Valentines Day

Well here it is. Valentines Day. The dreaded holiday.

My Valentines Day was horrible. I hated it. I hate happy people. I hate love. I hate life. I hate being single.

NOT. NOT AT ALL.

Contrary to popular belief, my day was not dreaded or horrible. It was fantastic.

For the first time in my life, I believed what my mother told me. It's just another day. I think I'm over Valentines Day. It's just a day. Nothing to trip over. I went to class, got to party in the library with Karen, listen to "black people singing" (Janelle Monae, Michael Jackson, and Aretha Franklin), went on a coffee date (date? get-to-know-you? hang out? I'll keep you posted.), bought my (ungrateful) roommate a flower, listened to rock n roll, ate a seriously delicious sandwich, learned that I got an extension on an essay, listened to piano playing in the lounge, hung out (like a boss)... the list goes on.

I did not wallow, I did not curse my relationship status, I did not pig out on chocolate, I didn't even DRINK HEAVILY (my parents will be relieved to hear). It was a totally normal day.

Actually, it was a better than normal day! I'm like on a natural high from how awesome my day was.

So suck it, St. Valentines. You can't bring me down!

Ha!

Well, a quick update on me, more soon.

I Am My Vagina. And Everything Else.

So I went and watched the Vagina Monologues last night. I think I had probably wanted to see that show since I knew exactly what a vagina was. (Suffice to say long enough). But for whatever reason this was the first time I saw it. Maybe it was my mood, maybe it was my crappy nose-bleed seats, maybe it was the acting but I did not enjoy it. And when I think about why I didn't really enjoy it, my mind keeps jumping to the content.

The thesis of the Vagina Monologues is to share stories, young and old, funny and sad, of women and their vaginas. The show ranged from stories about menstruating to rape, a considerable range of topics for an audience to take in.

And that fact, that there really is such a range of topics about women and their vaginas, was the first problem with the show. How do you transition from pubic hair to losing your virginity, to being a woman who's never climaxed? Not possible. Vaginas are just too complex. It'd be like a play about trees. A Christmas tree is very different from a palm tree and those are very different from a sycamore. Every woman's vagina is different, every one has a different story.

The next was the theme of the show. This love your vagina because it is who you are theme. A lot of the monologues ended with I love my vagina because it is who I am. When I think about the shows content, besides being too broad, I can't separate that theme from the show. And I so don't agree with that.

I am not my vagina. I am not defined by this weird, pink orifice below my waist. For a few reasons the first of which is the simple fact that I am who I choose to be. I didn't pick out my vagina. I didn't choose to have one, or even have the one that I have. I pick what I do to it, what other people do to it, how I react to it, how I adorn it, etc and in that sense I choose who I am. But don't tell me I am my vagina, because that is out of my hands. That's as bad and backwards as saying you are your skin color. Hello?? What's the difference. No one can choose to be white or be black or whatever. You can't say well, you are your race. No. We have made significant steps to ending that thought pattern-- that should be no different in regards to sex organs.

I am NOT my vagina. I refuse to be seen as a sexual being. I refuse to be seen as a birth canal. These are the things that have caused every backwards belief about women from women as commodities in strip clubs to woman as solely child rearing entities. I'm not just an object that at the end of the day was made for fucking, excuse my French. I am a complex system, not only made up of other body parts, but who have power, significance, and intelligence; intelligence enough, at least, not to reduce myself to defining myself as my sex organ.

I am NOT my VAGINA. And no woman should ever have to resort to loving herself because of her vagina. Love yourself for your spirit, love yourself for your creativity, love yourself for anything you like. But accepting your vagina is not the same as accepting yourself.

Sure vaginas can be weird. Weird to talk about, weird to think about. Weird to look at. Weird in almost any way, really. And it's great that the people of the Vagina Monologues are proponents for getting beyond this weirdness and coming to love your vagina; even demanding others to love and respect your vagina. That is wonderful. But I cannot ignore the fact that at the end of the night their message was YOU are YOUR vagina.

When I went to the Vagina Monologues I was very prepared for a couple hours of hard core feminist ranting. And sure that was seen in many of the monologues, for example "My Angry Vagina" was a perfect example of a crazy feminist tirade. Buuuut it almost wasn't enough feminism. Is that possible? I wanted to hear some CRAZY bitches. If I wrote a play devoted to vaginas I would want passion, romance, drama, horror, tragedy, comedy-- but all of it would be emotional and all of it would be powerful. Impowering. I think part of it was the performance. I mean, I got to give these girls credit, they are dealing with a very sensitive topic, probably trying to be politically correct, and they are just kids. But part of me (my angry vagina part?) wanted them to say screw political correctness-- tell it like it is. And they did, to an extent. But I wanted more.

So those are my thoughts on the Vagina Monologues. If you want to go check it out ever, keep these thoughts in mind. Sure it was thought-provoking, but not really in a good way-- at least in regards to the play. Well, that's it for now folks.

19 and Open Mic

Hey Guys.

Sorry I haven't updated my blog in a while. Actually, it's been exactly one month since my last post. In this month I have done a lot, and kept myself busy. That's not an excuse, just an explanation.

Hopefully there is a part of you (even if it's a small part) that is happy I've gotten back into the habit. I promise I won't take anymore hiatuses like this one. I missed blogging, so here I am. I'm back and ready for action.

This month two significant things happened. The first was that I turned 19. The second was that I started performing in the Open Mic that I've mentioned before in the past.

In January my birthday came and I'll be honest I wasn't expecting much. I thought the most exciting thing that would happen the week of my birthday was when I went to Portland to visit my mom while she was there doing artist-mom stuff. Yes, my mother is a goofy artist-mom. I can't remember if I've mentioned that before. Well anyway she was in Portland to do a demo for a local artist group and I took the 3 hour train ride from Seattle to Portland to spend the weekend with her and her hilarious friend Jenny.

We had a blast. I love hanging out with adults, especially my parents friends. They are seriously the most hilarious people ever. I don't know if it's adults in general or just my parents friends but adults, man... Well Jenny is a gem, also an artist. She has this quaint little house in Portland ("between Historic Felony Flats and Scenic Tweaker Heights"). But seriously a cute little diamond in the rough. She was a wonderful host, and great to spend the weekend before my 19th birthday with. We went out to McMenamin's restaurants (a local favorite that has a monopoly over all the good food in Portland), shopped and bopped around Portland, watched movies, and generally hung out. What I love about good company is that you can do absolutely nothing and still have a grand old time. And of course my mom did her artist stuff that everyone loved because she is just so darn awesome. And we got to have a mini-birthday celebration for me, made only a bit bittersweet by the absence of my daddy who couldn't make it.

I thought maybe that would be the extent of my 19th birthday celebrations. It's hard when you are in college and have a ton going on and live in a dorm where you don't really have the room to have a gathering. Plus, it's hard when you are 19 and are trying to act like you don't care that it's your birthday because you're like wayyyy too old to want to dress up like a princess and demand presents. But secretly you do feel like that. So I was trying not to expect much. Which isn't a great feeling when you should be happy that you get to celebrate your existence-- and of course expect others to do the same. Some advice: expect a lot for your birthday. You're special, you deserve to have one day to be blamelessly narcissistic.

Boy was I surprised when my birthday came around. On Friday, the day of my actual birthday I got taken out to breakfast with my dear-heart Kellyn. Then I got taken out to dinner by my roommate Bridget and my three friends Caitlin, Juliet and Andrew. After a fabulous meal we got back to the dorm to almost the entirety of my floor who had banded together to make me a PENIS-SHAPED COOKIE!!! My friends know me so well. It was giant and sooo delicious! It even had frosting spread on the tip, to make it... well... yeah...

After consuming said penis-cookie while making suggestive jokes my friends, all of them, took me to a improv comedy show-- yet another surprise for the night. It was hilarious, and perfect because I LOVE improv. But the best part? My friends had previously told the improv group that I was my birthday and the improv group INVITED ME UP TO PERFORM WITH THEM! Woah. Crazy right? BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER. So I got up there, played president of the United States, and did I think a pretty good job, for my first improv show ever.

Suffice to say I should not underestimate my friends. Ever again. 19 feels pretty good, it started off right. :)

The next big thing that happening since my last update was that I started performing in the Open Mic. I had been trying to get the courage to start performing since I had first been to the Open Mic and the Thursday before my birthday I got up the nerve and did it. I've done it every week sense.

You might ask, "But what do you do? You surely don't perform poetry, you are so not poetic." Well... I don't do poetry... I do... Well if I had to name it, I'd call it Stand Up Comedy. Yes. I know. Weird. Well I don't like calling it Stand Up Comedy because... I don't want to get people's expectations up. I know that sounds awful or whatever but hey, I've never done stand up. I don't want to be presumptuous. But I think so far it's gone well. People laugh at least.

I talk about lots of things when I do stand up comedy. The first night I tried it I talked a lot about my observations of Seattle. Since I have an outsider view of it all, it's funny to poke fun at the quirks of the Emerald City. The weather, the hipsters, the graffiti... What have you. The next week was themed erotic poetry night. Not yet comfortable with my poetry skills, but still wanting to participate, I mixed stand up with some limericks I made up. My favorite one was:

There once was a woman from Seattle
Who found she had no one to straddle
With her lack of boys or suitable toys
She desperately fucked some cattle.

I don't always do comedy. One time I did a passage from one of my favorite novels, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, as well as a *serious* poem that I wrote. I know. A poem I wrote all by myself. It's hard to listen to poetry all the time and not feel inspired by it. So I have started writing poetry. I know, whats up with that? But it's true. And I like it. I might have to make writing poetry a habit. Here is the poem I wrote (in seriousness), the first one I've ever wrote, and the first one I've ever shared publicly.

Soft lips
Tongue kiss
Salty air
Long hair
Toe nails
Bones frail
Melancholy voices
Running Wild horses
Young men dying
Old men snoring
Freedom fighters
Jet pilot flighters
Fox fur trap
White men rap
12 am
Door slam
Car alarm
Mcdonalds farm
Dawn escapes
Heart breaks

Smooth lips
Hands on hips
Sea scape
Escape
Just Me
Absently
Far from home
Not alone
Empty space
Crawl place
Long way
Hideaway
In plain sight
End the plight
Walk the sand
Holding hands
Crash of drums
Feeling numb
Night cry
Crow fly
Homeward bound
Not a sound
Gun shot heart
Torn apart
No hope
Scentless soap
Black tears
Empty fears

Something lips
Nothing kiss
Uncertain smile
Loveless guile
Wind whip
Sunken ship
Stare content
Continent
Rough goodbye
Lost in sigh
Closet nothing
Close to something
Alone at last
Thoughts fast
Carefree
No one here beside me.

It's an odd sort of jumble of ideas, huh. I don't know. I feel like I should excuse myself. I know I shouldn't but I feel self-conscious about it. It juxtaposes two scenes that I have kind of burned inside my head. The first is this image of me walking along the beach alone, totally carefree. The feeling of ENDLESS contentedness. Then other is the moment My Ex dumped and I just had this feeling of noise, static, crashing, the ending of something I thought was contentedness. The poem kind of is a remembering that contentedness is the little things. The beach I could've walked along the rest of my life. And now that My Ex is gone, I yearn to feel that first contentedness, the simple, innocent happiness.

This week I did stand up comedy about Valentine's Day, since it was the Open Mic before February 14th. I have a lot of thoughts on Valentine's Day. I talked about the big L word: Love. This new-found fear of that emotion. The one we constantly replace with the oh-so articulate like-like. I talked about how I hate Valentine's Day. How if I see another "Every kiss begins with Kay” commercial, Al Capone won’t be the only one to insight a Valentines day massacre. How this year in particular I have heard people refer to February 14th as Single's Awareness Day. It's not. You are not aware of single people on valentines day. You are aware of the couples. It’s couples awareness day. You are NOT aware of the single people. Partially because no single people dare leave the house on Valentine's Day. They're home with a bottle of vodka, eating Ben and Jerry's from the tub, while watching the Notebook and drunk dialing their ex's. I went on to talk about how this year my mom sent me a Valentine's care package and when I called her later that day she said, "I guess I’m your Valentine this year." In my head I'm like, "Mom you're my Valentine every year." That’s not true. I've had two valentines. One was in 7th grade when this guy made me a hand made card and gave me a teddy bear then took me to the movies. The other was last year when my then boyfriend, picked me up two hours late, took me to take out Chinese, and dropped me off 3 hours before my curfew. And then dumped me a week later. Suffice it to say, I miss 7th grade… I went on to talk about how Valentine's Day is really just an excuse for people to be disgustingly cute in public. PDA gives me PTSD. PDA should stand for personally disgusting actions. I ended this Valentine's Day rant with something along the lines of "But snarkiness and joking aside, its nice to have someone to cuddle. Because Seattle’s cold, and lately, so is my heart."

Kind of a mix of personal rant and jokes. I'm making excuses for myself again...

So Open Mic has also been a recent thing for me, clearly. And I really like it. I like performing. I have been performing for the last 11 years. Since getting to college I really haven't done any theater. So it feels natural to perform, even for 5 minutes very casually, once a week. It's a good outlet. I'm looking for more formal theater stuff, but for now Open Mic tides me over. :)

I'm happy. Have I mentioned that lately? Or ever. I feel really good. I'm in a very good place. Sure, I have bad days, on Wednesday I was convinced I had deep vein thrombosis (long story), turns out it's just a irritated hamstring. So we're good. Yeah I get homesick, yeah midterms had been stressing me out, yeah I get tired of the rain and cold but... Overall I am very happy. I like it here. I like my friends. I like school. I like my life. I don't think I say that enough. I don't think anyone says that enough. If you are happy, say it out loud. Just once. Even if it's a whisper. Just to remind yourself.

And another thing I learned this month, while on hiatus. If you love someone, tell them. I love my friends. Whether you bake me a penis cookie or laughed at Open Mic. Thanks. I love you. <3