I Finished The Entire Box of Cookies. That's 20 Cookies. (PB)

Yesterday at around the current time that I am typing this, I was eating two scoops of sweet caramel ice cream.  Right now I am eating either my eighth or ninth cookie, I'm guessing.  It's sort of ironic, I don't know. 

 

Anyways, I was eating this ice cream in a hotel because it was the night before my first concert and we had driven seven hours to get there.  I was going to see The 1975 with three friends and I was pumped.  It's not like I'm their number one fan, or even that I know the words to all the songs, but I still enjoyed the vibe that I get from the group, and I knew it would be fun.  So when I was asked if I wanted to go a couple months ago, I jumped on the offer. 

 

The tickets were general admission, so that meant that us pals were going to be standing in line for most of the day.  The temperature was low and I packed as light as possible, so I was not as prepared as I had hoped, but I made the most of what I had.  The concert was going to start at eight, and we arrived at the venue at ten thirty in the morning.  This might seem really early because it was.  This band is not extremely popular in the United States, as they are from the UK.  But there is a huge demographic of angsty young baby adults who are really into this band, and we wanted to get good seats.  So we got there ten hours early. 

 

We set up shop on the sidewalk and were buzzing for a good half hour, not used to the cold, or the boringness, or the curious spectators strolling around with their strange children.  But then we got used to the biting sharpness of our feet, and how when you ran or even walked, your feet were gone.  Just absolutely gone.  Instead of feet you had these blocks strung by little invisible threads onto your stump legs.  And the sound of the girls on the other side of the shop behind you still going on about how the shop owner was such an expletive and how she expletive should just expletive let them do whatever they expletive want because she doesn't know anything and how expletive rude oh my god.  You got used to that too.  Sort of.  You eye up the old man slowing down as he sees the line that has formed and you immediately go into your recorded responses. 

 

"What's all THIS about?" 

"A concert." 

"Well who are you seeing that's so popular?" 

"The 1975." 

"Oh, I don't know them!  Haha, is that the year of music they play?" 

"No." 

"Well, have fun!" 

"Thanks." 

 

Our little group only befriended one girl and her mother.  They were from Canton, Ohio and she had traveled eight hours alone.  So we made her listen to our annoying stories in exchange for her wealth of knowledge about Matty Healy, the band's lead singer.  She was the real deal.  She had on the same shirt, it was this nice ocean blue flannel, that Matty himself has in his closet. 

 

Then there was this whole 'farce' situation.  So apparently, the line was a 'farce'.  This means that there was no line.  There was no saved spots.  There was no "this is my place, sweetie, I was here thirty first out of everyone so go sit down".  It was a, for better lack of words, farce.  Our waiting was for nothing, we could have slept in for another half day and nothing would have happened.  The only way to get a saved spot was to buy a membership and that cost over one hundred dollars.  So that was, to say in the least, lavishly disappointing. 

 

But then, a figure emerged out of the mist.  The girl's mother that we befriended had come. 

 

"How many of us are there? Six?  Okay cool, so I just got a family membership, you guys don't have to worry about it, you can leave and come back at like, 6:30.  So here's your bracelets, we'll meet with you later!" 

 

To be honest, I came very close to peeing my pants. 

 

To think, the one person out of the hundreds of the same archetype of girls with I don't care but I do I really do hair and black beanie and grungy shirt and black skinny jeans and combat boots and the one single piercing on their left nostril, the one person that we talked to, gave us the key to unlock the holy passage of redemption.  It's amazing, really. 

 

We left then.  And I got my ice cream.  We came back. 

 

I'm going to skip the next part because it's sort of annoying, but basically we got into the concert venue, and I was in the second row on the guardrail just to the left of the center of the room. 

 

I stood right behind this girl and her boyfriend, and wow.  This is something I would like to discuss. 

 

I don't know if you have ever been to a concert.  I am assuming that you have.  But even if you haven't, imagine this.  You come to this show hella ready for excitement and fun and recklessness and a bit of hearing damage, and then there's this weird couple right in front of you.  The girl has a sensible blonde bob and a pure white north face jacket.  The boy is average looking with an outdated haircut and has his arm wrapped around her waist in that way that a young couple always does because they think it's what they have to do.  And so this couple, they never move.  Not once.  Their necks maybe turn two degrees to whisper some illuminati secret or something to each other but that's really it.  The limp noodle arm never leaves the waist.  The north face jacket never comes off, even when the sweat is dripping down my sides and coloring my fitted red crop top.  Her bob never loses its shape.  The only thing that ever happens is twice during the show she reaches her ghost arm slowly up to take a two minute video with her iPhone, and then she scuttles it back down.  There is no dancing, no singing.  No smile.  I'm assuming that he got the tickets for her, yet they look so awkward together it's unbearable.  Not only can I not comfortably wave my arms, but I have to deal with those unmoving sticks the entire time. (The best thing was when the fog machines began to go off and blow disgusting egg smelling air in our faces because it was literally positioned a foot from Bob Hair's face and she stood there and did not move at all.  Even when they went off every minute on the dot right before the show began, she still refused to react.  Classic.) 

 

The show began and I had promised myself weeks before that I would not be that girl that held her phone up the entire concert.  So after three songs of attempting to take some pseudo professional shots, I was done.  I wanted to live the concert.  I wanted to just forget everything and pound it out.  So I did that.  I closed my mind off of everything and tuned in to the drunken Matty's vibe.  And it was fantastic. 

 

(I will add one more thing.  Halfway through the show, the crowd had a surge and suddenly I no longer had any room to wiggle, and my body was quite literally pressed with not a square inch to breathe, against Noodle Arm boy.  My groin was attached to his butt and I could not stop it.  And just as you may suspect, he did not react at all.  I started laughing so hard I was crying at the ridiculousness of it all.)

 

 

 

Ejaculation Speculation (Trust Me, This Is School Appropriate) (SSR)

As I do every other Sunday, today I opened my laptop and began to browse the internet for some type of topic to discuss in my blog post.  So, I searched around and quickly found a lengthy list of controversial arguments.  I ran my eyes down the page, half paying attention, half eating my delicious whole wheat pancake smothered in applesauce.  But then my eyes rested on a few words.  And I knew that would be what I would write about today. 

 

Can a man be raped by a woman? 

 

That's the big question.  But to me, that article sparked the real question: 

How the hell is that considered a controversial topic? 

 

So I researched.  And eventually found this gem.  It's an article on the website askmen.com.  The page is adorned on the side with dehumanizing pictures of half naked women accompanied by captions with compelling statements such as, "10 Things You Seriously Didn't Know About Getting It On- Class Is In Session".  Automatically, my eyes rolled.  This was going to be good. 

 

This woman, yes, the author is a woman, but honestly I do not think that matters in this argument, begins her opinion with this tale about how she was on CNN and saw an article about several men being raped by women in Zimbabwe.  She then states that the reason she clicked on the article was because she legitimately did not know if men can even be raped and if so, is it considered rape if a man ejaculates during the attack? 

 

I would like to jump in here.  Why does it matter if he ejaculates at all?  That is what I want to know.  Please, please explain to me how this is even a relevant topic to entertain.  If you read the article on CNN, and please do, the victims were reportedly given a drug or forced at gunpoint, and then raped for ritual purposes.  They were forced.  That is the central point here.  Forced.  They did not decide to interact with these women.  They did not want any of the sexual advances that were made towards them.  They were unknowing men who were forced into activities that will likely haunt them for the rest of their lives.  But somehow, whether or not they ejaculated matters.  Somehow, someone decides that they are going to silence the victims of unspeakable horrors who deserve to tell their story. 

 

The author then says that she confronted a large group of her male readers and asked them the question, whether or not men can ejaculate in a stressful situation.  But wait.  That is not what this article is supposed to be targeting.  This woman truly does not understand that rape is not a matter of whether or not you enjoyed it, whether or not you were 'asking for it', whether or not you were previously sexually involved with the perpetrator.  She is trying to back up her ignorance with a biased answer that really, had nothing to do with the original argument. 

 

The answers to her posed question were not surprising.  Some said that the rape wasn't considered rape unless it was a man forcing himself onto another man.  Others said that "you can't rape the willing", once again assuming the role of the doubter, the silencer, trying to say that you should just enjoy whatever attention you can get.  The worst responses though, were the ones where they said that they were heading to Africa.  Ridiculing the pain of the victims, while simultaneously saying that they should have loved it, and that they would have if they were in the same position.  I hope these people realize that they are the very scum of the earth.  They are below everything.  They are laying beneath the dirt in the graves they themselves dug with their spitting words, acting like shovels, heaving layers of filth out from the core. 

 

She ends the article with the answer to her dumb ejaculation question, apparently men can and will ejaculate at random times, and it does not matter whether or not it is rape, they may still do it.  She tries to wrap up the article at the end saying that men can be raped, if they are unwilling, blah blah blah.  She never mentions researching on this topic, which was supposed to be the main idea of the article. 

 

If you got anything out of this post, I would just hope that you got this.  Anyone can be raped.  Yes, women are raped a lot more than men.  Yes, the rapist is usually male.  But anyone can be raped.  Anyone.  And it is not something to joke about.  It is not something to take lightly.  People are raped every day.  And these people are normal people.  They have their own lives.  They have their own families, their own beliefs, thoughts, ideas.  They are people.  So we should stop trying to deny these people their right to speak about their experiences and struggles.  We should all be helping them to yell.

Ironic Archive (PB)

It's eighth period again.  I am sitting in the far right row, four places back in my maroon chair that is stapled to my elephant gray desk. I have had to deal with this inconvenience for two years and you would think that I would have grown accustomed to the idea of a desk connected to a chair, but that still hasn't happened.  So anyways, I sit in my crippled chairdesk and I sketch a curious little man with a bespectacled face and a neat suit onto the cool gray surface while talking to my best friend, who sits directly in front of me.  And in the spaces between our gossip and my drawing, we watch the left side of the room. 
 

Everyone has their phones out.  Literally every person in the room has their phones either in their hand or on their desk or something.  Myself included.  I passively watch as a girl stops talking to someone to give her friend an elbow nudge, and it's like her jab has some type of predetermined hidden message inscribed into it.  Or maybe it's the little hair routine that she does with the flick of the wrist and the perfectly imperfect messy perfect long brown hair perfect result of this flick that does it.  Either way, the friend gets it.  She immediately turns towards the outreached arm holding the phone and does the whole distortion of the face bit.  My gaze trails over the friend's eyebrows, which have magically lifted up to her hair line.  Then her eyes, wide and screaming, "I'm fun!!!  Wow, look at how surprised and fun I am!!!".  Her lips transform into a playful little pout and she lifts up her middle finger to complete the 'rebellious' persona.  The owner of the familiar phone follows suit, and after an awkward suspended silence while scooching their butts and rotating a bit to get the lighting that will make their face look the most snow white and their eyes the most unique brown, the picture is taken.  Immediately, the affection that radiated from their bodies has completely dissipated and without a word, the two girls continue their conversation with separate partners, as the one girl rapidly types a description of approximately six red lip emoji's to accompany the shot.  She then uploads this picture and I know that I will get a notification in three, two, 
 

ding 
 

My eyes shoot down to my phone.  The purple square lights up with a solid one and I hurry to clear it off.  I could just ignore it, but it will bother me later.  Because I like to have that clear feeling of knowing exactly what is going on, that I haven't missed anything.  I like knowing that I have seen what was meant to be seen. 
 

Ever since the huge social media bang cropped up, there have been huge debates on what type of impact it has had on our society.  Arguments on whether it is going to lead to mankind's downfall or whether it will be its greatest achievement are common.  Some say that this whole new system of a viral community has brought upon laziness to today's youth, that billions of dollars are lost in the workplace because of the loss of productivity in employees as a result of distractions from their phone or laptop.  History has become a thing of the past, haha puns, as humankind glosses over important day to day events that are happening as we speak.  Nothing is new anymore.  There is no real surprise, no real wonderment.  Excitement about the area around you is rare. 
 

And I'm not just criticizing everyone else.  I'm speaking from my own actions.  I feel the pull too. 
 

I used to just look at something and say, 'Oh, yeah that's cool.'  I would observe it, make connections, think.  But now, it's like I feel this immediate yanking to reach my hand in my pocket and record everything.  I can't enjoy anything just for itself.  I need to share with others.  It drives me absolutely batty.  Why can't I reserve some experiences, some thoughts, just for myself to keep?  Why do I need to listen to every artist, read every book, watch every movie, to feel like I've lived life to the fullest?  Why do I feel anxious whenever I don't write down some witty idea or thought that pops into my brain?  Why can't I just not write in a journal and not feel guilty about it?  All my brain wants to do is document and analyze and remember little figments for later use, but really, what is that later use?  I feel like I'm constantly tied down to this thing, this grip on my life.  It holds everything that I've collected over a space of time: pictures, texts, moments, memories, ideas and sounds.  My connection to the people in my life that I love.  It's an assistant, and essentially a diary, but it is also an enormous nuisance that bogs down on the fun in life. 
 

Sometimes I fantasize about throwing my phone and all my accounts on the internet into the garbage.  The other night I even had a dream that I chucked my phone into the sea.  Symbolism, eh?  But I couldn't bear to give it up.  Not when I've invested so much time and thought into a metaphoric body of work that represents my life. 
 

Basically, all I'm saying is that maybe we've gotten a bit caught up in this whole colony of blogging and web surfing and digital lives.  Maybe we should all just put that aside for a while and breathe and go make some pasta or dance with your pals at a club or something.  And leave your phone.  Just leave it.  And don't go home and babble on and on about what you did the entire night.  Just savor the tiny little space of time that no one else knows about but you. Trust me, at first it's hard, but after a while, I think you'll like the feeling of the loss of attachment.  I know I do.

My Black Soul Condemns Black Friday SSR/PB

Friday, November 28, 2014 

 

It's coming. 

 

There is only 26 days until the apocalypticesque fight to the death for only the best of the very best deals.  You can almost hear the primal roar of a thirty-something year old mother of two as she wrestles the last Call of Duty 23.0 from an unexperienced in the line of duty, wide eyed kid fresh out of college on his holiday break.  You observe in horror as she uses her freshly manicured nails to grip the star prize from his trembling hands.  He weakly attempts to protest, but his floppy brown hair has made its way into his eyes and by the time he has flipped it out of the way, she is already hurdling across an overturned display of the 50 Shades of Grey Holiday Special Edition Trilogy Pack, and is making her way towards the Apple counter, which appears to be surrounded by a cornucopia, if you will, of human carnage. 

 

Yup, Black Friday is makin' its way downtown, but I wouldn't describe it as a 'walking fast' pace, it's more like the lurch of the near dead cashier as he feebly attempts to escape from the hungry mob outside.  Sorry, Vanessa. 

 

Black Friday originally started around 1924, when the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade tradition began, and along with it, 24 hours of busy consumers wanting to complete their Christmas shopping list.  The term 'Black Friday' was later introduced as the official title in the 1960s, when black ink was used to account for profit in businesses.  Over the years, more and more people have decided to freeze their butts off outside of chain stores, lining up in hordes while others finish off that second piece of grandma's pie. 

 

Along with the staggering rise in popularity comes the numerous injuries and even deaths of urgent customers and workers.  So far, seven reported deaths have been attributed to the festivities, and 90 injuries to boot. 

 

Now, I'll admit that I love shopping.  I LOVE it.  But does it really make sense that we have a national holiday devoted to celebrating the birth of our country and giving thanks for what we already have, then within a few hours, going out and buying more?  Does it really make sense to sacrifice that time that you could be sleeping in your warm bed to a tradition that feeds off of your hard earned money and willingness to be the one grabbing the video game from that college student? 

 

So why don't we try something new.  Instead of rushing to buy, buy, buy this year, why don't we just enjoy each other's company and the leftover stuffing, because we all know that Uncle Bobby is gonna be sneaking the dish to his bedroom, he does it every year.