Copyrighted Content

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:19:00 +0000

Stephanie: "Can I go out with my friends?"

Parent: "No."

Stephanie: "Why?"

Parent: "Why should I? How would that benefit me?"

Stephanie: "..."

Stephanie: "So that forty years from now, when you're old, weak, and vulnerable, I won't leave you in an old-people slash invalid's home to wallow in lonely self-hate while suffering the consequences of your prior decisions to ultimately aggravate me during my childhood without reasonable excuse?"

Parent: "Ah, fair enough."

.048

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:45:00 +0000

Ah, Kylie my dear, I miss you. We should hang out sometime; your '96 minivan sounds positively splendid: very childless-soccer-mommish.

What we absolutely should do together is set up a table/booth in some public area and brandish a sign titled "Free Conversations with Kylie and Stephanie, Will Talk About Anything With Anyone."
Talk about replenishing one's creative vocabulary (:

I'm very uninspired.
So I do one of these:

1. If you were a fly for a day, how would you spend that day? (You have your mind, but you're a fly.)
Eavesdrop on strangers. Eavesdrop on non-strangers. Find rude customers in restaurants or food courts and land in their food, leave something behind if I can. Hover around a couple having sex so that they get annoyed and start trying to swat me away until eventually one slaps the other across the face (an ordeal from which I will fly away, unscathed).

2. Make a virtual sandwich. What's on it?
Whole wheat bread, chipotle mayo, bacon, lettuce, and the dreams of children when they aspire to be something great so that they may grow up to be cynical and hopeless bastards.

3. What famous person have you found yourself attracted to that you were shocked upon realizing this attraction because that person isn't your type?
Natalie Portman. Yeeah, that whole "having a vagina" thing.. not really my thing. But come on. Have you seen her in Closer? or in V for Vendetta? or when she raps?

4. What unlikely thing breaks your heart?
Lonely and senile old people, especially the ones abandoned to die in convalescent homes by their children.

5. What's the most unpleasant mess you've ever had to clean up?
A relationship.

6. Are you a mod or a rocker?
Neither, I am the offspring of a three-nippled gorilla and a goat.

7. Describe the body of your perfect dream lover.
Legs, limbs, and good looks be not necessary, but two heads most certainly are. One for thinking, and one for, well, y'know. When neither of us are thinking.
I'm not a particularly picky person when it comes to looks. Good looks won't have interesting conversations with me or give me the happy, warm fuzzies.

8. What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?
Pressure-cooked oxtail and peanut butter served over rice with a side of smelly pureed-shrimp paste.

9. Remember that time you climbed that thing and were kinda high up? Tell me about that.
No.

10. How do you eat a small stack of Oreos?
I scrape the icing off of every cookie with a butter knife until I have this mushy pile of white lard accumulated in a bowl: half of which is then applied evenly over my face so that only the pupils of my eyes are the only part of my head that doesn't appear white, and the remaining half is used to style my hair into liberty spikes. Then, I find all the dirty and mismatched socks whose pairs have been devoured by my abysmal washer/dryer, fashion a knee-length dress out of the cloths, and put it on backwards. You will be able to tell that the dress is backwards, because it will be the fuzzy insides of the socks showing on the outside, and not the opposite. Usually, I end by stuffing as many of the black, icing-less cookies into my mouth as I can, chew without swallowing, and then run out onto the streets and flash black&white smiles to strangers while whispering Buddhist chants into their ears with my mouth full.
It is only after I have done this to seven people that I will proceed to finish the last of the cookies in a humane manner: with a spoon.

Or, y'know. I sometimes do just bite into the cookie and wash it down with a swig of milk. Fuck taking them apart and licking the creme before eating it. That's just weird.

There were twenty other questions to this survey, but I found something more interesting to do on the internet in another window, so I just stopped.

Have a nice day.

.047

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:09:00 +0000

This staying-at-home-all-day-most-days ordeal is proving hazardly.

I'm out of clever things to say.

.046

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:25:00 +0000

It's two in the morning.
I've got headphones on with someone shouting into my ears, and still my room feels so disgustingly quiet.
I feel like I should make some noise. I feel like I should shout. I should shout.

My restless legs don't seem able to settle down unless I close my eyes.
I think I'm tired.

.045

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:49:00 +0000

.044

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:31:00 +0000

Posting just for Kylie :D
I could accidentally run over a little old lady
with my shitty driving one day, watch Kylie laugh on these videos,
and still feel like laughing myself.
Oh, Imma miss you, lady-friend.

Ortiz mentioned something about how we should have used remote mics for these videos.
Goddammit, Ortiz will always still be Ortiz.

.043

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:15:00 +0000

I once told a friend that most of the wisdom I've attained on life as I see it has come not through experience, but through observation: the consequences of the mistakes my friends have made, and the rewards they've reaped from the opposite.
He told me that by doing so, I wasn't living life the way I ought to.

I argued by asking, "Then in what way 'ought' I to live? The trouble of using experience to navigate my way through living is that the effect of my decision-making comes first, then the lesson; not always will I have the ability to fix the first of the two."

He then responded, "Then, what right do you have to wish to exist as distinctly independent, if the life you choose to live is not your own?"

.042

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:05:00 +0000

The good things in life are not things.

We, a sea of uniform purple gowns, passed through the main halls as students for the last time.
If my peers eventually come to understand and accept the impermanence of all things, perhaps we truly might be able to make society a better place, just like they told us.

.041

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:30:00 +0000

My heart panged for the poor guy on the right.

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:56:00 +0000

Oh; we're all on uneven beaches of white, combing the grounds for forgotten valuables with metal detectors at hand,

standing atop millions of abandoned rare diamonds
buried from sight not even a foot beneath the sand.

.039

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:50:00 +0000

These motivational posters these days: usually the words you'll read beneath an irrelevant but still colorfully beautiful photograph are the postermaker's definition of strength: "Don't give up. Never give up. Keep fast, keep strong, keep vigilant, keep persistent."

It wasn't until this year that I'd encountered people who, with their lives and stories of sad ordeals, their trials and their ne'er-fore revealed personalities, have unknowingly taught me that sometimes, it's true strength that's needed to let things gently go.

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:14:00 +0000

.037

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:50:00 +0000

MY CHANGES, FROM THE BEGINNING OF HIGH SCHOOL TO THE END:

pre:

- Zero considerable boyfriends
- The promise of strong Baptist/Christian fundamentals
- An annoyingly strong sense of self-confidence
- Fear of spoken obscenities, including "that sucks"
- Straight A's

near-post:

- Three boyfriends, one serious, all exes
- Now considers self Agnostic
- Social life almost entirely limited to the internet
- A nice whopping gain of 40 pounds
- Fuck fuck dipshit piss cunt
- B's, C's, A's in all non-academic classes

Heck, what did high school do to me?
No, what did I do (or not do, hehh) for myself in high school?

Not a damn thing.

FUTURE PLANS AFTER GRADUATION:

- Get fit. Find an active sport I enjoy playing, hire a trainer, or blackmail a friend into joining my struggle. Maybe I'll stop procrastinating.
- Care about school. It's not free anymore.
- Leave home. I'm sure the world is larger than I imagine it must be, still figuring out how to sever the umbilical cord without committing unintended suicide.
- Manners? Hm. Usually only applies to 35+ adults. Lower age line?
- Care about things. Because I find that I usually don't.

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:06:00 +0000

That fat, grey cat that lives underneath my porch came out today.
I returned home; as I was turning the lock on my screen door I spotted it, out of the corner of my eye, squatting on one of the wooden steps by the back gate.

Didn't even run away as I moved to step inside.
Just stared at me with those unblinking, catty eyes.
I don't feed it; I wonder what it eats so much of to be so fat.

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:33:00 +0000

Tell them they are under attack, denounce the pacifists for leaving them vulnerable,

and they will do your bidding.

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:43:00 +0000

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:31:00 +0000

Yesterday evening, I stepped out of the house to find that one among the dozen-ish birds perched upon the pole wires above had decided to leave its legacy on the ass of my car.

I looked up at the bunch of stupid flying things, cursing whichever one had released its large, unholy splatter of white and purple.

All these damn birds had wings that enabled them to fly above the rest of the world, to see the lands from a perspective those without wings could not,
yet it was here, of all places, that they had chosen to seat themselves.

"But what right did I have to mutter indecencies at them?", I ask myself now.

.032

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:05:00 +0000

I wonder: are the trivial things we forget forgotten over time, or all of an unnoticed sudden?

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:23:00 +0000

When despair at last floods your heart,
you will fall to your knees and look to the heavens with tears in your eyes,
screaming in voiceless agony, "What have I done to deserve this?"

and the voice that you've always prayed would respond to your sorrow
will still prefer to remain silent.

.029

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:52:00 +0000

Connecting to server...

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

You: Hello

Stranger: 你快講話阿

Stranger: 我沒梗了

You: no english?

Stranger: 你會講中文嗎?

You: hmm..

You: this seems like a problem

Stranger: 什麼阿

Stranger: 搞屁阿

Stranger: 到底想怎樣阿

You: ..I'm afraid I can't understand

You: What country are you from?

Stranger: 中國

Stranger: 你看得懂嗎，傻逼

You: hmm.. I wonder

You: 1 for korea
2 for Japan
3 for China
4 for Taiwan
5 for Other

Stranger: 1

You: Aaaah

You: So you can understand what I'm saying.. 1 for yes, 2 for no

Stranger: 1

You: I wonder why I can't read your text

You: How disappointing..

Stranger: because you're too stupid......

You: lmfao

You: Ah, this conversation's taken a nice twist

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

.028

noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Sat, 30 May 2009 07:10:00 +0000

Today, I attempted to run away.
There was no wind to be felt as I walked: no cars were on the road driving past to produce any.
The long stretch of sidewalk I faced was empty, and the vacant, unkempt stores on either side of it contained no indication of recent life. Even the cracks in the concrete had no weeds sprouting forth from beneath them; they all had died long ago.

The air was hot and the world could be seen, but it made no sense, as the gray skies above revealed no sun.

I ambled onwards; my eyes would never stray from the path ahead, but would instead strain to see if the end of the road and the beginning of one new was near. I continued like this for hours; my breathing had become labored in the heat and sweat would trickle from my brow down the contours of my face when the beads got too big. Eventually, the last of the stores had been passed, and the markers on my left and my right had ceased to demand that those who walked forward turn back. I ignored the gradual barrenness as I progressed, and still the sidewalk continued on.

I never did reach the end of the path, though.
Instead, after my hundredth mile, I found myself at a crosswalk. At the other end of the crosswalk was a broken traffic light, from the pole of which hung, directly eye-level across from me, a small black box that illuminated the palm and outline of a five-fingered orange hand.

The light of the "Do Not Walk" sign never changed.
Still I'm there, waiting.

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:12:00 +0000

If people could speak to me and not expect an oral response in turn,
I'm almost certain I could spend the rest of my life as a mute

and not ever miss the sound of my voice.

Queer, isn't it, that someone such as myself can be so fond of writing, can appreciate the merriment in laughter,

yet can only find so little ease in raising their thoughts to voice?

It's the extroverts in society that are rewarded for simply being the effortlessly open people they are; they receive the pay raise, the paramour, the invites to basketball games and late night drinks at local bars.

I, however, couldn't carry a conversation if it had two handles and Mike Tyson holding up the opposite end.

It seems these days that life must be discussed so that its beauty may be revealed.
I find that I don't have to, but that's what appears to be the problem, now, isn't it?

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:34:00 +0000

When encountering negativity, I find I still haven't mastered yet the task of thinking with a disciplined mind. Being capable of acknowledging this fact surely must be a small step towards so, though.

I wonder if a person such as myself, whose moral and social standards are self-set, has the right to point fingers and say an errand gone wrong is the fault of somebody else. Perhaps I don't; perhaps for such people, there is no such thing as "fault," but simply what is.

I've spent most of this week under a constant state of needless pressure that, I realize now, was not created at the fault of those around me, but rather, by my own hands. No fault can be placed upon others for my failure to breathe in deeply and accept that not all hard work will reap the benefits we seek, that not all things we wish to attain are attainable, and that not always our plans can be followed through to the end. This atypical air of impatience I've only just noticed I've had recently for everything, for everyone, I now believe has been nothing more than my ego's futile attempts to sustain this ignis fatuus of control and stability.. that and my lengthy absence from blogging, my lack of reflective thinking.

The loss of my hold on the patience I usually have at hand, as well as that frumpiness I'm not used to suppressing is, to me, just another demonstration, another reminder, of the impermanence of all things: things I forgot needed constant attention, and hopefully will handle better in the future.

Oh, the things one realizes when cooking rice in the kitchen.
I've still yet to find that peace with myself,
but at least, I think, I've found a tiny bit of it.

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Fri, 22 May 2009 21:02:00 +0000

"You want to know who you are? Huh? You want to know whose son you are? You don't, I do, everybody does... You're the son of a thousand fathers, all bastards like you."

--The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

What a classic insult.
How could one possibly respond to that today?

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noreply@blogger.com (mnismateum) — Wed, 20 May 2009 05:29:00 +0000

The date, I can't remember specifically. It was a year or so ago: I was seated at the wooden tables beside the schoolside Vons' Starbucks, waiting for the time to crawl by faster for reason I can't remember. It was then that a dark, elderly, asian man shuffled by in house slippers to the gift card section beside me that then used to be there, but now is not.

He wore no glasses, I discovered after a few moments' worth of curious peering. The hand that gripped the cane holding the rest of his body upright shook slightly each time he leaned forward to reach for a gift card that never quite seemed to be the right one. His feet never rose more than a quarter of a centimeter from the ground each time he walked, and his thin hair stuck out from beneath a neon-pink hat that probably must have been worth something to him at the time and place where he had attained it.

I watched him for a few minutes, my interest in this seemingly uninteresting person growing as the number of cards that were picked up only to be set back down rose. Realizing at last that the one he wanted was not among those displayed, he shifted the whole of his body 90 degrees to the right, chin and arm raised slightly up so as to signal an employee for assistance.

His mouth opened without word, but rather, a barely audible squeak-grunt, so the first worker to pass him walked by without noticing that his attention was required on something elsewhere than the cardboard box he carried by the arm.

The second worker noticed him, but instead of stopping, mouthed a word that began with the letter "o," and extended his forefinger into the air to indicate a silent "one second, I'll be right with you". He never came back after that second. Or minute. Few minutes.

The third worker, this time, stopped, and asked him if he needed help. The old man replied in a voice that reminded me of fountain pens scratching ink on textured paper, "Membership cards?"

The man had come to Vons seeking out a Vons card, and instead, mistakenly went to the gift cards.
The worker chuckled, said that he would go get someone that could help him, and left.
I checked my cell phone clock every minute for ten minutes; the help that was promised never arrived.

My heart filled with sadness for the old man.

And so the small asian man, I remember, put one hand atop the other on his cane and hunched over with his head tilted to the left, waiting for someone to stop by and assist him. I watched him for a good while, pity aching my insides, when at last the time had come for me to stand and leave. I did, but not before casting a final glance by the door at the man whose head was still tilted to the left, waiting for help that I still don't know today had come or not come.

When I got home that evening, I called my boyfriend (then, my ex-boyfriend now). I felt this need to tell him about the odd old man I had come across earlier that day, so I did. I told him, "that man needed help, but no one came to give it to him."

and I remember the words Tim told me that, to this day, continue to bother me greatly:

"So, why didn't you?"

I saw a funny tree this evening.
Its thin trunk was curved, as if the weight of the leaves and branches at its head forced it to grow bending downwards.
The shape of the tree reminded me of the man and his old, curved back.