A Roadblock of Sorts.

He asked, "have you forgotten?"

And I said, "yes, Dad, I have forgotten."
I was being sarcastic when I put the words together, but when they echoed through the kitchen, I had to wonder: have I forgotten?

No sooner than the winter air turned my hands to ice, was I inside with a heater, the memory of the cold erased.
Faster than I could finish my first drink, I was onto a second and then a third, losing recollection of how many I'd had.
The amount of time it has taken to move a few steps forward is suddenly clouded by all the miles I've regressed since then, and I think it's obvious that when I'm incapable of feeling the bumps along the road, it's because I've forgotten they were ever even there.

One night, twelve of us were crowded on the floor of her apartment. They said they liked when I was around because that way they could practice their English. Everyone was sharing stories and eating pudding, but the longer I sat with my arms wrapped around my legs, the more i wanted to close my eyes and think of something else. Each time I go away, I forget how hard it is to be gone. 

Each time I come home, I forget how cold it is out there.

I was always the first to say I'd forget about this place, although the last place on earth I thought I would be is the place where I am the most comfortable. 

My hands are tied. I'd like to pretend I'm enslaved to the rope around my wrists, this binding affliction that disables me from breaking free; but really I tied myself up because I wanted to be bound. 

I've done this to myself. I have to get out of town.

Yet, by calling it ’full,’ I created emptiness.

Those were dark days. I would consider them empty if it meant these days were somehow full; but a few hours ago, I remembered the time I went missing and realized I'm no further removed from the absolute constriction of vacancy than I was then.

It was freezing. I had determined not to be seduced by the warmth of the fire pit, so I bundled up and set out alone.

A group of 'counselors' told me I had issues and referred to them as being "deeply rooted." I find it hard to believe that something rooted 'deeply' has the ability to resurface so often. I think these aforementioned issues are not deep at all, but quite shallow - directly under the skin, waiting for the right comment or situation to enable them to seep through my pores for exposure.

With temperatures so low, the tears froze immediately on my face.

Something that was, I thought, buried deeply, was uprooted last night by a mere word association, and I spent the majority of the evening unable to shake the eerie feeling that he will haunt me forever. I thought that if I cleaned thoroughly enough, I would rid my life of any memory of him. I thought that if I threw those passions into another source, they would take a new form, one quite dissimilar to the one identified with him.

But when I smelled the smoke and saw the fire's glow, it was hard to turn my eyes from it.

They told me I needed to tackle my issues subjectively and find out what is at the heart of my "poor decisions regarding relationships." They said that because of those decisions, I will never amount to anything. Worth nothing, I gathered my crumbling interior and sacrificed it to the flames, hoping that somewhere amidst the embers I would find worth. The last of me - my humble remainder - drove my body toward the heat, numb to any previous warnings against it.

And then, it started to rain. Pour. The smoldering ashes crawling up my arms and legs were subdued by moisture, and at that point, the air temperature was even lower than before. I was an adult, degenerated to an infantile state, tossed back and forth between depravity and defeat: remorseful, helpless, terrified. 

It must've been what I wanted - at least, what I thought was best - if I so willingly stood in the cold and allowed the rain to beat down on my mutilated skin. The downpour helped me to realize that visible injuries are not prerequisite to healing and comfort is a constant hunger that cannot be filled by just anything.

I am working to get to the bottom of these 'issues' and determine why I do now what I did then, why there is such familiarity and comfort in the pain, how I sometimes long to go back there.

I could have called it empty, seeing beyond that locale to a life more full. Yet, by calling it 'full,' I created emptiness. Never was I so aware of the void until stood amid it. Never did I acknowledge what I needed until I got what I thought I wanted.

The Impersonality of Styrofoam

The Starbucks Coffee Company-- has relatively rigid guidelines for their employees and extremely high standards of business conduct. I know this because their corporate policies are available online:

http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/US_English_full_kit.pdf
I personally like Starbucks. The coffee isn't horrendous, the atmosphere is jovial and, four out of five times, the barista at the counter is smiling at me.

I have to wonder how it is, then, that this capitalist empire I embrace (c'mon, you know you love the cinnamon dolce latte too) puts such effort into customer satisfaction yet serves their coffee from paper cups.

We were sitting outside a mom-and-pop cafe on Monday, consuming the freshly brewed house blend and squinting in the sunlight. Our drinks grew cold quickly, as the temperature had dropped and we were drinking from actual mugs - no insulated styrofoam, no paper lids. 
As I wondered how that place stayed in business, supporting local art and music and selling beverages at reasonable prices, I began to question how it is that I prefer the charm of a local coffee shop but am so decidedly comfortable with the matching furniture and mass-produced screen prints permeating the Barnes and Noble cafe.

I find that most people, when searching for a voice of their own, find it within someone else's. Although I have difficulty understanding the mass appeal of loser bands like 3 Doors Down and the cliche writings of Nicholas Sparks, I'm not going to lie to myself and say I didn't watch, love and cry hysterically about the movie Titanic. Probably somewhere within my own quest for personal identity, I learned to silence those neurons in my brain which caused me to be attracted to conventional beauty and lean toward aggregated opinion. Consequentially, the voices of the two opposing sides of my personality instruct me at equal volumes. Conform! says one. Resist! the other.

He said, "I'm sure you won't like her too much, because she listens to music people have heard of and doesn't mismatch her clothes." Today, with my sorority-looking ponytail and gap jeans, I am appalled. Am I wrong to prefer something a little warmer than the antiseptic touch of a Solo cup? And while I say I prefer those things alternative to our culture, the sad fact is that I'm no different from everyone else; and I'm certainly in no place to evaluate a person's character based upon her personal preferences. 

Everything's a psychological power struggle these days. I want to choose a candidate for the 2008 election, believe in him/her with all my heart and exercise my menial 'right' as a citizen, but I can't bring myself to separating one politician from another, as they're all capable of plunging our nation into a state of deeper social/political/economic despair, anyway. More and more often lately, I think I should quit my job, make conspiracy art and cause an uproar; while at the same time, I think it doesn't require a lot of effort to just sell out, work for the man and pay my bills. 

My male friends wince when I mention my love of moustaches and disinterest in sculpted abs. My musician friends don't understand why I can't just play normal chords and straight rhythms. My parents wonder what they did wrong to raise a child who isn't pretty and doesn't care to be.

Most people think I'm reaching so far into the resistance pot that I'm pulling out nonsense. That's probably true. I guess that while normalcy is so socially accepted, there is something to be said for the non-conforming heart of the minority.

It isn't that I can't dance to the latest Beyonce single or appreciate the appeal of to-go cups. Thanks to commercialism, my ugly bird feeders are mass produced and sold in stores like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, thus generating my very income.

I just long for a day - a time, a place - wherein people drink espresso from real espresso cups, laughing blithely and smoking cigarettes at a table outside of a cafe. As our world becomes more globalized, individuals are increasingly less interesting, Is it that drab people are blending into a sequentially banal culture; or is it the progression of cross-cultures that is watering down humanity?

At the mall Saturday night, Allison and I commented on the girl wearing striped stockings and fingerless mittens, and how, between three and five years ago, we looked like her. Annoyed by the lack of variety in our surroundings, we went home to screen print t-shirts that we will wear with our skinny jeans and chuck taylors...just like everybody else. Oh man.