Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast

One of my favorite things to say is that we are all animals with a thin veneer of civilization. ALL of us are animals.

I read a book once. Yes, I still read them occasionally when I'm not glued to my monitor. There are some spectacular amateur writers publishing on the internet. Reviews are air, water and food to these modern bards! Anyway, I read this book, The Life of Pi, wherein the the young Pi simultaneously accepted Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. He simply said yes, despite the inconsistencies between them. I love that he did that. After the first hundred pages, watch out. A boy and his tiger, on a life raft. I WILL be rereading this book, hell, more than once, maybe three times.

I'm coming to terms with the fact that I take a very anthropological view of human behavior. I accept society's efforts to make rules that allow us to live together, even if I don't agree with many of those rules. I make my small contributions as our species takes its baby steps.

My original thought, beauty and the beast. Men. I love men. I love my man just the way nature made him. I accepted the animal in him and found the animal in myself. Who knew? I don't need him to be less of a man to feel respected as a woman. We've moved past that. Feminist theory, political correctness, gender issues, they all get left outside the bedroom door. There is no contradiction for me. It's funny, but this is how I've started to understand how other people have faith in their religions.

Art Camp

Have you ever lost touch with a friend with whom you used to be thick as thieves? I have.

I've always been a bit of a lone wolf, dabbling in this group or that. This one friendship lasted from seventh grade until a couple of years ago (25 years?)

I had to make the changes that always needed to be made. I think she did, too.

We're getting to know each other again. I'm very excited. Tonight is "Art Camp" night--sushi, sake, jewelry, photography, and I finally start work on a children's book. I love children's books. I'm going to have to scan in some illustrations of my favorites. An AMAZING artist asked me to collaborate on a book with her. I've realized I can't wait for inspiration to strike me, I must hunt it down and threaten to tickle it to death.

To anyone reading this, please have a great night! If you're feeling down, I hope things get better and you find a reason to smile. There is never only one choice! I'm going to go get out of my head and into my body. Works every time.

Art is what you decide it is, no other definition matters.
Go make art! Anyone can do it!

WARNING: bellybutton gazing

This is Yemaya. I originally found this (I think) at novica.com.

She is an orisha, a goddess of the ocean, mother of all, and a traveller through space and time. Starting with the Yoruba people in western Africa, she came to the "new" world on the slave ships. The orishas are part of the Santeria religion. What am I thinking? Terror, imprisonment, desperate suffering, how many went into Yemaya's arms, and the many who tried to preserve their identities while surviving the control of others. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis?

Culture, archaeological layers where the edges bleed together like watercolors. The religion of the conquered is absorbed, co-opted by the religion of the victors.

I rather enjoy sensory input that has a lot of contrast. I believe change is mostly good for me. When it comes to culture, religion, race, any institutional affiliation, I can't see the boundaries; all I see is the muddle where the colors bleed together.

I am guilty of kneejerk statements about Christianity and feminism, among many other things. I don't believe anything is simple enough for sweeping statements, generalizations, yet I still do just that when angry or on my high horse, trying to communicate. I abhor extremism, but I see the necessity for it. The only way to define anything, for me, is to describe it relative to something else. Relative.

Very little, if anything, seems stationary enough to provide a definite point of reference. The relationships are what matters. What do I have in common with you? If you are here, then you are an explorer. Me too! I don't expect to figure it all out, but I have a fear of frittering away the journey.

Ow, my head hurts. Enough already. Not from my silly ramblings this time, but because I can't figure out how to post a second image into this particular post. My add image button does absolutely nothing. If I use Picassa, I believe the new image will be in a separate post. Hmm. A puzzle. Can't quit thinking about the puzzle. . .

Gravity--it's the law

Notes to self:

• don't post here or comment on anyone else's blog when I have PMS
  
• don't post in the morning
• don't post when my blood sugar is low
• don't post after more than one cocktail
• don't make sweeping generalizations, I don't like it when other people do it
• realize that false assumptions are made by me and about me
• try to post the real now, and if I have a grain of talent, entertain later
• don't get overconfident when things go well for awhile
• take my own advice--small, manageable steps
• people on the internet are still real people

I recently read a definition of insanity I'd heard before, attributed to Albert Einstein: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

I don't want to censor myself anymore, I'm sick of swallowing the words fighting to get out. Something keeps getting fouled up in the translation between myself and others. From my earliest memories of my mother to this day, I have been watching her ability to communicate, to participate in a common reality, deteriorate to a frightening point. There is a gag in my mouth and a cork in my gut. I'm choking on them. One of my biggest fears is being misunderstood. When I try to express myself, I overexplain, talk too much. It's an epidemic in my family. Nobody ever shuts up. My ears are still ringing from all the noise. Silence was the only stable ground.

Am I looking in a mirror when I look at my mom? Sure, she poured herself into me while I was in the womb. She refilled me daily. She was only fifteen. She's fifteen now, and now I am her mother. Yeah, it truly does suck.

I feel low now. I've felt lower. I seem to bounce back quicker than I used to. I don't ever want to be young again. I will never give up hope. That's a sweeping generalization I can live with. I'm just going to hang around here for a little while and rest. If I have something to say, I'll say it here until I get better at this.

Dream post

I woke up from a dream this morning with a clear thought in my head:

Frightened, ignorant people may be able to tell me what to do; but frightened, ignorant people will NEVER tell me what to think.

This was at 7:30am on my day off, and I got up to write down my dream. I often forget them, and it seemed so urgent not to let this thought go.

This has never happened, but in the dream a female coworker misconstrued something I said as making a pass at her, and it made her angry and embarrassed. I thought, but apparently couldn't say, you aren't the type of woman I would hit on were I to approach a woman that way.

The coworker then morphed into a woman I know well but don't work with. We were at a fancy dress movie premiere in a tent with folding chairs. I had gotten up from my chair and left my shoes under it. In an effort to disassociate herself from my supposed advances, she picked up my shoes and, one at a time, threw them to the front of the theater. I was standing right in front of her, but she didn't notice because she was so concerned about what everyone else thought about her. I waited until she finally looked me in the eye. She felt bad and left. A funny detail--at least half the audience in the tent is gay or bi. How do I know this? It's my dream, silly!

I don't think the homosexuality issue is important at all in this dream, from what I know of the real attitudes of all present in it. Any touchy issue could be substituted. What strikes me are these points:

• I couldn't deny a specific taboo action without admitting to it in general principal, thereby bringing the same social censure and punishment
• Fear of ridicule or being outcast leads us to sacrifice each other to save ourselves
• Many more people than will ever admit it are engaging in the activities for which they publicly denounce others

Fear, ignorance, and the actions they spawn are my enemies. My mind is free. My mind is hungry. Now I want to work on that first bit: "Frightened, ignorant people may be able to tell me what to do. . ." That shit has just got to stop. ; )

Pleasure or pain? It's funny how I identified with this character. I heard a big CLICK at the time. I don't mean just sexually, but in all aspects of life. Themes of restraint, imprisonment, and powerlessness resonate with me. Simply knowing this has freed me in many ways.
I went online after I watched Pitch Black to find Vin Diesel photos. I found Pitch Black fanfiction. I haven't been the same since.

Oh, I'm sorry, let me introduce you. This is Richard B. Riddick. He never stays like this for long, but I prefer him unrestrained ; )~

Hard to deal with, yes, but I did something

The theme I've set for myself here is roughly these things: don't hide from problems or life in general, DO speak even if I think I'll say something stupid, don't give up when the going gets rocky. I get enamored of an idea, like starting a blog or trying to change my behavior and perspective, and I won't continue. I get discouraged too easily.

I was worried that figuring out how to operate this blog was going to be too hard, but I persisted and managed to show links to some of my favorite blogs to visit. Woohoo! The problem was actually simple, refresh my page after changing html. The previous posts on Bloggerhelp were, yeah, helpful. I'm often surprised when things are simple. Now I'd like to try learning more about html.

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What I really want to share is an incident that occurred at the pawnshop yesterday. Yes, people who use drugs come to the pawnshop. They come to where you work, too, although you may not realize it. I will go into some thoughts on this later. Anyway, this girl came in, high as hell, and asked to use the phone to call her mom. Fine. Sometimes it's better to manage a scene like this without making a bigger scene by just kicking someone out.

It became apparent from her slurred conversation that mom didn't want to come pick her up, didn't want her to come "home." She told her mother she was cold where she was staying, she couldn't figure out how to get the thermostat to work. There's a good possibility that if she has no phone, her gas & electric is also turned off. After she got off the phone, she started asking employees to give her a ride to her mom's. As asst. mgr., I watched, exchanging looks with my coworkers, trying to determine what, if anything, I should do.

We determined that mom didn't live too far away, she knew where and how to get there, and a coworker suggested she walk there as no one was going to give her a ride. At that point I quietly suggested that if she needed help, I would call the local police. They are a city within the city force, well-respected, and I trust them more than cops in general to handle things rationally. She opted to walk and headed off in the direction of her mom's place.

I think she may have been asking customers in the parking lot for a ride, as a lady came in and expressed fear of this 5'5" slow-moving woman. Crackheads, methheads, they can be scary, but not this girl. I found out that last week, she was the person who had asked my husband in the parking lot to take her to the hospital. Coworkers said they thought she was living with a guy who was mistreating her.

Enough! Yes, this is sad and all too common. I've worked at other pawnshops, and at ours we are trying to buck the cold, bottomline, quasicriminal rep of this business. We are not separate from the community in which we operate. She was going about it the wrong way, but she was asking for help. I called the police anyway, gave a description, and asked them to keep an eye out for her. I see a lot of unhappy people and I can't, nor should I try, to save them all. I firmly believe that I can only save myself. If I do right, it is a purely selfish act for my own redemption; but I still hope that woman has the will to save herself.