giving up the gun

it's all very easy really.




she's talking about something and you're listening nodding your head like yeah, i totally agree
when in fact she could be telling you that she has a third nipple and you wouldn't know
cause all you see is the glass bottom of your shotglass
please sir can i have another
grin and bear it
the liquid courage stirring the beast within again
now you have to pay attention have to focus up on her
was her name sarah? samantha? doesn't matter
just focus on making her feel special, the center of your universe for the moment
reach in your bag of tricks for that special quip, that wisecrack that always gets them engaged
get them laughing, happy, confident before nailing down the deal
she's not as cute as the last one but the parts are all the same
the need outweighs other desires
take her home getting down to business
it feels good doesn't it? the pressing together of skin
the intimacies of bodies rather than of the mind
and in that brief moment of sheer unbridled ecstasy
you are the king, the master, godlike
and look down at her, your conquered land
disgusted at what you've laid waste to
cover it up with whatever's handy
let her stay the night so she doesn't feel used
later she'll paint you as the bad boy in her lifestory
but that's okay
doesn't stop them from returning, try to change you, figure you out
uncrack the shell
as you roll over to her as she passes out, you whisper
"there's nothing."

the death of everything that's wild

It's funny. I used to be a pack rat back in the day- saved all the notes passed around class from high school, programs from shows I performed in, schedules from voice camp etc. I just stumbled upon the evaluations of my tennis game back in 2004 when I went to tennis camp at Stanford (I was so close to you yet so far right?).

They all say the same thing:
"Laura was patient and focused on the court."
"Focused and determined while in control of her game."
"Focus and concentration good. You are not rushed and are involved mentally in the match."

Yet the criticisms are all the same:
"You need to work on your preparation/footwork-back up to be more effective."
"Work on your preparation and holding your finish-you come too early." (that's what she said?)
etc. etc.

As trivial as these observations might be, after all they were criticisms of my tennis game back when I still played, of course being me that tries to see meaning in everything- I still think they are relevant. When I'm playing the game and into it, I am present. I am there. I am focused. Yet my fault is that I leap before I look, emotionally that is. When I get stuck on a notion, I'm like a pitbull on a stranger, I rarely let go unless given a compelling reason. I need to control my impulses, as easy of an assumption it may be able to jump to. I need to return to that overly empathetic 16 year old I used to be-where every devil had an advocate, where there was reasoning for people's actions. After all, making enemies has never been my strong strength.

My aunt's boyfriend has beaten her...repeatedly. This is a sadly long known in my family circle. Yet at Christmas Eve dinner, I am expected to break bread with the man and feign ignorance to events that had transpired without my presence but nonetheless were the truth. Shall I act kind to maintain status quo/not disturb the peace? Or do I speak up for risk of destroying the rare opportunity for the gathering of family? I am ashamed to say reader that I remained silent and avoidant if not cold. I focused on preparing myself for the encounter and although my knee-jerk reaction was to lambast the man, I realized that it wouldn't solve anything. If my aunt's choice is to stay with someone who destroys her physically as well as emotionally, no impassioned speech or extreme action upon my part is going to alter her choices. Any action would only serve to vindicate my conscience rather than help her.

I'm focused. I'm ready.

god is dead/post-collegiate blues

what do you do when you've reached your goals, when you've topped the summitt? This seems to be the affliction that is affecting those in my close circle- the abundance of choices and the lack of guidance. An article in the NY Times examined the effects of nihilism and I found it surprisingly applicable to this dilemma:

"On the positive end, when it is no longer clear in a culture what its most basic commitments are, when the structure of a worthwhile and well-lived life is no longer agreed upon and taken for granted, then a new sense of freedom may open up. Ways of living life that had earlier been marginalized or demonized may now achieve recognition or even be held up and celebrated. Social mobility ─ for African Americans, gays, women, workers, people with disabilities or others who had been held down by the traditional culture ─ may finally become a possibility. The exploration and articulation of these new possibilities for living a life was found in such great 20th-century figures as Martin Luther King, Jr., Simone de Beauvoir, Studs Terkel, and many others.

But there is a downside to the freedom of nihilism as well, and the people living in the culture may experience this in a variety of ways. Without any clear and agreed upon sense for what to be aiming at in a life, people may experience the paralyzing type of indecision depicted by T.S. Eliot in his famously vacillating character Prufrock; or they may feel, like the characters in a Samuel Beckett play, as though they are continuously waiting for something to become clear in their lives before they can get on with living them; or they may feel the kind of “stomach level sadness” that David Foster Wallace described, a sadness that drives them to distract themselves by any number of entertainments, addictions, competitions, or arbitrary goals, each of which leaves them feeling emptier than the last. The threat of nihilism is the threat that freedom from the constraint of agreed upon norms opens up new possibilities in the culture only through its fundamentally destabilizing force."

The choices that are left to us are stymying at best. Do we attempt to give our lives fulfillment and meaning through religion? Do we absolve ourselves into hedonism? The conflict seems to me to be a vacillation between being trapped and being too free.

i am the conscience clear in pain or ecstasy

its hard watching this. its hard going back. it hurts to remember.
there's always the questions, that should be rhetorical because there's no easy answer.
what did i do to deserve what you did to me?

mars vs. venus

It always strikes me as a bit amusing when guys relate that familiar utterance.
"Girls are crazy, man".

Okay I get it-we're emotionally unstable, insecure beings who feel the need to psychoanalyze trivial moments, comments, or rather the lack of comments.

In my relatively short 23 years of life and through my male and female friendships, I feel like I've picked up on a few things and thought I should post it for the benefit of releasing this information into the wild of the Internet. Kidding, these aren't incredibly unique reflections but they are mine and I'm owning it.

Girls need to feel special. That's it. Plain and simple.

While men are locked in a transient aggressive power struggle with other men, women are going through something similar but much more passive aggressive which requires us to be much more cunning. Because women rarely come out in the open and candidly express feelings of resentment, jealousy or anger, we have to navigate the treacherous waters of maintaining our female friendships, which unless we see each other on an equal playing field, is riddled with subtle competition. Because being women and women love to talk, we are constantly measuring ourselves against our friends; our relationships, our careers, and when we embark on motherhood, our children, become the unwitting fodder for our asssessments of ourselves.

Our relationships with the opposite sex in particular fall especially victim to this grading scale. In lieu of the human desire to feel validated and loved, women especially want to be the "special one" to someone. The badboy complex is a particularly intense case of this. We want to be the earth shakers, the world changers, the ones that make him look at the millions of options and pick you. Like it or not we crave this validation in various doses. Fail to appease and you reap the consequences.

As irrational as it may be, I've always kind of appreciated this aspect of my sex. Although I love the dissociation, the stymying of emotions, and the clearheadedness of guys, I admit to being somewhat of a romantic when it comes to gender relations. I can't help but love the fact that we women long for this emotional validation.

Although it may seem weak that we need this kind of affirmation, I prefer to see it as a longing for someone else to recognize what we suspect we are capable of being. There's nothing wrong with a relationship or love helping you actualize into the self that you want to be. I think its in these relationships, platonic and otherwise, where we learn what we can tolerate, what we expect, and in the choices of our partners and friends, how we would like to establish ourselves. I learned a long time ago to let go of those who didn't recognize or contribute to my self and self-worth.

Jesus I sound like a poor man's Oprah. Good night.