If I Were A Rich Wo-Man…ladaladadadumladedadumladedadumblah…

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Very Lady Lisa the Lachrymose of Great Leering Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Heh.  “Lady”.  Very, very Lady.

The Doorway: A Metaphor

This drawing is all about CHOICES.  The eternal conundrum: to stay in the dismal room or to go through the doorway which looks creepy and foreboding; the stuff that you know vs the stuff that you don’t.  So I started to think what is it about doorways and choices that inspire potential in even the most cautious person?  I don’t know about you, but I like living life as though there is always something unexpectedly around the bend.  Everyday brings with it a new surprise, a renewed sense of wonder and intrigue that most people overlook because it’s all taken for granted.  I mean, we breathe air.  We stand up.  We talk (some more than others).  We have professions.  We survive.  But what is it that makes one’s life story a page-turner?  Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Choose Your Own Adventure:

I’ll admit that I loved these goofy novels that were paper-thin during my school days.  I enjoyed going through the pages and after making a random choice, being able to go back and make new choices which effected the result.  Sometimes, in the really good ones, you died right away.  Other times, you’d just go through the story and end up a millionaire, and although this outcome is highly unlikely in real life, it made for endless hours of entertainment.  Personality accounted for some of the changes I made.  My thought process was another.  But each and every time, I was fully engaged in the storyline enough to feel as though it really mattered what choice I made.  So why is it people don’t consider their own lives an adventure?  Most of us would say that our lives were predictable, ordinary, and even boring.  You hardly ever hear someone say, “Oh, my life is an ADVENTURE!”  And if you did, you might categorize that person as a schizo or a weirdo.  Why can’t people get jazzed about life?  Maybe it’s because they feel that their lot in life has limited their choices.  Maybe it’s also because some feel that their choices are so varied that it is almost impossible to always make ‘the right choice’.  Maybe people feel that they haven’t been empowered enough to make their own choices: that choices were made for them.  Whatever the reason, we know that choices can be overwhelming, difficult, and murky.  It’s often hard to find sure footing when the end result is unclear.  But, hey.  We live in America, people!  At least we have choices to make and to decline.  That’s gotta account for something.

I Require Your Full Participation, Please:

Making a wise choice takes a few key things: pondering possible outcomes, taking into account others’ experiences which didn’t work in the past, and recognizing those that did.  Careful research could define what works best for you, but you have to be open enough to see what’s right in front of you: pretty or not.  Some people skirt the obvious because they do not want to be judged and end up making careless mistakes.  The best choice (even if it’s not the most popular choice) is one that works for you.  It doesn’t mean that you will always win accolades.  It doesn’t always mean that people will praise you the world over.  That’s what risk is for.  You have to be in it to win it, right?  So it takes a bit of determination on your part to be able to defend the choices you make.    Here’s the trick:  YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE. 

This Game Is For Adults Only:

You know who makes the worst choices?  Teenagers and children.  Their limited life-experience and inability to listen to their older (and wiser) brethren go against the point I’m trying to make.  If the answer to all of your choices is: “I dunno” or, “Because” odds are you aren’t ready to make definitive decisions to begin with.  Some choices can be life-altering and very hard to recover from.  If you think it’s a good idea to say, lend your friend your car or loan them a wad of cash with the certainty that they’ll pay it back, then you haven’t been watching enough People’s Court.  It’s also not cool if you leave your baby at the sitters.  That’s what Nanny 911 is for.  Still, there are some instances where some people ‘never grow up’ and make childish choices forever.  So I’m sorry, MJ.  You’re not Peter Pan and that isn’t “Jesus Juice”.

Aw, Ma!  You Used To Be Cool!

Just as choice is an eternal conundrum, so too are the idiots who make selfish choices.  Y’know, like the 40 year-old guy who still lives with his mom ’cause it saves on paying the bills’.  Or the chick who refuses to commit because she’d prefer having ‘friends with benefits’.  Remember though, that just by associating with these non-commitals, you are setting yourself up for disappointment, disaster and ruin.  Nine times out of ten, it’s best to leave these creeps alone.  Lest you insist on losing important brain-cells.  This choice for you should be a solid “No Way, Jose!”  Then, high-tail it outta there as soon as humanly possible to avoid getting sucked into their gravitational force-field.   

Make choices until you turn blue in the face.  But be wary of the choices you make.  They may be your own!  Aghhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Some Days I Disappoint Myself

I’d been going on for weeks now about re-emerging into my poetry publicly.  I wanted to market myself as a local artist once again and saw a perfect opportunity to enter into it again by attending something called, The Snow Ball.  Oh, I made all of these plans and when the day came around, I’d betrayed myself and didn’t go.  Why?  Why do I talk myself out of things?  Well, I don’t think that my new stuff is particularly inspired.  However, the irony is that I have to immerse myself into the public–that I often feel ambivalent about–to be newly inspired or to at the very least find new commentary.  I think I’ve grown tired of my own voice.  I’m not the most confident person ever even though I know that my stuff is better than average because I’ve been at it a long time.  The only thing is it good enough to spit out, commit to memory, reveal to the public?  I don’t know.  I don’t think that I could get better just by keeping it to myself, but I don’t want to paint myself into a corner and just present a one-hit wonder.  That in itself would be death to me because I do consider myself a true artist.  But the artistry makes me very shy and almost somber about it all.  I don’t know if I like a personal window-to-the-soul debut, but don’t want to hoard all of it just in case it is good.  Then, I wouldn’t feel all that inspired because it would’ve become too easy. 

So this made me think of a way that I could connect to you silent readers out there, whomever you are.  Humor me.  K-?

This Is Absolutely Awesome!

You don’t want that to happen, do you?  So stop lurking.  Get to posting and commenting and just saying a little of something.  I’ll try my best to post commentable material but even if it’s a bit…whatever…COMMENT ANYWAY.  There’s a thought.

At the bottom of this post is a little icon that gives the amount of comments that are at like, “0″ right now.

Click on it and at the bottom of the page, there’ll be a blank field to type your name (required), your mail address (which is your email, people), and your comment.  Then, click the submit button.

Go on.  I know you wanna…

Don’t You Hate It When That Happens?

In the it-only-happens-to-me category, something that I am notoriously known for: a wardrobe malfunction.  Whether it’s getting a giant red stain on the front of my new white shirt or having a button pop off in the most inopportune location, I am that person who’s fashion faux pas are numerous. 

So this time, I’m at work and I’d just gotten in.  My habit to turn on the computer requires me to bend and as I did so, I noticed the undeniably large rip in the seam riding up the inner thigh of my pants.  Of course it was no small rip, this rip was akin to the Grand Canyon.  It would be unmistakable if I let it go. 

My mind ponders to many different solutions when a crisis such as this one comes up.  I mean, I really start to think: well, I can go home.  That, however was not an option because in the time it took to do that, I’d miss half the business day and, really, what’d be the point?  I’m hourly.  So, then I started to picture the fact that maybe I’d have to call Carlos who could take the train and meet me, but he was busy running a super important errand and was unavailable that morning.  I managed to call him anyway, in my frantic worry voice, and he assured me that there’d be a delay but that he could swing by the house after the errand…but it’d take too much time. Just then, I remembered that this had happened to me once before and I did happen to have a sewing kit at the front desk which I believed was still there.  The problem?  The girl at the front desk couldn’t locate it which meant somebody actually took it home.  Ugh!  So I reached into my meager change purse, because I don’t like carrying cash with me to work, and I searched through there.  I was hoping to have enough to be able to afford a replacement sewing kit from the shop in the lobby. 

In the end, I bought the sewing kit, skulked to the nearest bathroom and proceeded to battle with the string that kept tangling and re-tangling over and over until I finally finished repairing my pants. Thank goodness for sewing kits and the people who made them.

Thanks For The Inventions:

All of this got me to thinking about all of the things that I’m thankful for having been invented. 

1. Scrunchies - These little bands of elastic with colorful material around them have saved me from massive bad-hair days.  The invention is so simple I wonder how I managed to overlook creating these.  I missed out on millions….

2. Sticky Notes - So you need to jot down a quick note but don’t want to use a notepad? No problem.  Just stick up these temporary notes and message delivered.  It’s easier than waiting around to tell the person.  They also come in great colors so humans don’t get bored.

3. Maxis with Wings & Glide Applicators - What did women ever do without these?  Itch their damn butts off (literally).

4. Microwaves - I didn’t do good in science so I have no idea what microwaves are or how to generate them.  I just know that I can “nuke” whatever I want to eat on the go and don’t have to worry about pre-heating an oven.  Yum!

5. Blogs - The place where random thoughts go.  Now I don’t have to carry these ideas around with me like a hairshirt.  Halleluyah!

6. Internet - Saddam Hussein’s hanging, that SNL skit and a Chinese new recipe can all be found on the internet.  Now if only they can invent something that thinks for you too…

7. Cell Phones - Where you at, man?  Now I know.

Things that I’m not happy were invented:

1. Credit Cards - I never bought a trip to Patagonia!  Yeah, but if someone has duplicated your card, they can say you did.  That’s why I hate, hate, hate credit cards.  If I don’t check my monthly statement closely, I could be paying for services that were inadvertently charged to me in error.  Also, it makes money too fluid and sooner than you know it, you’re thousands of dollars in debt (all because you wanted to try that George Foreman grill and forgot all about it until the bill).

2. GPS Tracking Device - Do I really need to know your exact location 24/7?  If I’m that obsessive, perhaps I should be a private detective.

3. Caller Blocker, Caller ID & *69 - If I want to avoid speaking to my Aunt Tilly, then maybe it can be considered a good invention.  But if I’m calling someone who refuses to take my calls and tracks every call I’ve made, then it is the suckiest invention known to man.  I also hate restricted lines because nobody knows who’s calling and it just works against the reason we use the telephone in the first place.  Reach out and touch someone…else.

4. Car Alarms - Recently, I was shopping and heard a car actually say, “Attention, this car is backing up”  over and over.  Now, when your car talks to you and states the obvious, it is worse than that idiot who tells you the whole plot of a movie before you see it.  Alarms that make annoying noises at three in the morning also don’t serve any purpose other than to foster a secret wish that a car would get “jacked” to stop that infernal beeping!!!

5. Video Cameras - Surveillance in department stores make sense.  Surveillance to record stupid pet tricks and have them posted on YouTube, is stupid.  A camera setup in undercover stings to prove injustices is fine.  A camera setup to record an annoying brat at her sweet sixteen birthday party to be shown ad nauseum to her relatives in a permanent loop forEVER is stupid. 

6. Cell Phone Ringtones - Does anyone really need a “Mr. Roboto” ringtone?  How about a DMX bass-pumping song download?  That “Mission Impossible” theme is horrific after the first billion times hearing it.  Puh-lease, people!  You’re not cool.  At. All.

7. Keys - Are they necessary?  Sure.  Can they be extremely counter-productive and annoying?  Yes.  Hotel rooms have card keys that make me sick and work depending on whether or not it reads properly in the lock.  Lucky me, it never reads properly.  And nothing’s more annoying than being locked out of your own apartment.  Unfortunately, there isn’t any better way to protect ones belongings or to gain access to a building unless we can do that retinal scanning thing and that would probably be annoying too. 

It’s been said before and is worth saying again: “Necessity is the mother of invention.”  So put your thinking caps on, kids.  Find a better way.