You're Welcome

I've got wherever it takes
to stand out
above the crowd
even if I gotta shout out loud
till mine is the only face you'll see
gonna stand out
stand out yeah
stand out yeah yeah yeah yeah
stand out
till mine is the only face you'll see
gonna stand out
till you notice me

words schmerds

There once was a little girl who owned a leopard-printed purse and a lack of words. She tried to speak but had yet learned enough words to piece together in order to accurately articulate the thoughts she thought or the feelings she felt. Hot stem of frustration would billow out of her ears at every attempt to speak. This was a growing problem for this little leopard-printed-purse-carrying girl. After a farcical outburst in the cafeteria (over corn dogs from what I could gather), she slowly began to withdraw from society. She moved into the woods with only her limited vocabulary to keep her company. 

Moral of the story: Make your children learn GRE words starting at the ripe ole age of five years.

Untitled #001

This past March I was on a team that went to Texas. This is my absolute favorite quote from the trip: "Three things make my wife cry. Old people, Native Americans, and Louisiana coastal erosion." I have never met this woman but I'm pretty sure I would like her.

Library

    I found this on my computer the other day. I'm pretty sure I wrote this sometime last summer.

I got a library card last week and I've been there three times since then. It's very easily becoming one of my favorite places in Lafayette. It has this sort of 1970s vibe to it...the architecture, the style, the windows, the chairs. The first time I went, I was looking for a GRE prep book. The guy from the circulation desk that was helping find the book asked me what I was going for. I told him anthropology. He said that he had received his masters from LSU in the same field. His thesis was on political cartoons pertaining to Native Americans and the casino industry. It didn't surprise me that he was an anthro major. We talked for awhile about anthropology and graduate school, our only shared piece of history. He was a pleasant fellow with a long black ponytail streaked with grey, although I left feeling slightly disheartened. He has a masters degree in cultural anthropology and is working at the circulation desk at the local library.
    Yesterday Joi and I rode our bikes down there again. Another reason I love the library, I get to ride through downtown to get there. She got her own copy of the Catcher in the Rye, then we proceeded to check out. While the lady was checking us out, I told her that I thought the library card keychains were a great idea. (When you sign up for a library card you get a normal library card and another one that goes on your key chain. It looks like one of those win-dixie money-saving keychain cards.) She looked up and after a long pause said "....okaaay." Really dragged it out too. It's like she really didn't know how to respond to me. It was as though she was thinking, "this is strictly a business transaction, no conversation necessary." Kind of fun to breakup someone's normal routine with human interaction.
    When we were leaving the old security who sits near the door said "I'm beginning to feel like I've known you two for a long time." For we had talked to him in that very same spot the day before. Laughter followed us out the door and we hopped on our blue bikes and rode home. The end.

Likes and Nots

To keep it balanced for every don't I need a like.


I don't like gauchos.
I like ponchos.
I don't like dictators.
I like dictionaries.
I don't like child soldiers.
I like old people hands.
I don't like discrimination.
I like origami cranes.
I don't like bras.
I like sisters.
I don't like writing on chalk boards...or writing vertically at all for that matter.
I like pencils.
I don't like insurance.
I like nature.
I don't like public speaking in Spanish.
I like spoken word poetry.
I don't like high heels.
I like community.
I don't like when the author's name is bigger than the title on a book cover.
I like Dylan's lyrics.
I don't like to shower.
I like knitting.
I don't like the fuzzies in socks when you wear them right side in.
I like maps and globes.
I don't like party planning.
I like hearing laughter.
I don't like telling people to 'be safe'.
I like roadtrips.
I don't like loopy bubbles in letters (like when people write the letter 'm' for instance and have a small loop on the middle line of the 'm').
I like pocket-sized notebooks.
I don't like frat boy sunglasses connector bands.
I like blonde eyelashes.
I don't like sticky hands.
I like helping others.
I don't like seeing thirteen-year-old girls in Starbucks.
I like bookstores.
I don't like air conditioners blowing cold air directly on me.
I like aboriginals.
I don't like chicken noodle soup.
I like modern dance.
I don't like eight hour bus rides packed to the brim from Cairo.
I like documentaries.
I don't like realizing that the b.o. smell is coming from the shirt that I pull off the floor to wear.
I like Mother Theresa quotes.
I don't like alarm clocks.
I like Native American prints.
I don't like alarm clocks.
I like hammocks.
I don't like itchy sweaters.
I like baby owls.
I don't like wasting.
I like hiking backpacks.
I don't like writing on the backs of pages. (But I'm trying to overcome for green's sake.)
I like different cultures.
I like napping in parks too.

BurgKing

Outside blacks and whites are yelling and fighting each other
within the fighting ring of the Burger King parking lot.
As we sit in our sheltered yellow house living, loving, dating,
cooking, and rooming together. We hear the noise but we just can't
quite understand what exactly they are saying.
So we open our windows and try to let our love escape.


(While trying to study in our living room, this was the scene outside.)

Lady Wanderlust

She walks lightly upon the soil.

Tiptoeing around the edge of a concrete jungle.

Modern nomad with proud Indian chief feathers 

braided into her tangled hair.

She stands tall because she has nothing to hide.

With a whimsical collection of stories tucked away 

in the pocket of her tattered jean cut-offs.

Mobile roots in Argentine boots.

Diaspora.

 Traveling because the earth beneath her moves.

 The wind dances between her fingertips

while the sun kisses her shoulders.

Freckles drape across the tip of her nose 

 and the peaks of her cheeks.

Forming a typographical map across her face.

She just couldn't sit still. 

Her song is soft intertwining with the wind. 

                                                            A calling for others to join in.

 The traveler's tale ends with only traces of her trail.

Walking alone on a southern train track rail. 

 

Blonde Bangs

Last semester, I took a social action class. It was all about how bring about social change, a how-to-class on mobilizing people and practical steps toward social action. This class was a typical sociology class, but atypical to most other majors. I'll explain. For instance, every class period we would disrupt the accepted and rearrange the classroom so that all of the desks were in an inclusive circle. (Single file rows being leftovers from the Industrial Revolution. We're taught to sit quietly, look to the front, and listen. This kind of obedience makes for good factory workers.) Anyways, our clustered desk circle was our way of refusing to partake of the leftovers. This was the scene of our classroom until winter faded into spring then classes were moved outside. When the weather permitted, our class gathered under a tree in the quad. Dr. Pogue was our teacher, a wonderful teacher. She is one of those 1960s Vietnam War protestors turned college professor. Complete with a petite frame, blonde bangs, and an endearing Alabama accent (trust me, it grows on you). She always had a way of saying things that kept you thinking about it for weeks. One day under the tree in quad, Dr. Pogue began lecturing about developing an emotional vocabulary. She said that the average person has about 19 words to sum up the array of emotions they feel. Under 20 words to identify the various emotions that come from the human experience. This limited 'emotional vocabulary' stunts us from experiencing. This culture thinks in words, unlike some societies that use pictures. If we do not have the vocabulary to articulate what we are feeling, then we push it aside. We don't have the ability to identify our emotions with words, so we push it away. We don't experience it because we can articulate it; we don't experience it because we don't have the words to identify those emotions. This is why we can see the earthquakes in Japan on Channel 10, feel 'bad', flip the channel to Grey's Anatomy, and continue eating our parmesan chicken.

In another class, she said, "Until you know yourself, you don't know anyone else in this room." Until you know yourself, you don't know anyone else in this room--scribbled across my notes. I knew this was something I wanted to remember. This statement followed a story of when she was in graduate school. She was taking a class about helping others. Her first assignment was to write an essay about why she wanted to help people. The following class period, the professor handed all of the papers back and said to do it again because it wasn't true. At least, not the whole truth. Dig deeper. What are the real reasons you want to help people? In her revision, she stated that she is unavoidably curious about humanity. She wants to see the depth of humanity, the dirtiest and hardest parts "so that I am not so bad stacked up against it."
The professor then made them read their essays aloud to the entire class. Turning back to our class in a non-condescending tone she said, "Until you know yourself, you don't know anyone else in this room."

Cool like the bee's knees

Two Things.
I was once asked by an octogenarian to replace the word "cool" with better words such as "neat". He was really asking my entire generation, I happen to be the only one listening. He is not fond of that word and neat is simply a better one. For Jim's sake, I will try.

Today, I was reminded of the idiom "the bee's knees". I have heard it before but had not a clue what it meant. Results, the expression means excellence or the height of excellence. The reason for the saying could be "because bees carry pollen back to the hive in sacs on their legs. The allusion is to the concentrated goodness found around the bee's knees." (Just in case you were wondering.)

Last Summer Crisis

As I write this I am in my quaint little backyard
sitting on a cement block, hugging the side of the house
trying to remain in the ever-fleeting shade
toes buried deep in grass
fingers dancing across the keys as single strand of hair falls on to my keyboard
another reminder of my fate: baldness.

It started falling a couple of months ago right around the time of finals.
I thought it would stop after the stress past. Not so.
My mother thinks its the way I live, life on the run.
When the semester ended I hit the road, traveling non-stop for nearly six weeks.
I believe it's my diet, more specifically, my lack-of-protein diet that has led me to this point. Don't be mislead, I am not a vegetarian. It's just that meat and I have been at odds with each other for as long as I can remember. The idea of chewing on something that never disintegrates and you eventually just have to swallow it whole to make room for the next bite has never been very appealing to me. Today is day three of my I-do-not-want-to-be-bald-when-I'm-twenty-three diet.
Black beans and eggs are my new best friends and I'm about to be introduced to tofu. A wise man once told me: be kind to your sebaceous glands and your sebaceous glands will be kind back to you. Soon I will learned how to grill tilapia and chicken breast. And I will do it with a smile on my face. My dear health fanatic aunt has got me popping vitamins like there's no tomorrow. Acidophilus, MSM, Barley, and a boastfully bragging bottle of low odor B Complex to name a few.

So here are my goodbyes, laments, and apologies to the head of hair that has been with me for two good decades.
I know I haven't always treated you the best: tying you up in ponytails, scolding you with hot iron, letting you get tangled, matted and dreaded, forgetting to wash you, refusing to condition, brush and pamper you. I could've treated you better but I didn't. I could've feed you the proteins that your follicles so desperately needed but I didn't. I was selfish and put my own wants in front of your needs. And for this I am sorry. It's hard to part but I need to say goodbye before it's too late and thank you for 20 great years.

The Dreaded First Post

I wish that I could bypass the first post and start my blog right in the middle of my blog. As with most things, there must be a beginning and hesitantly I've succumbed to mine within the blogging community. I guess it's the introductions, formalities and purpose of writing this blog that are a few things I'd rather just skip instead articulating. But here goes. The purpose of this blog is more or less a creative outlet for me. It will give me a reason to keep writing even if it for an audience of two (Janna and Joi)--a fabulous audience, I might add.  Also, I have the memory of goldfish, so this will be an excellent means of documentation. I need a way to witness the evolution, so I'll know who I was now looking back years down the road. A voyage of self-discovery of sorts and this is my pocket-sized attempt at documenting it.
Okay, I think I've worked it out. Statement of Purpose: Simple documentation of an isolated subject and how it adapts to its surroundings and changes over time. Said subject: Me.

Background Information: I am one of six home-schooled children who all grew up in the same home without cable television yet somehow managed to assimilate nicely into the modern world. On a serious note, I have a wonderful family and I love them dearly. This past Saturday, I finished up my undergrad degree in anthropology and sociology. And frankly, the best part about those majors is people's reactions to it.
There's the ever-present Practical Response: "What on earth are you going to do with that and how do you plan on making any money?" (accompanied with a slightly pinched nose and raised upper lip combo).
The Unconvinced Support: "Oh, well, good for you." (with a nervous smile).
The Honestly Perplexed: "What is that?"
The Corny Jokester: "Oh yeah, that's the study of ants, right?" ha ha ha.
The Pop Culture Point of Reference: "Oh cool. Do you watch that t.v. show Bones?"
In all actuality, I'm still not quite sure what I will do with it but I enjoy it. I'm really interested in studying minority groups, social stratification, and the concept of race. Suffice it to say, it's a small job market.  
 I'm not into planning. I'm cycling across the country this summer. I knit. I'm inconsistent and this will be evident in the blog. As a child, I had odd collections. And I'm late for work. So bye!