Ideas escape books' constraints

We live in an amazing time. It is both exciting and terrifying. We can communicate our ideas across so many mediums to so many people. As a good friend told me a few months ago, it is the ideas that matter the most, not the books that contain them.

I have always thirsted for knowledge, but I have recently realised that the knowledge I have consumed is the knowledge that other people have fed me. I desired so much to succeed in school, in a traditional setting, that I missed out on a lot of things.

My new lover has opened up so many worlds to me that I never knew existed. Forms of knowledge and ways of knowing that absolutely astound me. Things I cannot find words for, things I can't even begin to define. Things as wonderful, terrifying, and unknowable as God.

And all that knowledge is out there, but it is up to us to sort through it now. Our level of connectivity is both benificial and detrimental to us. Because as easily as positive ideas can spread, negative ones can invade. Find the things that help you and stick to them. Acknowledge but do not internalize the rest.

Word pics

Labels - good for food, not for people

You can't label me. You can try. But you can't force me to self-identify. I prefer not to provide personal information on a survey, to check the boxes that would categorize me. Because, as soon as I do, you will judge me. You will make assumptions about the type of person I am. At the bottom of it, I am only me - an entirely unique individual. Take the time to know me. Don't try to label me. And, unless you want to, I won't make you label yourself, either.

Can't dare to put my fingers in my.... too scary

There was a point in time when I was convinced masturbating was something that only boys did. In fact, that only boys COULD do. Part of my reasoning was the "master" part of the word (I often misspelled it - masterbate).

Some of my relatives were very old-fashioned and would address birthday cards to "Miss Kaitlyn" or "Master Bryce." So, I assumed that the "master" in "masterbate" referred only to boys. Strange how the young mind works, isn't it?

It wasn't until I read about it in a magazine - probably Seventeen - that I realised girls could masturbate, too. Turned out that I had been doing it for a while, not really knowing what I was doing, just knowing that it felt good. But it wasn't until I read that article that I even considered touching myself with my hands.

On the interwebs I found a frank and straight-forward discussion among young teens, most of them in the 13-15 age range. Their thoughts and fears about masterbating closely mirror my own at that age. I found it amusing but also revealing that so many young people are embarrassed about their masturbation and feel like they have to sneak around and hide that they please themselves.

Young teens discuss this topic.

A Talking Vagina

Yours truly has been cast in The Vagina Monologues, a fun and irreverent feminist play if there ever was one. I don't get to do the infamous moaning bit (thank God, I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face!) but I will be involved in two of the monologues. One is My Vagina is a Village, the other is I Was There in the Room. The performance will be in March at the University of Wisconsin - Parkside. Details to come soon.

What I love about this play is that it reclaims the vagina. After reading it for the first time a few months ago, I decided to "discover" my vagina. This meant pulling out a hand mirror and taking a look at it. As a twenty-five-year-old woman it was amazing that I had never actually SEEN my vagina. I also hadn't seen porn, either, but that's another story.

The vagina is a beautiful thing when you really take a look at it. It just has so many layers! I remember in health class shouting the word VAGINA because all of us were just so goddam ashamed of even saying it. How is it that everyone is so comfortable saying penis, dick, cock and sometimes even pussy, but never vagina. Never vagina.

This NEEDS to change!

Vagina Monologues script

The universe is trying to tell you something

Emotional Attachment to Words

Words can be used negatively to impact the way people feel about themselves and others. Take, for instance, racial slurs and epithets. A word like "nigger" for example, has so many negative connotations that white people, like myself, cannot use it in polite speach. Even, might I add, to talk about it as a word, without using it as an insult.

A friend of mine touched on the emotional attachment to words on Facebook today. Although I am taking what he wrote about a little out of context, he did make an interesting point. Sometimes "someone's emotional attachment to words is so strong that [it] hinders their abilities to cope with life." He then went on to use his own words in a negative way and say that these people "should end it" (referring to their lives).

I hope that more people learn to use words in positive ways and create new meanings for words that once meant derrogatory things. The Vagina Monologues and the feminist movement, for example, have worked to reclaim words like "bitch" and "cunt" to represent female power.

The Power of Negative Thinking

In high school, some of my goth/emo friends and I (but don't you dare call them goth! - though that's exactly what we were) kept a rant notebook. At first, it seemed like a good idea - to get all that pent-up energy out on the page, to share it with friends who could comment upon it. I, however, took it to the next level.

When the notebook was in my possession, I would make ridiculously long lists of all the things in the world I hated. From ex-boyfriends to the high note in the national anthem to pencil shavings. You name it, I hated it. Even zippers. Not just stuck zippers that keep you from putting on your coat. ALL zippers, without qualification.

When they let me have the notebook for an entire weekend, I filled more than half of it with my own personal rants and then proceeded to pen a suicide note about how I couldn't live in a world filled with so many things that I hated.

It's amazing what the power of negative thinking can do for you.

Let's have text sex!

Like anyone else, I love me my computer connectivity. I also, however, have learned to SHUT IT OFF and engage in conversation with REAL LIVE PEOPLE once in a while. A friend of mine insists upon text-messaging as his sole means of communication. I didn't mind it so much when I am busy - or when I'm supposed to be busy - like working third shift or whatnot. But when I want a real conversation with him, it's a little bit annoying.

The other day, when I called him instead of sending him a text message, I think I caught him a little off guard. To him, that must be like leaving my house to show up at his door unannounced. And via text message it seems like we only have the sort of social off-handed conversations that mere acquaintances share. But maybe that's the type of distance he is comfortable with.

Now, what gets ridiculous is when you're having text sex - without pictures. Talk about distance.

Writing therapy

Writing has and always will be my therapy - the way I take the words I can't quite say and capture them on the page. Problem is - the words conjured in my head come too quickly. I can't keep up with them. They run too fast.

So when I sit down to trap them in my notebook, they finally sit nicely on the shelf of each line. I like their shapes, their structure. I smile at them. I rearrange them until they make sense outside of me, and then I can take them back in.

Then they can sit just as nicely in my head.

No More Poetry?

At the advice of a friend of mine, I will no longer be posting my poetry on this blog - at least in the finished state. It seems that literary journals and such are less willing to publish something that has already been published, even if it is in my wee little blog. Next question: what about YouTube videos? Does that count as being published?

Re-Sourcing My Energy

I will find the resources I need. I am very resourceful when I need to be. But these “resources” we refer to...what does it mean to “re-source”? Why can't we just “source”? Is it because we are using so-called raw substances to create something else? Perhaps.




It seems that we are always short on resources, that we do not have enough to go around. Is that what defines a resource? Must it be scarce to be useful? Contemplate these things, and tell me if what we really need are resources or something else entirely different.



There are so many sources that might be infinitely more useful, like hope and faith, for example, like good friends and family who can help us find the things we really need. And of course, we must make the fine distinction between want and need. It is a distinction we must keep making and keep defining for ourselves.



We need food. We need water. We need shelter. These things are a given. But those other things? Like a sense of purpose. Like people who care about us. These are a little harder to pin down. And in today's day and age, we find ourselves needing things we used to only want.



Like the internet, for instance. Without it, I feel so lost and disconnected from everything and everyone I know. At the same time, I know that I will not physically die without it. It will not sustain me in any real way.

Web html test

 just playing around to see if I remember anything
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cool shit

Kenosha Poet Laureate

The Kenosha Public Library will be choosing a local poet to serve as the Poet Laureate of Kenosha and yours truly is applying for the position. In the course of the next two weeks, I will post the poems I plan to include in my portfolio. Among them are Cussing at the Crossroads and Doctoring, both of which have both appeared in this blog within the last month.

I will offer a brief explanation/synopsis/commentary on each poem, but I would like to get some feedback on these if you will indulge me. Afterall, if my friends don't like these poems (and they should)), how can I expect to impress a panel of judges?

So, without any further ado, the first poem in this series:

This is one of my more philosophical poems, writen in prose form without traditional line breaks. The rough draft was written before punching in for work at Walgreens.



Learning to Share


Trap happiness in a jar like a butterfly, but know that the longer you hold it there, the more quickly it will die. It must fly free, lighting upon each flower for only an instant. It must pollinate the entire population.




Happiness is not yours to hoard.