and tearing.

The clay will do what I ask it to. I just have to be patient. I just have to be willing to find the things that the clay will be and won't be. It's sometimes harder than it seems.

Black and White

I love my Sociology class. My instructor is about a billion years old (HYPERBOLE IS THE BEST THING EVAR)and adorable as a button. He uses phrases like "noodle" and calls himself a "busy little bee". He's like a grandfather that would give you lots of candy when your mother's back was turned.

Also, he is intelligent. I dig it.

Anyway, he was talking today as a for instance and mentioned abortion.

"I'm sure most of you are anti abortion!" a handful of us shook our heads and he shrugged. "Well, for the purposes of this we'll pretend we all are." Which was fine, he was just using an example, he didn't REALLY care about our opinion.

But it got me to thinking. Yes, I am pro choice. I don't consider myself "pro abortion" though, which was the phrase he used. I mean, I'm not running around with a lubed up wire coat hanger, chasing women as they exit their OB/GYN. That's the image I get from that terminology, for reasons I can't quite explain.

Anyway...

I'm not pro abortion. I'm pro choice, which is almost equivalent to saying I'm pro minding my own goddamn business. I do acknowledge that is a particularly dangerous way to be thinking. Sometimes you SHOULDN'T mind your own business, sometimes you DO need to speak out, even if you're the only one standing.

I don't think this is one of those times. I don't get those people what murder doctors who perform abortions, because they say how precious life is. And yet they took one away. What is this, an eye for an eye? Or is he less worthy to live because he's taken away another life?

What's more, is that really for us to decide?

I don't feel like I have the right to tell another woman what she may and may not do with her uterus, her fetus, and her own guilt. I do not feel like I have the right to stroll on up to another human being, point them in the face and call them a murder because they removed what some might call a parasitic being from inside their body.

Some women do it as a form of birth control. A whole lot of women don't. Rape. Incest. Illness. A deformity in the fetus. These are all reasons that some women have abortions.

I'm not pro abortion. I'm pro allowing women the right to choose what is right for them and their child.

Who Won't Play Games Behind Me

The confidence giver and I are talking again.

It's wonderful and strange and I hate it and love it.

He watches me when my back is turned. I don't know whether I should be happy he looks at me, or sad that he can't do it when I'm facing him. He's apologized for everything that he did. And he gave me the reasons.

I can't quite fault him, either.

But anyway.

He says certain things just to piss me off. He pushes my buttons in ways that only he can. Should I be happy that he's interacting with me, doing things just to see me angry? Or should I hate that he's not coming up to kiss me on the cheek and ask me how my day is?

These are the questions that I can't ask him. That would be laying out my hand. That would be breaking the rules. I've always hated rules, but this is one of the most important games that I have ever played.

If I lose, I lose YOU. If you lose, you lose me. And even if we can't have each other in the capacity we're dying for right now, we can't stand to not have one another at all.

Oh darling, I just want to hear you love me again.

"Hey, do you think you could...?"

There are some friends of mine that, for one reason or another, I really dislike doing favors for. And I hate that, because I want to be a nice person and do for others. I've always been taught that you should do for others, because you don't know when you might need a favor or something yourself, and you'd want others to oblige wouldn't you? Of course you would. Now go and do that thing you really despise. There's a dear.

For the record, I have no issue loaning fifty cents, loaning my cell phone to make QUICK IMPORTANT CALLS like work or your mother or your kid or your grandmother or whatever, helping someone figure out their college e-mail, running a message, stitching up a small tear, lending a DVD, letting someone borrow my mp3 player while I'm in class/wasn't going to use it anyway. Those are all things that don't affect my life one way or the other, and they earn me undeserved brownie points.

What I mind is when I get asked something like; "Can your (insert relationship here) look at my very expensive electronic device for really cheap?" Well sure, let me volunteer their services really quick. And sometimes I do volunteer other people, and for the most part, it doesn't really matter. But then it gets worse because; "Can you also find transportation for my very expensive electronic device, because I am obviously much too busy to get it there myself? What do you mean you don't want to carry it in this plastic grocery bag on the bus? Well won't it fit in your purse? Well can't you move the things in your purse to the bag?"

Sure. Whatever.

I don't like carrying that stuff because if it gets broken while in my care, I cannot afford to replace it. I don't even have places in my house to stash my stuff, let alone expensive devices that don't belong to me. What's even better is the mass shock when they realize I can't also transport it back to them because I actually have a life. "Well, why can't you?" BECAUSE! Because NO! Because!

I also mind; "Will you come here with me? Oh, by the way, I have no idea when we're going, so--just be awake." No, screw you. You want ME to go with YOU. I don't care if I go or not. But now I have to get out of bed and wait on bated breath for you to grace me with your presence? I don't think so.

I mind; "Oh I need to drop this off to you (most likely because you're taking it somewhere for me). I'll be over at (insert reasonable time here)." And then--THEY DON'T SHOW UP. And when I text them, they have the audacity to take an attitude about it. "I'll get there when I get there."

No, you won't. You're wanting me to do something for you. When people pull up to my house, the dog barks. When the dog barks, it keeps She Who Must Be Kept awake. When SWMBK is awake too long, she gets cranky due to her medicine. I think you'll get here in the times I say you can, because you know what? It's my house, and maybe you should be grateful I'm doing something for you!

I mind; when someone decides that I'm not doing something in a timely enough manner for them. No, quit it. I'll get it done the VERY moment that I can. Back off and give me a minute, and maybe it'll get done. I mean, if I've had, like, a t-shirt of yours to fix for over a week, yeah you can and should ask about it. If you gave it to me yesterday when you know I have class the next day? Well, just chill out.

And you know what? I mind; when someone asks to borrow my cell phone and then beauguards it all night long/obsesses over it. I know you're expecting a phone call that I let you give out MY phone number for (and trust me, I hate doing that. I let someone use my phone and his family proceeded to call me for a week straight and get mad when I told them I didn't know where he was. "But he called from this number!" "Yes, I know. He isn't here. I don't know where he is. Either buy him a cell phone or get him a GPS chip or something if it bothers you." "Well, he's dodging our calls." "THEN THERE IS YOUR CLUE! Do not call here again!"). But when you walk up to me every ten seconds and go; "Did anyone call for me? Did such-and-such call? Did the phone ring? Will you check it?" I get pissed off.

I AM SITTING RIGHT HERE. You can HEAR my phone if it rings. Did you hear it? No? Then go away. I'll get you the very second that it rings.

I hear so many people complain about how no one is willing to do favors anymore. But you know what? I'm not surprised! There's this magic sense of entitlement that I've noticed quite a bit, and I just want to make it all go away (including my own). Nobody owes me, you, your Great Aunt Sue or your daddy's uncle's octopus anything at all. If you need something, you ask very politely, and they should very politely say no or agree to it. If they say no, then the conversation is over. It doesn't make them a "bad friend" or a "mean person". You don't know why they said no! Maybe they legit couldn't do it! Every time I have to refuse a favor, I feel TERRIBLE and most people I know do too.

I think we, as humans, want to be nice. But we, as humans, are also apt to take advantage of the niceness of others. It leads to some *very* sticky situations, and it's sort of a bummer. But.. Well... I guess there it is.

But yeah, you can totally borrow my pencil. Just keep it. I have a billion.