Wingsexposing

The striking yellow cat relied on her natural camouflage to hunt on the back of the illustrious tiger swallowtail. Never did she have more success than the time the tiger swallowtail alighted upon the dainty daffodil, remaining perfectly still just long enough for her to pounce upon the flighty manila folder she’d been tracking for days. Fiber! Her cactus-fruit-sized brain exclaimed as she delivered the final death chomp to the helpless folder. As yellow mandibles shredded processed tree, the pepper-flecked world around them lurched and then rose with an effortless impossibility known only to butterfly wings. The tiger swallowtail knew its departure would leave the dainty daffodil naked and exposed to the affectionate advances of the searing sun yet this knowledge did not impede its flickering flight upward. The dainty daffodil cried out mutely to the tiger swallowtail, silently screaming for salvation. But its noiseless pleas wilted and fell earthward.

In fucking flux

my life seems has been taken over by not knowing....

not knowing what i want, not knowing where I am now, where I am headed.

it's so fucking disorienting, living the life of the lost.

how did I get here? surely I was smart enough to channel Gretel and leave some goddamned breadcrumbs...oh wait, that little treat-greedy twat didn't count on the birds, did she? Well, Gretzty, neither did I...neither did I.

What are the appropriate parameters by which to measure, to define one's life? I've been here before, haven't I? Thrust into a space of complete loneliness, confusion, and bewilderment? Sure, I have. But I suppose I was operating under the impression that because I'd done it once the second go wouldn't be as difficult...and maybe I am right in that assumption, to a limited degree. But what I didn't anticipate, what I didn't have the goddamned sense to realize was that each time, each challenge, each fucking dark space has it's own special blend of hell, it's own propriety recipe for getting fucked in the ass.

Dirty Assertions: Come Out Come Out, Where Ever You Are! (A Letter to Future to My Future Job)

Dirty Assertions: Come Out Come Out, Where Ever You Are! (A Letter to Future to My Future Job)

Come Out Come Out, Where Ever You Are! (A Letter to Future to My Future Job)

Dear Future Job,

It's abundantly clear that your skills at playing Hide-and-Seek are far superior to mine. However, please be advised that I am sick and damn tired of being "It" and, as such, I am officially declaring "Olly-Olly-Oxen-Free". Bear in mind that I will fully adhere to all the official tenants of said declaration including the clause of full immunity to those "Hiders" who make themselves known in a timely manner after the declaration is made.

Sure, it's been a barrel-o-monkeys combing through help wanted ads searching for your elusive ass but the fun has to come to an end at some point- especially now that the funds that made the such seekery possible have run dry and what remains of my self-esteem is rapidly taking on the appearance of a much-loved dust rag.

In sum, I am declaring you the winner and invite you to emerge from your hiding place and claim your prize: me. Indeed, it has been so long since last we met we may no longer recognize the other. To aid you in your efforts to fully comply to my request I will briefly describe my current self: You will know me by my tattered, second-hand clothing and my five-inch-long roots framed by my home-cut bangs. If for some reason this description does not suffice, might I suggest you sniff the wind and follow that cloying aroma of desperation and cheap box wine. There you will surely find me.

I await your arrival with bated breath and ever-increasing unpaid bills!

Yours,

The Job Seeker

Gatito Angelico

The semi-feral cat that "adopted" me a year ago (holy shit has it really been a year already?!) when I moved to Austin just gave me a little much-needed direction in my life. While he usually helps himself to pretty much anything he wants to paw, curl up on, or knead he has NEVER, EVER touched my bookshelf. Today, however, he no only pawed one of my books he completely pulled it off the shelf and sat by it till I noticed what he had done. Up until my kitty's book pawing I had thought this particular book ("The Care and Feeding of Indigo Children" by Doreen Virtue Ph. D.) was with my darling little sister (who, for the time being, is rocking the shit out of Italy) and had forgotten all about it. I picked it up and opened the book to the first page that my fingers found. That page, and those thereafter, were EXACTLY what I needed at this very moment in my life. 

Suffice it to say that this experience was something that was so profound that it drove me to write a blog post about it. I know that little cat that I found panting, thirsty, dirty and napping under my boyfriend's car one year ago just did me a an angelic service.

Slipping into Sublime Simplicity

Truly living in the present means being unaware of the present. That doesn't mean oblivion, being fucked up or apathy but rather an innocent and genuine unawareness of the passage of time and the movement of space. We are admonished to live in the present and yet it appears to vibrate on such an elusive plane that we often write it off as something unachievable....and therein lies the paradox that is living in the moment: It is not something to be achieved, something to gain, or something to realize. Instead, it comes in those fleeting moments when you have inadvertently let go of the drive to obtain such a state and it's only when you re-surface from living in the moment that you realize what's occurred.

What makes you slip beneath surface of reality and experience life in its actual sublime simplicity? 

Equestrianism does it for me...

Dreams Take Flight

"One Should Strive to Achieve, Not Sit in Bitter Regret."

a breath of....fuck it...oooo lala!

What does it mean to be alive? So often I censor myself...taking a deep breath...mmm...breathe in that self doubt...suck it...mmmmm....fuck it! I embrace myself...trill your tongue... :)

...a bestial sort of intelligence

Se non è vero è ben trovato.

Even if it’s not true, it’s still a good invention.

Ubi est penna vestra?

(Where is your pen?...or, more rhetorically: Where is your penis?)  

                

A term often used to bar women from politics...a socio-politico-linguistic tool of sexual oppression resting on a false assumption of male superiority. -Madeline Kirkpatrick

Asserting My Suidae Rights

It's been three weeks, two days, six hours and fifty-eight minutes since I moved from Salt Lake City, Utah to Austin, Texas- (those of you who know "Pushing Daisies" will appreciate that fastidiously precise description of time elapsed)...

Since the move my life has consisted primarily of unpacking boxes, battling cockroaches (one of which was proudly perched on on my toothbrush one night *shudders with pure revulsion and disgust*) and hiding from the 107 degree heat (plus 4000 percent humidity) in the cool dark of my apartment. Needless to say, my existence has been reduced to a most demoralizing low. Since I recently graduated college, this will be the first autumn in the last five which will not require new textbooks, new highlighters and new notebooks...and it's killing me. School was my life and now I got no food, I got no job and, if I had any, I'm sure my pets' heads would be falling off right about now. I've heard that the first year or two after graduation can rapidly deteriorate into a profoundly depressing time- at least for those of us who are self-proclaimed nerds- and it appears that the Train of Purposelessness upon which I am riding high is right on schedule to arrive in UtterDespairVille before the year is out.

Ah, wallowing- I reserve my unconditional right to entertain you for as long as I damn well please.

A Cache of (Nerdly) Jewels!

As a fervent nerd, I have a secret love of collective nouns...here are some splendidly ridiculous ones:

1. An implausibility of gnus
2. A murmuration of starlings
3. A rabble of butterflies
4. A nuisance of cats
5. A cartload of chimpanzees
6. A piteousness of doves
7. A business of ferrets
8. A prickle of hedgehogs
9. A bloat of hippopotomi
10. A smack of jellyfish
11. A parliament of owls
12. An ostentation of peacocks
13. A deceit of lapwings
14. A rhumba of rattlesnakes
15. An unkindness of ravens
16. A storytelling of rooks
17. A shiver of sharks
18. An ambush of tigers
19. A sneak of weasels
20. A plump of wildfowl

Your daily dose of personal enlightenment...

"If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time."

                                                                      

                                            -Edith Wharton 

                                                US novelist (1862 - 1937)

I've been thinkin'...(you've been THINKIN'?!)

Last night something (borrowing Smee's words) "struck my brain" and I haven't been able to shake the strike:

 First, some things to consider:

1. Greece's lamentably crappy financial situation has caused the value of the Euro to rapidly decline.
2.The decline of the Euro's value has the (rest) of the European Union terribly miffed.
3. The American dollar has increased in value since the big fat Greek financial fiasco.

As I consider these facts I can't help but wonder if the United States and its political buddies had something (if not everything) to do with the current financial situation in Greece...as we well know, the American government has little to no reservations about meddling in the affairs of other countries- especially when said meddling could further American interests.

Any takers?

Daffynition(s)

Daffynition(s)

The Earthtimes

The Earthtimes

Facebook Politics: Aborting Fetuses (& Proper Grammar Skills)

This is an excerpt from a facebook "wall-to-wall" convo I had with someone with whom I attended high school ("Paul"). "DeAnne", who also joined the convo, is one one of Paul's facebook friends.

Madeline Kirkpatrick: hey Paul, congrats on getting married! Nice to see you are doing well...I noticed you're a "fan" of an anti-abortion page...surely you aren't supportive of an ideology that promotes the oppression of a female's right to control her body?
February 11 at 5:49pm · Comment · LikeUnlike · View Feedback (4)Hide Feedback (4) · See Wall-to-Wall

Paul Anderson: Hey Good to see you too! Thanks married life is good! We like it! In our society people don't nesscerarly have total right over their bodies. We can't assest in suicide, medical procedures are looked at and aproved for safety, and also drugs, prostituition are all against the law. It's because like it or not our society for the most part believes that life has value and our bodies are something special. So no I don't think that women have to right to kill pre-delivered babies.
February 11 at 6:44pm


DeAnne Cochran: Hello Paul, I couldn't help but notice you and your friends opinions and I would like to voice mine. I think you might want to re-examine the idea of ownership and possessiveness and the motive of such ideas. Is that a good thing that the gov't tells me what I can and can't do with my body? Is that a good thing that drugs and prostitution are illegal? In fact,the facts and common sense would say that the illegalization of drugs was the worst thing for humanity. Women pass an egg every month, men masturbate. However,that genetic mass in a womans womb is technically not a baby. If there is such a thing as a soul you would have to earn it. Until you have values and can make choices, how could you have an everlasting and ethical soul? You just tried to justify fascism and promoted a dictatorial form of gov't.
February 11 at 7:58pm

DeAnne Cochran: There are 600,000 cops in america at all levels,and then there are also 600,000 registered sex offenders. Even if we had one cop per sex offender you still couldn't prevent this
preventable ritual, habitual abuse. Yet in every county in every state there is highly organized task forces specifically targeting non violent substance users. There were over 800,000 "marijuana" arrests last year. What a fraud and a waste... if you ask me We should have a right to do whatever we want with our bodies including sell them for sex or use psychadelic substances.There were no drug laws until about 1914. The U.s wasn't in trillions of debt of monopoly fiat reserve notes.WE actually had gold currency that was real! So please justify how genetic mass inside a woman is a "baby"?
February 11 at 7:59pm

Madeline Kirkpatrick: Paul, I know you're full of the best intentions and I know you truly have a good heart so I will simply have to respectfully disagree with your resigned perspective on basic human rights.

However, regardless of what any patriarchial dogma may lead you to believe, I DO have complete control over my body because, like you, I value life- MY life and the lives of any potential children that may come into this world. There are many "life-valuing" people (myself included) who see the inherent value of NOT bringing children into a world that is already fraught with unwanted children. This doesn't mean I believe that abortion is a viable form of birth control- in fact, I agree with you that abortion is a very sad, very difficult topic. But you, dear Paul, are not in a position that affords you the right to pass judgement. No one has that right except the pregnant woman who is grappling with the heart-wrenching CHOICE of abortion.

I understand you and I will never agree on the "morality" aspect of this issue but I challenge you to consider this: Human rights aside, how can we function as an "abortion-free" society when we vehemently refuse to equip our adolescents with real and practical safe sex practices- ones that could theoretically prevent any need for abortion in the first place? If you are really looking to end, or at least severely decrease, the practice of abortion, try working for real, viable, and practical social reform that educates people so they can CHOOSE to not get pregnant in the first place instead of relying on pre-packaged, Christian hate.
4 hours ago ·

WHEN

Un año y medio. I’ve never been happier. Four-point-O for last semester. Fook yeah! Gregory Maguire books are best read over winter break.  A Lion Among Men. Read it.

Can’t shake the feeling

Of never really being

Made for this world

Translucent movements

Define this life

Ever exhausted by

Circular strife

Pushing to REMEMBER

Tattooed to my essence 

The very word itself

It commands my convalescence

Broken licks at my nape 
But I know not submission 

Mechanized persistence 

Re-creates my definition   

Can’t shake the feeling

Of never really being

Made for this world

 

Vocalizing Enraptured Misery

I won't soothe your pain.

I won't ease your strain.

You'll be waiting in vain.

I've got nothing for you to gain.

And just in time, in the right place...

Suddenly I will play my Ace. 

 And then when you remember,

The dry dying embers,

You'll swallow late September,

And I'll finish as a member.

I won't soothe your pain.

I won't ease your strain.

You'll be waiting in vain.

I've got nothing for you to gain. 

Suddenly emerging with grace. 

The Pursuit of Happiness

I’m on the pursuit of happiness. 

I’ll be fine once I get it.

I’ll be good. 

So I’m ignoring this attempt to break me.

Forgetting your thoughtless words.

.

People tell me, slow my road. 

 I’m screamin’ out fuck that. 

You’ll never get those years back.

Tell me what you know about me.

Nothing. 

Rather drown in your own shattered sorrow.

I’m on the pursuit of happiness.

I’ll be fine once I get it.

I’ll be good.

And I know everything’s shinin’ down on me. 

Que puedo compartir mucho tiempo contigo,

pasandola bien,

Que podrias ser una gran companera,

Me gusta mucho tu forma de ser,

Tu sentido del humor,

Tu forma de ver el mundo

Sos de la mujeres que no abundan...

Commanding Your Attention

The woman is unnaturally appealing.

Her luxuriant hair and arresting composition appear flawless in the muted lighting.The elevated stage upon which she stands enhances the extraordinary image of supreme perfection she is striving to create. The music starts to pulsate. Her motions are simultaneously intense and fluid- suggesting she is acutely aware of her audience while being blissfully oblivious to them. But her attention is beside the point- what matters is that her audience is thoroughly transfixed by her ostensbily preternatural capacity to move her body.
With adept precision, she interlaces her final movements with the music’s finishing notes, creating an illusory double helix of flesh and song…

(imMature Audiences Only)

The Japanese culture and language have done much to expand my own puny horizons within the last year and a half of my life. This is due in part to dating someone with Japanese heritage and also to enrolling in a Japanese language course this semester at school. I also have been harboring a not-so-secret dream of moving to Japan after I get my undergrad degree next year. So, given the aforementioned reasons coupled with my insatiable interest in linguistics and sociology I have done a considerable amount of poking about in all-things Japanese. During one of my cultural explorations I stumbled across a little something the Japanese call hentai. According to my very dear friend, Wikipedia.org, hentai can be described as:

"...a Japanese word that, in the West, is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly those of Japanese origin such as anime, manga and computer games. In Japan it can be used to mean "metamorphosis" or "abnormality". The word "hentai" has a negative connotation to the Japanese and is commonly used to mean "sexually perverted", (Wikipedia.org,2009).

Ok, so I guess I am THEE last person to discover this wicked little tidbit of Japanese culture. Feeling like I just unearthed priceless pirate booty, I raced to share my fortunate find with my boyfriend who smiled sweetly at his "Sleepers Precious" (that story will have to be another blog post unto itself) and kindly rained on my proverbial parade by informing me that just about everyone (save the one delusional exception standing before him) knows about hentai. My mental jury is still out on his assertion but what do I know?

Well, I'm glad you asked! I'll tell you what I know: Hentai is cartoon porn lubed up with a hearty helping of bizarre sexual surrealism which is repeatedly rammed down the viewer's throat until you can longer distinguish your squealing from that of the bonded school girl who's getting deflowered by a man with tentacles.(Yes, A-hole, TENtacles, not testicles...well, maybe he had both but I digress...)What's even more disturbing to me than the some the images themselves is my half-cooked idea of this being considered as "normal" in some circles. I understand that it's meant to be fictitious in nature (right...?) but my wonderbox starts to wonder real hard-like when acts of sexual "deviance" and sexual violence start to enjoy a label of "normalcy". And I'm not even talking about gettin' freaky in, ahem, unconventional ways- (although some of the imaginative modes of sexy-time depicted in some hentai-s make me feel like I score a paltry 2.3 on the Slut Bucket Scale of Naughtiness)- I'm talking about the striking prevalence of eroticized sexual violence (which is typically carried out by a supernatural being or, as I noted in the latest hentai I watched, a pack of sex-crazed female high school students bent on fucking the new female teacher) which is geared towards an unwilling victim (who is usually an infantilized female sporting unbelievably perfect double D's who was completely oblivious to her own sexuality prior to being attacked).

I know that virtually all porn is supported by implicit and/or explicit notions of abuse but I'm convinced there's something more to this hentai thing. At this point in time I can neither confirm or deny whether I have watched more hentai than is recommended by the Surgeon General but, hey, who's counting?

Word, MoFo (An Exclusive Report)

As you will read below, I have a clinical obsession with words. One of the symptoms of this type of "condition" is having random (and at times slightly embarrassing)words pop into my head where they then make themselves at home in the cushy folds of my gray matter. And these little parasites are not content to just bob around in my brain brine- no sir, they DEMAND to be recognized, verbalized and, at times, written down...many times. So, with that little admission of insanity, I plan to post these insistent little letter leeches as they assault me with the hope that being made famous via my most distinguished blog they might let me sleep at night.

Today's Word, brought to you in part by the play dough I made today, is:

NECROMANCER

Main Entry: nec·ro·man·cy
Pronunciation: \ˈne-krə-ˌman(t)-sē\
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of Middle English nigromancie, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin nigromantia, by folk etymology from Late Latin necromantia, from Late Greek nekromanteia, from Greek nekr- + -manteia -mancy
Date: 1522

1 : conjuration of the spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events
2 : magic, sorcery

Beats the shit out of me why that word has been lodged in my noodle but what can ya do?
P.S. You were right, Chris. Nerd!

Some unclear clarifications

Dirty Assertions

It starts with some unclear clarifications.

Synonyms: unclean, filthy, grimy, grubby, soiled, foul, sullied, polluted.

Synonyms: declaration, statement, claim, allegation, contention, affirmation.

I have an almost sick obsession with words. I have a running list of words that are not to be uttered in my presence- words that upon hearing them make me shriek with disgust. My childish outburst is usually followed by a vicious death threat directed at the verbal offender.

Hope for Icarus' Words

This is an excerpt from one of my written pieces, which for now is referred to as simply "Yah". It was originally written on June 19th, 2008.

I read some of ‘yah’ to a friend last night…side note: I am still toying with the idea of calling this ‘Yah: Dirty Assertions’ or perhaps just ‘Dirty Assertions’.

Anyway, I read some of ‘yah’ last night out loud, and it was intense. I really don’t know if it meant anything to the listener but it was a trip for me hearing my thoughts come to life, giving them fragile wings and hoping that they didn’t crash and burn.

I really cannot believe I’ve survived the last year…the debilitating heartbreak, the rip tide of despair, the cataclysmic destruction of who thought I was, of what I thought was mine. I’ve reached a state of raw wonder, of unrefined awe that I didn’t drown, that I somehow washed up back onto the shore with a renewed glimmer of the will to live.

Blood Whore

This bit was written after a trip to a blood bank...
Originally written on: July 31st 2008

“No,” I answered. “I don’t have AIDS and I haven’t slept with a gay man.” I thought it best to not add as far as I know to the second part of my response- a few weeks earlier one of my ex-boyfriends had been spotted prancing about at the Pride Festival with a pack of strung out gay boys. Yes, correlation does not imply causation but I couldn’t help but think about all the times he’d solicited me for anal sex.
The physician’s substitute gave me an appraising look that lasted a moment too long and then sighed.
“Well, let’s get the physical examination out of the way and then we’ll get you hooked up to the machine.”
The machine looked like it dated back to the early nineteen seventies- The boxy exterior was coated in a rough, burlap-brown and clear tubes sprouted out of the various holes that riddled the top and sides.
After frisking me, the physician’s substitute led me to one of the pleather recliners that sat adjacent to the vampiric contraption that was waiting to suck out my blood. After I settled into the oversized chair, a female med student approached me brandishing a two-inch needle at my unsuspecting arm. She wore powder blue scrubs and was sporting a clear plastic face shield that was anchored to her head. The face shield should have been my first indication that things could potentially get messy but I chose to ignore the tumor of apprehension that was growing in the back of my throat.
“You have really little veins, you know that?”
I was surprised that her comment left me feeling a little insulted. I should have answered with oh, tell me about it! You have no idea what a pain in the ass it is trying to locate a decent sized vein when I’m shooting up! Instead I just gave her a weak smile and mumbled something about being sorry. Apparently my half-assed apology didn’t suffice and my punishment for having peewee veins was a series of failed attempts to properly stick me with the needle. I told myself that this was all a part of the process, that the person repeatedly stabbing me was a competent professional and I needn’t worry.
After about six and a half tries, she managed to lodge the needle into the crook of my arm and within seconds of hearing the machine whir to life I began to feel my soul seeping out me.
I forbid you to pass out! I thought to myself.
I flipped open the sci-fi book I’d brought along with me and tried to concentrate on the words on the page…

…my head was lolled over to the side in a most ungodly position that allowed my chin to rest on my chest when I came to. Swallowing back a torrent of nausea, I raised my sweaty hand and signaled to one of the scrubby girls. She returned my gesture with a saccharine smile and a limp-wristed wave.
“No, damnit, I feel like shit!”
My screamed obscenity caught the attention of the physician’s substitute and he came rushing over.
“Wow, you look like shit, too!”
I was too disoriented to think of a suitable response to match his statement of the obvious so I just laid my head back and closed my eyes instead.
“You must keep your eyes open, okay?”
Fuck that, I thought. The female med student turned masochist appeared at my side and pushed the red “reverse” button on the blood-milker. Almost immediately the feeling of impending death began to dissipate and was replaced with a heavy dose of shock.
After unceremoniously ripping the needle out of my arm, they handed me a silver pouch of imitation grape juice and a check for a measly forty dollars.
“Pull another stunt like again and we probably won’t ask you back next time.”
Dually noted, asshole.
I managed to haul my sticky body out to my car where I slumped down into the driver’s seat staring cross-eyed at the steering wheel. The bandage wrapped around my elbow was digging into my skin and I couldn’t fully extend my arm without whimpering like a weasel caught in a rat trap. Against my better judgment I started the car and drove myself home where I pounded two industrial sized cans of pineapple tidbits.
“You going to have the shits,” my roommate warned.
Plumbing issues were the least of my concerns at that moment and it took my last whiff of energy to slog to my room. I was thanking the sweet lord Jesus that I was right next to my bed when my knees buckled and dropped me face down on the mattress. The delirium started to mist over me but before I could slip into a coma my sugar-sloshed brain posed what I took to be a rhetorical question:
What part of your body will you sell tomorrow, you silly little slut?

Start from the beginning...

This blog (what a cursed word!) will be a dizzying mix of excerpts from two of my ongoing pieces of written work and various things that just come to me as I see fit. The following bit comes from something I wrote one July 31st 2008:

Oxidized:

Swallow hard and let it slow your heart. You clench your jaw as the conflicting chemicals battle for control of your body. You’re not really sure which one you’re rooting for but you’re desperate for some sort of altered state of mind. Is this another one of your subconscious attempts to make a nippy exit stage left? You know it won’t work but you can’t help but invite the savagely appealing thought into the forefront of your psyche and offer it a drink. You forget that you and the teetering notion are old friends- she will never abandon you nor will she cease to offer you the trickster way out.

Testing Testing

Preliminary post for my attempt at this newfangled act of bloggery. More to come, please keep it tuned right here to Dirty Assertions.