I'm Sick (PB)

I think I used to be a better person. 

 

Perhaps in the way that all humans are as children, young and innocent, full of life, have yet to experience heartbreak, incapable of being essentially, an analytical bastard.  I remember thinking the most simple solutions to every problem imaginable, not understanding what the big fuss was with all of these dumb adults and old people complaining about silly things.  For example, if a girl and a boy are together (yuck!), then when they don't like each other, or the boy is mean, they should break up.  Poof!  Problem gone!  Or if some stinky old man doesn't like his job as a librarian and wants to be a tightrope walker, then he should nicely quit and go run off with the circus.  Poof!  Problem gone! 

 

Everything was so easy.  Any problem was a little pebble that I kicked while skipping in the park wearing my pink raincoat and muddy rainbow sneakers, with my long long long golden braid swinging behind me.  The problems that I thought were unconquerable were long division and how to emotionally handle the boy next to me at lunch accidentally spilling his chocolate milk all over my lap.  Or how the heck am I going to get this stupid button on my corduroys fastened?  It's so tiny!  The material of my pants is too tight!  Agh!  What if I have to go back to class and ask my teacher to do it for me?  I'm starting to get sweaty!  How lame! 

 

It's like the roles have switched.  I can handle those problems easy.  Here, you bring the five down next to the two.  Don't cry, you're mom works at the school.  She'll wash your pants for you.  And I don't know what to tell you about that button, man.  I still can't get those. 

 

Sometimes I wish I could trade off my problems to that little girl with the sideways teeth and chubby little belly.  She knew what was up.  She was the girl who, when surrounded by a bunch of brats talking about a girl who wore weird clothes, said in the meanest voice she could muster, "Hey guys!  You should stop talking about her, because she's nice, and you guys are being mean!"  She tried so hard on everything and cared so much about her homework, tests, worksheets.  She loved to color and her dad.  Sometimes I think about that little girl and of what she would say if she knew what she had turned out to be when she got to be older.  Would she be disappointed?  Am I becoming that person she would have locked her blue eyes on and called out at the playground?  Maybe, probably.  But I do know one thing.  I have learned some stuff that little me had not quite grasped yet.  That boys can like boys and girls can like girls and it's not gross.  That kissing is more than a spit sharing session.  That music is flippin amazing.  That just because you read books instead of having fun doesn't make you cool, it makes you very uncool, the opposite of cool.  And that life sort of sucks, but then it doesn't, not really.  Not at all.

Trajedy is the Most Ridiculous Thing (PB)

"She's the one with the unibrow, right?" 

 

Yeah, she is.  But for today, let's focus on everything else about this wonderful and incredible woman. 

 

I recently watched the Oscar winning film called Frida, obviously about the late painter Frida Kahlo.  I hadn't realized that although I have always admired her work, there was so much I did not know about her fascinating life story.  I had known that she had been in an accident that had damaged her spine and had caused her to be crippled for the rest of her life, in extreme levels of pain almost constantly.  I had known that she had to wear braces and casts and squeeze into wheelchairs, and eventually be bed ridden, (still painting of course).  I knew the difficulties she faced because of this experience influenced her work, as her illness isolated her through the years.  I also knew that a bizarre hatred of New York was introduced after she moved from her native location, and that most of her paintings were self portraits.  What I hadn't known was..... well, many things. 

 

I am ashamed to admit that I had not yet made the connection from Frida to the wildly celebrated artist Diego Rivera.  The two were married, and that important detail somehow managed to escape my mind.  The paired painters had one of the most interesting relationships I have ever observed.  Both partners consistently had affairs, and while it was mostly on Diego's side, Frida participated as well.  Two notable interactions that had caused major strain on the relationship were first Diego's sexual relations with Frida's sister, and then later, Frida's surprising affair with Leon Trotsky, the Marxist revolutionary that Frida had helped take refuge while being sought out by the government.  She was presumed bisexual, if you are into labels, and had flings with multiple women.  Frida and Diego were always fighting and on the edge.  Despite all of this, they had a passionate love that carried on to the end, and were loyal the whole way through. 

 

Sadly, Frida suffered through an abortion and a miscarriage, and the despairing feelings produced from carrying the memories of her lost children around played a major part in her work.  Her disdain for the pompous New Yorkers was also evident in her self taught (!) portraits and landscapes.  The woman was a strong and important artist that produced beautiful work expressing vulnerability and depression, paired with elation and the bold happiness of a woman that loved her hard life.  She continues to connect to the world and modern women today, just as the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo do, because they all have one common factor.  They make you feel something.  And isn't that what art is supposed to do?  It's supposed to make you feel.




The post where I talk about my mom (PB)

What are you wearing? 

 

Why are you so emotional? 

 

Go do a load of laundry! 

 

If I were you... 

 

Ahh, but you aren't (gladly).  That's right, you guessed it folks, it's time to talk about those gremlins you call your rents, the ones that have given you everything that is essential to you living for fifteen plus years.  They complain and scream and freaked the freak out when you smashed your iPod screen in the sixth grade on a trip to Hershey, completely on accident, even though you paid for half of it with your hard earned money gained from a Christmas and a birthday.  We are here to talk about parents. 

 

My mom gave birth to me when she was a mere twenty-one years old.  That's pretty young for a mom; my parents wouldn't even marry until two years later.  (This confused me profusely for a large portion of my childhood.  I had not yet figured out the logistics of child birth, and would constantly prod my other into explaining how exactly I was born, because didn't you have to be married to have a baby?)  The first year of my life would be spent at my dad's mother's house.  Now, it might sound like I was a fishy mistake, right?  No house, no ring, college kids.  Sketchy.  But I know that whether I was meant to be or not, my parents thought I was the greatest thing since peanut butter in a jar, do you know how?  Here's how:  If you happened to look in any drawer in the house, or upon any surface in my parent's room, you would find thousands of pictures of me in various stages of babyhood.  There I am in a tub, at a festival, in a pile of sand, naked, laughing, wearing a monkey mask.  So many pictures.  And you can feel in every one of them the happiness and love radiating from the moment, the new parent smell.  The best part of this never ending roll of photos is that with each child, the number of pictures goes down by at least fifty percent, probably even more with the digital age we live in.  So that means when I'm old and I have thirty-seven children that look exactly like me and my husband Zayn, I will be able to show them these tokens of love, while my brother will shove a no doubt deceased iPad at his kid's face to exemplify the bond he shared with my parents. 

 

Getting back to the point, I've come to the conclusion that my parents' ages have had a huge effect on both my personality and our relationship.  For example, I have noticed with other families, the parents have almost complete control over their children.  Whatever they say goes.  If a mom tells their kid to not drink out of the dog's water bowl, they are going to stay clear of the bowl and the dog.  Maybe I'm just really skilled at weaseling out of situations, or maybe because I'm just a good kid, I can basically rid myself of any chore or unpleasant thing that my parents would like me to do.  In other words, I'm going to lick from that water bowl.  And I'm not a brat, I swear.  I do help out sometimes.  But my mom and dad are not really with the whole, "respect is the bible, if you sin, you're grounded for life" deal.  I think it's because secretly, they consider me very close to their equal.  For a while, I was going through this phase where I did not want to talk to a single person.  So my  mom took it to heart, because we usually had such a good relationship.  We constantly got into spats because when she asked a question, I would respond with the least number of syllables possible.  Then one day, I realized, other moms didn't get upset when their child had the phonetic skills of a cave man, in fact, they TOLD their kids to shut up.  My mom actually wanted to have a conversation with me, because she enjoyed what I had to say.  Now, I have free reign to say as I please.  It's fantastic.  My mom and I talk about everything, she's basically like a best friend that I live with all the time.  She has helped me through so much, and has given me advice about boys and my career choice.  So yeah, I get sick of her every once in a while, but I still love her to bits.  What about my dad, you ask?  Well, everybody has daddy issues.