30 Days to an Almost End - Day 15

An inspiring quote

July 6th-8th 2010
A. Voltaire

     Of all that is written I love only what a man has written with his blood. Write with blood, and you will experience that blood is spirit.
     It is not easily possible to understand the blood of another: I hate reading idlers. Whoever knows the read will henceforth do nothing for the reader. Another century of readers—and the spirit itself will sink.
. . .
     Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read but to be learned by heart. In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak: but for that one must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks—and those who are addressed, tall and lofty. The air thin and pure, danger near, and the spirit full of gay sarcasm: these go well together. I want to have goblins around me, for I am courageous. Courage that puts ghosts to flight creates goblins for itself: courage wants to laugh.
     I no longer feel as you do: this cloud which I see beneath me, this blackness and gravity at which I laugh—this is your thundercloud.
     You look up when you feel the need for elevation. And I look down because I am elevated. Who among you can laugh and be elevated at the same time? Whoever climbs the highest mountains laughs at all tragic plays and tragic seriousness.
     Brave, unconcerned, mocking, violent—thus wisdom wants us: she is a woman and always loves only a warrior.
     You say to me, “Life is hard to bear.” But why would you have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening? Life is hard to bear; but do not act so tenderly! We are all of us fair beasts of burden, male and female asses. What do we have in common with the rosebud, which trembles because a drop of dew lies on it?
     True, we love life, but because we are used to living but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love. But there is always some reason in madness.
. . .
     I have learned to walk: ever since, I let myself run. I have learned to fly: ever since, I do not want to be pushed before moving along.
     Now I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a god dances through me.

     Thus spoke Zarathustra.

30 Days to an Almost End series list

30 Days to an Almost End - Day 12

Explain the person you love most

 

     He’s my brother. He’s anything and everything to me, forever and always. He is the only person I would ever consider giving my life for. If it came down to me or him, I would rather it be me.
     Never to worry, for I am here. You have no better protector than me.

30 Days to an Almost End - Day 10

A photo of you taken over three years ago

 

My dad & Me - October 2006

30 Days to an Almost End series list

30 Days to an Almost End - Day 02

Five pictures that you look at

and can't help smiling 

30 Days to an Almost End series list

Special Blast of(f) Space

Happy atheist Mother’s Day

     If there’s one thing I’m extremely proud of, it’s that my parents are both fairly atheistic.
     Growing up in this raped-by-religion world without someone shoving a theology down my throat—especially by my parents—has flung open wide countless doors for my mind to speculate and expand with scientific theories. As long as I can remember, I was always taught to believe science over a story, no matter how many people were whispering it into my ear.

     I laugh when people observe I am close-minded, or if they suggest I only have one view of things. Perhaps I do at times, although I do hope I don’t often come across as only having a single perspective. That alone goes against what my parents raised me to “believe in.” However, I will go on to say that I would rather seem narrow-minded into a scientific view of life than a one constructed of fairy tales.

     Happy Mother’s Day, mom. :)

P.S. My father is in my room as I type this, and asked me if I had seen the religious folks with megaphones last night during our drive through downtown. I answered with a no, and he replied, “Richard Dawkins hasn’t said it yet,”—I am watching “The Root of All Evil?”—“but these people have a mental sickness.”

Liberate Te Ex Inferis

     My boyfriend is asleep or so I think, my best friend never called me back to make plans like we were going to, my father’s reading Schopenhauer in the living room, and my mother is terrorizing the city with her friends.

     Although I rarely feel so nonexistent in this world to the people that matter most, a rarity unknown is how actually alive I feel. Today my horrors visited another human being, now I know that I am not the only one who knows them by first name. I am liberated. This is what it feels like to be free.

Advice of the Unwarranted

     My father constantly tells me the same things in a broken record repetition as if I didn’t already know the garbage he’s recycling. It’s something I don’t think I’ll ever logically understand.

     Here I am studying some hardcore topics of biology, and he remind me that I need to be careful with my laptop directly on my bed because the lack of ventilation could cause the fan to burn up.
     I get that he’s a father and he’s looking out for me, yet in my opinion my reasoning for why it was absolutely unnecessary outweighs why it could have been. Not only has he told me this same advice in mimicking context time and time before, but I’m fairly sure that anyone studying a subject as intricate as biology—especially using a laptop for all of their notes—can piece the not-so-jigsaw puzzle together of, “Hey, I better be careful with the laptop fan being placed directly on a blanket for long periods of time.”
     My point is that I know this. I do not know biology, so studying the subject is stressful and strenuous enough without distraction, criticism, or any other form of disturbance the world’s inhabitants like to offer me.
I feel like I’m hardly given a break by people that shouldn’t even be harassing me in the first place. They portray themselves in a way as if I’m doing is never good enough for the unwelcome opinions I don’t care to even hear.

     “You need a job.”
     “You need to read more.”
     “You need to study less.”
     “You need to hang out with friends more.”
     “You need to call more and email less.”
     “You need to remind me more often you care about me.”
     “You need to be careful with your laptop on the bed.”

     As I went through the list of suggestions, I realized I can fire back every single one of them justifiably at the person that shot me with an elaborate explanation.
     Perhaps if they bothered me less, they could work on themselves more with a result of unconcern for my life, plus maybe an actual understanding of why I do the things I do.
     If you question whether the “advice” above escaped from your lips, it likely did or it likely will. Taste your own advice before you try lodging it down my throat. It goes without saying that if you do nothing, you’ll never understand someone that does everything.

I Regret, I Digress

    I wouldn’t doubt that if Florida had basements, that’s where it would have all begun.
    With this sole reason in tow, I am grateful for living near a coastline for one of the few times in my life. I fear that had we lived deeper within the states, I may have never escaped the basement he constructed around me with calloused hands. I don’t think my newly sprouted wings would have been enough to break.

    If Likens’ wings couldn’t break her free of her prison after having so long to grow with such grotesque nourishment, I know with complete assurance mine never would have. Our comparisons of strength are too extreme in diversity of the American crime.
    She is the high and I am the low because she is publicized and fabricated to fascination. I wasn’t hurt badly enough to be celluloid beyond recognition. Like the death of average caucasian children making C’s and D’s, once recognized by the media she was glorified far past the typical hormonal girl that lacked the suddenly bestowed qualities recommended for sainthood.
    Likens didn’t even survive, but she was not a martyr to her crime. The idea of her is the martyrdom, and with the control I hold I can go the far distance to become an idea for necessary remembrance. Vexed victims minded.

    Remaining unnoticed by the uncaring world surrounding, I revolve. I have remained a target of disgust and disbelief amongst the jeering circus crowd of ridicule and shame despite my revolutionary act. My pain is not exaggerated nor glorified for film or song, my face is not a poster child for survival, and it never will be. I must die several times alive before I become anything memorable, save killing myself completely.

    Knit stitched into my existence, the idea of killing myself has shamelessly reared its ugly head since the day I got my wings, so obviously it might as well have very well sprouted from the back of my head shrieking.
    Before everything completely destroys me to a point of being utterly useless (it’s possible, tis true), I know that now is the time to unravel the suppressive cloth from my head before I bleed out too much.

    Now is the only time left to risk pulling the axe from its Black Lodge wedged into my skull, and hope for a miracle of survival at the end of the hospital hall lined with baker dozens of reconstructive surgeries I will undoubtedly endure for the rest of my physical, personal life.
    Regression is upon us meaning me, my time to thoroughly delve within my history once and for all. This complete exploitation of all I have suffered is my final and only hope of destroying myself over and over again for a remarkable rebirth.

    With idealized suicide in mind, this is how I got my wings.

Thursday's Thoughts - Theme: Ancestors

     Someday, it’s likely I will change my last name to detach from the family I was born into by “chance.” So few that the name belongs to have offered me help that I hardly see how I should keep it. For what genuine honor does any Mullino deserve outside of my father, who supports the idea of a name change?

     I had a conversation with my mother yesterday who proposed that it might be selfish to change my last name. But why? Is it still not my name, although a name someone placed on my head? Who deserves any credit for anything of my social existence, aside from me? If someone gives me something and I take it, that’s not selfishness. And quite frankly, it hasn’t happened too often among my ancestors.

This Week's Theme: Ancestors

“Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.” - Voltaire

“Every king springs from a race of slaves, and every slave had kings among his ancestors.” - Plato

“Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.” - Ralph Ellison

Monday's Excerpts - A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs

     When I read A Wolf at the Table last December, I was beginning to delve heavily into sociology, and what all the study contains. Sociopathy especially had become a high interest of mine after reading The Sociopath Next Door. I believed I had found what has always been wrong with my birth mother, and strands of me still tug towards that hypothesis.
     After reading A Wolf, I couldn’t help but speculate that Burroughs’ father had a likelihood of being a sociopath as well; I related so closely to how he was treated as a child and in his later years. The excerpts I have chosen today remind me most of what I experienced growing up the few years my birth mother resided in my young life.
     Although now exiled from the gift of enjoying my existence, my horrors of her still pang at my sides, ratting about my ribcage begging angrily to be freed of my prison skin. I imagine this is close to how Burroughs felt, by reading his descriptions of self-agony after the fact of his father’s absence. I can only hope alongside my willpower that someday I’ll find the solace I seek, too.

This Week's Book: A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs

     I came to think that maybe God was what you believed in because you needed to feel you weren’t alone. Maybe God was simply that part of yourself that was always there and always strong, even when you were not.
     And if I put everything in God’s hands, wasn’t that a copout? If I didn’t get what I wanted I could use God as an excuse, I could say, “He didn’t want me to have it.” When, in fact, maybe I hadn’t worked hard enough on my own.
     If I wanted to be free of my father, it wasn’t up to some man in the sky. It was up to me. (Page 163)

—————

     I knew I had an ugly life. I knew I was lonely and I was scared. I thought something might be wrong with my father, wrong in the worst possible way. I believed he might contain a pathology of the mind—an emptiness—a knocking hollow where his soul should have been. But I also knew that one day, I would grow up. One day, I would be twenty, or thirty, or forty, even fifty and sixty and seventy and eighty and maybe even one hundred years old. And all those years were mine, they belonged to nobody but me. So even if I was unhappy now, it could all change tomorrow. Maybe I didn’t even need to jump off the cliff to experience that kind of freedom. Maybe the fact that I knew such a freedom existed in the world meant that I could someday find it.
     Maybe, I thought, I don’t need a father to be happy. Maybe, what you get from a father you can get somewhere else, from somebody else, later. Or maybe you can just work around what’s missing, build the house of your life over the hole that is there and always will be. (Page 177)

—————

     Another thing was clear to me in this moment: I was not him. I was me. Whatever wrong thing he contained, he had not passed it on. (Page 229)

Books read this past week...
★★★★☆ Lord of the Flies by William Golding
★★★★☆ Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
★★★☆☆ The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
★★★★★ River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life by Richard Dawkins

(All title links link back to my webpages of them on Goodreads.com, a great library/reviewing/rating website for readers. Check it out, and add me as a friend if you decide to join!)

Happy 40th Birthday Daddy

-~-~-~-

     It’s strange, when it comes to the crossing of your borderline, things come to pass with little ease; the meat shipments less raw overall. I respect you as an Übermensch, how could I not quiver by the possibility of your inspectional judgment? However, thank you for severing your arms for me all the times you did, and I imagine will again. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity of striving to weave my own tightrope with your sharpened bones. And thank you for trusting me to dance across it without a fear.

-----

Withheld and the Übermensch

     I’m still wearing you even though I’m angry with myself. I wish I knew how to tell you all the things I feel I need to, but perhaps it’s a good thing I lack bravery in this respect because I’m not unleashing the dog you don’t deserve.
     It’s subconsciously the Epictetus thing, and now I ask: should tallies be drawn for a recorded example of my overcoming self? Am I not dangling from the tightrope, but fleeting across it with as much grace possible, save my lacking a balance beam?

     Until I cut off my arms, or until I invite someone to carve them free of my corpse, I will always be my only balance. No one will save us. No one will cross over my tightrope, or dance upon the same one. There will be no opportunity for a fellow aspiring enthusiast to toss me a piteous beam.
     If we throw our beams we sacrifice our axis. We need an arm to sever one off, and what’s the use of a single thrown arm disproportionate to my own? I will always be my only balance, always?

-~-~-~-

My Exceptional List

     I am in an exceptional mood today. For the first time in months, I slept in until twelve, I completed my day’s workload over an hour ago, and I’m probably going to the beach tomorrow with one of my closest friends from middle school. Maybe I’m just on an Adderall high, who knows, it definitely wouldn’t be the first or the second time. Frankly, I don’t even care. I’m thrilled about a lot of things right now.

• In less than a month Becky and I will be picking up Jonathan and Ryan from the airport for crazy Orlando adventures, video making, and hotel bathtubbing. Babalon meet-up, say what?

• I’m getting my hair bleached again this month. I won’t feel self-conscious about it anymore.
• I feel cuter everyday because I keep working out and eating right.
• I’ve already read four books during the month of March. I have to read seven more to achieve my goal of beating January’s record of eleven, with plenty of time.
• Proudly, I read Climbing Mount Improbable in a single weekend. When I read Dawkins for the first time last year, it took me months to complete The God Delusion.

• Yesterday, my dad bought me a solar system kit that I’m going to construct today or sometime soon. I finally get to claim that childhood experience. He also shared with me a German book containing really neat science experiments.
• I’ve written a plethora of beautiful metaphors in my “ground zero” notebook that I’m excited to share with everyone.
• I’m undeniably, irresistibly, in love, even if I didn’t want to be.
• Animal Farm (1999) will be arriving tomorrow from Netflix.

• Jonathan’s birthday gifts are in the mail (claims my email from Amazon). I’m excited to wrap them, other secret stuff, “etc.”
• Ryan made me a bad ass signature (full size) for Babalon that has Darwin in it, and one of my favorite, personally held, quotes by Viktor Frankl.

• I’m still laughing at this part of “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” that I watched the other night: “Life on Earth might have been created by lightning, or whatever it was…” Hahahaha! Or whatever it was!?
• My dad is taking me bathing suit shopping tonight. I haven’t felt confident enough to wear a proper bathing suit in over eight years.

• I’m backlogged in emails and comments about COSA18, and although stressful at times because of how guilt-ridden I grow for not responding to everything quickly, I’m proud that people are getting something out of my writing, and that from simply reading my blog, they feel comfortable enough with me to trust me with their personal, innermost thoughts for me to forever cherish. Thanks you guys. I may be a one man wolf pack, but I cannot get over you fellow wolves.

Monday's Excerpts - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

     I’m so glad my dad has such an expansive collection of books, especially classics. It would be irritating to have to wait a few weeks for the library to deliver every book I wanted to read. Luckily, quite a few things are easily plucked from his shelves. The Great Gatsby was no exception.

     I read The Great Gatsby for the same reason I read The Catcher in the Rye last week—it’s one of Jonathan’s favorites. I enjoyed Fitzgerald more than I did Salinger, his word painting was phenomenal and reminded me of Nabokov. Although, if The Great Gatsby’s plot stood alone, it wouldn’t have been worth reading or remembering.

     There’s spoilers this week, so beware.

This Week's Book: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    “Anyhow, he gives large parties,” said Jordan, changing the subject with an urban distance for the concrete. “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.” (Pages 49-50)

—————

    He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs. (Page 92)

—————

    “I can’t describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I even hoped for a while that she’d throw me over, but she didn’t, because she was in love with me too. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her . . . Well, there I was, ‘way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn’t care. What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?” (Page 150)

Books read this past week...
★★★★☆ Anybody Can Write: A Playful Approach by Roberta Jean Bryant
★★★★★ The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White
★★★☆☆ The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
★★★★☆ Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins

(All title links link back to my webpages of them on Goodreads.com, a great library/reviewing/rating website for readers. Check it out, and add me as a friend if you decide to join!)

My Annual Affair with the Fair

     Towards the end of winter, the fair has finally made its way around the United States to stop, once again, in Orlando, Florida.
     Attending the fair the night of its arrival has become a loosely defined family tradition. My dad, my dad’s girlfriend Lisa, my younger brother Kirk, and I have gone every year since we’ve lived in Orlando with Lisa.

     We’ve had a few good times at the fair, though Kirk has been too scared for most rides until recently, and Lisa usually conducted us to the beat of a private schedule dwelling in her head. From a combination of the aforementioned and other irritations, frustration quickly grew, over the lack of spontaneity, and the overabundance of control.
     After the first year of true colors flying around our house, I found it pointless to even go as the resentments rose to higher peaks. It was a waste of time to argue with each other, and an equal waste of time getting angry over a reason that wouldn’t exist if I stayed home. Unfortunately though, it’s often easier to go along with things than to try and oppose them.
     Luckily, I found daydreaming to be entertainingly distracting enough to satisfy me.

     The fair has always seemed so romantic, not because of the stuffed teddy bears your boyfriends are supposed to win, or the fantastic kiss you’re supposed to receive while stuck at the top of the ferris wheel. My concept of romanticism actually dispels love and relationships—respectively or combined—for its main definition.

     Romanticism can be absent from love and any field it battles on. A personal romance can exist, romanticism is simply feeling positively alive without a single doubt that we’re only existing.
     I crave the rush of the rides flipping and yanking me every which way, tricking me into thinking I’m going to be launched into the unknowns of space. The fair arouses me to this plane of living, and, when metaphorically applied, this describes the ultimate romance between two human beings as a development of love.

     The difference between love and romance is easily confused because of the magnitude of definitions. Allow me to clarify what applies to my perception: love can lack passion, love can be dry and dull. Love can exist based on supposed obligations. However, when do we ever romance someone out of obligation? Never! Romancing someone; the seduction of a loosely defined love, a strongly defined lust. Of any and all things that invent a person; romanticism.
     For me, it’s living instead of existing.

-~-

 

My friend Alanah went with us this year. Her nickname has been Allama for years, and finally, after much waiting and anticipation, she has met her match, haha.

We ate a lot that night, this was the first thing I indulged in.

Waiting for Alanah's favorite ride to start, the one that spins around in a weird off balance circle and plans extremely outdated rap music.

  Omnomnom, corn. I had some too.

 I was so excited about that cotton candy because I had never had it the traditional way, on a paper cone.

 

I forced Alanah to ride this, and she cried, haha.

 Waiting for the ride (pictured above) to start. At this point Alanah told me she was getting off, but she didn't. She just proceeded to scream how much she hated me, haha.

  A puppet gave us beads.

  Their first order of business should have been realizing it's not spelled "busness."

 Piña coladas always find their way into my life.

 She thought we looked like lesbians drinking out of the same cup, but I thought it was cute.

 Until next time.

Here is My Real Head series Pt. 5

Organ Grinder by Marilyn Manson

I am the face of piss and shit and sugar

I do a crooked little dance with my funny little monkey
What I want, what I want is just your children
I hate what I have become to escape what I hated being
Calliopenis envy from your daddy
You're not gonna hear what he don't want to hear
What I say disgusts him
He wants to be me and that scares him
"let's do a funny little dance with my funny little monkey"
The black keys
Here is my real head, here is my real head
I wear this fucking mask because you cannot handle me
Here is my real head
They try to blink me not to think me
Don't want to bring me out
I am the rotten teeth, my fists are lined with suckers
My prison skin's an eyesore-mirror-sketch-pad
I am your son, your dad, your fag, I am your fad
Here is my real head, here is my real head
I wear this fucking mask because you cannot handle me
Here is my real head

Here is My Real Head series 

Pt. 1 - Addiction & Self Mutilation
Pt. 2 - Childhood Grooming & Sex and Relationships
Pt. 3 - Worth of My Peers & Trust
Pt. 4 - Being Honest with My Parents
Pt. 5 - The Sound and Feel of Carpet

8. The Sound and Feel of Carpet

    Where I long to swim and the dirt I’m buried in are two entirely different earths.

     What becomes a fish is born free of their counting clock, while what disintegrates into a worm is born already dying to blast off into space.

     And I think that’s a lot like me; I’m a disrupted galaxy. My black holes are my quirks.

-~-

     For as long as I can remember, the sensation of touching carpet with my skin, or the sound of someone else’s, has always enraged me. I want to smash my own father’s face into a thousand imperfect pieces every single time he rubs his feet on the carpet, assumingly forgetting how many times I’ve told him I can’t stand it.

     Around the age of three or four, my mom came over to my house. At the time, I referred to her as my aunt Stephanie, as biologically, she is my birth mother’s sister.

     She came over to tell my birth mother that she wanted to take me to the Florida Aquarium, and I imagine she was basically asking for permission because she was so young. From what I can recall, my birth mother was reluctant, but hiding it so. I assume she was jealous, she slyly tried to convince me it wasn’t a great idea by telling me of the sharks that would be there. Knowing it was my biggest fear—aside from tornadoes, which no one knew of at the time—she had me instantly terrified. At some point during the conversation, I jumped up and ran down the hallway, where I accidently fell to my knees and skidded across the carpet into her bedroom door.

     I was left with painful rug burn at the end of the hallway, crying and terrified. I wanted to go and spend time with my aunt Stephanie at the aquarium, I just wanted to be brave enough to go, as now it was required. I was angry my birth mother ruined it for me by telling me of my horrors awaiting me there. If I went after hearing about the sharks, I was to be forced into a situation I had to be brave in, when I already had so much fear within me begging to rip free from my chest.

     Reflecting back, I think I have a pretty decent guess as to why carpet bothers me so. Though it’s important to mention first, it’s obviously another piece of my negative childhood conditioning by the rage it brews, as opposed to the various other emotions it could arouse instead.

     When I really think about the personal essence of carpet, I realize its symbolism has always meant fear, and more so, being forced into fear by an outside force. It’s an odd, and unusual situation rarely faced in regular life. Now when I fear something, I almost always have a choice to face it or turn away without any true consequences besides my own guilt which is easily dealt with. However, in the aquarium situation, I was being “punished” by not going to the aquarium if I wasn’t brave enough to conquer my fear, unfairly before ever even witnessing it.

     What bothers me most is there was no need for me to know about the sharks prior to entering the aquarium in the first place. My birth mother scared me before I even had a chance to comprehend the fear.

Darwin Day at Broward College

     February 12^th was Charles Darwin's 201^st birthday. Landing on a Friday, people all over the globe celebrated throughout the weekend for convenience. Proudly, I am not to be excluded from the "festivities" of this holiday.

     The first event Richard Dawkins brought attention to was held at Broward college in Coconut Creek, FL. With my preexisting interest in physical science and Darwinisim, I was particularly excited that an event worth mentioning, first of all mentions no less, by Dawkins' crew, would be located in Florida. I informed my dad of my immense interest the day  I read the tweet. With two weeks notice given to make plans of preparation (who would watch my brother Kirk, etc.), I got the chance for a life changing experience.

 

     I have this thing, if I'm going somewhere important that I know I'll remember for the rest of my life, I'd prefer to be the one driving myself and whoever may be with me. A few months ago when I went to Gainesville with my mom to check out the University of Florida and see a game, I asked if I could drive for this very reason. There's something about knowing I drove myself to an important destination that is too symbolic for me to let go of. It's not about the literal task of driving, but "driving myself to a point of purpose."

     The trip to Gainesville took roughly three hours. This trek down Florida, as opposed to up, took over four, I believe. You would think an hour or so difference isn't much, but actually, maybe you wouldn't if you've driven long distances on four-five hours of sleep and an empty stomach. I didn't realize until Saturday how tiring driving can actually be. My dad pointed out the obvious that has escaped me; you're heavily focusing on the same thing for hours-long intervals, surprisingly more draining than you'd - or maybe just me - expect.

     I was so tired after we left Broward, I fell asleep on the way home with "The High End of Low" blaring through the car's speakers. To further prove how exhausted I was, I have never fallen asleep in the car before in my life, with the single exception of when I dozed off as a child. Even then, I didn't sleep, I was still very much aware. I can also not sleep without white noise, or I thought I couldn't. I actually slept with a fan on my face for most of my lifetime, and I've never taken a single nap in preschool or kindergarten.

     I obviously wasn't texting anyone in particular all day long. Less obviously, I couldn't help but wonder how many chickens died everyday to be used for my lunch, and the lunch of others, from Chicken Kitchen in West Palm Beach.

      "Someone" likes this photo a lot, I particularly don't, but I'm going to post it anyway. I'm in West Palm Beach, the sign in the top right corner proving so made it pretty humorous, I thought, because it was unintentionally captured in the shot. My dad was more concerned about getting a picture with it in the background, but with one effortless try, I nailed it, haha.

 

     Once we had arrived, I knew these were going to be my kind of people.

 

     My dad and the man himself— Charles Darwin!

     He looked a lot shorter from far away, but I'm 5'7", 5'8", so he was pretty tall.

     My dad looking at some organisms, I believe they were krill or something similar. This was set up in proof of evolution, although we didn't need convincing, of course. This, and a few other exhibits were set up to attract the attention of particularly children.

     After reading The Greatest Show On Earth and learning of a large print-out of a severely scaled "Tree of Life", it was a nice surprise to see one in person. Complete with color, pictures, and elaborations, I was impressed. I was not keen on printing out the fifty-something pages it typically requires to piece them all together. Plus, I didn't know what I would do with it once I had completed it.

     My eyes aren't open, but I love this picture. I think because it reminds me of how beautiful a day it was, I look so peaceful and happy. My dream weather is for it to be chilly, windy, but warmly sunny, and that's exactly what it was like that day.

     This was a part of the Animal Adaptations lecture, provided by the Palm Beach Zoo.

     Frontal of my Darwin Day Broward shirt.

     I absolutely adore the end of the Origin of Species, and everything Darwin is and represents. (But the random capitalization - and lack of - of this t-shirt confuses me.)

     All in all, it was an amazing experience that I'll remember for the rest of my life, and I hope I attend many more events on Darwin Day.

Happy Valentine's Day

 

     Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Isn't the valentine above hilarious? I'm not sure how much more appropriate it could get, considering my main interests being in science and evolution. Thanks so much to Vanzetti for sending it my way.

     I also got this infinitely adorable valentine yesterday, how amazing could a guy really get? Actually, I guess no one can really understand exactly what I mean unless I heavily elaborated into embarrassing measures, but just trust me on this one!

     I've never been one to care too much about Valentine's Day. It's always been simply another day, except sometimes my parents give me candy and a card. I think my fondest memories of Valentine's Day are from when I was still in school. In elementary school, I loved making and decorating the heart-shaped envelopes, and picking out a pack of valentines from the store to stuff them with. I always got so nervous when the time came to approach my crush's desk (last, of course), and poke a specific one inside.

     Valentine's Day was especially exciting during middle school. I've still got homemade valentines from my then-closest friends that I've held on to after all these years.

     Middle school was also when I was introduced to "candygrams," a candy rose with a note attached that could be either signed or anonymous, depending on your level of bravery or cruel joke. I once sent one anonymous with a note that said, "Press this against your heart for it to turn to ice." Cleverly snipped from a Bill Cosby line, if you recognize it.

     Candygrams were one of the best things to ever hit my school, I thought, and they were wildly popular the week before Valentine's Day. Once the day arrived, they'd be passed out by student assistants at the end of the school day, going from classroom to classroom with arm fulls. At the time, I hadn't ever felt more loved than the year the student assistants entered my classroom with barely twenty candygrams, and I got over ten of them from various friends and admirers. I was so resented, but I had never been resented for being loved.

     By browsing Facebook or Myspace, it's easy to calculate a ratio of just how many people despise this holiday. I think their hatred towards a half-hearted, silly holiday that only lasts a single day out of the entire year, is really telling of their daily attitude and views on life.

     What's the purpose in being angry or depressed over a holiday based - as we know it now - on love? There isn't a logical one, even if you've just been cheated on by your girlfriend who may or may not be pregnant with your baby, etc., chances are you have something else you can love. The key here that most people miss, however, is that the principle lies in something, not someone. We do not need to be in love to survive, we only convince ourselves we do. We want emotions like love which suffice for our forced desire, and when we don't get what we think we want, we crumble to our childish behaviors by throwing a fit to redeem ourselves. But weakness is rarely redeemable!

     I'm not going to go too in-depth today. Any holiday that's been widely claimed should be spent happily if a majority of your surrounding population is going to be. I've mentioned it before in previous posts, around Christmas I believe, that although a holiday is obviously a symbol for something, sometimes something we don't necessarily agree with, we should all take advantage of the "random" spread of joy. I'm an atheist, and I take advantage of Christmas in the fact that it's a time when my parents are both under the same roof for hours as opposed to minutes. It's one of the best feelings in the world to pretend my life is normal. I felt this today when my mom dropped by, by surprise with an orchid that I have now named Harold, after the horticulturist in Twin Peaks. My parents know me all too well.

My Absolute Favorite Love Song

"Wight Spider" by Marilyn Manson

I’ll build you a shiny / dollhouse or church / where you can shrink
into a tiny wight spider / and gorge on horrid memories / with conceited wings

Smother the past in a cocoon / or me

and I’ll help you move /all the bodies

I’ll possess you but I don’t need you
to be another one of my possessions
I don’t need you to be my possession

And I won’t make you kneel, for anyone but me
Won’t promise a star, don’t promise your soul
We’ll say that we don’t believe

I’ll keep you wet when the world is dry
I can see them coming / I’ll take you back inside
if they came for answers / I’ll wrap my claws around your mouth tight
we’ll consume each other / until there’s nothing left to hide
and they can all drown in our blood

We can’t haunt this home, home anymore
no, no, no, no, no, no
We can’t haunt this home, home anymore
no, no, no, no, no, no
We can’t haunt this home, home anymore
no, no, no, no, no, no
We can’t haunt this home, home anymore
no, no, no, no, no, no