this is getting old and so are you

The little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labour.

Jane Austen at least left behind some perfect jewels of novels about a world even smaller than my own, and all I have is some poetry, some fragments of novels, a corner of the internet of dubious quality and copious angst that started out with a processing of my feelings of city, homeland, place, and, like someone who starts reading Zinn after a diet of perpetual red-blooded Murkan jingoism, there is more out there than this rust belt town like so many others.

One of my good friends and neighbors was on a panel last night that was ostensibly meant to discuss writing in the context of region but mostly turned into an analysis of boosterism vs. coming to terms with the legitimate and deep problems of the city, which only peripherally has anything to do with writing at all, though maybe it was an understood subtext as I'm sure damn near everyone who has a blog remotely related to the region was in the bar that night and so much of what was said, my own voice added to the fray despite the shyness that almost kept me from going.

And I look around the room, and we're all products of a technocratic society, of multiple degrees, of time to read blogs at the office desk or coffeeshop, and probably have a degree in liberal arts or social sciences, because like me, everyone who talked was in the information fields to some degree, or writing a book, and the vast majority were white, don't have kids in the school system, and could choose what neighborhoods we live in rather than getting stuck somewhere, and are generally between the age of 18 and 35, forgetting that not everyone is in our position.

We can talk about innovation all we want, and being positive and seeing the good things, but blogging about the groovy things we do doesn't change the school system, the party machine and power structure that siphons away millions of taxpayer dollars to the pockets of millionaire cronies for stadiums and casinos and urban playgrounds for the well-heeled, tax breaks for "nonprofits" whose directors make six figures and token gestures to "the children." The innovation has not trickled down to the masses, and even something so world class as the Cleveland Clinic prefers to build swanky campuses in Dubai while closing the emergency room in East Cleveland because of the cost-benefit analysis.

When I muster up the guts and foolishness to bring this up, there are blank stares and someone in the back starts yelling that if I don't like it so much and if I'm so negative why don't I just move and in the noise of that I retreat to my seat to scrawl passive aggressively on a halfsheet of notebook paper and observe the drama that transpires as people not-so-subtly snipe at each other and we're not talking about writing anymore, and people are ranting and before it can get too crazy it's time for the bands to go onstage and I'm out of there.

I've made an effort here to put down the roots that were already growing, to build a life, because I don't believe I can change the world or even change the city but I can at least try to do something in my own small sphere, without attaching some kind of deep significance to it. I've attempted to understand every corner of this city from the lakefront mansions to the abandoned factories, learned about immigrant communities and housing projects, and listened to a lot of people talk who aren't from my age group, income bracket, or socioeconomic strata. With everything, it's way more complicated than black or white or political party or personal taste. There's legitimate celebrations and equally valid grievances that are damn near impossible to distill coherently.

It's hard to "give back" to the community when you're working a couple jobs and trying to stay afloat. It's hard to "innovate" when there's no loans or capital to start with, or the prerequisite palmgreasing and red tape. What I might want is not what my neighbor might need because we're at different places in life.

What I do in my world is not for Cleveland personified, I'd do this anywhere, this is just where I ended up. But I'm tired of boosterism and bitching and honestly regret that I've pigeonholed myself into this regional corner. I may still post here, but I came away feeling disconnected from both sides, like the microcosm of the "love it or leave it" bumper sticker slogan mentality that comes with most kinds of patriotism and provincialism that ultimately shuts down the conversation and chokes out the life.

We still sound like the desperate girlfriend whose tries to overcompensate with the insecurity by talking about how great and unique she is and how beautiful she is. Cleveland is not my Paris just like I'm not Megan Fox or whoever you dudes think is hot. Let the others do the talking and stop with the self-absorbed conversation because it's boring and old.

For those who want to continue to follow the musings and randomness, I'll continue it somewhere else with hopefully a wider scope. I'm really glad that this has enabled me to meet some really fabulous people but I just want to drop out of the conversation that brought me here at this point.

it's rant time again.

So I haven't really been following this anti-bullying bill business in part because I think such bills are ridiculous. Kids, being kids, are generally mean and ruthless, especially to anyone who sticks out for any reason, and usually the Powers That Be either ignore this kind of thing ("You need to toughen up, kid") or turn it into this self-righteous moral crusade to show that they care about the children.

But I didn't know there was an attempt to add a religious exemption in there too. I get that it's kind of been co-opted as a "gay issue," which I find kind of irksome because this is a human issue and a common decency issue. One of my friends is a social worker at one of the local psych units and told me that "if I was thirteen, and I got picked on in school and then I came home and saw that someone had made a Facebook group making fun of me and all my friends joined and were writing all sorts of bad stuff about me, I'd want to kill myself too."

It's terrible that GLBT kids get picked on, yet they're not the only ones, it's hard to be a minority of any kind in a hostile environment, be it due to religion or language or skin color (or differing tone within that skin color) or just looking different. No amount of legislation is going to change that despite any presumed best intentions. I would hope that teachers and powers that be would have the sense to not enable and encourage (because that does happen so often) but it's hard for me to be so optimistic having dealt with my own share of awful teen years.

But what the hell, people? Especially you religious folk out there who like to talk about how you're persecuted. So it's ok to beat up the gay kid because you've got some "deeply held belief" that their personal choices are wrong? There's a lot of people who have a deeply held belief that you're crazy, does that make it ok to give you a hard time? And what about this whole loving your neighbor business? Jesus said a lot more about loving people even if they treat you like crap or are different than you than anything resembling the implications of what's being advocated. What's in the water up there? Even the most fundie of the people I've met in my short time on earth might have some strange ways of looking at the world, but usually don't tend to advocate being nasty to other kids (usually they just don't put their kids in public school to shelter them from that BIG BAD SECULAR HUMANIST WORLD but that's a whole other story).

The fact that there's debate on who's a protected class and who isn't smacks of handicapping for the Suffering Olympics and really makes me even more cynical about the dumbassery of our elected officials and the education system. And regardless of what your personal beliefs or family structure is, you really should be raising your kids to not be mean to other kids, not that it'll always stop them, but it really does start at home, not thinking your kid is so damn special and right all the time, and being a good example, and not encouraging them to be hateful.

And it seems like grandstanding on all sides, and I wonder what all these people were like when they were teens. Were they the bullies, or the bullies' minions (those who stand by or chime in out of some combination of power and fear of being the next victim), or the kids who just kind of drifted through, or the kids that got picked on and now that they have power, dammit, they're going to use it to get back at the ones lower on the pecking order or the ones above them or maybe there's an idealistic "well maybe if I do this it won't happen to someone else."

But we're a nation of bullies in a world of bullies, overcompensating for the glaring flaws by mocking the flaws of others and doing the geopolitical equivalent of beating them up after school or sending our minions to do it next. It happened in New York the past couple days, and it's been happening in our country since Columbus and all over the world when one group doesn't like another and decides to beat them up and take away what they have, be it dignity or stuff or both. Is that ever going to change? I wish it would, but nothing indicates that it will.

weekend warriors

I didn't make any money for the station during our annual fundraising thing, due to being on so early and everyone in Cleveland who still listens to terrestrial radio being poor.

Well, you're on really early and it's when a lot of blue collar people go to work," says a professorial looking friend of the DJ after me. "Blue collar people usually don't listen to college radio anyway."

OH REALLY.

It's not like I haven't run across this attitude in other places, and it seems prevalent among the multiply college degreed that make up the fields of academia and technocracy. The people who listen to Springsteen and Billy Bragg and talk about solidarity "working people" when it's a convenient talking point involving unions that they're not even in, yet condescend and disparage those whose hands are cracked and dirty at the end of a ten-hour day as ignorant of the finer things in life because they don't sit around all day reading blogs at work. "Well they probably listen to Nickelback and drink beer and watch football and don't read books."

Well how the hell do you know? And so what if other people do? No one's making you conform to that. And I wonder if they have any friends outside of their profession or income demographic or political affiliation, honestly, because when things are painted with this broad of a generalized brush of cultural snobbery, my Inner Parmastani kid gets mad because it's so condescending and at least in my experience (which admittedly might be both biased and also lucky), not totally true.

And it's funny, because a good amount of my callers are warehouse workers and third shifters who want to hear King Sunny Ade or really liked that Siouxsie and the Banshees song or would have loved to have a pair of those tickets to see that band but they work second shift and can't go. I think of people like my dad and his friends, my friends who are also peons who can talk as smart as any PhD scholar who just never had the opportunities or ambition or the convenient accidents of birth.

There is so much more nuance than credit is given, so many brilliant minds without the letters after their names who don't even give themselves credit for their brilliance because they like what they like and have nothing to prove. The poets whose brilliance will blush unseen in desk drawers or shared by a handful of others, the musicians whose gifts never leave the living room, the artists whose canvases are stacked in a corner and given away to friends, the infinite basement rockers with day jobs and sometimes kids who get their catharsis out on the weekends and after dinner.

But I hold my peace, because I haven't had my morning coffee, I don't know this person and will probably never see them again, and there are some battles just not worth fighting. This is our noise too.

welcome to the occupation

We the Peonage endeavored to traverse downtown to see Public Square, known officially but never called "Monumental Park," transformed into something quite Germanic. One of my friends jokes about us being a theme park for New Yorkers, and more or less we're the rust belt equivalent of Liechtenstein, though conceivably for budgetary purposes, it was cheaper to build a fake beer garden and append signage in front of Tower City Mall instead of jetting to a more scenic locale.







The transformation of the familiar into Destructed-Epcot-Lite was surreal to say the least, with the barricades keeping the masses from sullying the red carpet, and this must be how it feels to be invaded and colonized by another country. Life goes on, but it's different, and in this case, it's well dressed strangers and their hangers-on, who make business deals with our overlords while the masses have to rearrange, who doubtless mock the backwardness and provinciality of the natives.



Sadly, this doesn't look all that different from the everyday.

Articles agreed vppon by the lordes and other of the Quenes Maiesties pryuy counsayle, for a reformation of their seruauntes in certayne abuses of apparell thereby to gyue example to al other lordes, noble men and gentlemen.


Randal is more adept with the snarky commentary on the scenery, but as the female half of the Peonage, I was quite amused when a gaggle of Bright Young Things exited the hotel by Playhouse Square declared us "Fashion Disasters," because high school never really does end, it's just that the Brightest Young Things migrate to Happening Places leaving the lesser Bright Young Things to be big fish in small ponds joining the political machines or networking their way to some degree of power) and all of us lower in the pecking order who never expected much and are to some degree content.



I don't know what's acceptable for men these days, but I'm sure that my lack of brand name jewelry, clothing, handbag or shoes, didn't pass muster with people who have nothing else to do but their nails and hair. I might be a fashion disaster to those on either coast, but it's better than being a victim, maybe.

But being that I come from humble means in a humble city, having grown up in sartorially challenged Parmastan and eventually finding a style later in life than others, I find this amusing to the highest degree. All existential angst aside, my life is pretty awesome, I hang out and work with some pretty awesome people, and there's no pressure to be anything. We're the city of slackers and lovable losers, who love our tragic sports teams and grandparents' food. It's not a bad place to be.

carnivalesque

We the Female Peonage concluded yesterday that it would be a most excellent idea to attend the fair in our fair county, as neither of us had seen a demolition derby, admission was a dollar with a canned good, and the bright lights, fabulous people-watching, and aromatic greasy food was to be had.

As the Marquess is a better planner than yours truly, she had a bag of donated items that merited dollar bills from the rest of the masses in line with us and inevitably ran quite the hustle.

We covered quite a bit of ground, feeling bad for the ponies doomed to equestrian Dante-ish fates of walking in circles for hours carrying small children, watched a bemulleted cover band play hits from the 60's, wondered why people collect such random things and display them at the fair, and chortled at the promised exotic delectables that, according to the website, are straunge and unusual dishes not to be found easily in Clevelandia. Maybe it's that I grew up certain ethnic in Parmastan, but judge for yourself, denizens of the rust belt, if these sundry delights are as obscure as birds' nest stews and potions of dragon's tongue.



The livestock were many and while I went down on a frequent basis to the southern part of the state where my relatives have farms, in true city slicker fashion I'm a bit skittish around animals bigger than me or that smell. My parents took me to a pig farm in Indiana when I was probably six years old and I remember smelling like pig just from being there, and it took my mom hours to wash that smell out of my hair. That and being scared of the bulls at my great aunts. Those things were mean, and so were the chickens, understandable since their overlords would eventually eat them. It makes sense.



Insert obligatory Alice in Chains reference here

The county fair makes you remember that yes you are in Ohio and no it's not like your almost-hood in Clevelandia or your concrete-towered place of peonage. The music is country and classic rock, not reggaeton, the t-shirts are emblazoned with Pantera and patriotism, not Tupac, though bad tattoos transcend all age, ethnicity, and culture. The tchotchkes sold are of the American Flag/Stars and Bars/"Native American"/Harley Davidson/Military/etc kind.

I get tired of and a bit creeped out by the hagiography and personality cult of the current president that I see around me but I was equally disconcerted by the number of stands and t-shirts selling bumper stickers about the president being a commie and how much illegals and people on welfare suck, and don't take away my guns. These were not really differences of policy issues, but a cultural againstness that I recognize yet don't quite understand.

I tend to get overanalytical even as I'm entertained, wondering what the the stories of the carnies are, wondering what the freak show girl twirling the snake thinks of the gawkers, wondering what the stories are, what people's lives are like when they're not on stage or trying to get you to throw darts at balloons.



Still, this made me laugh:



Punk rock birds



The obligatory Freemasons



Mechanical cows



Pop culture ephemerals



Lots of the carnie kids had tip jars for their college funds.



Gonna smash it up til there's nothing left...


Is the demolition derby the blue-collar equivalent to the the games played in Roman arenas, with the masses in the stands, the anticipation of chaos, the adrenaline surge of watching collisions, and the quasi-bloodlust exhibited when the tires have blown out and the engine is smoking and the crowd yells "hit him again!"

Pectorally exaggerated Robert Plant



People are strange when you're a stranger.



Rides of Spinny Doom



Pretty lights



But I had a great time, devoured a delicious flurry, savored the atmosphere of the fleeting, and was glad to get out on a weeknight to do something different for a change.

teenage angst has paid off well...

So in walking past a major concert venue, I thought about the last ten years, and how each decade tends to have its defining genres and cultural benchmarks. Maybe it's too early to tell my wiser companion says, but upon consulting the Dictionary of Imaginary Places, as we are well-versed in the Bookly Arts, it's probably that whole emo thing when everyone my age and younger decided to stop listening to Limp Bizkit and move on to bands like one acquaintance of mine referred to as "As I Lay Dying in a Poisoned Well on Thursday's Darkest Hour."

After so many hardcore shows full of mediocre bands whose names and sounds blended together, the way that Myspace seemed to highlight just another clique of people obsessed with image and status with more exhibitionistic ways to express it, and I found it amusing to see it mutate into its own thing, hearing parents talk about how their kid is hanging out with the "emos" and such. What started out as something with some good originators (hello Rites of Spring and Sunny Day Real Estate!) ended up more or less being the love child of goth angst and hair metal excess of my generation. It was hard to tell the scene kids apart from Nikki Sixx after awhile.

I don't know if this is all as big as it once was, because my sister and her friends like all that kind of boring indie stuff and disdain the "scene kids" with their eyeliner and crazy hair. I see a lot of t-shirts of bands that I pre-judge as crappy and generic based on the neon dayglo designs (superficial I know, but Randal assures me that http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifthese groups suck though he's more curmudgeonly than me).

Anyways, we found this in the dictionary of imaginary places, and the mentions of big hair and tattoos made me laugh. Click through, kids.



An island of Emo, where the savage natives have big hair that requires a lot of maintenance, tattoo each other until they're thirty, and worship a giant eel. Heck yeah. Teenage angst has paid off well, kids. Now I'm not-so-bored, but definitely getting old.

hormones and sound

I was working on some projects at the art center when a song came on the radio that reminded me of someone because he once said it reminded him of me. I understand that being sappy is part of human nature for some of us, but I remember being kind of pissed as you can only be when you're 18 and skeptical about most things especially ooshy-gooshy things and it's a terrible vanilla song about some chick that the guy loves who goes off and has adventures and drinks soy lattes and he's still pining for her but she's kind of off doing her own thing. Or something. I don't know.

There were a lot of reasons why things didn't work out with us and this was the least of them, but it was kind of what happened, except that I drink my tea and coffee black and don't do tae-bo while listening to Mozart. For a pair of goofy young kids who both had subcultural leanings and closets full of black clothing, he should've known that something else would have tugged at my heartstrings way more than Train.

Yet I don't take the Tastebuds.fm philosophy that finding one's soulmate is possible through common love of the same bands. It must be some weird hipster thing maybe or a way to break the ice, where taste is cultural currency and conspicuous consumption is paramount. But heck, what do I know anyway? I know that there were way too many relationships in my life where me and whoever connected with the same sounds but never connected with each other.

Those times we drove around all night listening to our favorite songs and talking til 3 in the morning about everything and nothing, listening to soul music in your old Crown Vic by the lake when I was so stressed out and sore from a car crash and you wanted me to feel better, that time we huddled under a track jacket watching Sonic Youth in the rain getting goosebumps from the gorgeous noise of Thurston Moore's guitar and being really wet and cold? A shared love of tuneage and an enjoyment of each other's company was all it was and nothing more and at least I see it for what it is instead of trying to read anything into it further. Life isn't Garden State, people.

I'm also not sure if I trust a site that suggests due to some terrible survey that Nirvana and Metallica fans are more likely to copulate on the first date than people who like Coldplay, in part because the sampling of genre was so limited. And by the way, oh White and Mostly British People, the Blur/Oasis rivalry is so 1990-what?

grease and grit

So I understand that we're an unhealthy city that drinks too much, eats too much, and in some cases, smokes too much. I get that this isn't good, and that it contributes to higher health care costs and whatnot.

But who would I be to tell someone what they can or cannot do especially when it's not a moral issue? Even then, my life is mine and yours is yours and so long as you're not hurting someone with what you do, we're cool even if we might disagree.

I don't expect others to make the same life choices as me. I love going to a coffeeshop or watching a band play and coming home not reeking of cigarette smoke, but I voted against the ban on my half-assed and totally inconsistent libertarian principles. Smokers outside don't bother me. They have their vice and I have mine, though coffee does smell better than cigarettes.

I don't eat a whole lot of greasy food as I prefer dirty hippie fare with generous amounts of spices, but I don't like the idea of being told what to eat. When carnival season hits, me and Tangerine love our elephant ears and scary-because-it-might-fall-apart-rides. Yes, it's not as healthy as going jogging and drinking smoothies, but it's fun and doesn't hurt anyone and we know full well what we're doing. It's a part of living here that we love.

It's hard enough to sustain a small business in this city as it is, and this just makes it harder for places like Sokolowski's and small bakeries. Cimperman may want to change the culture, but this place isn't California, where people are super thin and their teeth are perfectly white. We don't mind our schlubbiness. Even skinny chicks like me will end up looking like babushka women someday due to our genetics.

It's a winter town full of people who grew up on meat-and-potatoes peasant fare and soul food. We don't exercise much because the weather sucks and we can't always walk in our neighborhoods after dark, we like our comfort food like our grandparents made it, and we drink because life here gets depressing. Of course we're unhealthy. A love of grease is in our rusty blood.

While the Powers That Be seem obsessed with catering to the uber-rich who own sports teams and corporations, and turning this city into a playground for the bright young things, there are other people in this city who aren't into trendy neighborhoods, art openings, and vegan food. I would even venture to say that they might be a majority, a little more worried about employment, paying rent, and hoping cars don't get stolen because the police care more about graffiti than they do about people with no power who get beat up.




Something's wrong here. It really is.

1am

My extended family came in tonight to celebrate my mom's birthday and ended up discussing aspects of the Bro Culture with my younger college-aged cousins, a phenomenon which has been greatly codified since my ever-growing-more-distant days as an undergrad. Much laughter and amusement ensued as my cousin described the process of "bromancing," the tastes and general habits, proper Bro Flow hair care, and the differences between east coast and west coast bros. Sadly, there is no Tupac/Biggie type rivalry, because that would involve doing something.

In other words, it seems that the Bros are college kid slackers who are richer than us and prefer more mellow groovy sounds to accompany the consumption of cheap beer while watching Fight Club.

This time the late night has nothing to do with angsting or coughing and everything to do with having my ears blow out in a beautiful way. The last show I went to was Greg Dulli back in October, which sucked due to rock star antics and drunk groupie chicks and groping dudes, and not being able to leave because my friend I went with really had a good time.

I haven't gone out since then, finding that I don't want to deal with crowds alone. I've been so used to going out with other people in part due to them being the driver, but I'm finding more and more that I like flying solo and coming and going as it works for me. Usually I just don't end up going anywhere and end up holed up in my apartment with the paints and music, or slacking on someone's porch if I'm feeling social.

Having a free ticket and needing some catharsis and sonic therapy after a long week made me willing to venture to the other side of town where I got to blend into a crowd of introverted souls where I wasn't out of place with my longish hair and black hoodie, and found that the earplugs I picked up to try and be responsible with my hearing really shut out most of the sound, so I'm slightly more deaf but whatever. It was worth it.

since I didn't get my existential convos this week and am working late instead...

I find it amusing when those outside of evangelical circles like to generalize about an entire group in ways that are about as absurd as saying that Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan or Oprah speak for "the black community" or put-your-favorite-talking-head here speaking about their pet topic.

Immerse yourself in any subculture, whether it's musical or religious or whatever, and there are infinite permutations and variations and raging debates on what is true and good and what sucks and is totally ridiculous.

As far as serious issues go in the taboo topics of politics, sex, and religion, I am more willing to argue about religion than other things because I think that this kind of stuff actually matters in the great scheme of things as far as eternity goes, and as far as application to one's daily life in the meantime.

On the other hand, I don't really like to have these arguments because I don't believe that any of us mere mortals really get it half the time. There are certain things that I hold to, that I gauge the truth based on as far as I can tell. Any time anyone starts talking about "a new way of" this or that or anything resembling a "bright new future", I'm expecting a whole lot of bullshit platitudes coming my way.

So often we make God into our own image, assigning preferable personality traits and occasionally a skin color, political party, and language to fit the way we see the world, whether it's in a hellfire-and-brimstone-way or a Buddy Christ motivational booster kind of figure who just wants everybody to be happy and get along.

Anyways, Rob Bell has a new book coming out where he's talking about heaven and hell and not in a way that has anything to do with Dio and the inevitable evangelical subcultural debates have begun on whether or not he's keeping it real or something.

Most of you my dear readers (possibly all except for maybe one or two) may not realize that evangelicals are not all clones of Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin. Evangelical is if anything a catchall term for those who are not in mainline Protestant denoms or Eastern Orthodox or Catholic, and even then, there's occasional overlap. People take this stuff seriously and occasionally aren't friends anymore over hair-splitting doctrinal differences (I don't think that's a good thing, but more on that another time).

The book hasn't come out, so no one's read it yet, kind of like all the people who freaked out about Dogma but hadn't actually watched it. Having seen a few of Bell's videos and whatnot, I'm not a huge fan and while a lot of it sounds nice and looks pretty, it lacks a theological depth and seems to be more of an emotional and aesthetic appeal that looks deeper than it really is.

This is somewhat my issue with the whole Hipster Christianity thing because what looks all cool and edgy and relevant right now is going to look like Stryper 20 years from now if it doesn't already. And when I get mailings from these churches that talk about how they're relevant to me as a creative cynical questioning 20-something who doesn't feel like they fit in with the prevailing culture, I feel pandered to and I don't like feeling pandered to.

I don't pick who I worship with because the building looks cool or we all listen to U2 or there's candles or something. I like that they're not all earnest indie kids and that I find a commonality in God with people that I couldn't be more different from. I like that we're not all the same age and from the same walks of life and that it's scruffy and honest.

Not to sound like a bitter old record store clerk still mad that their favorite underground band got signed to a major and is played on commercial radio, but faith isn't supposed to be cool. And yet, I look at these articles and see myself there in a way that I assume is unconscious and accidental in an "oh snap" kind of way because I do love the writing of Flannery O'Connor and the music of U2 and try to give a damn in an "I want to do something good and right because it bothers the hell of out me that things are so bad" kind of way.

I understand my generation's disdain for poofy haired televangelists and the culture wars still fought by our parents, but there's just as much smug self-righteousness and keeping up appearances that becomes just as much a bubble with its own lines to tow, whether it's trendy and good intentioned causes that everyone thinks is bad (sex trafficking and genocide are generally non-controversial in this way) so that no boats are rocked and a cachet of cool is still maintained.

I get emotion and aesthetic appeal, but essence of what I believe is distilled down to "Love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." I suck at both of these, but this is what I try to base my life on, to know and learn and love and try not to be a jerk, which is hard, because being a jerk is so easy and sometimes way too fun to do.

And what bothers me that is that the whole "mind" aspect of this equation gets checked in at the door more often than it should, both in hardcore fundamentalist circles and just as much among the more emergent types, when dissent can lead to accusations of "well you're not really a Christian" or "you obviously hate everyone especially poor people and are totally judgmental."

I've been told I was the former, because I didn't dress right, listen to the wrong music, and cuss when I get mad, and described as the latter because I do believe in structure and creed and not in the bright and shining hope of People Who Can Change the World Because They're So Nice and Awesome and Well-Intentioned. I know that they don't know me, that only God knows me better than I know myself, and the more I live, the more I realize how much about me needs to change.

It bothers me to see so much tied to "how this makes me feel" or "this is what I want to hear" or "this is what I want to believe." I'm probably guilty of this too, because I tend to tune out the talking heads and the drivel with every fiber in my being. These conversations are not conducive to facebook walls or message boards and as with anything that can get emotional or misconstrued, I always prefer face-to-face, preferably over dinner or coffee. Even then, sometimes it still gets dramatic.

Because who of us has all the answers or can comprehend these things? It's not that we don't try but we've had a couple millenia now and there will still be thinks that will be seen through a glass darkly. I know that I'm not always consistent and usually not content to just live and let live. It bothers me that there is so much that I just don't understand, and so much more to learn, and that I can't get complacent even if I wanted to because my mind is always working and my heart is always bleeding and my soul is always yearning.

I feel like the little kid in O'Connor's short story "Temple of the Holy Ghost" who makes fun of her ditzy Catholic schoolgirl cousins, the boys in the neighborhood who are going to be Church of God ministers because "You don't have to know nothing to be one," who's asking God to help her not be so snarky, who probably could never a saint but might be an ok martyr "if they killed her quick."

got me wrong

I was accused last night of hating men.

Aforementioned acquaintance, who seems to get her ideas of what ideal manliness is and what a woman's supposed to do/be from supermarket magazines, trashy romance novels, and unrealistic movies, is not a reliable source on my relations with the male species, and I found this comment amusing especially given the context that it was taken out of. So it's not just a grain of salt I'm taking this with, it's the Dead Sea.



In all honesty, I enjoy the male species far too much to buy into this whole anti-dude thing, especially considering that most girls aren't interested in the things I'm interested in. Just because I'm interested in the same things as some of the male species, doesn't usually mean that we're interested in each other. It's just nice to enjoy what you enjoy with others once in awhile without worrying about things getting messy.

Besides, it seems like even the smartest of them end up dating really boring chicks who listen to country music, buy expensive purses, and watch terrible reality shows but put more time into their personal appearance than I do which makes me question their judgment slightly. Or they end up with impossibly thin fashionista hipster types that I know better than to compete with. Maybe it's an ego thing, to feel superior or it's something reserved for nights out with the bros. Whatever.

In all honesty, females of any age have generally caused me more trouble and drama than most men, be they classmates, catty coworkers, nasty bosses, or crazy mothers. Too much testosterone or too much estrogen is usually a bad thing. We need each other to balance each other out.

In other news, I've got about ten minutes before I'm gone, to go let the downstairs neighbor's dog out, have dinner with the family and the might-as-well-be-family-in-the-best-way in-laws, start working on some cut and paste-y awesome layout art for the first time in forever, and maybe work in some Darkthroning in the woods or at the Cemetery of Awesomeness.

And because there can never be too much Alice, I'm going to do a way-cooler-than-Michael-Stanley doubleshot to start off your weekend. Muchas gracias to Randal for hooking me up with what has become my winter car music and making me realize that I wrote off said debut album as sounding "Too 80's" in my misguided youth.

Sorry about my ditziness in the way of closing up.

how can you say I go about things the wrong way?

I got a call at random from a friend of a former friend last night. I don't really know her all that well, as I know her through my most recent roommate who's no longer speaking to me, and so there's a dynamic of awkwardness there because I don't know what she knows about everything that went down in the past year. Since I'm not a fan of drama, I figure that what she doesn't know can't hurt her.

Every so often, she finds me at work or calls me and asks for life advice, most of which I know is not what she wants to hear and that she'll never take. I don't believe in sugarcoating but I try to be nice, yet the truth usually seems to possess this uncanny ability to hit nerves and make people mad.

We come from very different frames of reference in relation to absolutely everything, in part because of the difference of socioeconomic status and the values with which we were raised.
My upbringing was fairly conservative (though by no means as conservative as others I was around), and lower middle-class, while her parents are progressive, very well-off and live in a very affluent part of town, and currently bankroll her rent and college education in hopes that she'll get a master's degree because those are the kind of things that matter.

I tell her that maybe if you don't like school you should do something else until you decide what you want to do, get some life experience, because life isn't about how many degrees you get or what they're in.

Or instead of being on the Internet all the time looking for love, you should get out and get interested in stuff, volunteer or something if your parents aren't crazy about you working minimum wage, because that opens up your world and usually gives you more common ground with other people, and that usually guys get a little creeped out if you text them all the time and tell them their exotic ethnicity is sexy.

So she's asking me for love advice in regards to her roommate that she's enamored with even though everything about him even through her rose-colored gaze screams bad news to the point where I actually fear a bit for her safety and general well-being because said guy sounds sociopathic.

She considers me a "nice person" and a bit of a prude, which isn't terribly far from the truth. Any Victorian-ness on my part comes from an uncanny instinct for self-preservation coupled with the memory of several unpleasant incidents in my teens and seeing lots of instances of date rape aftermath in a college town. Moral code aside, it's a man's world and I tread there knowing that I have fought back and don't intend to be in those situations again if I can help it.

She always apologizes for swearing around me. She's surprised to find out that I have lived with male roommates, though it was for about three months in a college housing sublease situation and nothing "happened," considering that one was a fratboy who had his sorority girl friend with benefits upstairs and the guy I shared space with weighed 90 pounds and had muscular dystrophy.

So after she goes into way more detail about the relationship than I really wish I knew, she gasps a little bit when I tell her this guy is a total asshole who is constantly denigrating her, sees this as an economic arrangement plus the sex he'll never get to have in his own country, and that if I was her, I wouldn't date him ever and would probably move out also because he sounds like a terrible person to live with, let alone date.

"But I want a relationship!"

Don't we all. Sometimes.



But there's a reason why we don't give our phone numbers out to random dudes on the bus who ask for them because unlike humans, all relationships are not created equal. Sometimes it's heaven on earth like it is for my sister and her husband, and sometimes you end up with someone dead. There's Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, but there's also Sid and Nancy.

The conversation ends quickly after that, and I paint for awhile and go to sleep on my couch in my cold little half a house wishing that I knew her parents' phone number so I could tell them that their daughter is living with a scary dude and that if they're going to pay her rent they should maybe pay it somewhere else where she'll be safer, but also knowing that she's a consenting adult and will probably continue to make mistakes like these so maybe I should let her? I don't want to feel responsible for someone's stupidity but I wish I didn't know.

they all will have exquisite taste but everyone will look the same

In discussion of musical taste and such, I don't think I'm terribly ashamed of my guilty pleasures. As Randal has astutely observed, any sense of guilt has been imparted by the society of either corporate entities or scenester elitism. We like what we like, whatever that is and however that is perceived.

Some sense of sonic pretentiousness has probably always existed, at least according to my dad, who said that back in his day the people who listened to the MC5 weren't the people who listened to Yes weren't the people who listened to Gram Parsons. He has all of those in the record collection that I'll probably end up with since neither of my siblings own a turntable.

I saw a lot of bands live that I didn't care about, but I enjoyed the company of my friends who did. I went through some unfortunate musical phases just like most people, and have found that I haven't bothered with Nine Inch Nails or Stabbing Westward and the like since my teens, and haven't listened to Pavement since leaving Kent.

Guilty pleasures? Hmmm... I don't feel guilty, especially as I get older and there's less social pressure to be cool. I was never cool anyway. I guess the closest thing would be that I've got a soft spot for old-school hardcore and certain dancehall cuts. A lot of people my age pretend like they never listened to the Goo Goo Dolls or Staind, and gave me a hard time for still admitting that I love Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam.

Being in College Radio Land, I know that while certain parts of my musical palate run towards the obscure and esoteric (pre Pol-Pot Cambodian garage rock, Ethiopian jazz, New Zealand post-punk, Turkish psychedelia, Colombian hip-hop), my mainstays are profoundly pedestrian. I love my way uncool grunge bands and boomerific classic rock and pretty much any band that rips off Neil Young and Crazy Horse. I own 90% of U2's recorded output. I'll take the Red Hot Chili Peppers over Can any day.

And unlike my younger self, I'm less likely to judge you based on what you like, unless you're really into the Insane Clown Posse or something. And I might find it funny if you still rock a House of Pain jersey unironically. I've been around enough really awesome people with questionable taste and enough really nasty people with "good taste" to know that I infinitely prefer the former.



Besides, oh hipsters of the Internet, to paraphrase a Less Than Jake song title, "Some of My Best Friends are Metalheads."

connections and directions

There are times the thoughts come out spiraling so intensely, in ways more suited for a conversation over coffee in person than something sent out into the little corner of cyberspace and it is all too easy to regret what was said, look back and wonder what the hell was I thinking, and why did I get so worked up.

So many others express their ideas of politics, economics, and social issues with way more expertise and articulateness than yours truly, who tries desperately not to be all nerve and no brain, but often end up being a big icky mess of ritually sacrificed bleeding heart most of the time, cut through the sharp obsidian of cynicism that some mistake for unredeemable negativity.

Unlike most of my generation who seem to prefer soundbytes and emoticons, interaction using abstract boxes and abbreviations, I still love face-to-face discourse and banter, just like I enjoy going into actual record stores to buy actual music, prefer printed pages to reading online, real coffee to instant.

So 20th century right? I've made my concessions bit by bit, but I really hate text messaging, Twitter, and consider the whole facebook thing a necessary evil since The Kids don't tend to do email much anymore and it occasionally provides a good avenue to keep in touch real time with old friends scattered across the globe who don't check their email.

I love the dialogue of diametrically opposed points of view, where there is give and take, snarky asides, unfinished thoughts and half-formed solutions. There's lots of that in this forum, but something gets lost in translation when there's the lack of spontaneity and face-to-face response, connections that have little to do with fiber optic cables and infinitely more to do with eye contact.



There's a part of me on here that really is what I'm made of, but there's a whole lot more that is unseen, just like the voice on the radio you hear at 5am. I'm really not all that cool and exciting when it comes down to it, but I keep writing, to remember, to process, to connect, and I guess most of the time there's nothing wrong with that.

Also, this Elastica was very dear to me in my teenage years and that first record still gets a lot of play come warm weather. Girls not just singing, but playing guitar too and not being Kathleen Hanna was a revelation. We all don't want to sing about feminism. Sometimes we just want to sing about whatever. I still kind of want Justine's haircut.

iconoclasty

I don't know why Google wants us to care about JFK so much.

But one of the first things that popped up was a mention of this Living Colour song, which is kind of ironic given the subject matter, because it's not so much about how awesome JFK was.

I had wanted to play this on my show on every Election Day but wonder if it'd get taken the wrong way.




Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I’ve been everything you want to be
I’m the cult of personality
Like mussolini and kennedy
I’m the cult of personality
Cult of personality
Cult of personality

Neon lights, a nobel prize
The mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You don’t have to follow me
Only you can set me free
I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face on your t.v.
I’m the cult of personality
I exploit you still you love me

I tell you one and one makes three
I’m the cult of personality
Like joseph stalin and gandhi
I’m the cult of personality
Cult of personality
Cult of personality

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You me power in your god’s name
I’m every person you need to be
I’m the cult of personality

While we're at it, this song is awesome too. I'd honestly never bothered checking out Living Colour's back catalog until one of my very cool older friends sat me down and had me listen to them and talked about seeing them back in the day at the Euclid Tavern... "(All these fine sisters with afros and weaves and leather jackets in the mosh pit! It was amazing!")

what I see is unreal...

"You never know when those quiet ones will snap."

So says my health/gym teacher in high school after a bad moment where my clumsiness resulted in hitting a girl who was too busy singing to Britney Spears in the face with a basketball during a drill. It wasn't intentional, I promise.

At fifteen, I was already social pariah #1, but after that, even more so. There'd already been a few school shootings in the previous months and then Columbine had happened a week ago. I'd already been to the guidance office for some suspect cuts and bruises and disturbing subject matter in my artwork.

Pale kids like me who wore ball chains and necklaces with Led Zeppelin motifs, took honors classes, had no friends and listened to doomy music were suddenly potential homisuicidal maniacs waiting to have their Carrie moment.

That kind of paranoia permeated the hallways of the already volatile incubator of high school, fueled by parental anxiety, the inevitable rumor mill, absurd Principal Bureaucrats, and media hype. It got so unbearable that I dropped out to catch up on classes via homeschooling for a year before transferring to the local big public high school where I could blend in and get lost, considering that the powers that be were far more concerned about the potheads and the guys with the trenchcoats and heavy eyeliner. And obviously, I've never shot anyone. Most alienated youth haven't.



If it wasn't the Trenchcoat Mafia, it was Y2K and then it was 9/11. Conversations about too many guns and then not enough guns. I was a senior when 9/11 happened, and a whole new wave of fear and jingoism had swept through. The Egyptian kids who were Copt not Muslim got picked on really bad and suddenly those scary teenage metalheads who spent way too much time on the Internet and probably had the Anarchist's Cookbook on their hard drive didn't seem so bad and strange.

No one seemed to realize that Sikh turbans denoted a religion that has nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. Khaled, who I sat next to in computer class (and whose dad owned the convenience store my dad delivered to) used to talk about going into the military to "blow shit up." I wonder where he is now.

So I read about these incidents that seem to grow more frequent, which have always seem to happen when crackers read too much Ayn Rand and toxic ideology on both sides and decide that the majority of people are stupid and need to be killed. Since they're usually dudes, there's usually some kind of testosterone-driven music involved but that's besides the point.

But then we go off on these tangents to find a cause but it's way more complicated than that. That combination of mental illness, general jerkitude combined with ideology and musical taste that causes one to feel superior to the masses is a combination that can't be quantified.Domestic terrorism has been practiced on all sides as it is. I look at some of the people that I deal with and wonder if they'll come in with a gun and start mowing people down.

But the whole "music made him do it?" Vladimir Putin has probably tortured people and had them murdered and he's a big fan of ABBA. Kim Jong-il's kid likes Eric Clapton but probably prefers "Tears in Heaven" to Cream. Charles Manson blamed the Beatles. Whatever.

And now, the stakes just keep getting higher. The paranoia just keeps ratcheting upward among and about lefties and wingnuts and people who listen to "heavy metal." Considering that I've got some serious love for Jesus and loud music that probably doesn't bode well.
Despite a certain individual's claims that crosshairs are actually survey markers, at least even the trigger-happy crowd is appalled as well.

On a totally unrelated but not totally tangential note, I wonder what will happen when Glenn Beck and his ilk get wind of the taqwacore scene because what's more scary than power-chord-loving nonconformist Islamic teenagers?



(By the way, part of this was filmed in a punk house/performance space in my fair city in my part of town, and the novel on which this film is based is highly recommended.)

can I be stupid for a minute... I was looking in that half-empty glass...

I was running through downtown to catch the train, trying to figure out why there's so many people in TSA and DHS uniforms around, not so much because of terrorists because who gives a damn about blowing up Cleveland but because every day I feel more and more like my world is turning into some creepy Orwell Meets Huxley superfuture.

It doesn't personally affect my way of life because my skin is pale, my ethnicity is neither Latino or Semitic, my gender is the weaker sex, and the only real political action I've ever been a part of was a March for Life in high school and a road trip to a demonstration about the genocide in Darfur in college, both of which were relatively uneventful. But I know that the lives of others are constantly getting messed up and that's just not ok.

The governor of my state wants to privatize the prisons, the prison system being so messed up to begin with but to add profit margins even more than there already is, is just downright scary, while my city pins its hopes on slimy businessmen with big mouths and unrealistic promises. It says it can't keep all these schools open but is building another juvenile detention center, and my country is still doing shady things all over the world and here too. Maybe I'm just reading too much Balko, but the precedent for tyranny is unnerving.

Meanwhile, I keep on keeping on, trying to make sense of things and keep them in perspective. My friend around the corner and I did our art therapy as she sculpted pots that look like Dr. Seuss landscapes and I dripped glazes down the sides of bowls trying to get a color scheme that reminds me of Venetian glass and the luminous medieval enameling that I saw at the art museum.

My art teachers have always said I work too fast, and looking at these works of art that were created over years has made me want to slow down and execute even more detail, to create something beautiful.

We make dinner afterwards, stay up late drinking pots of tea and pondering God, man, woman, and the universe, and all the sea changes that occurred in the past year. It's reassuring to know that I'm not alone, to remember that there's a lot of us just trying to make it through.

branding iron

Seriously people, this year on my corner of the world won't all be about Alice in Chains, generational conflict, and the travails of life in the Rust Belt.

Randal is way more entertaining than myself about a book that came through here about personal branding and I honestly don't know what planet some of these people live on. It had to do with shampoo and a trademarked "YOU" or something and talked about how the reason women are sexually harassed is because they don't wear proper business attire and that men are judged by what shoes they wear.

Because women are "totally asking for it" and we should judge a man by the pattern on his tie. Right.

It's bad enough to be judging someone by what brands they wear, but when we start talking about what brand a person IS and that some are more desirable than others, well, what the heck? And we do judge if we're honest. I don't tend to trust people who wear expensive suits who want me to vote for them or who try to sell me something, and I can't take someone's ideas seriously if they can't spell.

I guess we call this labeling and typecasting by any other name which I thought was a bad thing and there's this strange cultural social Orwellianism of all of us theoretically being equal but some of us still being much more equal than others.

I like to give my boomer compadres a hard time, but my fellow millenial spawn appear to be taking the narcissism to a whole new level and we don't even get some good music or something resembling the civil rights movement out of the deal. Just a lot of tweets and likes.

I really wonder about my generation when I see these other people who are my age who have bought into this whole idea of not just marketing as something you do to pay your bills, but as something you make a life out of because you're just so damn special and so damn interesting in a calculated kind of way.

And I know I don't work in an environment or culture with such individuals, and they probably don't attend the esteemed academic institution I work for because they consider state schools beneath them. I wonder where these people live, where they party, how they sleep at night, what kind of relationships do they have? Clearly they don't live here, I think, having blown this popsicle stand for places like Chicago and either coast. Their parents probably live in a nice house and wouldn't talk to mine because we don't have any social capital.



But then I remember that there was this guy when I was at Kent who was my age but throughout undergrad wore suits every day and was one of those people who everyone knew and all that. I think he's probably gone on to be successful and I guess people like him are the kind of people that get things done but that's just not how I roll I guess.

And the subbacultcha is all about the personal brand just in a collective tribal sense... having the right haircut, the right band t-shirts and accessories, the right attitude, and it can be just as catty as any celebutante reality show, only with a heavy dose of sour grapes and "at least I'm not like THAT" thrown in.



So I look at these nebulous questions like "What is YOUR personal brand?" or "How does your appearance enhance your brand?" or people promoting a "personal brand toolkit." It's already a soul-sucking enterprise to sell things, but to sell yourself often at the expense of others...

I don't even have words and it sounds childish and immaturely punk rock to say corporate whore but what kind of other real description is there? Not that I'm advocating the absurdity that is Adbusters, and it's true that people do still judge, but to wholeheartedly embrace it seems so profoundly wrong.



Speaking of branding, this one was big among my old crew back when Sub Pop was awesome.



I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? I look pretty good but I'm just back-dated as it is.

movers and shakers

F. Scott Fitzgerald once described the very rich as "not like you and me." Hemingway disagreed, saying the only difference is that they have more money than the rest of us. I'm sure there's an element of truth in both of these statements, but sometimes I'm reminded just how differently they live.

This guy is retiring and is going to be an "executive in residence" and make $75,000 a year for 24 hours of work because "His BlackBerry contains 1,300 names of movers and shakers in Northeast Ohio."



I wonder what kind of work this involves, or if they're simply hiring his Blackberry. I also wonder how you end up with over a thousand phone numbers and what happens if said device gets stolen. I wonder if these people were such movers and shakers why nothing seems to be moving or shaking unless they've been raking in graft like the rest of the upper echelons have been, but my guess is they live in the suburbs or the really exclusive parts of the city in a world far removed from my own.

One of my great-uncles told me that when I went to school I should figure out who the rich and connected kids were and hang out with them because then I would go far in life and be successful. One of my uncles dropped out but his fraternity connections have taken him everywhere and he's pretty well off. I hear other people talk like this, and it's not like they're bad people, it's just such a different mentality than what I was raised with and how I see things.

I didn't do so well at this, majoring in English and an unfinished art minor, and the rich kids I knew were all pretending that they weren't from Shaker, Solon or Hudson, dumpster-diving and sleeping on mats and being fake Buddhists, talking about anarchy and consumerism while spending loads of money on concert tickets, drugs, surround sound systems, Apple products, and eternal grad school.

It was so weird to be eating at vegan potlucks as kids whose dads made six figures talked about "workers of the world" and how that world was far removed from my own, where you either did community college or got lucky and went to a state school if your grades were good and you got some scholarships or financial aid, where your "ethnic" last name shows where you are in the social strata especially when you get outside your city.

I could theoretically move and shake at my place of employment but I enjoy my fellow peons far more than most of those who have letters after their names who only associate with others on their level.

I don't tend to trust most people in suits as it is, since it seems like most of the evil in the world is perpetrated by the well-dressed. The men that I grew up admiring are people like my dad, coming home after working 12 hour days, with cracked hands covered in dirt and salt, wearing old hoodies and thermals and work boots, who listen to the Rolling Stones and NPR and reading all sorts of books, with a lack of interest in affluence and a preference for good music and maybe a baseball game or two.

My dad once told me he couldn't work behind a desk and dress up for work every day. It's something I do but I don't have to bother with power suits or trying to sell things. I've gotten to know a lot of people between where I live and work and worship, and so does he. It's just that the people he knows are Palestinians, Pakistanis, and Vietnamese families who run the corner stores, the Puerto Rican kids who stock the shelves at Marc's, and the people he plays music with and goes to church with.

That's what I know best and am attracted to most, and I'm sure that sometimes I judge those outside that circle a bit unfairly if I'm honest. It's a world that is both closed and uninteresting to me that seems so calculating and ungenuine.

And in the wake of more major political shenanigans and shadiness on a large scale, I'm more and more convinced that C.S. Lewis had it so right here:
"The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of evil that Dickens loved to paint but is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices."

twelve years later...

I've been reading these discussions about bullying teens and kids killing themselves and senators wanting to pass laws they can't enforce because it hits a nerve. I was one of those kids who got more than my share of awfulness in those years.

Middle school was bad enough, and I remember thinking that high school would be better. I was a nerdy freshman at an all-girls Catholic school who didn't know anyone, and was there on a full scholarship rather than my parents' incomes. I had thought I would thrive there taking Latin and all that, but it was a year of hell. Girls are mean and cliquish and smell blood so easily. Since there were no boys to be an outlet for that energy, it was turned inward.

This was at the height of the boy band era and I was utterly unattracted to any of those teen idols with the frosted hair and the corny music. I've never really been attracted to 'beautiful people' anyway because I usually assume they're arrogant or mean, and found myself drawn more to the misunderstood musician types like Kurt Cobain.

But freshman year, this meant that if I didn't have a crush on Justin Timberlake or Nick Carter, I couldn't possibly be straight, and this being at an all-girls school, meant social suicide of the highest degree and everything that goes with that, the rumors, the eating lunch alone, threats in the locker room, and the way that girls could be so cruel.

I am so thankful that the dynamics of web 2.0 that's so pervasive now didn't exist then, because I can't even imagine how much worse that would make things. I wanted to drop out after one semester but the way my course schedule was set up, it would have messed up everything else.

This was also the year that Columbine happened so there was all sorts of paranoia regarding lonely outsiders with a love of doomy rock music and I was sent to the guidance counselor because of the bruises on my knees and the scars on my arms and wrists from the cat. The only time teachers intervened was when they feared that I would do something violent and vindictive. "You've got to watch those quiet ones..."

My dad let me cut class a lot and that helped me survive, and we'd spend Wednesday afternoons going to the art museum and driving around listening to Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Led Zeppelin on the radio so I wouldn't have to go back.



I transferred out at the end of that year, did a correspondence homeschool sophomore year to catch up and then transferred into a large public high school where I had no history with anyone. There were so many people that I blended in easily, was almost invisible being neither at the top or bottom of the pecking order, and slowly found a group of people that I got along ok with.

I don't know what the answer is. Kids are mean and cruel and they probably always have been. I never sought help from teachers because it got old to hear "well you've got to stand up for yourself" knowing that at that time I didn't have the toughness to do that without looking even more lame, knowing that if I protested too much it wouldn't do any good. I don't know if you can legislate this kind of thing either. It's like declaring a war on drugs or terror, you can't win. Thankfully, I had parents who loved me and found some support in other areas and I guess got through by the grace of God if nothing else in those times I'm so glad I never have to relive.

And it does get better. That doesn't mean that grown adults don't act like schoolchildren or that things don't still happen, but generally it's not so bad. All the drama that happened made me stronger and more sure of myself and gave me more empathy for others than I maybe would have had otherwise. If I ever have kids, I want to be sure to tell them to treat others the way they want to be treated, even if the way other kids treat them is terrible, because it seems so often that the ones who hurt are so often hurt by others.