Old Fabric

I want to scream so loud, dance until I implode
Smash my lava lamp into mirrored jewelry boxes
and play my perfect opposite
I have stopped trying to understand
the intricate folds of all these brains
I don't even know my own
I want to douse my feet in warm cloud
and sleep for seven years
Then wake up and regenerate
into something obviously spectacular
Leaving all this slippery skin behind
Forgetting I ever wore such a heavy organ
Those fingernails still lodged in my flesh
But that old fabric is not mine
I'll just watch those hungry hands
and laugh in my new silk outfit

Do the right thing?

My school provides each student with a planner to write down homework. The cover design of these planners differs from year to year but it always says something that's supposed to be motivational. Currently the front of my planner says "What am I supposed to do?", and then it answers its own question in significantly bigger font with "Do the right thing!" I never really noticed it said this until a couple days ago, probably an indication of how often I actually write down my homework in that planner.

Do the right thing. What a silly thing to say! How am I supposed to know what the right thing is? I mean, sometimes it's easy to discern between right and wrong. It's right to help an old lady cross the street. It's wrong to kick an old lady and steal her purse while she's trying to cross the street. But not everything is that straightforward. In fact, almost nothing is. Even decisions that seem easy always end up being more complicated then they appear.

When you are six years old, "do the right thing" is a great message. The life of a child is pretty simple and so are the decisions they are forced to make. But as you get older, the definitive line between good and bad gets fuzzy. Sometimes their is no right decision but only a more right one because no matter what you do, someone will get hurt. Sometimes hurting people is the the right decision. Sometimes every choice has the potential for right and wrong, in which case one must set off in the direction they can only hope will be positive. It seems to me the statement does not belong on a notebook meant for high school students. The front of my planner makes "do the right thing" seem so simple with its visually pleasing font, but I find myself frustrated and confused by the generalization.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Yesterday, I was exploring old bookshelves in a room neither I nor anyone else in my family often bothers with. Nearly all of these books belong to my dad, novels he must have read at one point but have since been retired to a secluded section of shelf space upstairs. I was scanning through them when I came across a book that caught my eye not for its title, but for the multi-colorful binding . It was a book I had not seen in a long time, a children's book that looked out of place in a sea of biographies and historical fiction.

Oh, The Places You'll Go. A book that defines my childhood, along with many other childhoods of the past, present, and future (hopefully). I probably liked this book even before I understood the words simply for the colorful pictures and rhythmic sentences. The first real clue that I would one day be absolutely infatuated with poetry. On the inside cover I found this:

"I love this book! It's something inspirational to pull
out when you feel like a putz. Happy Birthday!"

My uncle gave this book to my dad for his birthday in 1991, when they were both in their twenties! My uncle's note made me think about how those childish things most adults seem to dismiss might not be as silly as they appear. Take this book as an example. If you strip away all the illustrations, the witty rhyme scheme, and the words that aren't words, you are left with a clear message: You can achieve. It's simplistic of course, but I think it speaks to a fundamental truth that we can all find inspiration in. If you ever feel frazzled by life's frustrating complexity, I would recommend going back to basics. Not only is it a comfort to connect to a simpler time, but it may even give you some insight into your current state of affairs. Sometimes, people forget that some of the most important things happen to be the simplest. Being able to find meaning in books like Oh, the Places You'll Go, is a beautiful skill to have. A skill my uncle still has, and one I hope I will keep far into my future.

"You're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!"

 - Dr. Seuss

The Value of Instead

Hysterical front porch jabber about nothing
And nostalgic back porch discussions about everything
Painting red toenails and catching warm breeze
With them she could talk for hours with ease

Listen to the songs that made her cry
To try to know that this is goodbye
Yet only till she entered her vacuous bed
Could she finally fathom the value of  instead

I took the SATs today!

As the title of this blog post suggests, I did in fact wake up at 6:45 on a Saturday morning to take a lovely little test known as the SAT (but most commonly referred to by students as "death itself"). This "lovely little test" can more accurately be explained as an unnecessarily long four hour exam that must be endured by nearly every student planning on applying to an American college. Needless to say, this morning was not my best, but surprisingly, not my worst either.

My mom drove me to the high school one town over where the test was being administered. I couldn't help but fidget with the buttons on my graphing calculator and tap my toes to that catchy Enrique Iglesias song a little too forcefully. I hate getting all worked up about this kind of thing because because I know the SATs don't matter, not really. What's the difference if I score 500 points this way or that? My score will only be a portion of what the admission's staff at any particular school will examine when deciding whether to accept me into their glorious institution. In the grand scheme of my life, a high SAT score means absolutely nothing.

Even so, I can't help but feel the obsessive need to do well. Maybe it comes from society's absurdly high expectations regarding education forcing their way into my thought process. Maybe I just want to make sure all the money my parents spent on SAT prep courses pays off. It's probably both, but as I approached the test center entrance, all I could think about was keeping my cereal down. Thankfully, I found a group of people from my school and stood with them awkwardly because my good friends hadn't arrived yet. You know the kind of dreams where random people from your life show up in places they are not supposed to be? Like when your dreaming about relaxing on the shores of a distant tropical island and suddenly you notice the Varsity Football Team doing squat jumps across the length of the beach? That is what waiting to take the SAT feels like. In the ten minutes I spent anticipating my entrance into the the testing room, I saw girls from my sleep-away camp, a girl from my 5th grade travel soccer team, kids I knew from middle school, kids that used to go to my school before switching to private school, and even a few kids that I swear I recognized but couldn't quite place. This bizarre, worlds colliding kind of experience only contributed to the feeling of uneasiness that I felt prior to test time.

When I finally sat down to take the test, I realized it wasn't that bad. I couldn't answer every question, but as I progressed through the test I realized that I knew more than I had initially given myself credit for. The test was long, and though my hand began to cramp with an hour still to go, I felt confident about the work I had accomplished and optimistic about the sections I had yet to complete. I wrote my essay about how "The Jersey Shore" creates misconceptions toward people of Italian decent, which I thoroughly enjoyed writing. And my testing room was full of giraffes. Posters of giraffes, small stuffed giraffes, giraffe cartoons with speech bubbles written in spanish, giraffe magnets, and even a large giraffe statue. Oh, and there was one poster of a koala bear. Poor lonely koala bear.

The SATs are hardly the nightmare students make them out to be. What I had assumed was going to be a painful experience comparable to that of mandatory torture or forced labor actually turned out to be more of a general unpleasantness. I didn't suffer through it so much as I stumbled along, occasionally hitting bumps in the road but ultimately reaching the other side unscathed.

Greek Mythology is Fascinating

Every year there is this event at my school called Olympics. It’s basically this super big competition where each grade picks a theme and a color and we compete against each other, mostly in sports, but points are also awarded for team spirit, decorations, etc. The seniors almost always win, and while the freshmen and sophomores really don’t stand a chance, the juniors have been known to swing a victory periodically in our school’s history. Can I here a woot woot for the 2012 junior class aka my class!


Anyway, my grade’s theme this year is Junior Olympians (it’s just a coincidence that our theme is so closely related to the name of the competition). I started researching Ancient Greek culture so I could get some costume ideas for our dress-up day, but then I started researching Greek Mythology and I realized it is so cool. These gods are not just big mighty bearded assholes that sit up in the sky all day. Well actually a lot of them are assholes, but that’s why Greek Mythology is so interesting. They are Gods, but they are so human. They quarrel, they betray each other, they kill, they love, they destroy, they rebuild. They even interact with people on earth and have children with them which frankly I don’t understand, nor do I care to.  It’s not my idea of the supernatural, but it would make a great afternoon soap opera! A Greek Mythology Soap Opera. Someone needs to make that happen.  


 As I was reading descriptions of the major gods and goddesses, I came across one goddess in particular that struck me. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, sports, crafts, strength, and a whole slew of other admirable qualities. She pwned Poseidon and was praised by the Athenian people when she gave them the gift of an olive branch, providing them with wood, oil, and food.  Athena engaged in a weaving contest with a mortal named Arachne who claimed she could weave better than Athena. When Athena beat her, she turned her into a spider to punish her for her arrogance so she could continue to weave with “neither a spindle nor loom.” AND when the god Hephaestus attempted to rape Athena she eluded him and his semen fell to earth and impregnated some other chick! How awesome is she?


Athena is a true matriarch. Her confidence and wisdom has earned her a spot on my list of people who inspire me. She is the second non-human to make this list. Extra points if you can guess who the other nonperson is.


       Best wishes!           

Cosmic Make Believe

 - A Doctor Who inspired poem from a companion perspective. This cynical view of the Doctor is not my personal opinion, but similar ideas have been touched upon in a number of episodes, so I thought it would make an interesting poem!

We travel with a sick desire
To send these planets off with fire
Escaping then to view the show
The product of our fairytale crime

Beaming through space and believing
As we play progression of time
That this the product of imagination
Your ingenuity or inspiration

Indulging in cosmic fantasy
A reckless way to make believe
For you know even better than me
That this adventure is no dream

Physics

My spectacular separate perspective
I keep my distance because you make me breathless
Yet even here I am crushed by your gravity
Crashing and collapsing under physical attraction
I’ve entered your orbit and you wonder why
This pitiful creature has come here to die
Ignore and retract to ease the weight
In the delusional hope that this saves the interaction
These pushes and pulls are not my intention
You are the cause of these awkward exchanges
Your quirky comments and that beautiful grin
Your fault in the first place that I was sucked in
I know you're confused, I know I should tell
But I’m still too far and not one to yell

We Are Not Acrobats

Dazed and depleted, stressed and defeated
All I want to do is melt into my mattress
But I need to be a scholar before I can be tired
Learning and spinning and spitting information
They say you’ll need speed to keep up with the nation
Race to the top when we already float
Score a five so we privileged can gloat
Pushing and stretching and forcing and bending
We are not acrobats, we look silly pretending