illusions

i've had the past couple of days off ~ giant sigh of relief ~ and just completed my last final. i'm using the library computers one more time before i say goodbye to north seattle campus.

every day, i see more news about the presidential race and so many beautiful signs of political revolution with the prospect of bernie sanders winning the presidency. in stark contrast to this, there is a pit in my stomach with each article published about donald trump. he is terrifying. i find myself googling, "why is trump still relevant in presidential race," in search of answers. i can't understand it and, even further, i can't understand why big money (hillary clinton) still holds the democratic lead.

regardless, register to vote, and vote this year. we're at a pivotal moment in the history of planet earth and i want to see humans have a future long enough for many generations to comfortably enjoy. we need climate change reform, we need racism, hate speech and fear mongering to end. we need to join together as one global community to pursue a healthy future.

anyways. here's a good cypress hill song

end of term

my first term in seattle is done! i feel as if i have 123892652384 more, but here's to chippin' away.

@ilovekotbonkers

check this girl out. she's smart, she's creative, she's cool.
check out her tumblr, instagram and maybe even buy her art!

feeling uninspired

prompts are a great way to get writing. i like writing essays because it doesn't come as a serious struggle for me... usually. today, i'm trying to write my last essay for my english class and the prompt is this: "I want you to write an essay that says something important about how to live in the world." pardon me if that isn't the broadest essay prompt you've ever read. i have this problem where i take on a project and, rather than having a concise yet fluid point, i creep into every minute crevice that involves the topic because i'm worried that i won't hit each valid and crucial point. if you were to write a four to six page essay on how to live well, what would you write about? which texts might you choose to reference? i'm limited to the texts in my class but i would still love to hear where the ideas of others may roam.

but anyways, i'm feeling uninspired and am referencing a required reading in our class that was also required in a similar class i took a whopping five years ago - and it's just a beautiful as it was then. have a read of the closing paragraph if you're in the mood for some existential sadness.

"So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one, in the end -- not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman's second glance, a child's apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother's papery ancient hand in a thicket of your hair, the memory of your father's voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children." (Joyas Volardoras, Brian Doyle)

mood music

it's been a mellow week and now i'm looking forward to a mellow weekend. my place of work went out of business (lol) but i just accepted two part time positions and start at one of them tonight! yay. i don't have too much to say but i've been really digging the music my most recent set of moods has brought me to so i thought i'd share a lil playlist with whichever human actually reads this (whoever u r, thank u <3 ). the above video is from a local band that, at first listen, i wasn't in love with, but i'm so glad whatever mindset i had been in then changed because they are in fact amazing. chastity belt is playing a local christmas party that is only $3 entry, but you have to rsvp, so go do it! XOXO TGIF!!!!! playlist after the jump.

wish lists

swim good

Essay #3: Response to Poetry: Work

by Maggie Gray | November 12, 2015

Since the Industrial Revolution, Americans of all ages and social classes have become “slaves to the clock.” Chad Walsh, Theodore Roethke, Paul Walker and Marsha Major have written poems that evoke a sense of melancholy regarding the working class American using similar techniques. These poems give their readers a glimpse into the lives and thoughts of the American worker who, while subscribing to the life society has structured for them, is not finding a greater fulfillment in their craft but is passively wishing for something more gratifying. Through phrase structure, creative adjective and verb use, colorful (or a lack of colorful) imagery and rhythm, these poets create a sense of incompleteness, repetitiveness, and wistful wonder of what may be in store for any that can escape the daily routine of the masses. (More after the Jump)

worth reading:

"i kissed a feminist once" / lily cigale

“I kissed a feminist once”,
he says, face flushed blotchy, something heavy resting on his shoulders
maybe
“I kissed a feminist once,”
and everybody laughs
“she was cold as ice,” he says
and he doesn’t mention how I turned
warm beneath his fingers,
heated up like embers
and reduced his bed to flame and ashes
“God was she mean,” he says
but he hasn’t forgotten the time
I told him to be kind to himself, to
purge the poison from his veins and
scrape the smoke from his lungs
“I love you I love you I love you”
I said,
“please love yourself too”
“I kissed a feminist once,”
he says, to loud guffaws,
an elbow in his side
and he doesn’t say “her lips
were the softest thing to ever brush
my collar bone”
he doesn’t say “she made playlists in my mind”
or “she covered me like a blanket”
or “her teeth on my earlobe ripped me open and scattered me across the sheets of her twin bed”
he doesn’t say “I loved that
storm of a girl,
I loved her heavy at 4 am, I loved
her like pennies
at the bottom of a fountain
like memorized freckles
I loved her like depth perception
like opposable thumbs
I loved her I loved her I loved her”
and instead he shrugs
that heavy thing off his shoulders
and shrugs the feel of my lips
off his chest and he says,
“she was a crazy bitch anyway”.

english 101

i am in an intro english class this semester with a lot of "running start" students. i'm not from washington, so i wasn't accustomed to this, but it's a slew of high school students getting college and high school credit at the community college i attend, so they're ahead of the curve by the time they reach graduation. it's a great idea and, quite honestly, i was a little weirded out at first and thought it would feel like i was in a class learning nothing (hello to my ego). quite the contrary, i love this class and i love these students. my teacher is a really kind and thoughtful poet. it's so interesting to interact with these teenagers and remember the places i've grown from with writing. my teacher has recommended me to tutor for the following term - something i've never been interested in but now have decided to pursue. 

i'm gaining a perspective on high school i never had before - the view of an outsider looking in from a very close range - and in return, a lot of them have started to come to me for proofreading and advice. i feel as though i'm part of an extremely passive ethnography, watching the cliques sit together and remembering how my high school experience was just as segregated by stereotype. while the students segregate themselves in a conventional way, they are much more progressive than i remember the students in my high school experience being. it is the most amazing aspect of these students to notice;  how the mindset on lgbt and non-gender-conforming individuals has progressed. as a high school student, this was not even a conversation. i recall a very narrow and restricting binary that seemed inescapable for many. in this class, i hear people being respectful of pronouns and viewing each other in terms of an all-encompassing "we're really all just equal human beings existing in this world" perspective. 

not many people would expect to hear that, during my time living in utah, i gained a more progressive and thoughtful understanding of my fellow humans that i had yet to encounter prior to my move. the people i met in utah are all incredible, amazing people that answered all my questions and helped me get a little closer to removing my ignorance. ignorance is not our world's biggest problem, but resistance to ignorance. ask questions, get answers, listen. 

* shouts to all my utahns that helped me learn and grow. i miss you and i love you. * 

cut my lips

 misha hollenbach

 misha hollenbach

this isn't really my favorite type of genre but sometimes, when you find a gem, you show up late to class so you can listen to it a few more times while it's looping through your headphones.

october '15 recap

october was a whirlwind. some of my best friends came to visit this new city i'm acclimating to + i've gone through a broad range of emotion to get to (what i hope/think will be) a stable place moving forward. rikki + i treated our tastebuds at the some of the best spots around the city. by night, we all went a little too hard + had too much fun all week which led to a heavy come down but i'll be damned if i have any regrets about it. here are some top recommends from the places we stopped by:





















revel - korean / asian fusion - this place was incredible at a very reasonable price. usually at a meal you might pick one outstanding item that you fell the most deeply in love with but we could not choose any one thing over another. TRY IT ALL.  

manolin - seafood - the cocktails were to die for + the food was as delicious as it was aesthetically pleasing. their seafood is as hoped, spectacularly fresh.

revolver bar - bar - easily my favorite bar in seattle. great selection of beers, not too pricey + they spin vinyl all hours they're open. good vinyl, too.

cha cha lounge - dive bar - $1 beers on wednesdays. the best velvet painting collection i've ever seen. photobooth that takes cards. what more do you need to know?

lo-fi - venue - i'm not usually one for clubs or dancing, but, if it involves 90's hip-hop / r&b, i'm in. on saturday nights, this place delivers the best line-up of my favorite hits from my favorite decade for one of my favorite genres. this is also the venue i'm seeing boytoy at this coming thursday, so you know they have some killer bands that come through as well. 

response: saudis in bikinis

Nicholas D. Kristof brings up a touchy subject with his essay, “Saudis in Bikinis.” While I appreciate his view of women needing choice and the ability to decide the type of lifestyle they would like to lead, whether it be through more or less of a display of their bodies, I think his opinion and the mocking of a culture he is not a part of is not a constructive or intelligent way to make a point. He seems not to realize how contradictory he is when he denies the paternalistic manner in which he condescends upon these women. “Is it paternalistic of us in the West to try to liberate women who insist that they’re happy as they are?” (177). Yes, Mr. Kristof, I’m afraid that it is. 

boy toy

i love this band. this is from their first EP (my pal sam gave me a copy last fall and i've been hooked ever since) and i just got my pre-ordered vinyl of their first full length album, "grackle", in the mail yesterday. it's super bad ass and you should get yourself a copy or pick up a cassette tapes at one of their shows during their tour! i get to see them on the fifth of november! if you like empowered chick singers and killer guitars/drums, you will enjoy this. buy it. you won't regret it. http://boytoy.bandcamp.com/

rebounding.

it's been years since i've been on this thing. today, i came to the library to do some homework and print hard copies of some essays and somehow got sucked into this rehabilitation project for my long lost blog for the past two hours. i did my best to update my snapshots section with my favorite photos from the past four years - save the film ones i haven't been able to scan as of late (which, let's be real here, are far superior to my cell phone photography) - and i've redone the template to try my best to combine my blog i began when i moved to boston with this one. it's been a trip skimming over all my old snapshots and posts and remembering the past headspaces i've lived in. #nostalgia

in the past month and a half since i've turned twenty-five, i've gone through more changes than i can count; i have the stress acne to prove it. since i've always been a talker and a writer, i'm trying to use all of this chaos to harness the writing outlet over the talking in order to keep my thoughts more cohesive and allow them to be a public thing that i can return to when in need. i'll try to share things that interest me from school, my new surroundings (seattle), and events and arts i may come across.

here's a good reminder from the cutest, laney sayer. she spent the last year or so living in los angeles, and while seattle is no L.A., i think these are good reminders for everyone. 

if heart break is a creative outlet all i can do is harness it and hope for the best, right?