Growing up the myth for girls was
“be careful, guys only think about sex.”
I heard that from everyone.
Im 21 now, sitting here with my friend who is 23 and we were discussing this matter.
Basically on an average day, what is more than once every second-that’s how often we think about sex.
Last year I went on a date with this stunningly handsome guy, something Middle Eastern. We had coffee at Starbucks. You could tell there definitely was something there, he wanted to go see a movie that night. We left and he said we would call. And he did call.
At the same time I was sort of dating (with only one real date and many visits to each others houses) this guy. Of course it was nothing serious but it was taking my time and some emotion. That night I hung out with my fling while I missed the calls from the new guy.
A few days later, he called again. I answer this time and tell him that I can’t date him because I am seeing someone else. Isn’t that the easiest way to let someone go? Its honest, both of you can go ahead with your lives instead of making him suffer and wait and wonder.
Today I just found out that a guy I liked a lot has a girlfriend. Oh no, he didn’t tell me. He let me make a fool of myself asking if he wanted to hang out and him never answering me. This happened 3 times, me asking, him not answering. 3 times is too many.
I am in no way a desperate girl and don’t want to be made to look like one. Be a man and let the girl who you used to sleep with know that you have someone new to sleep with, and ill be on my way.
Jerk.
Lately I have been obsessed with the band Rebelution. They are a reggae band from Santa Barbara.
2 summers ago my best friends and I hung out with this group of guys. All summer they would play the Rebelution CD, Courage To Grow, over and over. I didn’t know what it was but when you hear the first notes of “feeling alright” 10 times a day for 3 months, you would get to the point of pulling your hair out too, or at least drinking a lot.
So I didn’t really appreciate Rebelution for all it is until they came to Tucson about 2 weeks ago. This was 2 years after I heard them for the first time.
The concert was so vibrant and energetic and wonderful. The lights made the guitar look green, then purple, then blue and it wasn’t just the hallucinations. The lead singer Eric Rachmany was so passionate about his lyrics and his songs it felt like he was freestyling. The lyrics really struck home for me
“tell me what your running from
She said everything
And everyone” -Runnin’
“Much respect to all the people thinking green
Not just the color but the message in between
now Here’s a mental weapon that you’ll use frequently
To stop evil people and end their beliefs”
-Green to Black
“don’t act surprised
this is how I am”
-More than Ever
the whole band played with such soul and passion. The music was so alive. I recommend this band to all and cant wait to see them again. In fact they have inspired me to take a road trip to Santa Barbara. Ill be there on Wednesday.
This summer I travelled to Australia for a month. A friend told me about this website, couchsurfing.com and how you can meet up or stay with people from different places over the world. I looked into it after this summer.
4 hours have gone and I am at the first snack stop and gas stop I find. 7 hours have passed and I find myself flipping out of control in my white SUV, moving sideways off the freeway. It happened with a sideswipe, which led me straight into the center divider wall, which then led me to sharply turn my wheel to the right and then nothing and everything. The car took over. Then I flipped 5 times to the other side of the freeway, into the arms of trees and bushes. I landed, it happened; numb and shaky I look around and see that there is broken glass all in my car and scattered blood. Since I was the only person in the car it hit me hard that it was me who was bleeding.
I went into emergency surgery for my left hand. Each finger looked like they had exploded from the inside, like a blooming rose. The muscles, bones, skin, tendons, were completely smashed and dangling. I came out of that first surgery with a cast on my arm. I was in that hospital for three days before I couldn’t stand it and walked out.
Naturally, I was forbidden by my parents to fly to France. I basically had no left hand but thank good Lord that I had my opposable thumb, nothing happened to that. All the other fingers were bandaged, stitched, iron pined in and weren’t moving.
So it took allll summer, 3 months until the day I went to school to heal enough. That is perhaps part of the reason why I decided to flee to Australia for winter break and not go home. They spoke English, and it was summer during our winter.
I was on couchsurfing the day I got back to Tucson. I couchsurfed the first three days of my trip. They were great, another traveler was staying there and he took us out with his friends, really made us feel welcome. You can pick who you stay with also.
But before I left I went to the spa to get a little waxage. I told the girl at the counter about my plan and about couchsurfing.
Spring Break!
Trial By Lantern
"When you make music or write or create, it's really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you're writing about at the time." -Lady Gaga
Fat Tuesday was the date. 8pm was the time and Espresso Art café on University blvd was the place for the trial II performance by Lantern. Lantern is a poetry troop of 3 college students. The evening exceeded any expectations one might have upon hearing “poetry reading.” The words they read slowly dug a hole to get to art, the words exposed movies and songs and images and memories of the diversity that is Lantern. Lantern is comprised of Alan Tanz with his innovative and forgotten places of the imagination, Kat LaRue with her 50’s, love struck style, and Lindsay Janes’s modest, unraveling notions of provocativeness. The environment was warm and inviting. They were not performing in glass cases marked “do not touch” instead the night seemed impromptu. A touch the poets added to their evening was a confession booth. Each poet told a story about themselves that they have not told anyone, that is always in the background of their mind and if thought about change who they are. Funny and disgusting, insightful, and moving the line between performer and observer were erased to only sense a cloud of a line.
Kat began the evening. Miss LaRue uses words as freely as we use salt, on everything, in everything, adding a pinch here and there, to taste. She disguised the idea of lust with phrases like “Christmas tree limbs,” “Toilet paper angels and desire,” “Rearrange our crooked features into a Picasso grace,” “Finger set to vicious.” Like salt to a dish, she provides a need for words but somehow never adds too much, her poems are never too salty. Next Lindsay took it away.
Lindsay’s poem, Ode To Karen Barbee “belly dance extraordinaire” slithered off her tongue in a melodic dancelike way. Like the hips of a belly dancer she twisted and shook words together until the realization of the poem took shape. The things that live within both the dancer and speaker and what the speaker wants and knows was the resounding effect. The words- “Offering a moment I could cradle,” “You are old and you never wanted to be,” “I keep my garish extremities to myself,” “I was pieced together in you” -are mesmerizing lyrics to the song of a dancer.
Attention was then turned to Alan who was putting on music and stood in the center of the “stage.” A rat living in the dark corner of a bedroom who gets fed and bites is the plot of his poem. The subject, however, is unaware greediness, silence that is frustrating and powerful, power transfer until this thing, this rat has all of it. Angering silence and accepting offers of cheese it is able to give the speaker such fuel as to rip the floor boards off. Alan performed his words, paying equal attention to the diction as well as the way he says them. By taking a phrase like “dark corner” and taking a breathe between the words he has transformed soundless text into a story, an unveiling of music, of rage, and beauty.
Turkish music, soft at first then faster and deeper was white canvas on which he performed his poem. Kat and Lindsay played backup roles, softly accompanying Alan in a few chosen words, “dark loner”, “never a rat at all”, “come here Sofje”, “dark abyss”, “reach out”, “trap her”, “feed her”, “sofje”, “rat”, “rat”, “sofje”, “rat.” It was a theatrical experience that left the small audience speech less.
Towards the end the trio performed a poem together. Each adding a phrase, one after the other. It was called “Galapagos.” And with that they talked of being uniquely one of a kind and uniquely special.
After the deep breath of the show and the filled with unorganized knotted stomachs, the evening ended with a song by Lady Gaga and the poets dancing around as if we were not there, as if celebrating the shape of the space of their minds.
