romance is dead. long live romance.

and before you tell me i have high expectations, try to situate yourself in my generation, within the boundaries of my gender, and imagine having my boobs on your chest - i regret this already. the thing is, no one ever taught me about the male libido. but consider time and the-worst-stage-of-my-life known as puberty, and let us to refer to Bossypants in which tina fey aptly points to a seemingly vague "study" which revealed that the moment in which most women realize that they are in fact women, occurs/ed once a man objectifies/ed them.

i remember this moment clearly. i was taking a walk with my big sister and she raised her eyebrows and said "wow, you totally just got checked out" and i said "what does that mean?" and i've been fucked ever since. of course it was confusing - i was flushed with an unintentional feeling of confidence, and an uncomfortable feeling of "i didn't mean to do it, whatever it is i did." to this day that is the horrible sweaty feeling i have when men stare and wink, and good god, i live near too many factories and truck drivers. i spent a lot of my youth not getting this attention and feeling horribly, depressingly, obstructed by my total belief that i was the worst thing to feast your eyes on. it was terrible for everyone, including myself.

if i could write a letter to high school me, it would feature some things like this:

1. don't worry. there will be at least ONE day where you actually feel pretty.
2. a very cute boy will ask you out, take you on a date, try to woo you, kiss you, tell you he really likes you/mean it, and you will be so emotionally stunted, that you will in fact do the rejecting.
3. you're not special.
4. wax, don't shave.

but i could never warn myself that we'd be at a real loss at this point in time. i could maybe forewarn the cultural studies classes and the realizations that TV makes up romance, and nothing actually happens like that. no one woos you. strange men ask you to "keep it coming" when you wear revealing (read: elegant, for fucks sake) dresses, and cars stop and ask for more when you take your sweater off, and chubby dudes get all flustered when you bend over. no one charms, but rather, reluctantly admits that "yeah, you're hot." and the day that you realize you're pretty isn't the day any of this happens, but the day you look in the mirror and feel like skirts cinch your waist just right. cause that's really all you've got in a world where all your smart, funny, KIND friends are single because everyone my age is too awkward to touch each other. boys do not chase girls, and girls are not nice and inherently good. you have to get really upset at men before they reluctantly admit they care about you (which is as good as it gets), and you will be a general asshole and bully to the boys you like because they will have entrapped you into a "bro-like" box. if you want a significant other, get drunk and feel up the next person who feels you first. you will groggily wake up the next morning and reluctantly accept what has been given to you. and if you don't do at least this horribly depressing and sticky (yes, i choose the word sticky) task, then things are either going to develop into a woody allen movie, or veer towards that horrifically accurate prediction that is children of men.

me, "we should write stuff together." jacob nods, "suicide letters."

revisiting: Rodarte - "Vox Humana" feat. Jenny Lewis

accurate.gif

"Most cool girls are totally fucked up because they are used to guys telling them they are "cool" or "funny" or "smart" and they assume it's a euphemism for "not hot" because they already feel like dudes with boobs."

- Molly Lambert, http://thisrecording.com/today/2011/2/22/in-which-we-teach-you-how-to-be-a-woman-in-any-boys-club.html

smiling back politely.

it goes from having one of your best friends take you to his favourite place for breakfast. he's been raving about it for some time, and eventually you see it's this tiny crack in the wall of local family-oriented neighbourhood. and there are two older (one elder) women behind the strip of a counter as you squeeze onto the stools. they say things like, "dear" and rant about having performed the splits right there the other day. they tease each other about 5th marriages and accidental pregnancies. and they welcome every customer in as they would their own grandchildren, and the whole time i'm thinking, "movies are REAL?!" finishing our meal, we walk out and my friends tells me more about this place. when the middle-aged cook is not there, her brother usually is. though they are both a little bit... "retarded" he says. "they are loud" i say. "no, i mean. i think they were once into some heavy drug stuff. you know, one of those, have half of your brain scooped out stuff." movies are real.

yesterday, taking a stroll through the city (please refer below to rainy day soundtracks), i stop at a local thrifted jewelery store. the bright pink linings of the building had always been a bit seductive to me. in a holly golightly & tiffany's way. awhile back, due to various social conditions, i had inadvertently sparked conversation with a very thin, frail, blonde girl. and when i asked her where she got her gorgeous clunky sparklingly necklace from, she directed me to the pink lined store. so on this day of doing nothing, i heard the ring of the doorbell, as i stepped into a type of sparkling paradise. beads, colours, stones, glittered from all corners, and i spent quite a bit of time, just perusing. i had walked in on two older customers who i eavesdropped were there to support and visit their friend - the owner. an older bland, slightly overweight woman. bland women always have the most access to gorgeous, gorgeous, things. and one of the women bothered me so. she was from france, and kept dismissing all positive references with a french sigh, proclaiming that she "still wasn't back from her travels." presumably she had visited somewhere in East Asia. it would explain how we stood by side observing the beads around our mutual necks. or rather, how she peered over to stare at me, as i watched myself. a post-colonial kind of mirror reflection. she, like many pale coloured beauties found my skin appealing in a "darling artifact" sort of way. in the end, her friend politely inquired about my ethnicity. said something abrasive like, "you should get that necklace on your indian skin. it would look gorgeous." an indirect insult and compliment. i smiled back politely.

rainy days, or in this case, weeks

*did i just post the lost in translation soundtrack? oh. oh, hahahahaha.

saturday night is always epic.

cleaning out my room and i found my old POGS!!!!!!!!1!!!1!

my first saturday morning off in a very long time, and i've awoke to pay bills and then watch some classic one saturday morning. #agecrisis

in the past two nights i've slept straight for 8+ hours. in the winter, i do everything to procrastinate that. push my sleeping limits straight to 4am. summer is the best.

except now i'm so sore.

in the past two nights, i have also dreamt of hanging out with some of my favourite artists. the night before i attended a lecture with joanna newsom, in which she very pretentiously explained that the university i was attending was "unbelievably unfulfilling" much like Cher a la Clueless would, and i followed her out much like Tai a la Clueless would.

the second dream that occurred last night involved my attending a pop cultural-esque class taught by one of my favourite professors. the classroom was set within a combination of a school and a mall, and we all rushed out on our fifteen minute breaks to check out the events happening below. on the second floor, comic-con was taking place and i sat at a table featuring james marsters, summer glau, and various others. i then started to cry and told them how much everything Joss Whedon, but above all, Buffy the Vampire Slayer meant to me. then, on the first floor, crowds were going wild as an H&M store opened their doors to their $5.95 bikini promotion.

figure it out.

i have a disgusting amount of affection for the female body (no homo)

when i grow i am going to be a babe. for now, i am just going to continue being mean to the people i like the most.

all my life, i've felt as though i'm inside a beautiful memory replaying with the sound turned down low

tonight, you belong to me

summer is on the verge of blooming

had vegan smoothies with psycho-analytic, best-academic-friend. hashed out our cynicism and romanticism, a bit. told her about the sexist rampage that was my life, and how he (to my total shock and delight) challenged it. apparently they're are decent men out there. i don't want to sound so shocked, but it just very much happens to be the reality i live in. so when one insists on opening doors and paying - instead of batting my eyes and saying thank you, i make confused faces and stumble to react. "OH, uh, okay."

and now we've reached today. clocked in the most empty three-hour work shift of my career. ran some errands, got a manicure, did a little bit of drugs in the back room of a friends apartment, grabbed some coffee, walked towards the greatest panini i've ever had, bought a gorgeous knee length, pleated, silk, navy skirt, said my goodbyes to a traveling friend, and caught a screening of this:





(so you can all stop telling me to.)

in the mean time - happy late mothers day. here are two examples why:

walking into my house, and having my mother turn to my father and shout out, "oh wow, a MODEL just walked into our home..."

later, she will very seriously come into my room to serenade me with a song, the lyrics of which, i'm pretty sure she forgot. "i just called.... hmm da da da... i love you!"





"i did that wrong didn't i?"
"yup."

inner-helga

♥

boyysssssss.

call me.

to the rich elderly woman who struck up a thoroughly memorable conversation. when you asked me if i, "had a PHD in men, yes?"

- it was the most eloquent way anyone has ever made a seemingly offensive assumption about me.

model moms. what.

ugggggh, change.

"...you're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater."

"now you're getting all shows mixed up, you're saying the john slattery of game of thrones is liz lemon's child/boyfriend??" - Alex Rabot

...and yes. yes i am.

not sure how i feel about coming home in the AM everyday for the past week.

i'm old. so very old. and exhausted. and i keep waking up for work at 8am.

when will death come? kidding, of course. i don't want to die, i just want to sleep forever...

want.

i think the squirrels in my neighbourhood are in a fightclub.

there have been a series of violent squirrel murders. i'm almost certain that one of our neighbors is in possession of a wild dog, (okay, a guard dog). i have a particular dog in mind though i cannot confirm or deny that this dog is the culprit in question. my neighbour, a middle aged women, cloaked i the skin of a grey jogging suit, purposely walks this dog at the very earliest of mornings. she keeps a harness on its mouth. it looks like a large wolf, (but it isn't a large wolf), and my bias in calling this dog the culprit of such squirrel murders might stem from the one time i stepped out of my house at around 7am, a couple of autumn's back. my father was about to drive off in the car, and i, as usual, denied his offer for a lift, because i favour ipods, walking, and thoughts - but as i stepped off the curb, this women walked by with her dog, and at that moment this dog would lunge at me with a violent growl. it was incredibly startling, and i remember mostly, that it pissed me off. what the fuck, my brain voice said. my body language too, no doubt. most surprising was when the women turned around, and acknowledged what had just taken place, by then sharing (with uncomfortably great sympathy) that she was, "so sorry! i didn't see you!" to this day, i find this comment very unsettling. what difference does it make if you saw me or not - are you saying that if you weren't around, you're dog had the mindset to attack me? so now, i think the dog kills squirrels.

one of the first murders i saw took place at the stem of a tree. i didn't see the murder itself, but i saw the body. and the squirrel lay sprawled across the ground, bloody, with pieces of its pale fur scattered around. like it had been violently ripped apart. as is custom in this city, the roadkill lay dormant for weeks, and each day i would pass the squirrel seeing it rot as the bugs charged at it. this was upsetting. it remained upsetting the second time i saw a similar rotting corpse, this time in a different location. most upsetting was the day a lady in distance, waiting at the bus stop, frantically waved at me to stop walking, only for me to notice that if i had continued at the pace i was going, i would have stepped on tiny grey fetus-like bodies on the ground. they looked to not have formed eyes yet, and in my total shock, i looked up to the strangers waiting for their respective buses with a look of horror and a need for answers. they looked on sympathetically as they too had been stopped on the verge of realizing they were about to step on the dead bodies of baby squirrels. we deduced that their mother must have gone missing, and somehow their bodies had been knocked down from their nest in the tree. i quickly thought back to the decaying body i had seen all those months ago.

and now i believe that the squirrels in my neighbourhood live in fear of this dog, (it should be noted that this is all very much a theory, yes), and i believe that they are fighting for their streets back. this seems to be the only way i can justify their complete lack of fear in any and all human contact. they do not fear my steps anymore, nor do they fear my tall presence. my self-deprecation has come to weigh to such a degree that i now fail to gain the respect of things less than half my size. just now actually, i saw three of them chasing after the other. a fight club. now these creatures passionately run across streets as cars screech by - as if something has instilled a squirrel death wish on them all. and today, when i saw this line of 3 bounce across the street, the last paused, perked up, and heard my footsteps. it turned around, looked directly at me. it had a black eye. i stared back. after a pause, it charged straight at me. i jumped and ran for my house. "oh my god, does anyone else see this squirrel chasing me?!" i audibly mumbled. panting, i reach my doorsteps, only to turn around and see nothing but an empty drive way.

you know what's a great way to encourage your youth to vote? try not to be so condescending after they do it.

i'm surprised i wasn't handed a lollipop after.