(Mis)Overheard in Estes

I was in Estes today with my dad, and I overheard the following conversation:

Little Boy: Where did we park?

Dad: Right behind the red dildo.

Little Boy: Oh! There it is!

This Week in Forgotten Photos: Bob Dylan's Bloated Genius

I am frantically putting together a present for my Dad who is coming tomorrow. My sister and I are making a scrapbook journal thing of our trip to London. So I was looking through all of the photos we took, and I came across this one, which had somehow escaped my view until now, though I vividly remember taking it.


Yes, that is me in front of Bob Dylan's awful rape painting. My sister and I were in Harrods and we came upon Bob Dylan's masterpiece, "Rape is Not Sex and Cowboys and Bob Dylan is the Statue of Liberty?". I don't know if that is the real name of this painting, but that is what is should be called. There was a snobby Harrods employee right out of frame when I asked my confused sister to take this picture, and I was afraid she would not allow the strange antics of a giggling teenage American to continue in her area. But she seemed to allow it, and my sister snapped the photo.

The bloated look on my face is because Bob Dylan is raping me. And it is not sex. You have probably already seen pictures of this painting (and giggled at said pictures) but here is a closeup in case you've forgotten:

Bob Dylan, please, I love your music and you are fantastic, but please leave painting to people who know what their doing. Namely, this guy.

This just made me laugh the pants off of myself

(Click on that there picture to go read it in a much better way on Wondermark's site)

...and I'm not even wearing pants today so that is weird.

Puppets are real people too!

I just finished watching the latest Moral Orel episode ("Sacrifice"). It really got me depressed, as Moral Orel episodes are wont to do, and thinking hard. The father, Clay, gives this amazing drunken rant that shows a humanity to his character I hadn't really seen before. This season of Moral Orel has been especially depressing. It's also probably the most heartfelt show I'm watching right now. Maybe it's because the writers know this is their last season and they only have 13 episodes to do what they had planned to carry out in a few more seasons, but every episode is just...it makes me amazed at the effect little puppet people can have on me. The puppet people are 'horrible people' yes, and also puppets, but the more I watch, the more I see myself in these stupid clay things.


But back to the rant, and the reason for this post. I'm just going to quote the majority of what Clay says, because otherwise it would just get really confusing.

"...and then when you finally get one of these...coveted pieces of tail that have been built up as the grand trophy in your nothing life, you try desperately to keep it. Not to protect it, but to hoard it. To keep it away from the other wolves and jackals circling your territory. And you realize, all too soon, that you're not good enough. That maybe there was a jerkoff called Darwin after all, and that you never acknowledged his existence because you knew deep inside that you were really what you feared you were: weak and passive and ultimately broken by the ones that were made the fittest. And that through your weaknesses you built up a poison that poisoned others around you...that you love. And the only true justice was to let those dominate jackals feed on you, survive off you."

The way that Clay speaks this...he should win an award of some kind. I think this monologue hit me so hard, not because I see myself as being this sucked-dry-poisonous-horrible-shell-of-a-person that Clay is, but because I see the potential for his words to become true in my life. I've come to a conclusion. A sometimes angering and desperate and painful conclusion, but a conclusion I hope to follow, so I don't wake up one day in the middle of a drunken stupor and find myself where Clay is. Too many people get into relationships when they clearly aren't ready for said relationships. And relationships between two people who aren't emotionally ready for a relationship inevitably fail, fall apart, or end up in a poisonous cycle of poison like the one between Clay and Bloberta. Sometimes even the thought of such a relationship is enough to make it fall apart before it even gets up and walking. These relationships inevitably fail because if one or both people is insecure, they will inevitably project that insecurity onto the other person and blame them for things that are their own fault (the "poison" Clay speaks of). I happen to have found myself in this category of people quite a few times. I've beat myself up wondering why I was somehow incapable of loving another human being, and found that I didn't even love myself. In finding that, I started to question what love even meant, and whether I had ever truly loved in my life. "Well, loving your family is a given," I thought, desperately trying to find some source of love in my life. "But is it? What the hell does that mean?" Did I come out of the womb loving my mother, my sister, my pappa? Or did I learn to love them? What is it even like to love yourself? To love someone else?

I am not totally against myself. I intend to create good in the world. Not huge things, but small, everyday things. I try to let others know how much they mean to me. Is that love? It feels like love. I know I'm not a really terrible person. I mean, I don't wish bad on anyone. Or at least, for the most part I don't.

...

Yesterday I was listening to This American Life. One of the acts focused on what happens when people die alone. I don't mean alone as in not married or whatever, but really alone alone. No relatives or friends or anybody. This woman had died alone and had built herself a life in her living room. I imagined the woman building herself a cocoon. A cocoon to comfort her, to tell her everything was fine, to tell her she was not alone. There was another woman whose husband had died in one of the World Wars. Her life froze the moment she found out. For decades she had refused to move forward, to build herself a new life. I thought all this was so sad and so beautiful.

...

Should I just turn my brain off for a while, jump in the ocean and hope I can figure out to swim before I drown? I am sure some people have found themselves, and learned to love themselves while in relationships. Haven't they? I just don't think this is my path. If it were, I'm sure my brain would allow this, instead of rejecting the idea.

Sometimes I feel so empty and I just want to fill the emptiness with things that will make me better. Maybe I just have to accept the emptiness as a constant, and try to love the emptiness. Then, will the emptiness get less? Or will the fullness just become greater than the emptiness, making the emptiness seem not so empty? Thank you Moral Orel, for sparking this thinking thing. For as depressing as you are, for as depressing as this post may appear on the outside, it really shouldn't be depressing at all. In fact, it is the opposite of depressing. It is growth. A growth toward something bigger and fuller and happier and fatter. I hope I will have nicer dreams tonight than the dreams I dream while I am awake.

Oh God

The couch is pulsing. Is there something living inside it?

That is all.

Things that can apparently make me cry...

1. "Sasha and Malia, you've earned the new puppy that will be coming with us to the White House." Puppies always bring out my emotional side. Presidential puppies?! Definitely cry worthy.

2. Ebert's blog post, which I read at 4:00 this morning, made me weep like a hosepipe. I love you Roger Ebert.

3. Rewatching Obama's speech this morning. Something about last night made it seem completely unreal. My mind rejected the fact that the election was over, after months and months of obsessively following everything. I think this is finally sinking in today. It's a good feeling.

4. Hearing Condoleezza Rice's emotional comments this morning, I was surprised to find myself tearing up at Condi's words. I'm not quite sure why. I think I might just be overly emotional.

(5.) Prop 8 (and other similar initiatives) passing. This doesn't count in the same way as the other four things (thus the parentheses) because I was crying for a completely different reason. I am still determined and optomistic, however heartbreaking this news is at the moment, that I will in my lifetime see same sex marriage become recognized under law in the entire country. For my mama's sake.

I realize that Obama supporters all over the country are currently celebrating their butts off, while others are upset and worried for this country. I sincerely wish those who are disappointed do not take the following comments as gloating, talking down to or putting their views down in any way, because that is antithetical to my point. But, in my completely unasked for opinion, this election (no matter your political beliefs) can bring change that doesn't favor either party, change that doesn't really even come from politicians. In the past 24 hours I have felt a distinct and profound change in the way people are looking at the world. I have seen people - cynical, angry, tired people like myself - become overjoyed and proud of the country they live in. Hope doesn't feel like a mindless slogan anymore. It is instead a feeling which has never before today applied to my thoughts about this country. I've talked to a lot of people who feel the same. So I hope this feeling of optimism prevails, I hope people continue to hope that things will get better, and I hope people will then work to actually make things get better. Because this whole mess the world is in will be difficult enough to overcome on its own. Belief is huge. And though belief by itself will not fix any of the world's problems, it is only when people truly believe the world can change, that the opportunity for change actually arrives.

Get Out the (Naked) Vote!

I just found out that it is illegal to electioneer within 100 ft of a polling place in Colorado. I think we all know what that means. Wear all your Obama or McCain or Nader or Barr (just kidding...no one will vote for Barr) t-shirts, underwear, and pants to the polling place, then when the people there tell you to remove your things, you get to vote naked! Or you could just forgo all of the above and just show up naked. Either way, GOTNV!

Wandicorn and TV on the Radio

Ahh! Guys, so much is happening! I'm not busy by any stretch of the imagination, since I no longer have a job to rape me of my waking hours, but I have been doing a lot and having the most fun!


As you could probably not guess from the above crappy cell phone picture, I just got back from seeing TV on the Radio in Denver. It was extreme. Those guys were pretty cool guys. My sister, her boyfriend, my cousin and I went out to eat before the concert at this really spiffy vegetarian restaurant called the Watercourse (I think that's what it was called) and while we were eating delicious sandwiches and such Beardy from TV on the Radio walks in! Whooo, Beardy! I don't really know his name, but if you've ever seen pictures of TV on the Radio or have seen them on TV or live or whatever, you'll know which one I'm talking about. My sister's boyfriend talked to him, and I peeked around the corner from the back of the restaurant like a goof. The concert was a most rad time, though. They played all of their best songs and, though they aren't the best band live in a musical sense, they really brought the energy. We also all agreed that it was really refreshing to see a band perform live that wasn't completely wasted. Man was that lead singer sweaty though. Wah.

I guess I'll just go backwards from there and tell you guys about Purple Rain, which is a movie staring and about Prince that I watched last night. I'm not necessarily a Prince fan (though I do enjoy some of his songs), but that movie just oozed sex. Prince knows he is too cool for the rest of us to handle. He did this dance while singing "Darling Nikki" that made me laugh hysterically. It was sort of a self head groping something. I guess what you should take away from this story is go watch Purple Rain.

The day before the Prince madness was Halloween, which was very fun because Parker had a hoppin' party and I got to show off my costume me and my momma worked very hard on. Wandicorn is where all the love in my life stems from, so it was very incredible dressing up like this majestic creature. Here is a picture my mom took of me in my costume today:


I submitted my costume into two contests on the internet, so maybe I might win something. Hopefully. I also secretly hope that Harry and the Potters find out about my costume and become my groupie. You gotta dream big people. I am dreaming big.