A Letter to the Hipster Next Door

Dear Hipster Next Door,


Hello, and welcome to the neighborhood.

I was going to bake some cookies and go next door to greet you formally, but it appears nothing I'm wearing is organic. If we're going to be literal, the shirt on my back is 100% cotton--therefore, technically, organic--but I'm pretty sure it was manufactured in a warehouse with a bunch of other like shirts...and so I'm assuming that dethrones it's "organicism".

It's okay, I'm just going to write this letter to you in hopes that we can be friends. I'm kind of scared you won't like me, though. I occasionally listen to Greenday, and I don't recycle.
And...I don't drink Pabst.

I'm too mainstream.

I know there are strategically warped-out pictures of you on Facebook doing cool shit--you know, like sitting in a field, or front row at some obscure concert. Damn, I wish I did awesome things like you.

I spend way too much time not focusing on being individualistic.

My profile picture is of me, you know, half-smiling and shit. I should be doing something cool! I need cooler friends, which is why I'm trying to make one in you!

In fact, I was thinking about how I could impress you...so I went down to the local thrift shop and picked up a fedora and some thick-rimmed glasses! I bought a tweed jacket for shits and giggles. And now, voila, we're primed to be the best of friends!

But...well...I still didn't think I was non-conformist enough...

So I went down to the local cafe and bought some auspicious coffee drink of frothy goodness. Then I opened up my Macbook and started blogging about my feelings concerning our political crisis, and how children in Uganda need shoes so everyone should buy more TOMS.

Just in case I was missing something, I surfed Reddit for an hour.

I know I seem to be a bit obsessive, but I just want to be a nonconforming, obscure beer-drinking, indie music-listening individual so freakin bad!

I'm even in the process of fixing my bike as we speak! Yep, that stupid gas-guzzling piece of shit you may have seen last week has been scrapped. I've decided to become an earth-conscious individual, and so I pulled out the old fix-gear bike of mine. I put some skinny tires on her and everything, and by the time I install a leather saddle she'll be as good as new.

Sheesh, this shit's long. I hope I didn't take up too much of your time!
I know you're probably busy blurring the gender lines, and all that.

Come by sometime! We'll make something vegan.

Yours Truly,

The Conformist Next Door

This Year, Me Is Thankful For...

- pleasing grades
- pleasant dispositions
- turducken
- rainbow flags
- rebel flags
- my janis joplin poster
- unexplainable retention of sanity
- awesome sales
- sushi
- my annoying sister
- icebergs
- Finland
- supportive boyfriend
- new-found clarity

Mother Dearest.

So...I suppose I cannot fully claim that my mother is a raging psychopath...but perhaps we can put her under the category of "prelude to psychopath'.

My mother has always been this figurine in my life that I could never really grasp. She's insipid of mind, emotionally fragile, and projects the disposition of an eternal sixteen-year-old.

What I mean to say is...

- When I want to talk about my writing...she expresses so little interest, you'd have thought I said absolutely nothing at all.

- When you call her out on her character flaws (very evenly, and very maturely, in a conversational way)...she goes postal, and thinks you're attacking her.

- When you roll your eyes and say something snarky (as my fourteen-year-old sister does on the daily)...she will actually MIMIC her, in such a way that a five-year-old would mimic her mother or sister as if it would prove a point.

I've always known my mother this way.

But this isn't what perhaps vexes me the most about our association...

I think a new level of my annoyance with my mother began around the time my cousin (who has always been a very accomplished beauty) was crowned her high school's Homecoming Queen.

Now, before you think that this is just an everyday run-of-the-mill kind of jealousy, you're wrong.

My cousin has ALWAYS been the beauty, and I have ALWAYS been the brains--that's simply the way it was, and I have been enormously satisfied with my lot. Naturally, one day she will no longer be beautiful, and I'll still have my uppity elitist prose to wipe her runny nose with. I have looked forward to that day since I was six and she was three.

Plainly, this has nothing to do with my cousin's title.

This has to do with me, and my mother, and my mother's reaction to said title.

What perhaps hurts me the most is my mother's blatant ignorance for things that are very important to me.

I have been a writer ever since I can remember. She knows I write, and she knows that it is the epicenter of my existence.

I've already expressed that if I couldn't write; I'd rather not live.

I am perfectly serious by this.

If I wake up one morning, and I find I can no longer pen my thoughts--I'll pull a Plath.

(I find it not as obtrusive as a Hemingway.)

Anyway...

When my cousin was announced as Homecoming Queen, you could have sworn it was my mother along with her.

Plans to have a tea, and to find a dress, and a suit, and everything for my cousin began to be arranged in full-force--and my mother was "honored" to be involved in every single step of this process.

At first, I was excited for my cousin. At first, I was thinking this was a pretty fun thing. Fun, however, was the extent of it. I never held any beauty and/or popularity recognition in any higher esteem than "fun". But, nonetheless, I smiled and was happy for her and all that.

Well, the annoyance probably climaxed when I realized that my mother was perhaps more involved in this process than she was in anything I have ever done in my entire life that was important to me.

Naturally, if I called her out on this, she would say that scouring for dresses for MY homecomings and all that equaled this event--IT DID NOT.

If my mother really knew me, she'd realize:

a.) a lot of the dress shopping and general clothes shopping that i have done with her in my life has been to please HER. i, personally, hate this ritual, as it makes me feel enormously uncomfortable.

b.) she has no idea what is most important to me, which is my writing and my career. if she realized that, or even cared, perhaps she'd discuss my writing with me--or even express a desire to.

I am her daughter.

That's what pisses me off the most.

I am her daughter--and she knows nothing about me, except for what she sees on the shell.

I can't talk to her, because she will INSIST she is RIGHT and that I have NEVER TRIED to talk to her about any of this.

I was so angry that my mother would be so involved with my cousin, over dresses and frills and shit--and she has never even glanced at anything I've done.

At least...I know what I'm not going to do, when I have children.

Because it hurts, enormously, to be unnoticed by the person you wish would notice you the most.

Dear Taylor Swift

Dear Taylor Swift,


Salutations! I have not have the good fortune of listening to your latest CD--but apparently I'm hearing good things. Congrats on it, and all.
Though I'm not particularly a fan of your work, I felt that I should reach out to you as a relatively concerned personage of goodwill.
I couldn't help but notice that all of your songs happen to be about small towns, fairy tales, and boys that don't like you. I can't help but wonder if you were that token annoying chick in high school that would sit with a group of fellow shallow, contemptuous women and sigh aloud
"SIGH...i'm so FAT and UGLY..."
Whilst I'd love to agree that you are--indeed--fat and ugly, I'm not the sort of female to lie in order to reserve my pride.
Miss Swift, perhaps as you pen these charming little mementos to your army of idealism-swept prepubescent girls, you're not thinking of all the money you're making weaving these awe-inspiring reveries...
The truth is evident, and perhaps you need to hear it in terms you may understand:
1.) You're fucking gorgeous, and appropriately insecure.
Only an incredibly insecure woman would sing about how many guys have dumped her, without appropriate satire, and adding numerous clauses about how much of a loser you are for being inadequate for his attentions. You just belt it out about your man leaving you for another woman--how awesome does that make you look? Are you getting my sympathy vote? Nay!
I am no victim, Miss Swift!
2.) You're a bit public about the private life, eh?
Who cares if Joe Jonas dumped you over a who-the-fuck-cares minute phone call? McDouche is a flamer anyway, who the hell gives a shit? Does the rest of the world really sympathize with a woman who is going to welcome the general public into her messy relationship drama--
HELLO MONICA LEWINSKY.
3.) Maybe you should take voice lessons?...Just sayin?...
I'm certainly not one to claim that my singular talents rise above anyone else's; but we're not talking about me, are we? Nah. We're talking about you, Miss Swift. While I applaud your relative lack of stage fright, your cute outfits, and bedazzled guitar--what does that bring to the one thing that I'm looking for the most?
Dare I say, actual talent?
Listening to your CD, I'm humming along, I find your countrypop twang catchy and endearing! When I turn up a live video via Youtube--WHAT IS THIS?!
...Where oh where hast thou vocal talents gone?...
Locked up in the studio, perchance?

I could go on and on, but clearly you understand me by now.
I would write another page and a half, but I don't wish to give you any more inspiration for your next song. I just know it's going to be about some mean girl from Louisiana that picks on you because you have a vagina and are therefore feeble at heart.

Humming Along to the Digitally Remastered Sound of Your Voice,

Lady Cracker

"Coming Out" of that "Proverbial Closet"

So...I've always known I've had this mild to great attraction to certain people--not necessarily a sex.

A lot of people don't understand my logic, so I never really go into detail about my sexual orientation. To be honest, it's incredibly ambiguous. I hate to really categorize myself, because I am one of those people who value learning experiences and trying things to get a different perspective.

I found out that I was in this limbo the summer after I got out of high school. I'd only dated men before, and a curiosity that I had always had peeked when I met this woman. She was 25, and I was 18. We shared a brief, though intimate relationship. I discovered that I could be best deemed as "bisexual", due to this experience, and other desires that I had experienced for other women.

Whilst I do think that "bisexual" is a best term for me, I don't advertise it. That was never my way. I don't like to throw my personal thoughts and feelings at just anyone. This blog, even, only certain people know about, and only certain people will I allow to see it. I like to control the way things are as much as it is in my power to do so.

I have a strong distaste for hatred of any sort--whether is it targeted from the straight to gay population, or the gay to straight population.

I'm not an advocate, but I do strongly believe in equality.

A lot of people think that just because you're gay, just because you're an atheist, just because you don't believe what they believe, that you're a bad person...

You know what?

I have had romantic feelings for, and relationships with, both men and women--

I am currently celibate, and have been in most of these relationships.

I have experienced more love and understand through these processes than I have from my own parents.

I am spiritual, and I do believe in a higher power.

I bide laws, I follow them, and I have hope for "all men are created equal" to finally be a truth in this country.

Therefore, am I a bad person?

Am I a bad, horrible person, because I don't categorize myself as a

"Christian"

or

"Straight"

or because I don't indulge myself with being as close-minded as the next person?

Goddamn it, I'm so sick and tired of having to hide myself from my own mother and father.

Literally, around other people THERE IS NO CLOSET...around the average person I know; people who know me, friends, who I work with, who I consort with--they are generally accepting of whoever the hell I am. They know I'm on the level, they know I'm not a malicious person, and that's really all that matters.

I don't feel "closeted" anywhere, but in my own parents' house.

This is a tragedy.

I cannot be who I am with the full knowledge that my parents are going to accept me and love me, because the way they are...shall never, ever change. If I told them this...if I told them that I cannot bring myself to believe in Catholicism alone, if I told them I cannot bring myself to lie and say I do not have an attraction to women, if I told them I'm still me and nothing has changed at all--I would never, ever be looked at the same way.

In truth, I would be harped-on, and bullied.

By my own parents.

My mother would probably seek out a type of medicine to cure me.

My father would most likely shake his head in disgust at the sight of me.

And I know now...I've known, entering into this discovery of myself, that this is what it feels like to be alienated within oneself by the realization of who one is.

If we are not accepted, we are aliens.

I am an alien in my parent's home.

I actually did an experiment on my mother the other night, just to see if I was perhaps wrong about these assumptions I had made in regards to her person...

I asked her if she wouldn't like the idea of marrying someone outside of my race.

She asked me if I meant marrying someone black.

I told her yes.

Her immediate response: "I wouldn't support you if he left you."

How can someone jump to those types of conclusions?

What if he's cultured? Educated?! What if he's a millionaire?! What if he loves me for who I am?! Am I supposed to not be with him because of the color of his skin?!

What if this was a woman?!

It's the same difference!

Am I supposed to not be with her, when I feel these things for her? When it's real, and pure?

I'm a human being! You can't deprive me of the differences in opinion, in myself, my collective personality: THEY MAKE ME WHO I AM.

She's my mother...her reaction should be to open her arms, and to tell me I can love whoever the fuck I want to love. Her reaction should be to encourage my growth, to encourage me in anything I want to willingly pursue.

It breaks my heart that I've never experienced that sort of untutored acceptance with her, and that I never will.

People need to understand that it is a lack of involvement, acceptance, and awareness that is making poor teenaged kids--already confused about their own feelings--commit such acts as self-mutilation, murder, and even suicide.

If people don't understand this now, how are we ever going to presume?

Is everyone going to have to keep conforming?

Keep hiding? Keep pretending? To satisfy a society that we, ourselves, populate?

We can control the future.

We can change things.

I know that I will change it, personally, if just by taking this step to let you (whoever you are reading this right now) know that you are beautiful just the way you are. The person that I know and that I see with my eyes, just you, you are perfect. You are important, your opinions are important, who you are is important.

We can help the change.

From my mother's own example I have learned more about the mother that I one day aspire to be.

I vow; my child will never be subjected to judicious treatment in my care, by my mouth or by my actions. Black, white, male, female; they are going to be mine, and I am going to nurture them. That'll be my task, as a mother.

If my son/daughter wakes up one morning and tells me he/she is gay...I am going to hug them, support them, and tell them that there is absolutely nothing wrong with their feelings.

Literally, I think I'll say something to the extent of "As long as you don't intentionally hurt yourself or anyone in the process of doing whatever you want to do in life, I don't give a fuck. Jump in, kid, the water's fine for swimming."

It feels good to rant...

I haven't done so in a while.

Bottom line:

Being gay/straight/bi/trans doesn't DEFINE a person.

I am not DEFINED by the orientation I choose to identify with--so I choose not to identify, in order to escape said definition. It is only a piece of the picture--a gilded mirror in a scene of a beautiful room, if you will.

What does define me, is the contents of my character, my differences--my entire person as a whole.

I wish people would understand that.

Maybe then, I wouldn't have to tailor this explanation down to a blog entry.

Stay beautiful.

Romantical.

I feel like I need to speak.
I hold my throat, but nothing seems to come out like it should. It's loud, and it's vulgar, and unmatched. I try to meet these ends and they never, ever connect.
You don't like what I write.
You don't understand it.
It's okay, because I'm shy to show you anyway.
I can't say this out loud.
I'm falling.
I'm falling.
I'm falling.
And you're not here to catch me.
I'm crying.
I'm crying.
I'm crying.
I'm so crazy; I need to recollect.
But I love you, and I can't say it out loud.
I love you so much, and I can't cry it out.
I can't scream it like I want to. You'll leave me, I know you will. You don't want to set anything in stone, like they all said. I'm not good enough, I know.
I'm not worth a thousand explanations.
Oh well, oh well.
We'll have a good time, then you can forget me. We'll be together for eight days, then we'll part with a hug and a kiss and a nod. You'll never see me again. You won't regret you met me, oh you'll love the story. You'll tell it to everyone you know.
Your lovely American whore.
Your lovely broken-hearted American whore.

Awkward.

So, I'm beginning to think that I have an atrocious issue of dating men who I never in my right mind would have dated--were I using all accurate parts of my brain.
I say this because I was introduced to a blog that an ex-boyfriend of mine began writing...
Clearly, it was not a blog that expressed any sort of thought at all. In fact, I don't believe he put five minutes into it's construction.
Perhaps we should review the reasons people begin blogs?...
To express ideas?
To protract views?
To bitch out punk ass hoes?
I dunno.
You tell me.
But here I am wondering why in the name of Allah did I ever even consider him a suitable candidate for my romantic life...
I mean, as I read this rant which--though, perhaps, heartfelt--is entirely self-pitying...He goes on about his job, about his life, using phrases like "suck a dick, then choke on it"
Classy.
Let's wonder if your life really is that bad. Let's wonder if you actually love the attention you're getting from all of these negative vibrations. Let's wonder if I actually give a real consistent shit about your problems--considering your incredibly effortless attempts at finding your own happiness?
I'm thinking why, oh why, did I ever look at you twice?
I mean...you have a Chevy tattoo...the whole time you were dating me, you couldn't stop bitching about your ex...and, you hesitated whenever I asked you to come see me when I was crying.
Hello, asshole. You're my boyfriend. Yeah, you. I didn't just end a year-long single streak to fuck around with a two-bit jerk.
Bottom line, I don't pity him, or his so-called "issues".
A person who writes a blog about his issues with women, avoiding correct grammatical composition and being oblivious of his own annoying qualities--
does that need anything more than a blog dissing him?
No.
So this is my valediction.